Greek Speaking Jesus and His Disciples - An Answer to Bart Ehrman's popular "Aramaic" Premises

Greek was the lingua franca of the Eastern Mediterranean world, Galilee was significantly Hellenized, and Hellenized Jews were ubiquitous in early first century Palestine.

To me, it certainly seems in the realm of possibility that Jesus and some of this disciples could speak and write at least some Greek. The Gospels written in simple Koine Greek, so the authors weren't writing in sophisticated literary Greek.

I don't think the article is fair to Ehrman otherwise. Ehrman does not think the Gospels are utterly unreliable. What he thinks is that you have to work at it to mine the historically reliable information embedded in the scripture.



I'm reading a book by Ehrman now, and he believes these are genuine historical facts as supported by the evidence.

1) The Romans executed a Jewish rabbi named Jesus around 30 AD.

2) Many of Jesus' disciples came to believe they saw him after his execution (aka, the disciples were not lying or fabricating myths).
 
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Cypress said:
Ehrman states that Jesus could read Hebrew, and he may have been able to communicate in Greek*.

He seems to believe Peter was illiterate.


* The Historical Jesus - 2000, Bart Ehrman.
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Well, on his blog he says different.

Being multi-lingual in the ME would have been normal and a necessity, especially in Greek and Roman Palestine. Jesus and the writers of the NT are obviously not merely just Jewish but well educated Jewish scholars and very well versed in Jewish history, theology, and culture, something the average Jew at the time would not be if they were some hicks from the fringes.
 
EdwinA said:
Well, on his blog he says different.

Being multi-lingual in the ME would have been normal and a necessity, especially in Greek and Roman Palestine. Jesus and the writers of the NT are obviously not merely just Jewish but well educated Jewish scholars and very well versed in Jewish history, theology, and culture, something the average Jew at the time would not be if they were some hicks from the fringes.
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He either changed his opinion over the years, or he makes a distinction between his personal opinion and scholarly consensus.

A Blog is definitely a vehicle for personal opinion.
A course book is for a general audience, and typically presents the consensus of scholars.

In my book, he literally points to Luke 4:16-20 and Mark 12:10, 26 as evidence Jesus could read the scriptures in Hebrew. He says some scholars believe he communicated to Pontius Pilate in Greek, because it is highly unlikely Pontius Pilate would have bothered to learn Aramaic.
 
Cypress said:
He either changed his opinion over the years, or he makes a distinction between his personal opinion and scholarly consensus.

A Blog is definitely a vehicle for personal opinion.
A course book is for a general audience, and typically presents the consensus of scholars.

In my book, he literally points to Luke 4:16-20 and Mark 12:10, 26 as evidence Jesus could read the scriptures in Hebrew. He says some scholars believe he communicated to Pontius Pilate in Greek, because it is highly unlikely Pontius Pilate would have bothered to learn Aramaic.
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He changed a lot of his answers, after Darrell Bock handed him his ass several times. over both OT and NT history.
 
EdwinA said:
He changed a lot of his answers, after Darrell Bock handed him his ass several times. over both OT and NT history.
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It's hard to know how educated the apostles were.

Two of the four Gospel authors weren't even apostles, so we know next to nothing about them. Circumstantial evidence is that Matthew originally wrote sayings of Jesus in Hebrew, but it was later transcribed and enhanced into Greek.

The apostles were obviously deeply religious and knew Jewish tradition, the Torah, and the prophet tradition very well.

The King James Bible tends to mislead us about the literary skill of the NT authors. The English in King James Bible was intentionally translated into a beautiful, literary, decorative form of Elizabethean English.

The scholars who read Greek tend to say the original Greek gospel manuscripts are written in a simple plain Koine Greek.

There seems to be some archealogical evidence that first century synagogues had schools in them, so it wouldn't surprise me that some Galilean boys would be taught to read the Torah and attain some level of literacy.
 
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