2' Bible

1
2. Bible Book in the Ancient World

• BIB586 Biblical Introduction

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1.0.0 Introduction

• "In the beginning was the world and the word was
  with God. Then human beings took it over. In many
  languages they produced a flood of words. And the
  world was filled with clay tablets, scrolls,
  books, bookcases and libraries." Ellen van
  Wolde, Words become Worlds Semantic Studies of
  Genesis 1-11, ix

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1.0.1 Why Study Bib. Lang.

• 1. If you believe in the inspiration of
  scripture, then you value the words.
• 2. Translations are good, but no translation is
  able to convey the subtleties of language.
• 3. Poetry and all figures of speech rely heavily
  upon the sounds and meanings of the original
  language.
• 4. Literary devices and rhetorical structures
  cannot be accurately interpreted from a
  translation.

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1.0.1 Why Study Bib. Lang.

• 5. Use of commentaries that make reference to
  Greek and Hebrew.
• 6. Other Resources written in Hebrew and Greek
  Lexicons, word studies, theological works,
  grammars, concordances, journal articles.
• 7. Ability to critique the opinions of others. If
  you do not learn Hebrew and Greek, you will
  forever be dependent upon the thoughts and ideas
  of someone else.

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1.0.1 Why Study Bib. Lang.

• 8. Enables original research. You can research
  questions with a concordance, lexicon, and/or
  computer Bible program. Some of your questions
  may not be answered in the standard reference
  works. Furthermore, all reseachers have motives
  that may not lead allow them to follow the same
  pathway that you may wish to investigate.
• 9. Enhances sermon and lesson preparation. Ideas
  will come to you from the original languages that
  would otherwise be unavailable.

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1.0.1 Why Study Bib. Lang.

• 10. Side benefit Understanding of language in
  general. Enhances communication skill.
• Lee Martin, "History of the Hebrew Language,"
  http//earth.vol.com/lmartin/INTRODUC.HTM,
  03-03-2002

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1.0.1 Why Study Bib. Lang.

• Old Testament Studies
• Hebrew
• Aramaic (also Syriac)
• Greek
• Akkadian
• Ugaritic
• Latin

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1.0.1 Why Study Bib. Lang.

• New Testament Studies
• Greek
• Hebrew
• Aramaic (also Syriac)
• Latin
• Coptic

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1.1 Hebrew Introduction

• "Most of the Old Testament was originally written
  in Hebrew. The small residue was written in a
  dialect of Aramaic known as biblical Aramaic, and
  comprises three main pieces (Dan. 24b-728 Ezra
  48-618 712-26), an odd verse in the middle of
  Jeremiah (1011, presumably an early gloss), and
  two words in Genesis (3147 "Heap of Witness,"
  title name given by Laban to the Mizpah stone
  which Jacob's clansmen set up in Gilead). The
  fact that the central portion of the book of
  Daniel is written in this dialect led ancient
  scholars to call it Chaldee, under the impression
  that this was the tongue spoken by the Jewish
  exiles in Chaldea (Babylonia)." Snaith, "The
  Language of the Old Testament," Interpreter's
  Bible, CD-Rom Edition

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1.1 Hebrew Name

• "In the Old Testament the language of the Hebrews
  is described as the "language of Canaan" (Isaiah
  1918), or the "language of Judah" (Nehemiah
  1324 Isaiah 3611). The first occurrence of the
  designation "Hebrew" is in the prologue to Ben
  Sira, written approximately 130 B.C. The New
  Testament writers and Josephus used the
  designation "Hebrew" to refer both to Hebrew and
  to the locally spoken Aramaic." Martin

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1.1 Hebrew Name

• "In the literature of later antiquity, the
  language is usually called "the holy tongue,"
  with reference to the biblical corpus, and the
  "tongue of the sages," when referring to the
  language of the oral tradition - that is called
  rabbinic or mishnaic or tannaitic Hebrew. It is
  here that we come across the first explicit
  reference to divergent literary styles."
  Schramm, "Hebrew Structural Overview," Anchor
  Bible Dictionary, CD-Rom Edition

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1.1 Hebrew Name

• "Curiously enough, the term "Hebrew" as the
  in-group common reference to its language is a
  borrowing from Arabic, first introduced by Saadia
  Gaon (882-942 c.e.) in his grammatical writings
  (Skoss 1955). The new designation entered the
  Hebrew language only when Jews began to write
  their grammatical studies in their own language a
  few centuries later." Schramm, "Hebrew
  Structural Overview," Anchor Bible Dictionary,
  CD-Rom Edition

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1.1 Hebrew Name

• "Other than as the language of ancient Phoenician
  colonialism, Canaanite never assumed a major role
  in the ancient world. Rome defeated its archrival
  Carthage in the west, and in the Levant Aramaic,
  originally used east of the Phoenician hill
  country, gradually spread its domain. As the
  language of the Jews, Hebrew was the mother
  tongue of only Jerusalem and its environs at the
  beginning of the Common Era. In the northern
  domains of the expanded Hasmonean Kingdom of
  Judea a form of Aramaic was spoken, simply
  because the local population

