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Reference: Language Of Christ

Hastings

The records of our Lord's words and discourses have descended to us in four Greek Gospels. Some early Christian writers assert that St. Matthew wrote in Hebrew; but the Greek St. Matthew has universally, and from the first, been accepted as an authoritative and inspired document. It is not improbable that the writer published his book in the two languages, and that the Greek edition alone has survived. Josephus, who wrote in Greek, prepared a Semitic edition of his Wars for the benefit of those who understood only their vernacular.

At the present day, perhaps, most scholars would admit that the vernacular of Palestine in the time of our Lord was Semitic, and not Greek; but a difference is observed between their theory and their practice; for in all kinds of theological writings, critical as well as devotional, the references to the text of the Gospels constantly assume that the Greek words are those actually uttered by our Lord. But if Greek was not commonly spoken in the Holy Land, it is improbable that He who ministered to the common people would have employed an uncommon tongue. It follows that the Greek words recorded by the Evangelists are not the actual words Christ spoke. We may think we have good grounds for believing that they accurately represent His utterances; but to hear the original sounds we must recover, if that be possible, the Semitic vernacular which underlies the traditional Greek.

The evidence as to the nature of the Palestinian vernacular may be thus stated. In the first century of the Christian era the Holy Land was peopled by men of more than one race and nationality, but there is no reason to suppose they had been fused into one people, with Greek for their common tongue. Most of the inhabitants of Jud

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