Language of Jesus

There exists a consensus among scholars that Jesus spoke Aramaic. Aramaic was the common language of Roman Judaea, and was thus also spoken by at least some of Jesus' disciples.

The villages of Nazareth and Capernaum in Galilee, where the Gospels record him as having been raised, were populated by Aramaic-speaking communities. Jesus probably spoke the Galilean dialect, distinguishable from that which was spoken in Roman-era Jerusalem. Galilee was known for its trade routes and for its interface with the wider spectrum of Hellenism; Matthew 4:15 references "Galilee of the Gentiles". As such, the Gospels understand Jesus' youth in Nazareth to be in a highly cosmopolitan area in which Greek was used frequently, 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) from the meeting of several major trade routes in Sepphoris. It is thus likely that Jesus was able to work in Koine Greek.

Additionally, given that Hebrew had continued to be used by Judeans who were left behind during the Babylonian captivity and is understood to be the language of composition for several canonical texts composed in the Second Temple period, Jesus was conversant in the Hebrew spoken among the Samaritans, according to John 4. Jesus was thus well versed in Biblical Hebrew, beyond its use as the liturgical language of Second Temple Judaism.

Aramaic was the common language of the Eastern Mediterranean during and after the Neo-Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian, and Achaemenid empires (722–330 BC) and remained a common language of the region in the first century AD. In spite of the increasing importance of Greek, the use of Aramaic was also expanding, and it would eventually be dominant among Jews both in the Holy Land and elsewhere in the Middle East around 200 AD and would remain so until the Islamic conquests in the seventh century.

According to Dead Sea Scrolls archaeologist Yigael Yadin, Aramaic was the language of Hebrews until Simon Bar Kokhba's revolt (132 AD to 135 AD). Yadin noticed the shift from Aramaic to Hebrew in the documents he studied, which had been written during the time of the Bar Kokhba revolt. In his book, Bar Kokhba: The rediscovery of the legendary hero of the last Jewish Revolt Against Imperial Rome, Yigael Yadin notes, "It is interesting that the earlier documents are written in Aramaic while the later ones are in Hebrew. Possibly the change was made by a special decree of Bar Kokhba who wanted to restore Hebrew as the official language of the state".

In another book by Sigalit Ben-Zion, Yadin said: "it seems that this change came as a result of the order that was given by Bar Kokhba, who wanted to revive the Hebrew language and make it the official language of the state." Yadin points out that Aramaic was the regional lingua franca at the time.

Hebrew historian Josephus comments on learning Greek in first century Judea:

I have also taken a great deal of pains to obtain the learning of the Greeks, and understand the elements of the Greek language, although I have so long accustomed myself to speak our own tongue, that I cannot pronounce Greek with sufficient exactness; for our nation does not encourage those that learn the languages of many nations, and so adorn their discourses with the smoothness of their periods; because they look upon this sort of accomplishment as common, not only to all sorts of free-men, but to as many of the servants as please to learn them. But they give him the testimony of being a wise man who is fully acquainted with our laws, and is able to interpret their meaning; on which account, as there have been many who have done their endeavors with great patience to obtain this learning, there have yet hardly been so many as two or three that have succeeded therein, who were immediately well rewarded for their pains.