The Language of the Bible: Hebrew and Aramaic Explained | Sunlight Missionary Baptist Church

When Jesus taught in the synagogue, what version of the Bible was he using? Historians say Jesus likely spoke in Aramaic, a Semitic language thousands of years old, a dominant language for Jewish worship and practical life in Judea. But it’s likely Jesus heard the Bible read in Hebrew when teaching in the synagogue, interpreting it in Aramaic using a “targum”—a “paraphrase” that included the traditional Jewish interpretations of the scriptures. One example scholars suggest from discoveries of ma