Page 21 - Yahwehs Book

Aramaic is evident from the New Testament Scriptures. The following verses all include examples
of Yahshua speaking in Aramaic.

Mark 5:41
And taking the child by the hand, He said to her, "Talitha kum!" (which translated means, "Little
girl, I say to you, arise!").

Mark 7:31-34
And again He went out from the region of Tyre, and came through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee,
within the region of Decapolis. And they brought to Him one who was deaf and spoke with
difficulty, and they entreated Him to lay His hand upon him. And He took him aside from the
multitude by himself, and put His fingers into his ears, and after spitting, He touched his tongue with
the saliva; and looking up to heaven with a deep sigh, He said to him, “Ephphatha!” that is, "Be
opened!"

Mark 15:34
And at the ninth hour Yahshua cried out with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" which
is translated, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”

Notwithstanding Ma Ferguson’s claim that the Son of God spoke “the King’s English,” we observe
that Christ was speaking a very different language. As one might anticipate, when the Jews returned
to the land of Israel after their sojourning in Babylon, the Aramaic they spoke once again began to
differentiate itself from that which was spoken elsewhere. Over time it once more became distinct
so that in the time of Christ the speech of the Jews was again referred to as Hebrew. Many language
scholars, however, believe it is more accurate to describe the language spoken by the Judeans of
Christ’s day as “the Aramaic vernacular (or dialect) of the Jews.”

This brings us now to the third and final language of the Bible, Koine Greek. The word “Koine”
means “common.” In the time of Christ, Judea lay under the power of the Roman Empire. The Greek
Empire preceded Rome, spreading across many of the same lands that Rome would eventually
conquer. As the Greek Empire spread, the Greek language went with it. When Rome supplanted
Greece, the Greek language had already become entrenched. It had become the lingua franca of the
day. (Lingua franca is defined as “a language systematically used to make communication possible
between people not sharing a mother tongue.”) The Greek language tied together people groups from
all around the Mediterranean. This included the Jewish people who continued speaking
Hebrew/Aramaic, while also learning Greek.

Hebrew/Aramaic was the native language spoken by the Jewish people in the time of Christ.
However, many Jews were polyglots, that is to say, they spoke multiple languages. By adopting
Greek as a second language, or even a primary language, the various people groups of the Roman
Empire were able to communicate with one another. Although no portion of the Bible was originally
written in Latin, it too was a common language in Christ’s day, and many Jews would have been
familiar with it. Latin was the language of Italy where the city of Rome was located. Although Rome
acquiesced by embracing Greek as the common language of the Empire, Latin remained the official
language of Rome. This explains why Pilate, the Roman Governor of Judea, chose Latin as one of