Table Of ContentThe Language Environment of First Century Judaea
Jewish and Christian
Perspectives Series
Editorial Board
David Golinkin – Alberdina Houtman
Marcel Poorthuis – Joshua Schwartz
Freek van der Steen
Advisory Board
Yehoyada Amir – David Berger – Shaye Cohen
Judith Frishman – Martin Goodman
Clemens Leonhard – Tobias Nicklas – Eyal Regev
Gerard Rouwhorst – Seth Schwartz – Yossi Turner
VOLUME 26
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/jcp
The Language Environment of
First Century Judaea
Jerusalem Studies in the Synoptic Gospels
Volume Two
Edited by
Randall Buth and R. Steven Notley
LEIDEN | BOSTON
Bar-Ilan University, Israel
University of Tilburg: Faculty of Catholic Theology,
The Netherlands
Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies, Israel
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The editors gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Ingeborg Rennert Center for Jerusalem Studies.
TThhee NNeetthheerrllaannddss
University of Tilburg: Faculty of Catholic Theology,
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Interaction between Judaism and Christianity in history, religion, art and literature / edited
Ingeborg Rennert Center for Jerusalem Studies, Israel
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
p. cm. — (Jewish and Christian perspectives series ; v. 17)
Includes bibliographical references.
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Includes bibliographical references and index.
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Contents
Introduction: Language Issues Are Important for
Gospel Studies 1
Randall Buth
Sociolinguistic Issues in a Trilingual Framework 7
1 The Origins of the “Exclusive Aramaic Model” in the Nineteenth
Century: Methodological Fallacies and Subtle Motives 9
Guido Baltes
2 The Use of Hebrew and Aramaic in Epigraphic Sources of the
New Testament Era 35
Guido Baltes
3 Hebraisti in Ancient Texts: Does Ἑβραϊστί Ever Mean “Aramaic”? 66
Randall Buth and Chad Pierce
4 The Linguistic Ethos of the Galilee in the First Century C.E. 110
Marc Turnage
5 Hebrew versus Aramaic as Jesus’ Language: Notes on
Early Opinions by Syriac Authors 182
Serge Ruzer
Literary Issues in a Trilingual Framework 207
6 Hebrew, Aramaic, and the Differing Phenomena of Targum and
Translation in the Second Temple Period and Post-Second
Temple Period 209
Daniel A. Machiela
7 Distinguishing Hebrew from Aramaic in Semitized Greek Texts,
with an Application for the Gospels and Pseudepigrapha 247
Randall Buth
vi contents
8 Non-Septuagintal Hebraisms in the Third Gospel:
An Inconvenient Truth 320
R. Steven Notley
Reading Gospel Texts in a Trilingual Framework 347
9 Hebrew-Only Exegesis: A Philological Approach to Jesus’
Use of the Hebrew Bible 349
R. Steven Notley and Jeffrey P. Garcia
10 Jesus’ Petros–petra Wordplay (Matthew 16:18):
Is It Greek, Aramaic, or Hebrew? 375
David N. Bivin
11 The Riddle of Jesus’ Cry from the Cross: The Meaning of
ηλι ηλι λαμα σαβαχθανι (Matthew 27:46) and the Literary
Function of ελωι ελωι λειμα σαβαχθανι (Mark 15:34) 395
Randall Buth
Index of Ancient Sources 423
Subject Index 448
Introduction: Language Issues Are Important
for Gospel Studies
Randall Buth
The articles in this collection demonstrate that a change is taking place in New
Testament studies. Throughout the twentieth century, New Testament scholar-
ship primarily worked under the assumption that only two languages, Aramaic
and Greek, were in common use in the land of Israel in the first century. Studies
on the Gospels have assumed that Aramaic was the only viable language for
Jesus’ public teaching or for any early Semitic records of the Jesus movement,
whether oral or written. Hebrew was considered to be restricted primarily to
educated religious teachers and unsuitable for speaking parables to peasants,
especially in the Galilee. However, during the twentieth century, specialists
working in the field of Mishnaic Hebrew have proven that three languages,
Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, were in common use.1 Their studies have moved
Hebrew out of a restricted, marginal status within first-century language use.
The articles in this volume investigate various areas where increasing linguistic
data and changing perspectives impact New Testament studies. In some cases,
prevalent assumptions on language use within the field of New Testament
studies are challenged and found wanting. Older data have confirmed newer
views when read carefully in context. Several articles go beyond the socio-
linguistic questions and look at literary and interpretational questions. The
fuller language background of the Gospels raises new questions that can affect
the evaluation of texts and literary relationships.
Language Studies Impact Historical Understandings
Five articles relate to the general sociolinguistic situation in the land of Israel
during the first century. The first article in the collection looks at the history
of New Testament studies and explores why, at the end of the 19th century,
scholars assumed a two-language paradigm: Guido Baltes, “The Origins of
the ‘Exclusive Aramaic Model’ in the Nineteenth Century: Methodological
Fallacies and Subtle Motives.” That paradigm became a consensus to the point
1 Recently, Steven E. Fassberg, “Which Semitic Language Did Jesus and Other Contemporary
Jews Speak?” CBQ 74–2 (April 2012), 263–280.
© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���4 | doi ��.��63/9789004�644�0_���
2 buth
that scholars did not feel obligated to defend it. The interesting question is
how such a consensus could arise when the available data up until the twenti-
eth century was so little? Guido Baltes finds that a multiplicity of factors were
responsible for this state of affairs. This article is followed by his survey of epi-
graphic evidence, “The Use of Hebrew and Aramaic in Epigraphic Sources of
the New Testament Era.” Only trilingual models can adequately account for the
multi-register and sometimes surprising data that has accumulated during the
twentieth century.
An additional support for the “trilingual perspective” comes through a care-
ful re-investigation of the language names. Primary Greek lexica inform begin-
ning students of the Greek New Testament that Ἑβραϊστί may mean “Jewish
Aramaic.” Buth and Pierce, “Hebraisti in Ancient Texts: Does Ἑβραϊστί Ever
Mean ‘Aramaic’?,” investigate that claim and demonstrate that the meaning
“Jewish Aramaic” for Ἑβραϊστί cannot be justified. Standard resources still
appear to reflect the defective situation described in Baltes’ first article so that
many lexica and Bible translations will need correction.
Marc Turnage’s “The Linguistic Ethos of the Galilee within the First Century
C.E.,” addresses the general sociological and historical issues related to the eth-
nic background of the Galilee. He challenges a frequently encountered opinion
that the Galilee was a region that had recently been converted and Judaized
and he provides a more comprehensive perspective in light of the historical
and archaeological data.
Our understanding of historical attitudes within particular communities
can also be enriched. Serge Ruzer, “Hebrew versus Aramaic as Jesus’ Language:
Notes on Early Opinions by Syriac Authors,” shows that early Syriac authors
seem not to reflect the attitudes that are associated with the late Byzantine and
modern eras—namely, viewing Jesus as an Aramaic- and non-Hebrew speaker.
While necessarily tentative, Ruzer’s study helps scholars to view the historical
processes involved in the history of Gospel interpretation and in Syriac studies.
Literary Studies Interact with the Language Background
In “Hebrew, Aramaic, and the Differing Phenomena of Targum and Translation
in the Second Temple Period and Post-Second Temple Period,” Daniel Machiela
explores translation phenomena in the late Second Temple period. Targumic
studies have a wide range of complicated issues with which to deal, never-
theless, Gospel studies have sometimes assumed an established, pre-Christian
targumic background. Machiela’s study suggests that targums and Hebrew-to-
INTRODUCTION: LANGUAGE ISSUES & GOSPEL STUDIES 3
Aramaic translation are primarily a post-New Testament phenomenon and in
some cases probably originating outside the land of Israel.
The Gospel of Mark has often been characterized as exhibiting Aramaic
influence, as is illustrated in recent monographs.2 Such claims require an inves-
tigation into the identification and differentiation of Aramaic and Hebrew
influence within Greek documents of the period. This is addressed in the study
by Randall Buth, “Distinguishing Hebrew from Aramaic in Semitized Greek
texts, with an Application for the Gospels and Pseudepigrapha.” One result
of this study undermines the plausibility that Mark had an Aramaic source.
The same study contributes to our understanding of the linguistic profiles of
Jewish Greek literature, which includes the Synoptic Gospels, in the Second
Temple Period.
The amount of biblical phraseology in Luke has led to a common expla-
nation that Luke has gathered much of his phraseology from the Greek
Bible, the “Septuagint.” This explanation, of course, begs the question for
another phenomenon, “non-Septuagintal Hebraisms.” Steven Notley’s “Non-
Septuagintal Hebraisms in the Third Gospel: An Inconvenient Truth,” investi-
gates Hebraisms that could not have been learned by Luke from the LXX. The
existence of Hebraisms in Luke’s Gospel is a challenge to common positions
on Lukan composition. If these Hebraisms are not in Mark or Matthew, then
Luke would appear to have a Hebraic-Greek source that is not dependent on
those two Gospels.
Language Studies Impact the Reading of Gospel Texts
Our general picture of the historical Jesus is directly affected by language. In
what language did Jesus teach, and what was the make-up of his audience
linguistically? The study by Steven Notley and Jeffrey Garcia, “Hebrew-only
Exegesis: A Philological Approach to Jesus’ Use of the Hebrew Bible,” provides
evidence that connects Jesus’ teaching directly to the Hebrew Bible. This natu-
rally informs the reading of Gospel pericopae.
Two of the volume’s articles bring new linguistic evidence to the interpreta-
tion of Gospel texts. David Bivin’s, “Jesus’ Petros-petra Wordplay (Matt 16:18):
2 Maurice Casey, Aramaic Sources of Mark’s Gospel, Society for New Testament Studies
Monograph Series, 102, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998) and Aramaic Sources
to Q: Sources for Gospels of Matthew and Luke (SNTSMS 122; Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2002).