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1.1 Hebrew Name

• carried on the speech habits of their ancestors
  who were converted to Judaism during the reign of
  John Hyrcanus I. The Idumeans to the south, who
  had been converted at about the same time,
  continued to speak their ancestral Canaanite
  tongue." Schramm, "Hebrew Structural Overview,"
  Anchor Bible Dictionary, CD-Rom Edition

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1.1 Hebrew Name

• "Hebrew probably ceased to be a living language
  (in the sense of a community mother tongue)
  around the year 200 c.e. as the result of the Bar
  Kokhba disaster, when the population of Judea was
  decimated and the survivors fled northward to the
  Galilee."
• ". . . Aramaic which they spoke as a family
  language was symbiotically linked to the Hebrew
  they continued to use for more formal purposes."
  Schramm, "Hebrew Structural Overview," Anchor
  Bible Dictionary, CD-Rom Edition

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1.1 Hebrew History

• Biblical Hebrew (BH)
• Early Biblical Hebrew (EBH)
• Late Biblical Hebrew (LBH)
• Rabbinical Hebrew, or Mishnaic Hebrew (RH)
• Medieval Hebrew, also called Rabbinic, the Hebrew
  of the Middle Ages (MH)
• Modern or Israeli Hebrew (IH)

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1.1 Hebrew Origins

• "The family of languages to which Hebrew belongs
  is grouped by linguists in a phylum called
  Afroasiatic. The geographical range of
  Afroasiatic covers northern and central Africa
  and western Asia. In time, Afroasiatic languages
  are attested from the 3d millennium b.c.e.
  (although some languages of the phylum must have
  existed for at least a millennium before this)
  until the present." Schmitz, "Language-Hebrew
  Early History of Hebrew," ABD, CD-Rom Edition

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1.1 Hebrew Origins

• "The Afroasiatic phylum has five or six members
  Egyptian (later called Coptic, now extinct) and
  Berber in N Africa, the Chadic family (whose
  best-known member is Hausa) in sub-Saharan
  Africa, the Cushitic-Omotic family in the Horn of
  Africa, and the Semitic family, which includes
  Arabic and Hebrew. " Schmitz, "Language-Hebrew
  Early History of Hebrew," ABD, CD-Rom Edition

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1.1 Hebrew Origins

• "Hebrew belongs to the family of Afroasiatic
  languages commonly referred to as Semitic
  languages. The major division of this family is
  between East Semitic and West Semitic. East
  Semitic incorporates the group of dialects called
  Akkadian West Semitic includes the Northwest
  Semitic languages, Arabic, and South Semitic. . .
  . " Schmitz, "Language-Hebrew Early History of
  Hebrew," ABD, CD-Rom Edition

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1.1 Hebrew Origins

• "The Northwest Semitic languages comprise the
  Canaanite group and Aramaic. Evidence for early
  Northwest Semitic begins in the 3d millennium (if
  one admits some of the features of the language
  of Ebla) and continues to the end of the LB II
  period (around 1200 b.c.e.). Some of the
  distinctive features of Canaanite can be observed
  in these early Northwest Semitic samples, but the
  distinction between Canaanite and Aramaic remains
  difficult to impose until the Iron II period. A
  recent survey concludes that the Iron Age
  languages

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1.1 Hebrew Origins

• of Syria-Palestine are best viewed as a
  continuum having Phoenician as one of its poles
  and Aramaic as the other. Hebrew is probably to
  be located near the center of this cline "
  Schmitz, "Language-Hebrew Early History of
  Hebrew," ABD, CD-Rom Edition

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1.1 Hebrew Origins

• "The Canaanite languages include Phoenician
  (which distinguishes the minority dialect of
  Byblos from the more widespread dialect of Tyre
  and Sidon), Hebrew (which distinguishes a
  northern dialect, probably centered in Samaria,
  from a southern, the dialect of Jerusalem and
  Judah), Ammonite, Moabite, and Edomite. The
  language of the Deir gtAlla texts should perhaps
  also be included." " Schmitz, "Language-Hebrew
  Early History of Hebrew," ABD, CD-Rom Edition

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1.1 Hebrew Linguistic Affinities

• Hebrew Greek Affinities?
• Hamito-Semitic Affinities?
• Proto Semitic or Common Semitic
• Akkadian
• Ugaritic
• Moabite
• Ammonite
• Edomite
• Phoenician
• Deir gtAlla

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1.1 Hebrew Proto-Semitic

• "Bauer and Leander, writing in 1922, assumed that
  Hebrew was a fusion of an indigenous Canaanite
  language and newer West Semitic elements brought
  in by invaders and they were followed by
  Birkeland in 1940 and Driver. R. Meyer holds that
  the qat9al and yaqt9ulu systems have different
  origins and represent a mixing of different of
  different dialects which took place before the
  entry into Canaan. . . . A. Bendavid accounts for
  Aramaisms in biblical writing as a stylistic
  device used by the authors for variation. Sekine,
  however, assumes that there were two migrations,
  Amorite and Aramean, both of which influenced
  developments in Hebrew."

