Page 17 - Yahwehs Book

The Languages of the Bible

A story is told about the first woman governor of the state of Texas, Miriam Amanda (Ma) Ferguson,
who was elected to office in 1924. A debate was raging in Texas as to whether children immigrating
from Mexico should receive public education courses in their native language of Spanish. Reports
of the event state that Ma Ferguson brought a hasty end to the debate when she held up a Bible and
declared, “If the King’s English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it’s good enough for the children
of Texas!”

I have found that many Christians are confused about the languages that the people in the Bible
spoke, as well as the languages in which the Scriptures were written. As a youth I was aware that the
Bible was written in different languages. I had a Strong’s Concordance that I began using before I
was a teenager. At that age I sometimes had trouble remembering which Testament of the Bible was
written in Hebrew and which one was written in Greek. Later I also learned that parts of the Bible
were written in Aramaic. I had no idea what Aramaic was, or who spoke it, for churches do not
typically teach such things to their members. The subject of Biblical languages is not difficult to
understand. I believe following the history of God’s people makes the subject of Bible languages
easy to comprehend.

When Yahweh first created mankind, there was only one language. We are not told what language
Adam and Eve spoke. I have heard some suggest that it was Hebrew, but I am not persuaded by the
arguments. (You may understand my objections after reading more on the history of the Hebrew
language.) For the first 1500 years of mankind’s existence all humanity spoke the same language.
It was after the flood of Noah that Yahweh confused the speech of man. After the flood men began
to multiply. Yahweh had instructed them to scatter across the earth, but man disobeyed. They
congregated at Babel where they attempted to build a great city and a tower to reach to the heavens.

Genesis 11:6-9
And Yahweh said, "Behold, they are one people, and they all have the same language. And this is
what they began to do, and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them.
Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another's
speech." So Yahweh scattered them abroad from there over the face of the whole earth; and they
stopped building the city. Therefore its name was called Babel, because there Yahweh confused the
language of the whole earth; and from there Yahweh scattered them abroad over the face of the
whole earth.