- Now those who were scattered after the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the word to no one but the Jews only. But some of them were men from Cyprus and Cyrene, who, when they had come to Antioch, spoke to the Hellenists, preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number believed and turned to the Lord. (Acts 11:19-21)
To suggest that other languages were not used by writers is to be presumptuous. All we can know today is what history reveals in the archaeological record. Rather then infer that the New Testament was never written in Aramaic or Latin by any of the Apostles or leaders of the Early Church, maybe it is better to accept what is proven to be true and what is unknown, as yet, is simply unknown, but not necessarily non-existent.
The fact that there was a dispute between the Hebrews and the Hellenists suggests that this distinction, if not cultural, could have been due to language.
- Now in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplying, a complaint arose from the Hellenists against the Hebrews, because their widows were neglected in the daily service. (Acts 6:1)
The Septuagint is the Old Testament in the Hebrew language translated into Greek. There are claims that the New Testament cites only the Greek Septuagint in places.
Of the places where the New Testament quotes the Old, the great majority is from the Septuagint version. Protestant authors Archer and Chirichigno list 340 places where the New Testament cites the Septuagint but only 33 places where it cites from the Masoretic Text rather than the Septuagint (G. Archer and G. C. Chirichigno,
Old Testament Quotations in the New Testament: A Complete Survey, 25-32).
[1]
This is the result of the fact that by the late 1st century B.C., and especially the 1st century A.D. – the Septuagint had “replaced” the Hebrew Bible as the Scriptures most people used. Since most people spoke and read Greek as their primary language, and the Greek authorities strongly encouraged the use of Greek, the Septuagint became much more common than the Hebrew Old Testament.
One writer, using the book
Canon of Scripture by F.F. Bruce as a resource, writes:
As faithful as the Septuagint translators strived to be in accurately rendering the Hebrew text into Greek, some translational differences arose. In comparing the New Testament quotations of the Hebrew Bible, it is clear that the Septuagint was often used. This is the result of the fact that by the late 1st century B.C., and especially the 1st century A.D. – the Septuagint had “replaced” the Hebrew Bible as the Scriptures most people used. Since most people spoke and read Greek as their primary language, and the Greek authorities strongly encouraged the use of Greek, the Septuagint became much more common than the Hebrew Old Testament.
[2]
The possibility that New Testament writers also wrote manuscripts in Aramaic is not out of the question. In an essay entitled The Scriptures of Jesus and His Earliest Followers, Craig Evans writes:
There are significant examples in which Jesus' language agrees with the Aramaic tradition. (Lee Martin McDonald, James A. Sanders, editors.
The Canon Debate. p 191-194, 2002)
[3]
Apparently, the Greek was the most common language of the day. Because Greek was the lingua franca of the Mediterranean area, the odds of finding New Testament manuscripts written in that language are much higher than Hebrew or Aramaic languages. But this does not preclude any New Testament writings having been written first in Hebrew or Aramaic.
Our knowledge of the past is sketchy, just as our knowledge of every human being living today is sketchy, even though we have massive data banks to draw upon, we cannot know everything that is to be known about every person that is alive.
Footnotes
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