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1.1 Hebrew Proto-Semitic

• Qal passive
• the prefixes b and l with the sense 'from'
• the cohortative and jussive modes
• -t as the indicator of the 3f.s., -a4h as the
  adverbial marker, and the pronoun )a4no4k 'I'.
• Later innovations are the assimilation of /g8/
  and /)/, /h/ and /h9/
• the tendency to assimilate /n/

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1.1 Hebrew Proto-Semitic

• the partial reduction of diphthongs
• the change from 3f.s. t to a4h
• the nota accusativi )e4t, which follows upon the
  loss of case endings
• later, the spirantization of /bgdkpt/

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1.1 Hebrew Proto-Semitic

• "The Proto-Semitic phonological repertoire may be
  reconstructed as having contained three vowels,
  a, i, u, which could occur short or long (a4, 4,
  u4), and 29 consonants (all still distinguished
  in Old South Arabian). . . ."
• "Semitic morphology is strongly characterized,
  especially in its verbal forms, by what are
  termed discontinuous morphemes, which usually
  consist of three consonants . . . ."
• "Nouns in Proto-Semitic may be reconstructed as
  having three inflectional cases, each marked in
  the singular by one of the short vowels e.g.,

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1.1 Hebrew Proto-Semitic

• nominative ba(lum, 'lord,' genitive ba(lim,
  and accusative ba(lam.

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1.1 Hebrew Linguistic Overview

• Phonetics/Phonology
• Consonants
• Gutturals
• Profusion of Sibilants
• 6 letters with double pronunciations
• Emphatics
• Vowels
• matres lectionis - also called vowel letters
  (letters "vav," "yod," "he," and to a lesser
  extent "aleph")

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1.1 Hebrew Linguistic Overview

• Vowel points
• Tiberias infralinear (The marks are under the
  consonants).
• Babylonian and the Palestinian supralinear (The
  marks above the consonants).

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1.1 Hebrew Linguistic Overview

• Grammar
• General Features
• Gender Mas. Fem.
• Number Singular, Dual Plural
• These are identified in the Nominal, Verbal,
  Adjectival, and Enumeratives
• Grammatical concord is not 100

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1.1 Hebrew Linguistic Overview

• Grammar
• Nominals "Nominals are all words that may occur
  as the subject of a clause and include the
  principal subclasses of pronouns, proper nouns,
  and substantives. Personal pronouns,
  interrogatives, and demonstratives are partially
  analyzable and are defined by lists. Personal
  names, also partially analyzable, are
  characterized by gender assignment and absence of
  pluralization or dependency. Substantives are
  subdivided into nouns of variable gender and
  nouns of assigned gender."

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1.1 Hebrew Linguistic Overview

• Grammar
• Verbals "Verbals comprise those items that may
  occur as the heads of predicate phrases, include
  the existentials, adjectives and verbs per se."
• "The finite verbal system consists of two
  indicative sets, a direct command imperative
  limited to the second persons, and a parallel but
  partial indirect command, the jussive/cohortative
  system. One of the indicative paradigms is formed
  by personal prefixes and gender/number suffixes
  added to a stem the other is formed by a fused
  set of personal and gender/number suffixes
  associated with a second verb stem. The
  imperative is formed by

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1.1 Hebrew Linguistic Overview

• gender/number suffixes attached to a stem
  marginally different from the prefixed indicative
  verb, while the jussive/cohortative is formed by
  the addition of personal prefixes as well as
  gender/number suffixes. "
• "Nonfinite forms of the verb include verbal
  adverbs (the "absolute" infinitives of
  traditional grammars) and the true ("construct"
  infinitive.")"

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1.1 Hebrew Linguistic Overview

• Grammar
• Enumeratives "The enumeratives include an
  adjective for the word "one," a defective noun of
  symmetry for the word "two," substantives for the
  higher items, including "hundred," "thousand,"
  and "myriad," and true numerals for the items
  between "three" and the multiples of ten. Switch
  concord occurs as the distinctive syntactic
  feature in numerical phrases between "three" and
  "nineteen."

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1.1 Hebrew Linguistic Overview

• Grammar
• Particles "The term particle is the traditional
  designation for all residual classes that are
  neither analyzable nor derivable. This includes
  the categories of coordinating conjunctions,
  adverbials, subordinators, and relativizers. The
  conjunctions and relativizers are defined only by
  list."

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1.1 Hebrew Linguistic Overview

• Grammar
• Adverbials "Other than those adverbs that are
  derived within the verbal system, this category
  includes a short list of unanalyzable forms,
  quantifiers like "also" and "even," and temporals
  such as "then" and "now."

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1. Bible Book in the Ancient World

• 1.2 Aramaic
• 1.3 Greek
• 1.4 Trilingualism

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1.2 Aramaic Introduction

• "Aramaic is the best-attested and
  longest-attested member of the NW Semitic
  subfamily of languages (which also includes inter
  alia Hebrew, Phoenician, Ugaritic, Moabite,
  Ammonite, and Edomite). The relatively small
  proportion of the biblical text preserved in an
  Aramaic original (Dan 24-728 Ezra 48-68 and
  712-26 Jeremiah 1011 Gen 3147 two words as
  well as isolated words and phrases in Christian
  Scriptures) belies the importance of this
  language for biblical studies and for religious
  studies in general, for Aramaic was

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1.2 Aramaic Introduction

• the primary international language of literature
  and communication throughout the Near East from
  ca. 600 b.c.e. to ca. 700 c.e. and was the major
  spoken language of Palestine, Syria, and
  Mesopotamia in the formative periods of
  Christianity and rabbinic Judaism." Kaufman
• "Jesus and his disciples, according to the
  stories in the Gospels, spoke Aramaic. Parts of
  the later books of the Hebrew Bible, as well as
  portions of the Gospels and Acts, are often
  thought to be translations from Aramaic
  originals, but even if not they are undoubtedly

