The Bible was originally written in the ancient languages of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek over a period of many centuries. Although sometimes referred to as “dead” languages (because they are not commonly spoken in the modern world), all three of these languages are very much alive.
Though they’ve changed a lot since biblical times, descendants of these languages are still actively used today in the same parts of the world the events of the Bible happened in. And of course, even the ancient words are alive with the Holy Spirit flowing through them.
This article will give a basic explanation of the Bible’s original languages — and why they matter for understanding the Bible today.
Of course, a single blog post won’t be enough to actually learn Greek or Hebrew — that would take years of careful study! But learning a little about them can provide invaluable background to the cultures and civilizations God chose to receive his unique revelation.
And it can help clarify some of the challenges translators face to make the words of Scripture readable in modern English, without changing — or losing — the depth and nuance of their meaning.
Note: This post has been updated and expanded to add clarity, provide additional examples, and other improvements throughout.
What Was the Language of the Old Testament?
The Old Testament was written almost entirely in Hebrew, the ancient Middle Eastern language spoken by the Jewish people. A few parts of the Old Testament — namely, Daniel 2:4b–7:28 and Ezra 4:8–6:18 and 7:12–26 — were written in Aramaic.
Hebrew: The Language of the Israelites
Hebrew was the language spoken by the ancient Israelites, and what most of the Bible (and almost all of the Old Testament) are written in. It’s part of the Semitic family of languages, which also includes Aramaic (see below) and Arabic.
These languages are read right-to-left (unlike English, which is left-to-right). They are also unique in that most of their words are based on a triliteral root: three letters (typically consonants) which stay “rooted” while the letters around them shift to change tense, add possessives or plurals, and otherwise modify the word.
While this triliteral root makes it easier to quickly recognize related words, it is closely related to another feature of Hebrew (and other Semitic languages) that is not easy: they are not traditionally written with any vowels at all. Because ancient languages also didn’t typically use spaces in writing, this makes reading the Old Testament in its most ancient, original form extremely challenging.
MGNRDNGVRTHNGLKTHS (imagine reading everything like this) — backwards — for hundreds of pages (or scrolls)!
Aramaic: The Language of Jesus
Aramaic is a descendant of Hebrew that was widely spoken in the Middle East in the centuries leading up to the birth of Jesus. In fact, Aramaic was Jesus’s native language — the one he used to deliver his teachings to his disciples. It is still spoken by a few scattered communities in the Middle East today.
Are Hebrew and Aramaic Still Spoken Today?
Biblical Hebrew stopped being used long before New Testament times as it gradually evolved into Aramaic. Later, as Jews increasingly assimilated into local communities in Europe, the Middle East, and elsewhere, both languages faded from common use in favor of local dialects.
But Hebrew remained in use liturgically in Jewish communities (most of whom continued to read the Scriptures in their original languages) until it was intentionally revived by European Jews in the late 19th to early 20th centuries. Today it is the national language of Israel and is spoken by over 9 million people worldwide.
Case Study: The Lord, the Name, the Tetragrammaton
Ever wonder why Bibles often write “LORD” in small capitals instead of normal uppercase/lowercase?
One place where Hebrew’s lack of written vowels plays a truly critical role is in God’s name, which in the Hebrew Bible is written יהוה or YHWH. This name (often called the Tetragrammaton, which just means “four letters”) occurs over 6,000 times in the Old Testament and in every book except Esther, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs.
But here’s the thing: no one knows how it’s pronounced.
In Rabbinic Judaism, after the first Temple was destroyed in 586 BC (2 Kings 25:8-17), it became forbidden to pronounce God’s holy name. When any of those passages were read aloud, the name was replaced with the word Adonai, meaning “the Lord.”
After centuries of this practice, when vowels were finally added to Hebrew scrolls in the early Medieval era, the vowels that should be used had long since been forgotten. So in some cases the transcribers simply took the vowels from Adonai and inserted them into YHWH. The result was something like “Yehovah.”
Today some Christians use a version of this pronunciation — most commonly Yahweh or Jehovah — to refer to God by name. But it’s still considered forbidden by most Jews. And, because it’s likely that those aren’t actually the correct vowels, many Christians, too, are concerned with the possibility of blaspheming God by addressing him with a name that isn’t his.
And that is why nearly all English Bible translations, even today, simply replace YHWH with “the LORD.”
What Was the Language of the New Testament?
The New Testament was written in Greek — specifically, in a dialect called Koine (or common) Greek, to distinguish it from the more complex, sophisticated Greek of ancient Athens and Sparta.
Why “common”? And why wasn’t it written in Jesus’s (and his disciples’) own language of Aramaic?
Greek: The Language of the Mediterranean
After Alexander the Great conquered Judaea around the 330s BC, the region became increasingly influenced by Greek culture and language. By the time of Jesus — when the area was under Roman rule — the entire eastern Mediterranean spoke some form of Greek (in addition to their native tongues).
Its widespread use made Greek a convenient choice for anyone trying to communicate or do business across cultures. However, since many of these people spoke it as a second language, it became mixed with many different regional dialects to create a simplified, standardized version of the Greek compared to what was spoken in Greece itself. (This is actually very similar to how American English evolved in the early colonies.)
Greek: The Language of the Disciples (Sort Of)
So, when Jesus’ disciples began traveling to spread the Good News of his resurrection, they mostly used Koine Greek to reach the widest population they could — even if it wasn’t the language they used with each other.
