The Jewish Messiah’s given name at Birth also was Jesus Christ, a Greek name and not a Hebrew name.
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The old Testament used in the JERSUALEM Jewish temple at the time of Jesus Christ was in Greek – Ever hear of the Greek translation of the Old testament, the Septuagint – Septuagint (sometimes abbreviated LXX) is the name given to the Greek translation of the Jewish Scriptures. The Septuagint has its …”The earliest version of the Old Testament Scriptures which is extant, or of which we possess any certain knowledge, is the translation executed at Alexandria in the third century before the Christian era: this version has been so habitually known by the name of the SEPTUAGINT “The Septuagint (from the Latin septuaginta, meaning “seventy,” and frequently referred to by the roman numerals LXX) is the Greek translation of the Old Testament. The name derives from the tradition that it was made by seventy (or seventy-two) Jewish scholars at Alexandria, Egypt during the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus (285-247 B.C.). it is not surprising that the Apostles should have used it more often than not in making citations from the Old Testament. The Jews upheld the Septuagint very strongly for the first 300 years as the Word of God, our blessed Lord and the apostles habitually quoted from it,
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WHY IS IT THAT SOME PEOPLE FALSELY DENY THE TRUTH THAT JESUS DID NOT SPEAK HEBREW BUT GREEK AND WHAT IS THEIR ACTUAL AGENDA FOR DOING SO NOW TOO
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AND WHO HAD FIRSTLY TOLD YOU that Jesus himself had spoken Hebrew? Where is that found in the whole New testament? Do give us all the verse.. .
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Jesus, His own father spoke Greek . . You might say didn’t he speak Hebrew, the primary language of the Old testament Hebrew Scriptures? But what is the language of the New testament as the New Testament Gospels are preserved in Greek manuscripts, as Jesus himself solely spoke Greek.
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THE NEW TESTAMENT WAS ORIGINALLY WRITTEN IN GREEK It is vital to understand that the New Testament was written in Koiné Greek, which was the common spoken and written language for hundreds of years in Palestine and the Roman Empire before the days of Jesus and His apostles. Greek was the universal language of commerce and trade.This is the language that Jesus, the apostles and early New Testament Church used. .
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. It is vital to understand that the New Testament was written in Koiné Greek, which was the common spoken and written language for hundreds of years in Palestine and the Roman Empire before the days of Jesus and His apostles. Greek was the universal language of commerce and trade. This is the language that Jesus, the apostles and early New Testament Church used. .
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Some erroneously teach that the New Testament was originally written in the Hebrew language and was later translated into Greek. Because they have not studied the history of Palestine, they fail to realize that Hebrew had ceased to be spoken by the Jews many centuries before the New Testament era.
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Under the Babylonian and Medo-Persian empires, 640-333 BC, Aramaic exerted the greatest influence. The writings of Daniel, who lived and worked during the time of the Chaldean and Persian Empires, show the extensive influence of Syriac and Chaldee, which were dialects of Aramaic. The Persians ruled Palestine from the time of Daniel and Ezra until its invasion by Alexander the Great in 333 BC. From that time, the influence of Aramaic was overshadowed by the influence of Greek. Samuel G. Green, a renowned Biblical scholar, described this significant change as follows: “… as a direct result of the conquests of Alexander the Great and his successors, the Greek tongue had been carried into almost all the countries of the civilized world, and had become the medium of commercial intercourse, the language of the courts, and, in fact, the universal literary tongue of the provinces afterwards absorbed in the Roman Empire. The natives of Alexandria and of Jerusalem , of Ephesus, and even of Rome, alike adopted it; everywhere with characteristic modifications, but substantially the same. Hence it had become a necessity to translate the Old Testament Scriptures into Greek….This translation, or the Septuagint, naturally became the basis of all subsequent Jewish Greek literature, and in particular of the New Testament ” (Green, Handbook to the Grammar of the Greek New Testament , pp. 155-156, emphasis added). . The Influence of Greek in Jewish Literature As Green stated, the Greek translation of the Old Testament was followed by other Jewish Greek literature. Rabbi B. Z. Wacholder is one of the leading scholars in Jewish Greek literature of the period from Alexander