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1.2 Aramaic Introduction

• strongly "Aramaized" in their diction. Late
  biblical Hebrew and rabbinic Hebrew were heavily
  influenced by Aramaic in both grammar and
  vocabulary." Kaufman
• "Two of the major translation traditions of the
  Hebrew Bible - the Syriac Peshitta and the Jewish
  Targums - are in Aramaic, as are substantial
  portions of rabbinic literature, the entire
  literary corpus of Syriac Christianity, and that
  of the Mandaeans (a non-Christian gnostic sect of
  S Mesopotamia). After the Moslem conquest, Arabic
  gradually displaced Aramaic as the literary and
  colloquial language of the Near East." Kaufman

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1.2 Aramaic History

• "Aramaic is attested over a period of almost
  3,000 years, during which time there occurred
  great changes of grammar, lexical stock, and
  usage."
• The major research project in the field - the
  Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon

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1.2 Aramaic History

• 1. Old Aramaic (to 612 BCE 925-700BCE)
• "This period witnessed the rise of the Arameans
  as a major force in ANE history, the adoption of
  their language as an international language of
  diplomacy in the latter days of the Neo-Assyrian
  Empire, and the dispersal of Aramaic-speaking
  peoples from Egypt to Lower Mesopotamia as a
  result of the Assyrian policies of deportation.
  The scattered and generally brief remains of
  inscriptions on imperishable materials preserved
  from these times are enough to demonstrate that
  an international standard dialect had not yet
  been developed." Kaufman

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1.2 Aramaic History

• 1. Old Aramaic (to 612 BCE)
• "This phase is represented by inscriptions on
  stone and other materials written in the borrowed
  Phoenician alphabet . . . . The evidence for this
  phase comes not only from Northern Syria and
  Upper Mesopotamia, as was known for a long time,
  but also from Northern Palestine." Fitzmyer
• "Deir (Alla. "This important but fragmentary
  text, painted on the plaster walls of a cultic
  installation, recounts a vision of "Balaam, son
  of Beor," the Transjordanian prophet known from
  Numbers 22-24. The fact that some scholars
  classify the language of this text as a
  Canaanite, rather than an Aramaic, dialect,
  illustrates that there is no demonstrable
  dividing line (or, in linguistic terms, a bundle
  of isoglosses) separating Canaanite and Aramaic
  at this time." Kaufman

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1.2 Aramaic History

• 2. Official Aramaic (700-200 BCE)
• "During this period Aramaic spread far beyond the
  borders of its native lands over the vast
  territories of the Neo-Babylonian and even larger
  Persian empires - from Upper Egypt to Asia Minor
  and eastward to the Indian subcontinent.
  Unfortunately, only a remnant of the undoubtedly
  once vast corpus of administrative documents,
  records, and letters that held these empires
  together has been preserved, for such texts were
  written in ink on perishable materials, in sharp
  contrast to the more durable cuneiform clay
  tablets of earlier W Asiatic cultures." Kaufman

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1.2 Aramaic History

• 2. Official Aramaic (700-200 BCE)
• "The bulk of the finds, however, is from Egypt,
  where the dry climate led to the preservation of
  papyrus and leather along with the expected
  ostraca and stone inscriptions. The major
  Egyptian finds are (1) papyrus archives of the
  Jewish military garrison at Elephantine/Syene
  (including deeds of sale, marriage contracts,
  formal letters to the authorities in Jerusalem,
  and fragments of literary materials) (2) the
  correspondence of the Persian satrap of Egypt,
  Arsames (3) a packet of letters sent to family
  members residing at Syene and Luxor, discovered
  at Hermopolis and (4) Saqqarah a
  late-7th-century papyrus letter from a Philistine
  king (perhaps of Ekron) asking help of pharaoh
  against the king of Babylon and legal and
  economic records on papyri and ostraca from the
  5th and 4th centuries." Kaufman

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1.2 Aramaic History

• 2. Official Aramaic (700-200 BCE)
• "The Aramaic "official" letters in the book of
  Ezra are almost certainly composed in Imperial
  Aramaic, for both their language and their
  epistolary style are appropriate to the period."
  Kaufman
• ". . . The majority of the letters normally have
  the following schema (1) the praescriptio, (2)
  the initial greeting, either religious or
  secular, (3) secondary greetings, (4) the body of
  the letter, and (5) a concluding statement." See
  Fitzmyer, "Aramaic Epistolography," in A
  Wandering Aramean, 183-204

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1.2 Aramaic History

• 2. Official Aramaic (700-200 BCE)
• ". . . to Official Aramaic certainly belongs the
  Aramaic of Ezra, and undoubtedly also the Aramaic
  of Daniel." Fitzmyer

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1.2 Aramaic History

• 3. Middle Aramaic (200 BCE 200 CE)
• "In the Hellenistic and Roman periods, Greek
  replaced Aramaic as the administrative language
  of the Near East, while in the various
  Aramaic-speaking regions the dialects began to
  develop independently of one another. Written
  Aramaic, however, as is the case with most
  written languages, by providing a somewhat
  artificial, cross-dialectal uniformity, continued
  to serve as a vehicle of communication within and
  among the various groups. For this purpose, the
  literary standard developed in the previous
  period, Standard Literary Aramaic, was used, but
  lexical and grammatical differences based on the
  language(s) and dialect(s) of the local
  population are always evident." Kaufman