In some cases, like the Gospel of Mark, the unique writing style shows how the story was originally told in Aramaic, and then written down in Greek as it spread beyond the region of Galilee where Jesus lived and performed his miracles and ministries. One of the telltale signs of this in Mark is the habit of starting nearly every sentence with “and” — a common storytelling technique in Aramaic, but not in Greek.
Is Greek Still Spoken Today?
Of course! Greek remained widely spoken in the eastern Roman empire, then the Byzantine empire, for hundreds of years after the New Testament was written. After the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453, its use was considerably diminished. But it remains the national language of Greece and is spoken by over 13 million people worldwide.
The language has changed considerably since New Testament times, but most Greek speakers are still able to read Koine, much as we might still read Shakespeare or the King James Bible.
Were Any Parts of the Bible Written in Latin?
It may surprise you to learn that none of the Bible was written in Latin — despite Judaea being under Roman rule. Though parts of the Bible started being translated into Latin soon after they appeared in Greek, a complete Latin Bible didn’t exist until the early 400s AD, when Jerome completed his Vulgate.
The Vulgate caught on quickly and became the exclusive way the Bible was read and transmitted in western Europe for centuries.
When Was the Bible First Translated into English?
The first complete translation of the entire Bible into English was Wycliffe’s Bible, released in the late 1300s. (And available to read on Bible Gateway!) John Wycliffe and his followers based their translation on the Vulgate, since the original Hebrew and Greek texts were still unavailable in the West. Because it had to be hand-copied and distributed, it didn’t reach a wide audience, but it was still enough to earn Wycliffe a condemnation for heresy 30 years after his death.
After that, it was over 100 years before another comprehensive attempt was made to translate the Bible into English. William Tyndale published his English New Testament in 1526 using the brand-new printing press… and was martyred 10 years later for the effort.
The first English Bible to really catch on with the masses was the Geneva Bible of 1560, which was used by the first pilgrims to America. Why “Geneva”? Because the translators were hiding out in Switzerland so they wouldn’t meet Tyndale’s fate back in England.
Their Bible proved so popular, however, that King James felt compelled to finally make an “authorized” English version. Released in 1611, it became the King James Version we all know and love today.
Why Study the Bible in Its Original Languages?
The world has changed a lot in the thousands of years since the Bible was written. Making its ancient words comprehensible to a modern English reader is an enormous challenge, filled with countless choices about exactly the best way to render any given word or phrase.
In addition to the example of the Tetragrammaton above, here’s one more example (among thousands) that translators of the Bible have to contend with: “our daily bread.”
This phrase, part of the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6:9-13, is one of the best-known in the entire Bible, memorized by millions of Christians around the world by the time they can read and write. What could possibly be ambiguous about daily bread?
Case Study: Our Daily, Necessary, Supersubstantial Bread for the Future
In the original Greek of the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6:11, the phrase is “Τὸν ἄρτον ἡμῶν τὸν ἐπιούσιον” (ton arton hēmōn ton epiousion). Here’s how it breaks down:
- Ton means “the.”
- Arton means “bread.”
- Hēmōn means “ours.”
- Epiousion means… well, no one knows for sure.
Outside of the parallel passage in Luke 11:3, the word isn’t found anywhere else in ancient Greek — we’re talking thousands and thousands of documents.
So, what did Jesus mean by it? (Or rather, what did he say in Aramaic that became “epiousion” in Greek?)
The King James translators (and Tyndale before them) supplied “daily,” based mostly on an early Latin translation of the passage. But there isn’t really any reason to assume that’s what it means.
A much more popular theory in the early church (including Jerome and Augustine) was that it meant something like “supersubstantial” — or spiritual — and referred to the bread of the Eucharist. This is still one of the preferred interpretations in the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches.
Other scholars, both ancient and modern, have suggested “necessary,” while still others have proposed “of tomorrow” (or “for the future”).
But regardless of the translation or meaning you prefer, the point is that, in English, you have to pick one. When you read Matthew in its original Greek, however, you can sit much closer to the mystery — just as Christians have been doing for thousands of years — and wonder, what did God mean by that?
After all, the words he chose are no accident.
Conclusion: It’s All Greek — and Hebrew — to Us
Hopefully, this post has given you a better understanding of the languages the Bible was written in: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek — including some of the challenges that go into translating those languages for a modern, English-speaking audience.
Of course, taking the time to learn even one of those languages, let alone all three, is far beyond what most of our schedules would allow.
Fortunately, there are great resources available to help you understand the original meanings of the Bible, with limited or no linguistic training.
- You can read multiple translations side-by-side to see some of the different nuances in the way words are translated.
- You can pick up a Study Bible by a scholar (or several) who can read the original languages fluently and provide commentary on complex passages.
- And you can use a resource like the NIV Reverse Interlinear Bible to see the original words beneath the translation.
Better yet, why not try all three?
Sign up today for Bible Gateway Plus and get access to dozens of Bible study resources such as Study Bibles, commentaries, and encyclopedias — including the NIV Reverse Interlinear — all for less than a pack of highlighters.
Jacob Edson is Editorial Director of Bible Gateway. He holds a Master of Theological Studies in Early Christian Thought from Harvard Divinity School, and a Bachelor of Arts in Religious History from Memorial University of Newfoundland, though with most of his coursework from the University of Hawai'i at Manoa. His work has previously appeared in Ekstasis and Geez Magazine. He lives with his wife and children in New England.