to Christ. Martin Hengel, a Biblical scholar of modern Germany, wrote of Wacholder’s opinions of this era: “Around the middle of the second century BCE [nearly two hundred years before the New Testament was written] the Jewish Palestinian priest Eupolemus , son of John, whom Judas [Maccabaeus] had probably sent to Rome with a delegation in 161 BCE, composed in Greek a Jewish history with the title ‘About the Kings of Judah’… B.Z. Wacholder, who analyses this work, goes very thoroughly in the last chapter of his book into further Jewish-Palestinian literature in Greek and traces it down to Justus of Tiberias and Josephus. In his view, its origin lies in the priestly aristocracy , the leading representatives of which had always also had a certain degree of Greek education from the second or even third century BCE” (Hengel, The “Hellenization” of Judaea in the First Century after Christ , p. 23, ). Greek was the language of Jerusalem in New Testament times—the language not only of the priestly aristocracy but also of business and commerce. Its influence was most noticeable in the city of Jerusalem. We again have a good deal of epigraphical evidence from historical inscriptions] to support this ( Ibid. , p. 9). . The importance of Greek in Jewish life is evidenced by the fact that the temple had a fully staffed Greek secretariat. Such offices were vital to the diplomatic, commercial and banking interest s of the nation. Hengel believed that an institution like the temple must have had a well-staffed Greek secretariat for more than two centuries (Ibid., p. 17, emphasis added). It was not difficult to find Greek-speaking Jews to serve as members of the temple secretariat. Many Levitical and priestly families had contact with Greek-speaking areas outside Palestine, and some families lived in these areas. The most aristocratic of the priestly families”the old Zadok ite family of the Oniads”lived in Egypt. The high priests that Herod appointed came from this and other Greek-speaking families. Herods selection of these high priests illustrates the active communication and freedom of movement that was taking place between Palestine and other lands: There was a constant and lively interchange with all the centres of the Diaspora [the lands where the Jews were dispersed]. Thus Herod first brought the priest Ananel (Josephus, Antiquities 15.22, 34, 39ff., 51) from Babylonia and later the priest Simon, son of Boethus, from Alexandria to Jerusalem, both presumably from the old Zadokite family of the Oniads, in order to appoint them high priests. Boethus could have been a descendant of Onias IV of Leontopolis who fl ed to Egypt in 164 BCE: that would explain the later status of his family in Jerusalem. The successful Simon, son of Boethus, who married a daughter, Mariam, to Herod, succ eeded in founding the richest high priestly family after the clan of Annas and at the same time a particular group among the Sadducees, the Boethusians, who were evidently close to the Herodian rulers (Hengel, The Hellenization of Judaea in the First Century after Christ , p. 14). The high priests who returned to Jerusalem from Alexandria were Greek- speaking. The city of Alexandria, named fo r Alexander the Great, was renowned as a center of Greek culture and learning. It was the Jews of Alexandria who in earlier times had translated the Hebrew text into Greek for the Septuagint. When the families of the high priests returned to Jerusalem, they c ontinued to speak Greek. As Hengel wrote, these influential upper-cla ss families were not the only Greek-speaking Jews in Jerusalem: Be this as it may, we can assume th at Greek was spoken among the families of these aristocrats who had returned. It will also be the case that Greek was no less established among the leading families of Jerusalem than in the scriptoria and the bazaars of the city or at the tables of the money changers in the temple forecourt (Ibid., p. 14, emphasis added). . In New Testament times, Greek was spoke n not only by the elite of Jerusalem but also by those who copied manuscripts in the scriptoria, by the middle-class businessmen who ran the bazaars, and by the bankers who served as money changers in the temple. The monetary exchange that was centered at the temple and all business transactions in Jerusalem required the speaking of Greek. This was the language of business and commerce in every province of the Roman Empire, including Palestine. , Greek Was Spoken in Galilee in New Testament Times While Jerusalem was the commercial, cultural and banking center of Palestine, the region of Galilee did not fall far behind. Galilee was perfectly positioned at the crossroads of trade entering and exiting Palestine. The entire region was bustling with 3 commerce, and the language of that trade and commerce was Greek. Hengel relates that by the time of Christ, the cities of Sepphoris and Tiberias in Galilee had Greek schools of renown. As carpenters, Joseph and Jesus might have worked in Sepphoris, which was only four or five miles from Jesus home. The