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1.2 Aramaic History

• 3. Middle Aramaic (200 BCE 200 CE)
• ". . . The emergence of "real local dialects."
  This phase belong the dialects of (a) Palestine
  and Arabia Nabatean, Qumran, Murabba)at, that of
  the inscriptions on Palestinian ossuaries and
  tombstones, of the Aramaic words preserved in the
  Greek texts of Josephus and the NT, and some of
  the texts of early Palestinian rabbinic
  literature (b) Syria and Mesopotamia those of
  Palmyra, Edessa, and Hatra, and perhaps also the
  beginnings of the early Babylonian rabbinic
  literature." Fitzmyer

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1.2 Aramaic History

• 4. Late Aramaic (200 CE 700 CE)
• "These Aramaic texts of various areas and
  dialects have further peculiarities that distance
  them even more from Official Aramaic than those
  in the Middle phase. They fall into two larger
  geographic subdivisions (a) Western the
  dialects of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic, Samaritan
  Aramaic, and Christian Syro-Palestinian Aramaic
  (b) Eastern the dialects of Syriac (further
  distinguished into a western Jacobite form and
  an eastern Nestorian form), Babylonian Talmudic
  Aramaic, and Mandaic." Fitzmyer

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1.2 Aramaic History

• 4. Late Aramaic (200 CE 700 CE)
• "What is striking in the Late phase of Aramaic is
  not only the elements that set off its various
  local dialects, but also the mounting influx of
  Greek words and constructions into almost all
  dialects of the language. Though the
  Hellenization of the eastern Mediterranean areas,
  such as Palestine and Syria, began much earlier,
  the sparse incidence of Greek words in Aramaic
  texts of the Middle phase stands in contrast to
  that of this phase." Fitzmyer

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1.2 Aramaic Linguistic Overview

• 1. Phonology
• 22 alphabet
• Consonant differences with Hebrew
• z gt d
• v gt t
• c gt j
• c gt q

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1.2 Aramaic Linguistic Overview

• 2. Morphology (Noun)
• "The most notable difference between Aramaic and
  the other NW Semitic dialects is the presence of
  the suffixed definite article -a4()). Probably in
  origin the same form as the Hebrew and Phoenician
  ha-, the suffixation of this deictic element
  gives Aramaic the appearance of having three noun
  states (absolute, construct, emphatic or
  determined) rather than two (absolute and
  construct) as in Hebrew. . . . "

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1.2 Aramaic Linguistic Overview

• 2. Morphology (Noun)
• "Note, vis-à-vis Hebrew, the final nun as opposed
  to Hebrew mem in the m. pl. abs. and likewise the
  nun in the f. pl. abs. instead of the expected
  taw. Standard Old Aramaic does seem to use the
  taw f. pl. for attributive adjectives, however .
  . . ."

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1.2 Aramaic Linguistic Overview

• 2. Morphology (Verb)
• "The three basic conjugations (stems) are the
  basic stem (Pegtal katab/yiktub, etc.), factitive
  stem (Pagtel kattib), and causative stem (Hapgtel
  haktib). Passives are expressed by internal vowel
  modification of the active form (presumably using
  the vowel pattern u-a in the derived conjugations
  as in Hebrew Middle Aramaic has a basic passive
  stem Pegt4 l in the perfect - identical with the
  passive participle - but no evidence for such a
  form is found this early.) No certain Nipgtal is
  attested in normative Aramaic, . . . ."

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1.2 Aramaic Linguistic Overview

• 2. Morphology (Verb)
• ". . . a separate jussive form exists, differing
  morphologically (and orthographically) from the
  imperfect in its absence of nunation in the 3 m
  pl. and 2 m pl. (and, presumably, the 2 f. s, as
  in later Aramaic) and in final weak roots, where
  the imperfect ends in -h (presumably /e4/), the
  jussive in -y (probably, simply /4/). "

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1.2 Aramaic Linguistic Overview

• 2. Morphology (Verb)
• "The two forms are also distinct when they have
  pronominal suffixes, where (as in Hebrew) the
  imperfect inserts the so-called "energic" nun
  between the stem and the suffix, while the
  jussive does not. "

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1.2 Aramaic Linguistic Overview

• 2. Morphology (Verb)
• "It is now clear that the so-called "imperfect
  consecutive" narrative tense was common to Old
  Syrian Aramaic and Hebrew. Its former designation
  "converted imperfect" is a misnomer. It is a
  remnant of the archaic prefixing preterite tense
  surviving from some earlier stage of the Semitic
  languages and still to be found in Old Aramaic .
  . . ."

