The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1883-06-21
What Tongue Did Christ Speak |!


rately as possible the exact words OF
Jesus. If the sermon on the Mount
was uttered in Hebrew, then transla-
ted into Greek by the
evangelists and is now trans,
lated into English, there
would be larger possibilities of error
than if it was spoken originally in
Greek and recorded by the evangelist
in the original tongue. The step
from Greek to English is very sure
fol both languages are well under
stood; but the step from the Hebrew
or Aramaic to Greek was very uncer-
tain, especially where the translation
was made by evangelists who were
not learned men. neither acquainted
with refined Greek nor with the an
!. cient Hebrew.
For centuries preceding the coming
| of Jesus the Greek civilization, Greek
thought and Greek language had
been permeating the countries border
ing on the Mediterranean sea. The
| Hebrews had also penetrated into all
the commercial centerS of Greece and
Arabia, and the Jews formed Il large
part of the population OF such cities
;ls Antioch, Damascus and AleXan-
| AA 44COlOW anu OlCOh LII
| termingled. The old Hebrew in which
the law had been written had become
a dead lanugage-quite as much so as
Latin is in modern Rome or Anglo
Saxon in modern London. The Ara
maic spoken in Palestine by the pure
Hebrew races at the time of the min
istry of Jesus was not the Hebrew
| which Moses or even that Isaiah had
| cpniynn G FNhn laaru oil nhn of that
were able to read the Pentateuch, but
| to the people it was almost as strange
as the Latin ritual is to the majority
of the Catholics of to-day.
But there was a familiarity with the
law and the prophets among the peo-
pie at the time OF Jesus, which ap-
pears on every page of the New
Testament. Christ constantly quoted
the Scriptures in his sermons; the
scribes and Pharisees quoted it in
discussions with him. The common
people were Us familiar with the sacred
writings then as they are now. In
order to account for this. two suppO-
sitions are possible: One is
that the people studied the
old Hebrew and understood
it, though dead language; the other
among the common people. Both are
partially true. There were always
learned men who studied the OLD
writings in the original, and in this
sense the Hebrew has never been Il
dead language. But these were COM
paratively few. There was, however,
translation, not into later Hebrew
or Aramaic, but into Greek
the Septuagint. The transla-
tion of Hebrew Scriptures
into Greek had been made at
Alexandria about 280 years before.
The Hebrews, who constituted nearly
one-third of the city OF Alexandria,
and had great wealth and influence,
were very proud of their translation.
They could show to the Greeks that
they had a literature as precious as
Homer or Plato. The Greeks had
great respect for it, and studied it in
the schools of Alexandria, and there
grew out of it a Greek-Hebrew litera.
ture and speculation that profoundly
influenced Christian development sew
eral centuries later This translation
was used by the Jews in all the large
commercial cities, and at last even in
Jerusalem. The old, strict construc-
IAOhlCto VI OLO uChlPAO b1uCu O1C
translation with aversion they consid-
cred it proclamation; but it prob
ably came into use among the people
for it was in a language which the
Hebrews of that day understood 1t
is to he noted, also, that while a copy
of the scriptures in Hebrew was
Septuagint was comparatively
OH tho time Af
coming of Christ, the Greek language
in Palestine. The trading people
spoke both-just as in parts of Ire
land to-day the people speak old Irish
and rude sort of English also. Jesus
could speak to the multitudes either
oflPalestine. Now, in teaching them,
he would by preference quote the
Scriptures in language that they
understood. He would quote the
book that they knew and re-
spected. Even if he knew
the scriptures in the original Hebrew,
he would no more use them in that
way than a modern preacher who
knows the New Testament in the
original Greek would take his text
from that. That the common people
understood the Greek is rendered
probable by many facts. For exam
pie: Some of. the apostles wrote epis-
ties to the Jewish Christians, and
they wrote them in Greek. Paul,
who wrote epistles to the Greeks
at Corinth, Ephesus, Thessalon-
lea and elsewhere, of course,
would not addess them il Hebrew;
but why should Peter, a strict He
brew, write his epistles in Greek un-
less the Hebrews understood Greek?
Why was the epistle to the Hebrews,
ascribed to Paul, written in Greek?
That epistle is an argument on full
fillment of prophecy, based on the
Hebrew scriptures. 1t was addressed
to Hebrew thought, and yet its quo
tationS are not from the original He
brew, but from the Septuagint. This
still further implies the familiarity
of the Hebrews with the Septuagint
translation.
This renders it very probale that
thesScriptureS which Jesus studied so
profoundly before his ministry were
the translation and not the original
Hebrew-for the Septuagint is not an
exact translation. Modern linguists
duu pul1O1OSlSto, ny CuldlS SluS 6llO
knowledge of both the Greek and the
Hebrew, prove this incontesti-
bly,. There are cases where the Sep
tuagint translators Intentionally
falsified the original, and changed the
meanings of things which were quite
plain in the Hebrew. Yet, so great
was the reverence of the Alexandria
Jews for the Septuagint that they re-
| garded it as an inspired translation.
Now, if Jesus, in quoting from the
Scriptures, quotes the mistranslation,
he produces the strongest impression
that he was not acquainted with the
original.
The advantage of this discovery is
that it brings us a step nearer to the
very words of Jesus, and it also ac-
counts for the similaritieS of language
in the quotations in the gospels
and epistles where they agree with
each other and differ all from the
ancient Hebrew. The Greek and the
later Hebrew or Araamaic were both
spoken in Palestine. Jesus occasion
| ally used the provincial
tongue and sometimes the
more universal language OF the
Greeks. When He raised the maiden
| from the death trance He said; "Ta'
litha cumi." when hanging on the
cross He uttered His last Eloi cry IN
Aramaic, When Paul spoke to the
multitude from the stairs, .he spoke
unto them in the Hebrew tongue