Greek- speaking city of Tiberias, center of a thriving fishing industry, was near their home. These two cities of Galilee were both prominent in the Palestine of Jesus day. As centers of commerce and trade, they depended on merchants and tradesmen who could speak fluent Greek. Their schools ranked among the best. As Hengel related, the training received in these schools of Galilee was on a par with the great institutions of higher learning in Antioch and Alexandria: Wacholder believes that the rhetorical training which Justus received in the Tiberias of Herod Antipas and Agrippa II was on a par with the ˜cosmopolitan Greek of Antioch or Alexandria, whereas Jerusalem could not offer Josephus educational possibilities of the same high quality (Ibid., p. 24). The historian Josephus, who belonged to one of the leading priestly families of Jerusalem, spoke Greek; but his Greek was far from the quality of the Greek spoken and written by Justus, who had studied Greek at Tiberias. As the following quote relates, the linguistic and rhetorical education of Justus of Tiberias was far superior to that of Josephus of Jerusalem: Therefore Josephus stresses at the end of his Antiquities that his Jewish education was more perfect than his Greek, and that he still found difficulties in speaking impeccable Greek ( Antt . 20.262-4)….Presumably he also refers to this deficiency because his rival and opponent Justus of Tiberias had had a better linguistic and rhetorical education….The patriarch Photius of Constantinople (c . 820-886) still praised the stylistic precision and evocative character of Justus history of the Jewish kings, which extended from Moses to the death of Agrippa II , the last Jewish king (Ibid., p. 24). . Like Josephus, all members of the priestly families were trained in both Hebrew and Greek. Hebrew continued to be spoken by the priests in the temple and the Scribes in the synagogues for religious events and discussions only. When at home with their families or conducting business in the market, they spoke Greek. The common people, who had long before lost their knowledge of Hebrew, spoke Aramaic in general, but those who dealt in commerce and trade also spoke Greek. According to Hengel, Judaea, Samaria and Galilee were bilingual (or better, trilingual) areas. While Aramaic was the vernacular of ordinary people, and Hebrew the … language of religious worship and of scribal discussion, Greek had largely be come established as the linguistic medium for trade, commerce and administration (Ibid., p. 8). . Historical inscriptions attest to the fact that Galilee in the early Christian era was a bilingual society. Hengel states: In economic terms Galilee was to a large extent dependent on the completely Hellenized Phoenician cities, especially Acco/Ptolemais and Tyre. The great cemetery in Beth-shearim between Nazareth and Haifa, which comes from between the second and fourth centuries CE, contains predominantly Greek inscriptions. Some of those buried there come from the Phoenician metropolises. After the death of R. Jehuda han-Nasi (after 200 ) the tombs of Beth-shearim took on a more than regional significance, like the Holy City before 70 CE. The marked increase in Greek inscriptions compared to those in Hebrew and Aramaic (218 to 28) is bound up with the further development of the process of Hellenization in the second to the fourth centuries CE … (Ibid., pp. 15-16) . Hengel points out the significance of these inscriptions, which supports the earlier findings of Schlatter and contradicts the opinion of the History of Religions school: In the meantime we also have two bilingual inscriptions from Judaea and Galilee, quite apart from the large number of testimonies to use of the Greek language. Almost ninety years ago Schlatter had a completely correct view of the linguistic situation, a clearer one 4 than the representatives of the History of Religions school. The constant discovery of new inscriptions conf irms this picture of a fundamentally multilingual society. Schlatter already drew atte ntion to this situation in his famous study on ˜The Language and Homeland of the Fourth Evangelist (which is in no way taken seriously enough): ˜Here too the inscriptions are the decisive authority for assessing the linguistic question (of a bilingual situation, M.H.) (Ibid., p. 9). . Evidence That Greek Was Spoken by Jesus and the Apostles In addition to the above evidence, the scholar Samuel G. Green wrote concerning the language spoken by Jesus and the apostles: It was in the Greek of the Septuagint thus modified that, in all probability, our Lord and His apostles generally spoke. The dialect of Galilee (Matt. xxvi. 73) was not a corrupt Hebrew, but a provincial Greek (Green, Handbook to the Grammar of the Greek Testament , p. 156). The Gospel accounts verify that Jesus and His disciples, who were Galileans, spoke the Greek dialect of Galilee and not a corrupted Hebrew; hence Jesus words to the scribes and Pharisees at the temple: Therefore, Jesus said to them, ˜If God were your Father, you would love