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1.2 Aramaic the NT

• 1. "Though certain patristic writers, such as
  Eusebius, Epiphanius, Jerome, and Julius
  Africanus, were, in general, aware of Aramaisms
  in NT Greek, the history of the inquiry into the
  Aramaic substratum began only with the
  Renaissance and the Humanists' return ad fontes."
  Fritzmyer
• 2. "The recovery of earlier Aramaic from
  extrabiblical sources has been largely an
  achievement of this century and when it comes to
  Palestinian Aramaic of the first century it is
  almost a matter of discoveries of the last two
  decades. As a result, the older material that has
  been written on the problem of Aramaic and the NT
  can only be used today with great caution."
  Fritzmyer

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1.2 Aramaic the NT

• 3. ". . . the diversity of books in the NT and
  the difficulty that this diversity causes for the
  inquiry. How few Aramaisms are claimed for the
  writings of Paul . . . . Most discussions of the
  Aramaic problem have been limited to the Gospels
  and Acts, but even there the problem differs,
  depending on the gospel, whether it is a Synoptic
  or John and each of them has problems that are
  not the same as the Aramaic substratum of Acts,
  if it exists at all." Fritzmyer
• 4. ". . . so-called Semitisms and the Semitic
  background of the NT. There are obviously times
  when one can legitimately discuss maters that are
  best grouped as pertaining to the Semitic
  background of the NT . . . . But . . ., the
  discussion of the Aramaic background of

64
1.2 Aramaic the NT

• the NT should be limited to Aramaic evidence,
  and to Aramaic evidence of the period
  contemporary with or slightly prior to the
  composition of the Greek New Testament writings
  themselves. The ideal period would be from the
  first century and the beginning of the second up
  until the revolt of Simon ben Kosiba (132-135)."
  Fritzmyer
• 5. ". . . in treating of the Aramaic background
  of the NT, and especially the sayings of Jesus
  within it, one has to reckon with (a) the
  well-known refractory process of underlying oral
  tradition (b) the coloring of the tradition by a
  later faith-experience of the early Christians
  (c) likely additions to the traditional
  collections of sayings, made perhaps in a spirit
  of a

65
1.2 Aramaic the NT

• genuine extension of his words or an adaptive
  reinterpretation of them to new situation (d)
  words actually put on his lips by early
  Christians (e.g., in the Johannine discourses)
  and (e) the language of the given evangelist.
  When due regard is had for these legitimate
  factors, then the real discussion about the
  Aramaic substratum of the sayings of Jesus can be
  undertaken." Fritzmyer

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1.2 Aramaic the NT

• 6. ". . . the Aramaic background to the sayings
  of Jesus has often been argued on the testimony
  of Papias' statement about the First Gospel
  Matqai/oj me.n oun VEbraltdi diale,ktw ta.
  lo,gia suneta,xato, hrmh,neusen dV auvta. wj
  hn dunato.j ekastoj, "Now Matthew compiled the
  sayings in a 'Hebrew' dialect, but each person
  translated (interpreted?) them as best he could"
  (Eusebius, His eccl. e.39.16). Even granting for
  the moment that VEbrailtdi diale,ktw most likely
  means "in the Aramaic language," the collection
  of logia so written remains an unknown quantity,
  and the relation of it to the sayings of Jesus in
  our Greek First Gospel is highly debatable."
  Fritzmyer

67
1.3 Greek

• "Palestine stood at the crossroads of the Roman
  Empire. Merchants and soldiers, travelers and
  pilgrims from far and wide crowded into the Holy
  City (Acts 29-11). Amid their babel of tongues,
  three above all others could be detected. These
  three were those in which Pilate wrote the
  inscription fastened to the Cross Hebrew, Latin,
  and Greek (John 1920)." Metzger

68
1.3 Greek Introduction

• "The Greek language has played several roles in
  connection with the Bible of Jews and Christians.
  Apart from the fact that the Greeks and their
  language are mentioned in it, there occur first
  of all some Greek loanwords in the later books of
  the Masoretic Text (MT).
• Second, Greek is the language of one of the
  oldest versions of the OT, the Septuagint (LXX),
  which was probably antedated only by the earliest
  Aramaic Targums. It is, furthermore, the original
  language of some additional books in the LXX
  canon not

69
1.3 Greek Introduction

• included in the MT canon.
• 3. Finally, it is Greek in which the NT has come
  down to us, parts of which (Pauline letters) are
  undoubtedly to be seen as original compositions.
  As the order of these different aspects reflects
  the increasing importance of Greek with regard to
  the Jewish people, it will be appropriate to
  subdivide this article in accordance with it."
  Mussies

70
1.3 Greek Roots

• "What is the relationship of Greek to other
  languages? By tracing certain linguistic features
  various languages (especially stable lexical
  terms e.g., parts of the body), linguists are
  able to determine how languages relate to each
  other genealogically (e.g., tres Latin, trei/j
  Greek, and tryas Sanskrit). It is often
  argued that although Sanskrit is not the mother
  of Greek and Latin, it is their older sister. All
  of these go back to a now lost Indo-European
  language." Wallace
• "The Mother Tongue of all languages apparently
  had as many as ten children, each of whom were in
  turn parents of rather large families. One of
  these ten children was "Proto-Indo-European,"
  from which we get Greek, Latin, Romance
  languages, Germanic language, etc." Wallace

71
1.3 Greek History

• 1. Pre-Homeric (up to 1000 BCE)
• "As early as the third millennium BCE, tribes of
  Indo-European peoples wandered into Greece. The
  natural barriers there eventually created several
  dialects. That is, as they settled they were cut
  off from one another consequently, a different
  dialect emerged for each local group.
  Unfortunately, because we lack literary remains,
  we know very little from this period about Greek
  language." Wallace

