What do we know about the language Jesus spoke? Jimmy Akin shares the basics (and teaches us a new word!) on Catholic Answers Live.
Transcript:
Caller: What kind of ancient Aramaic did Jesus speak? Cuz he went through a lot of places, y’know, he was from Nazareth, so I just wanted to know what kind of ancient Aramaic did he speak, and how can I—let’s say I wanna translate a word, how do I translate it?
Jimmy Akin: The dialect of Aramaic that Jesus would have spoken would have been Galilean first-century Palestinian Aramaic. So it’s Galilean because he was from Galilee, and the dialect was a little bit different in Galilee than it was down in the Jerusalem area; it’s Palestinian because that’s where the Holy Land is—in geographical Palestine; and it’s Aramaic because it’s the Aramaic language; and also it’s the first century, so that’s why it’s first-century. So the basic dialect Jesus would have spoken was first-century Galilean Palestinian Jewish Aramaic.
And we do have books available that describe this dialect. They’re a little bit hard to find, you know, because they’re published for scholars and not that many scholars have a deep study of Aramaic, but we do have such books. If you want to learn Aramaic in general, I would probably start with just a standard textbook on Aramaic or Syriac—that’s another dialect of Aramaic, but it’s very commonly used, and Syriac is also the dialect that’s used in the Aramaic version of the New Testament, which is known as the Peshitta. And it’s something that can be picked up, I’ve taken some Aramaic myself.
And just to reward you for having an interest in our Lord’s native tongue, lemme teach you a word in Aramaic. The word for “hello” is also the word for “peace” or “health,” and it’s “shlam’a.” So you can hear how that kinda sounds like the Hebrew word “shalom,” which means the same thing, but in Aramaic it’s “shlam’a.” And so if you wanna greet somebody in Jesus’ dialect, you can say “Shlam’a” to them.
Host: Okay, Christian?
Caller: Oh yeah, yes, because, you know, when he died on the cross, right, when he was dying on the cross suffering, he was speaking in Aramaic, which is “Father, why have you forsaken me?” So that’s the Aramaic he spoke, basically, what, first-century Galilean Aramaic, you said?
Jimmy Akin: First-century Galilean Palestinian Jewish Aramaic, yes.