Me, because I proceeded forth and came from God. For I have not come of Myself, but He sent Me. Why don’t you understand My speech ? Because you cannot bear to hear My words (John 8:42-43, emphasis added). In recording Jesus words, John shows that the scribes and Pharisees had difficulty understanding His Galilean dialect. . The Pharisees had a problem with the Greek dialect of Jesus and His apostles throughout their ministries. As further evidence of this, Matthew comments that it was Peters Galilean Greek that gave him away during Jesus trial: Now Peter was sitting outside in the court; and a maid came to him, saying, ˜You also were with Jesus the Galilean. But he denied it before everyone, saying, ˜I dont know what you are talking about. And after he went out into the porch, another maid saw him and said to those there, ˜This man was also with Jesus the Nazarean. Then again he denied it with an oath, saying , ˜I do not know the man. After a little while , those who were standing by came to Peter and said, ˜Truly, you also are one of them, for even your speech shows that you are (Matt. 26:69-73, emphasis added). As the Greek in Peters epistles testifies, he was speaking and writing a better Greek than those at Jerusalem. The Greek they spoke would be the Greek that would carry the gospel message to the world and would be recorded for all time in the New Testament. The very names of Jesus apostles are Greek: Among the twelve disciples of Jesus, two, Andrew and Philip, bear purely Gr eek names, and in the case of two others the original Greek name has been Aramaized. Thaddaeus ( tadda’j ) is probably a short form of Theodotus (or somethi ng similar), and Bartholomew ( Bartholomaios = bar- talmaj ) derives from (bar) Ptolemaios. The blind beggar Bartimaeus (Bar-Timaios) in Jericho, who becomes a follower of Jesus, can also be mentioned in this connection (Hengel, The ˜Hellenization of Judaea in the First Century after Christ , p. 16). Even the areas that Jesus disciples came from bear witness to their speaking Greek: The information that Simon Peter, Andrew and Philip came from Bethsaida (John 1.44) could perhaps have hi storical value, since Her ods son Philip refounded this place soon after his accession as the polis Julias (before 2 BCE) in honour of Augustus daughter Julia, and it was ther efore more markedly ˜Hellenized than the surrounding villages…. . At all events, Simon Peter must have been bilingual, since otherwise he could not have engaged so successfully in missionary work outside Judaea… As we find in historical records and in Scripture, those who responded to the preaching of the gospel were primarily Greek-speaking people. It is logical, therefore, to conclude that Jesus also spoke to them in Greek. Scripture attests to the fact that many early converts were Greek speaking: There are many references to what were in all probability bilingual members of the [early Christian] community from the upper and middle classes: mention should be made of Johanna, the wife of Chuza, of Herod Antipas, i.e., his steward; the tax farmers, like Zacchaeus in Jericho; then men like Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathaea. The mysterious Manaen (Menachem) in Antioch, whose mother is perhaps mentioned by Papias, the boyhood friend of Herod Antipas, Mary and her son John Mark, the relations of Barnabas, Silas-Silvanus, Barsabbas Justus, who similarly emerges again in Papias, the prophet Agabus and others may similarly belong to this milieu. Their circle is enlarged by Disapora Jews resident in Jerusalem like Barnabas from Cyprus and Simon of Cyrene with his sons Alexander and Rufus. Simons sons and his mother were perhaps known later in the Christian community in Rome, and Jason of Cyprus, Paul’s host (Act s 21:16), whose mother tongue was already Greek, even if they still understood Aramaic or had relearned it (Ibid., pp. 17-18). 5 with Cornelius (Ibid., p. 16). . The Followers of Jesus as we find in historical records and in Scripture, those who responded to the preaching of the gospel were primarily Greek-speaking people. It is logical, therefore, to conclude that Jesus also spoke to them in Greek. Scripture attests to the fact that many early converts were Greek speaking: . Early Christians in Jerusalem Spoke Greek. Luke records that some of the earliest members of the church at Jerusalem were Greek-speaking Jews. Hengels statement concerning the rapid growth of Christianity in this community follows: What was decisive for the subsequent course of primitive Christianity, however, was the amazingly rapid and intensive effect of the new message on the Greek-speaking Hellenists in Jerusalem….Here we have that social stratum in Jerusalem the significance of which … has so far been neglected. The circle of Christians who came from it cannot have been all that small, otherwise their missionary activity in Jerusalem would not have provoked so much of a stir and caused such offense (Hengel, The ˜Hellenization of Judaea in the First Century after Christ , pp. 43-44). In the