72
1.3 Greek History

• 2. The Age of Dialects, or the Classical Era
  (1000 BCE 330 BCE)
• "Geography and politics (e.g., independent
  city-state) caused Greek to fracture into several
  dialects, four of which were predominant. There
  exist today few literary remains of the other
  dialects." Wallace
• "The main dialects were Aeolic (whose extant
  remains are only poetic, e.g., Sappho), Doric
  (also with only poetic remains, most notably of
  Pindar and Theocritus). Ionic (found in Homer,
  Hesiod, Herodotus, and Hippocrates), and by fare
  the most influential, Attic." Wallace

73
1.3 Greek History

• An offspring of Ionic, Attic was the dialect of
  Athens, during the "golden age" of classical
  Greek (4th-5th centuries BCE). In this golden
  age, Athens was both the political and literary
  center of Greece. "Classical Greek," though
  technically referring to all four dialects, is
  normally equated with Attic Greek, because of the
  proliferation of literary works that come from
  this dialect. . . . In it were composed the
  tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides,
  the comedies of Aristophanies, the histories of
  Thucydides and Xenophon, the orations of
  Demosthenes, and the philosophical treatises of
  Plate." Wallace

74
1.3 Greek History

• 3. Koinh, Greek (330 BCE 330 CE)
• "The Koine was born out of the conquests of
  Alexander the Great. First, his troops, which
  came from Athens as well as other Greek cities
  and regions, had to speak to one another. This
  close contact produced a melting-pot Greek that
  inevitably softened the rough edges of some
  dialects and abandoned the subtleties of others.
  Second, the conquered cities and colonies learned
  Greek as a second language. By the first century
  CE, Greek was the lingua franca of the whole
  Mediterranean region and beyond. Since the
  majority of Greek-speakers learned it as a second
  language, this further increased its loss of

75
1.3 Greek History

• 3. Koinh, Greek (330 BCE 330 CE)
• subtleties and moved it toward greater
  explicitness (e.g., the repetition of a
  preposition with a second noun where Attic Greek
  was usually comfortable with a single
  preposition)." Wallace

76
1.3 Greek History

• 4. Byzantine (or Medieval) Greek (330 CE 1453
  CE)
• "Koine Greek was transformed into Byzantine Greek
  when Constantine was converted. By reversing the
  edicts of Diocletian's persecution (303-311),
  Constantine gave the language a largely religious
  hue. Ecclesiastical Greek was born." Wallace
• "When the Empire split between East and West,
  Greek lost its Weltsprache status. Latin was used
  in the West (Rome), Greek in the East
  (Constantinople)." Wallace

77
1.3 Greek the Bible

• 1. Greek loanwords in the Hebrew-Aramaic Bible.
• 2. Greek in Egypt as the Language of the
  Septuagint
• "The presence of a large number of Jews in Egypt
  before the Hellenistic period is likewise an
  established fact. The prophet Jeremiah was forced
  to settle there, together with many others who
  had remained in Palestine after the Exile (Jer
  435-7). Possibly, however, the book of
  Deuteronomy, which reflects King Josiah's legal
  reform, implies that one of his predecessors
  (that is before 640 b.c.) had bought horses in
  Egypt

78
1.3 Greek the Bible

• and paid with Israelite slaves (1716). The
  Aramaic papyri from Elephantine, too, show that a
  Jewish garrison was stationed there at the
  southernmost border of Egypt during the 5th
  century. And finally, the Letter of Aristeas
  (12-14) makes mention of many Jewish prisoners of
  war who were taken to Egypt by Ptolemy I (323-283
  b.c.)." Mussies
• "Quite naturally, in order to communicate they
  made use of the official language of the new
  rulers rather than the vernacular Egyptian or
  Aramaic. The Elephantine papyri show that the
  Jews in Egypt in their daily life had given up
  Hebrew for Aramaic, the language of the

79
1.3 Greek the Bible

• Persian government, and no doubt they continued
  to use Aramaic for some time among themselves
  after Egypt had been liberated from Persian rule.
  The fact, however, that the Hebrew OT had to be
  translated into Greek shows that after some time
  many of them no longer understood Hebrew and
  Aramaic and could not make use of Aramaic Targums
  (if they ever had them in Egypt in this early
  period). Mussies

80
1.3 Greek Septuagint

• 1. "According to Aristeas, Ptolemy II motivated
  the creation of the LXX version with two
  arguments. First, he wanted the library at
  Alexandria to contain a copy of the Jewish law.
  This may reflect the historical reality of a
  specific juridical need the king may have wished
  to enable his officials to consult that law code
  to which such large minorities in Egypt and
  Palestine - which then formed part of his kingdom
  - constantly referred." Mussies
• 2. "Second, it is expressly stated that Ptolemy
  wanted to bestow a favor through it (the LXX)
  upon the freed Jewish slaves living in Egypt, on
  the Jews in the Diaspora, and on those yet to be
  born (Aristeas 38 Jos. Ant 12.48). This makes
  sense only if it reflects a

