There are those that believe that the New Testament was written in Hebrew. Part of this maybe because people feel that the Hebrew language is more religious and wonder why the New Testament would be written in a Pagan language…Greek. The reason for this wonder, is because most Christians are not historians. As it was the language of the Jews were always influenced by who ruled over them. When the Jews were under Babylonian rule they leaned their languages. When Persia conquered Babylonia, the Jews were ruled by the Persians and they treated the Jews with much more respect and these two cultures did influence each other. The fact that the Persians helped the Jews restore the temple in Jerusalem is recorded in the Bible. After Alexandra the Great conquered Persia the Jew fell under Greek rule and their relations were not quite as friendly and even got worse when the Romans took hold of the reins of power. During all of this the Hebrew language began to diminish as a common tongue among the Jews, and their ability to read Hebrew was even further diminished, and the reminisce that was left was a variation of Hebrew and other languages that we refer to as Aramaic.
By the time of Christ the Jews had been under Greek/Roman rule for 3 centuries. The common tongue of the Roman Empire was Greek It had been over 700 years since the fall of the “Davidic Kingdom” and due to the influence of those that ruled over them there language and knowledge of it had been reduced to a small percentage of the Jewish population. So when it comes to the writing of the Gospels we see that they are written in Greek…usually by scribes. (All surviving ancient manuscripts are written in Greek, no Hebrew.) The Apostles are Jews, but keep in mind that Mark and Luke were not numbered in the original 12 Apostles. Mark and Luke are Greek speaking Jews that were taught by Peter and Paul respectively.
The reason that the NT is communicated in the Greek, is because if these Gospels, Epistles, and letters were sent out in Hebrew, very few could read them and that would pretty much defeat their purpose. If the 72 disciples that Christ sent out with the mission to spread the Good News spoke only Hebrew…very few would understand them. This goes for the Apostles as they traveled abroad. Speaking Hebrew to Greeks…. Romans would never go well because they considered it a heathenistic language. If the letters that Paul sent out to the churches were in Hebrew, very few could read them. Since by the turn of the first century most Christians were of Greek origin, there would be no reason to translate the NT to Hebrew.
The topic of the Jewish language is very complicated and the study is nearly a college course. The evolution and variations of the language is complicated enough but the western influence on the study of it, has made it much worse. The western cultures have a tendency to overlay other cultures with their own description, designations, and labels. And in the study of the Hebrew language it is no easy task to unravel this mesh of understandings. It is even hard to pin point the origin of the English word Hebrew or its meaning. Try pronouncing Hebrew in their language. lol
The word Hebrew is an English word denoting the Israelites/Jews and their language. But the Jews never called themselves, nor their language Hebrew and the word Hebrew does not appear in the Bible. Note that the title for the book of Hebrews was added well after the fact. The modern English word "Hebrew" is derived from Old French… Ebrau …In the Bible they refer to themselves as Yehudit or Yehudim or עבריים, Ivrîm, ʿIḇriyyîm, Ibrim. Yes there are few terms.
Then also the English word Hebrew does not designate the language of the Israelites/ Jews. They call their language Ivri, as in the past their language evolves. An alternative form of Ivri is Yiddish, which mean Jewish. In other words those that speak English say Jewish and those that speak Ivrit, say Yiddish. Yiddish is a high Germanic language of Ashkenazi Jewish origin, spoken throughout the world. It developed as a fusion of German dialects with Hebrew, Aramaic, Slavic languages. Often times when we study the languages of the Jews, we go to reach for that ancient dictionary, just to find out there is none. There are several meanings to a lot of things and in the Jewish language and it gets worse….
If you look into this you will notice that the English uses “J’s” for Jewish terms and names, and the Jews use “Y’s” As I said the western world has a tendency to label and assign names to other cultures, particularly ancient cultures and societies. The letter “J” first appeared in 1400 AD and did not come into common use until 1600 AD, that is 1600 years after Christ. When the Bibles were translated in that era they removed the “Y’s” and replaced them with “J.s” for any nouns…person, place, or thing….the confusion that that has caused still haunts us. How many understand that Yeshua, Yahweh, Yob, Yohn, and Yerushalayim are the correct words and pronunciations. This is so engrained into the western cultures and religions that people will argue with you, that they know the Jewish language better than the Jews and the Jews laugh at us because we do not know the names of the people in our own Bible. There is no good explanation for why they did this (and there are many) because these words are easily pronounced and spelled in English, no good reason for changing them. Beyond that, there are some that believe that there is power in God’s name and only one name can be called upon for salvation. What does that do to everything!
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