book of Acts, Luke gives us insight into this early community of Greek- speaking Jews from which the first evangelists were chosen and from which the gospel spread to all Judea. Luke wrote: Now in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplied, there arose a complaint by the Greeks [ KJV ˜Grecians refers to Greek- speaking Jews] against the Hebrews [Jews whose native tongue was Aramaic], because their widows were neglected in the daily ministration. And after calling the multitude of disciples to them , the twelve said, ˜It is not proper for us to leave the Word of God in order to wait on tables. Therefore, brethren, search out from among yourselves seven men of good repute, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business; but we will give ourselves continually to prayer and the ministry of the Word. And this declaration was pleasing to all the multitude; and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit; and Philip; and Prochorus; and Nicanor; and Timon; and Parmenas; and Nicolas, who was a proselyte of Antioch. And they set them before the apostles; and after praying, they laid their hands on them. And the Word of God spread, and the number of the disciples in Jerusalem was multiplied exceedingly, and a great multitude of the priests were obedient to the faith (Acts 6:1-7). All seven of those chosen in Lukes account bear Greek names. These Hellenized Jews spoke Greek as their native language as attested to by Hengel, who gives us 6 linguistic evidence: In contrast to the use of ˜Hellenizing and ˜Hellenism stamped by culture and intellectual history which is customary among theologians, and which ultimately goes back to Droysen, in antiquity the verb and the rare noun– referred almost exclusively to language . Only rarely did these words have a comprehensive meaning relating to culture and civilization”with one significant exception to which we shall have to return”and there is evidence of this only in the post- Christian period. In Christian literature fro m the third-fourth century CE the term and the other terms associated with it then generally came to mean ˜pagan. Before that, both terms primarily and in the first instance denoted an impeccable command of the Greek language. This also gives us a fairly clear criterion for distinction in this investigation : ˜Hellenistic Jews and Jewish Christians are (in the real, original meaning of the word) those w hose mother tongue was Greek, in contrast to the Jews in Palestine and in the Babylonian Diaspora who originally spoke Aramaic. It is in this way, in terms of mother tongue, that Luke understands the distinction between´ and … in Acts 6.1 (cf. 9.29). The mother- (or main) language of the´ is Greek and that of the …Aramaic. However, we meet these two groups in Jerusalem itself, in the Jewish metropolis of the Holy Land”and that goes against the usual dividing line. It is too easily forgotten that in the time of Jesus, Greek had already been established as a language for more than three hundred years and already had a long and varied history behind it. . As early as the third century [BC] in different parts of Palestine, we have a whole series of testimonies to Greek as a language, and they are slowly but steadily continuing to in crease in number. The Greek language had already long been accepted not only in the former Philistine or Phoenician areas on the coast and (in the third century BCE) in the ˜G raeco-Macedonian cities in the interior, but also (though not so intensively) in areas settled by Jews and Sa maritans (Hengel, The ˜Hellenization of Judaea in the First Century after Christ , pp. 7-8). Hengel believes that because Greek wa s spoken almost exclusively among this group of Hellenist Jews in Jerusalem, Jesus and Hi s apostles must have evangelized them in Greek: During the lifetime of Jesus, the message of Jesus also reached Diaspora Jews in Jerusalem who almost only spoke Greek or spoke it exclusively ; it was from among them that that group of Hellenists was recruited which separated because of its worship in Greek and as a special group in the community became significant in Jerusalem with such amazing rapidity. John 12.20f. could be a later reflection of this transition. Perhaps John 4.38 is a reference to their mission in Samaria (Acts 8.4ff.). outside Palestine in Antioch or elsewhere. In other words, the roots of the ˜Jewish- Christian/Hellenistic or more precisely Greek-speaking Jewish Christian community in which the message of Jesus was formulated in Greek for the first time clearly extend back to the very earliest community in Jerusalem , and accordingly the first linguistic development of its kerygma [p reaching of the gospel] and its Christology [the study of Christ] must have already take n place there (Ibid., p. 18, emphasis added). 