Did Jesus and the NT Persons speak Greek or Aramaic?

Answering:

1. Both

2. You'd need to climb in a time-machine. No one knows.  But fun to guess. Gravestones had both languages. 

3. Did you search Logos? There's a bunch. The Peshitta NT is your closest NT. Enticingly, the earliest mention of Matthew said it's in aramaic. Unfortunately it got lost.

Wikipedia has a great discussion; recommended.

Added:

Coincidentally, the Logos monthly sale has Biblical Performance Criticism: https://www.logos.com/product/17146/biblical-performance-criticism-series 

The first volume is interesting ... the lower paragraph:

David A Egolf said:

Denise was answering the question in the title of this thread when he said "both". 

Actually, 'he' was answering the body. The evidence supports both .... depends on 'where'. To illustrate, the Decapolis, Sebaste, and across the hill from Nazareth.

Alexander, you realize you kind of roped the Divine in. I'm guessing one who could create the universe could inform many ways. Moses said so, anyway. And your necessary writings are the OT. I won't go there, as a courtesy.

Alexander Fogassy said:

Was Greek or Aramaic the language of the land during Jesus' time?

Rather than serve the answer on a silver platter, Can I ask a couple of questions for you to explore within Logos? The skills you gain researching this question of personal interest can be used in the future.

What languages were used to put the "nameplate" above Jesus on the Cross?

What language is “Eloi, Eloi, lemá sabachtháni?” which is translated, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”

What language is “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” (that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”)

What reasons could explain the difference in spelling between the 2 different Gospels?

How do various translations spell the quote in Mt 5:41? What explanations exist for these various spellings?

Alexander Fogassy said:

but He chose language to do so, and superintended the written Scriptures as His inerrant, perspicuous, self-attesting revelation to mankind. 

I guess.  Not sure how He told you that (Moses indicated otherwise). Please don't be offended ... we're looking at different traditions.  I only bring the issue up, because much of Logos marketing is offensive to several of the traditions.

I enjoy the threads most that flirt with breaking the forum rules.

A couple of relevant passages for this topic would be John 14:25-26 and John 16:12-15. One could try to argue that John was mis-remembering Jesus' words when he wrote those or that they wouldn't apply to inspired Scripture writing, but it would be about as convincing as Dan Brown's various theories.

Here's a good review that touches on oral vs written that would link anyone interested to further resources: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/book-reviews-jesus-before-the-gospels

Regarding the original question of the thread, the Logos Academic Blog looked at this back in 2015: https://academic.logos.com/did-jesus-speak-greek/

I'll see if I can find it, but I seem to recall that a scholar had written a pretty compelling argument that Jesus' could have and did speak some Greek. I'll post if I find it.

[Edit:] After reading around some more, I believe the arguments I remember reading were excerpts from Porter and Carson's book, Biblical Greek Language and Linguistics: Open Questions in Current Research. The LAB has this Porter quote from that book, "In the light of this accumulated evidence, which is overwhelming when compared to the equivalent Aramaic evidence, it is surprising that many scholars have not given more consideration to the hypothesis that Jesus spoke and even possibly taught in Greek."

Let's avoid the fun labels. And stay within Logos-land.

Search Moses NEAR Aaron NEAR Mariam and the discussion of Divine communication.  Additionally, review the checklist on how to tell who speaks for the Divine (since many humans try it out for size). Both from the Penteteuch, and as you earlier pointed out, it being authoritative.

Regarding 'me' ( a less significant question), I stick with a literal (what you see is what you got) reading. No later creeds, claims, etc.

Alexander Fogassy said:

Was Greek or Aramaic the language of the land during Jesus' time?

I've heard it said that Mary Magdalene wouldn't have spoken Greek, but I've also heard that Greek was the "common tongue." Can somebody clarify this for me?

Also, what tools in Logos are there for Aramaic? Any Aramaic New Testament?

Alex

The Leiden Peshitta although Syriac is not exactly Aramaic its very very close, indeed I have been lead to believe it may be as close as koine greek to classical greek. 

Most people in the holy land would be likely bilingual a vast number may actually have been quad lingual. picking up latin, the language of the occupying force and many men would have learned Hebrew to read the scriptures at synagogue.  That said like today in countries with multiple languages there are some who only know one. I am not bi lingual even though french is an official language of my country, I know a few phrases of french and spanish and indeed can read a little in each to get by but I could not carry on a conversation or understand enough to get by in anything but english. I think it is very interesting that the scroll above Jesus was in Latin greek and hebrew. I would suspect it was actually Aramaic and not Hebrew unless it is being listed in the legal language of the empire, of the land israel and then in a common tongue everyone was expected to know greek., but it seems more likely that Pilate wanted to make sure all people who could read knew exactly what he wanted them to know who this was... A mocking joke to be sure, but this is what the power of Rome will do to anyone who claims kingship of this land.

-dan 

Dan .., I read the most bizarre (for me) discussion of the Peshitta ... it matched it up against the aramaic Targums (I think Neofitti, late-dated). I probably look pretty naive, but I'm going to run pattern matches on that. That's a real eye-opener.

David Thomas said:

Alexander Fogassy said:

David,

Thank you. Those exercises proved to be most helpful. I still wonder why Matthew wrote Eli and Mark wrote Eloi...Jesus said one and not the other, so is one of the gospel accounts "wrong"? Or is the issue with our translations? 

Alex

That is the significance of Biblical criticism since we don't have original document. Unless one choses to believe some form of divine preservation. I use https://www.logos.com/product/4468/the-net-bible TC Notes as a beginning place to make me aware of Textual Criticism issues.

I wonder if we're placing too much weight on the spelling of the Greek here. Jesus was at the point of death, so His diction may have been a bit impaired, and whether the words were Hebrew or Aramaic, they've been transliterated into the alphabet for another language. Taking those two things together, is it really all that surprising that Matthew and Mark might have transcribed the words differently?