7 certainly and Ashdod probably they outnumbered the Hellenized Gentile population. Philip, who came from the group around Stephen, may have preached primarily in Greek in the coastal plain and particularly in Caesarea. That Greek was the principal language in these cities is again confirmed by Jewish epitaphs and synagogue inscriptions (Ibid., p. 14). It is evident that Paul, whom God select ed to preach to the Gentiles, also spoke Greek. Luke recorded that shortly after Saul’s conversion, he became involved in a dispute with the Greek-speaking Jews of Jerusalem (Acts 9:26-31). In his epistle to the Philippians, Paul described himself as a Hebrew of Hebrews (Phil. 3:5). Paul had been trained at the feet of Gamaliel, the leading rabbi of that period in Jewish history, and Paul was fully capable of speaking Hebrew to the Pharisaic Jews of Jerusalem (Acts 21:40). However, Paul did not customarily speak Hebrew. He was equally knowledgeable in the Greek language, as the same passage in the book of Acts shows (Acts 21:37-39). Paul could not have preached throughout Asia without this ability to speak Greek. Thus the records of the New Testament demonstrate that the preaching of the gospel was carried out almost exclusively in Greek. . The Gospel Was Recorded in Greek .The books of the New Testament were written between 26 and 96 AD, a period of almost seventy years. As internal evidence reveals, Jesus disciples recorded His message and began to circulate these writings throughout Palestine and the Empire at a very early date. These documents were later collected into the Gospel accounts” Matthews account may have appeared as early as 35 AD; Mark wrote his account shortly after, in 42 AD, and Luke wrote his account around 59 AD. The Gospel of John also was written about 42 AD. In 50 AD Paul wrote the first of his epistle s that would appear in Scripture. The rest of Paul’s epistles were written between 51 and 67 AD. The epistle of James was written around 40-41 AD. The epistles of Pe ter were written between 63 and 66 AD. Jude was written sometime around 67 AD. The letters of I, II and III John were written about 63-64 AD. The book of Hebrews was written from Rome about 61 AD. Thus the basic canon of the New Testament was completed by the time the Jewish Wars began” that is, about 66 AD. The book of Revelation, the final book of the New Testament, was written by the aged apostle John about 95-96 AD. The early New Testament text was copied and preserved by the brethren in Asia Minor. It was this text that was generally adopted by Christians in the 4th century as the text of the New Testament. From that time forward, it has been known as the Byzantine text. The Byzantine text, of which the King James Version is a translation, is the most authoritative Greek text of the New Testament. Its role as the leading Greek text dates back to the beginning of the Byzantine period, for which the text is named: The Byzantine text is found in the vast majority of the Greek New Testament manuscripts. It is called Byzantine because it was the Greek New Testament text in general use throughout the greater part of the Byzantine Period (312-1453). . For many centuries before the Protestant Reformation this Byzantine text was the text of the entire Greek Church, and for more than three centuries after the Reformation it was the text of the entire Protestant Church. Even today it is the text which most Protestants know best, since the King James Version and other early Protestant translations were made from it (Hills, The King James Version Defended , p. 40). As Hills explains, the authenticity of the Byzantine text is supported by a history dating back to the apostolic era: This general trend in the Greek Church toward the Byzantine (true) text first evidenced itself in Antioch and Asia Minor.. . Some claim that the New Testament was originally written in Hebrew and then translated into Greek. However, the record s of early church history do not support this assertion. Tatian, Papias , Tertullian and Irenaeus, to name but a few writers of the early church, describe the original writings a nd quote from them. Yet not a single quote is taken from a Hebrew text”all ar e taken from Greek texts. Although Papias asserts that Matthew compiled his early reports in Hebrew, no evidence is given. Early translations of the New Testament are all based on Greek texts. The Harmony of Tatian , translated in 170 AD, is based on a Greek original, as is The Muratorian Canon . The Old Latin version translated in 180 AD is based on a Greek original. Early Gothic, Egyptian, Ethiopian, Armenian and Palestinian versions are all based on Greek originals. Even the Aramaic versions of the New Testament are translations from the Greek (see The Books and the Parchments , by F. F. Bruce, p. 189). . No evidence of a Hebrew original has been found in all the centuries that have followed the writing of the New Testament. . Matthews and Lukes use of terms known to the Greek-speaking community of Jesus day contradicts the claim that their Gospels were not written until later generations and verifies that they wrote in Greek to an audience that understood Greek. From the beginning of Mathews Gospel, it is evident that he was not writing to a Hebrew- speaking people. The following passage from Matthew illustrates this: And the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: Now His moth er Mary had been betrothed to Joseph; but before they came together, she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit. And Joseph her husband, being a righteous man , and not willing to expose her publicly, was planning to divorce her secretly. But as he pondered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, ˜Joseph, so n of David, do not be afraid to take Mary to be your wife, because that which ha s been begotten in her is of the Holy Spirit. And she shall give birth to a son, and you shall call His name Jesus; for He shall save His people from their sins. Now all this came to pass, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, ˜Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall give birth to a son, and they sh all call His name Emmanuel; which is, being interpreted, ˜God with us (Matt. 1:18-23). The name Emmanuel is a transliteration of the Greek which is a transliteration of the Hebrew . The fact that Matthew had to interpret the meaning of this Hebrew name illustrates that he was writing in Greek to a Greek- speaking audience. Further evidence that Matthew wrote in Greek to a people who spoke Greek, and not in Hebrew, is furnished by two grammatical structures unique to the Greek: the articular infinitive and the genitive absolute. Neither of these grammatical structures has a comparable structure in Hebrew. Matthews use of the articular infinitive offers absolute evidence that his Gospel was written in Greek. In English, the word to is always used with the infinitive form of the verb, as in to be, to come, and to speak. The Greek infinitive is similar to the English infinitive unless it is preceded by the de finite article the. When the definite article the is used, the infinitive is known as an articular infinitive . In New Testament Greek, when the articular infinitive is combined with a preposition, it limits the infinitive to a specific time period. Dana and Mantey stated the following: Nothing distinguishes the noun force of the infinitive more than its use with the [definite] article…. This item is one of the proofs of the general good quality of New Testament Greek ( A Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament , p. 211). . Within the text of Acts 6:1-7, it is quite evident that Greek was the mother tongue of the original evangelists who spread the gospel far and wide. As Hengel pointed out, their names support this conclusion. The cities in which these men evangelized were Greek-speaking communities. Hengel wrote, Mention should of course be made here of the ˜Seven as the spokesmen of the Hellenist community (Acts 6.5), who all have Greek names, and naturally”above all others as far as his effect on the Christian church and world history is concerned”of Sha’ul/Paul, who studied the Torah in Jerusalem and persecuted the community of Christian ˜Hellenists (Hengel, The ˜Hellenization of Judaea in the First Century after Christ , p. 18). Furthermore, shortly after Saul’s conversion, he became involved in a dispute with the Grecians of Jerusalem (Acts 9:26-31). The word Grecians in this passage does not refer to Gentile Greeks but to Greek-speaking Jews. Here is Scriptural evidence that Paul used the Greek language, not Hebrew. There is no question that Paul spoke Greek, and all of his epistles were written in Greek. Hebrew was not the language of Palestine during the days of Jesus ministry; neither was it the language of the apostles. Therefore, it can be concluded that Jesus and all of the apostles spoke Greek, and the entire New Testament was originally written in Koine Greek. God inspired men to preserve the New Testament in Koine Greek. This text, as noted earlier in this chapter, is commonly known today as the Byzantine Text. http://www.cbcg.org/franklin/SA/SA_NT_Originally_Written_in_Greek.pdf . Several sects, Messianc Jews and and even fundamentalist churches falsely claim that Jesus Christ and the apostles only spoke Hebrew, and that the original monographs of the New Testament were all written in Hebrew, and later translated into Greek. They firstly consider Greek to be a pagan language. and secondly if that was so it is clearly an insult to the Jews. They maintain and teach , that ancient Judea was a “backwater” area of the Roman Empire, and the people were ignorant as a whole of the Greek language, although it is admitted that Greek was the “lingua franca” and “language of commerce” throughout the Roman Empire. But however, new archaeological discoveries have undermined the false speculations of the falsehood scholars and brought into clear light the fact that Greek was well known among the Jews, especially the priesthood, leadership class, and the merchant class. In particular, Greek was well understood in “Galilee of the Gentiles,” the region where Jesus Christ of Nazareth was raised, and grew up as a young lad. There is no doubt, therefore, that Jesus and the original apostles all spoke Greek – Jerusalem Jews or Jewish Christians who habitually spoke only Greek commonly. “All four Gospels depict Jesus conversing with Pontius Pilate, the Roman prefect of Judea, at the time of his trial (Mark 15;2-5; Matthew 27:11-14; Luke 23:3; John 18:33- 38). Even if we allow for obvious literary embellishment of these accounts, there can be little doubt that Jesus and Pilate did engage in some kind of conversation . . . In what language did Jesus and Pilate converse? There is no mention of an interpreter. Since there is little likelihood that Pilate, a Roman, would have been able to speak either Aramaic or Hebrew, the obvious answer is that JESUS SPOKE GREEK at his trial before Pilate” Similarly, when Jesus conversed with the Roman centurion, a commander of a troop of Roman soldiers, the centurion most likely did not speak Aramaic or Hebrew. It is most likely that Jesus conversed with him in Greek, the common language of the time throughout the Roman empire (see Matt.8:5-13; Luke 7:2-10; John 4:46-53). A royal official of Rome, in the service of Herod Antipas, a Gentile, would most likely spoken with Jesus in Greek. In John 12, where we are told: “And there were certain Greeks among them that came up to worship at the feast: The same came therefore to Philip, which was of Bethsaida of Galilee, and desired him, saying, Sir, we would see Jesus” (John 12:20-21). These men were Greeks, and most likely spoke Greek, which Philip evidently understood, having grown up in the region of “Galilee of the Gentiles” (Matt.4:15) — a place of commerce and international trade, where Greek would have been the normal language of business. , Jesus, the ‘carpenter’ (tekon, Mark 6:3), like Joseph, his foster- father (Matthew 13:55), would have had to deal with them in GREEK. . Most of the Jewish Funerary Inscriptions in the “Galilee of the Gentiles,” were GREEK , no less than 1,600 Jewish epitaphs — funerary inscriptions — are extant from ancient Palestine dating from 300 B.C. to 500 A.D. “One of the most surprising facts about these funerary inscriptions is that most of them are IN GREEK — approximately 70 percent; about 12 percent are in Latin; and only 18 percent are in Hebrew or Aramaic.” “The Jewish people, because of their widespread dispersion in the Empire, for business and commercial purposes, mainly, spoke Greek rather fluently — and this knowledge and usage of Greek was also common throughout Judea, as this new “funerary inscription” evidence attests! This really should not be surprising at all. The Greek influence in Judea had grown very significantly since the days of Alexander the Great, circa 330 B.C. By the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, circa 168-165 B.C., Hellenism had become very strong, and many of the high priests had become “Hellenists,” leading to the Maccabean revolt. In successive generations, the Greek influence never abated, particularly among the business, commercial and priestly crowd. Many of the priests, being Sadducees, were greatly influenced by Greek culture and contact.” “The great rabbi Judah ha-Nasi, the compiler of the Mishnah (a collection of Jewish oral law) in about 200 C.E., was buried in Beth She-arim; the majority of pious Jews who wanted to be buried with him at Beth She-arim had their funerary inscriptions written in Greek.” . “Greek, of course, was in widespread use in the Roman empire at this time. Even the Romans spoke Greek, as inscriptions in Rome and elsewhere attest. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that THAT GREEK WAS ALSO IN COMMON USE AMONG THE JEWS OF PALESTINE. The Hellenization of Palestine began even before the fourth-century B.C. conquest by Alexander the Great. Hellenistic culture among the Jews of Palestine spread more quickly after Alexander’s conquest, especially when the country was ruled by the Seleucid monarch Antiochus IV Epiphanes (second century B.C.), and later under certain Jewish Hasmonean and Herodian kings” .
See also
https://witnessed.wordpress.com/
https://wittnessed.wordpress.com/2013/09/27/to-be-spiritual-must-i-know-greek-or-hebrew/
https://comeholyspirit.wordpress.com/2014/10/15/they-say-the-love-jesus/
http://kambulow.blogspot.ca/2013/06/what-do-you-know-about-holy-spirit.html
http://kambulow.blogspot.ca/2013/09/the-big-difference-between-christinaity.html
http://kambulow.blogspot.ca/2013/07/what-is-wrong-with-doing-it-my-way.html
https://comeholyspirit.wordpress.com/2014/11/21/the-new-testament-gospel-of-the-grace-of-christ-god/
Now about the Falsely “Torah-observant” -Jewish and Gentile Messianic Judaism
.
The Dangers of the Hebrew Roots Messianic Movement
https://anyonecare.wordpress.com/2012/08/04/the-dangers-of-the-hebrew-roots-messianic-movement/
.
MANY JEWS, EVEN MESSIANIC JEWS LIE ABOUT CHRISTIANITY
http://jesussayscome.wordpress.com/2014/11/18/many-jews-even-messianic-jews-lie-about-christianity/
JW are not the sheep belonging to Jesus, Nor Mormons
https://anyonecare.wordpress.com/2013/12/28/jw-are-not-the-sheep-belonging-to-jesus/
1st Wittness 
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