81
1.3 Greek Septuagint

• reality in which many if not most Jews outside
  of Palestine could not (or could not
  sufficiently) read and understand the Hebrew
  Torah, but spoke and were well versed in Greek.
  In fact, Aristeas at the end of his letter
  relates how the completed Greek version was read
  in Alexandria to the assembled Jews, who approved
  of it and even asked for a copy (Aristeas 308
  Jos. Ant 12.107-8)." Mussies

82
1.3 Koine Greek Introduction

• 1. "Several characteristics of the koine
  distinguish it from classical Greek of the fifth
  and fourth centuries B.C. Perhaps the most
  comprehensive term describing these various
  features is the word "simplification." Shorter
  and simpler sentences supplanted the highly
  complex structure of classical syntax. Instead of
  the wealth of coordinating and subordinating
  conjunctions and particles--one of the "glories"
  of ancient Greek--a relatively few of the more
  commonplace connectives were forced to express
  all kinds of relationships. Most people, in
  conformity with the same tendency toward
  simplification, preferred direct discourse, with
  its less complicated syntax, to indirect
  discourse. Again,

83
1.3 Koine Greek Introduction

• the special forms of verbs, nouns, and
  adjectives which had been employed when but two
  people or objects were referred to (the dual
  number) fell into disuse and were then forgotten.
  A similar fate was to be in store for the
  optative mood--which appears but sixty-seven
  times in the whole New Testament. In short, the
  subtle refinements of form and syntax of
  classical Greek failed to survive in the koine."
  Metzger

84
1.3 Koine Greek Introduction

• 2. "In addition to this tendency toward
  simplification there was also a constant striving
  for emphatic and vigorous expression,
  characteristic of every vernacular. It is by this
  proneness to emphatic expression that one
  accounts for the noticeable growth in the use of
  prepositions in composition with verbs as well as
  with their objects. The increased use of pronouns
  as subjects of verbs which do not require them,
  the preference for compound and even
  double-compound (sesquipedalian) words for simple
  words, the use of the vivid present tense instead
  of the future, the large number of words in the
  diminutive formation, the replacement by
  prepositional phrases of constructions originally
  involving merely the proper case--all of these are

85
1.3 Koine Greek Introduction

• indications of striving after emphasis at the
  expense of precise and refined expression."
  Metzger

86
1.3 Koine Greek Terminology

• "Koinh, is the feminine adjective of koino,j
  ("common"). The feminine is used because its
  (implicitly) modifies dia,lektoj, a (second
  declension) feminine noun. Synonyms of Koine are
  "common" Greek, or, more frequently, Hellenistic
  Greek (which normally implies that Greek is a
  second language i.e., the speakers have become
  Hellenized cf. Acts 6.1)." Wallace
• "Both New Testament Greek and Septuagintal Greek
  are considered substrata of the Koine. (The LXX,
  however, is so heavily Semitized precisely
  because it is entirely translated Greek that it
  is normally treated as in a class by itself.)"
  Wallace

87
1.3 Koine Greek History Facts

• 1. "The golden age of Greek literature
  effectively died with Aristotle (322 BCE)."
• 2. "The Koine was born with Alexander the Great's
  conquests."
• 3. "Hellenistic Greek began with Alexander's
  troops who came from all the regions of Greece.
  The troops, then, produced a leveling influence."
• 4. "It developed further as a second language of
  conquered peoples, when new Greek colonies sprang
  up due to Alexander's victories. The conquests,
  then, gave Greek its universal nature."

88
1.3 Koine Greek History Facts

• 5. "Koine Greek grew largely from Attic Greek, as
  this was Alexander's dialect, but was also
  influenced by the other dialects of Alexander's
  soldiers. "Hellenistic Greek is a compromise
  between the rights of the stronger minority
  (i.e., Attic) and the weaker majority (other
  dialects)."
• 6. "This new dialect, however, should not be
  perceived to be inferior to Attic. It was not a
  contamination of the pure gold of classical
  Greek, but a more serviceable alloy for the
  masses."
• 7. "It became the lingua franca of the whole
  Roman Empire by the first century CE."

89
1.3 Koine Greek History Facts

• 8. "When is Koine Koine? Though Koine Greek had
  its birth in c. 330 BCE, this was its physical
  birth, not its linguistic. One should not suppose
  that all of a sudden, with the conclusion of
  Alexander's final battle, everyone began speaking
  Koine Greek! Just as a newborn baby does not
  immediately speak, it took some time before Koine
  really took shape." Wallace

90
1.3 Scope of Koinh, Greek

• 1. Time
• "Roughly, 330 BCE to 330 CE. Or, from Alexander's
  conquests to the removal of Roman Empire's
  capital from Rome to Constantinople. With the
  death of Aristotle in 322 BCE, classical Greek as
  a living language was phasing out. Koine was at
  its peak in the first century BCE and first
  century CE." Wallace

91
1.3 Scope of Koinh, Greek

• 2. Time
• "For the first time, Greek was universalized. As
  colonies were established well past Alexander's
  day, and as the Greeks continued to rule, the
  Greek language kept on thriving in foreign lands.
  Even after Rome became the world power in the
  first century BCE, Greek continued to penetrate
  distant lands. (This was due largely to Rome's
  policy of assimilation of cultures already in
  place, rather than destruction and replacement.)
  Consequently, even when Rome was in absolute
  control, Latin was not the lingua franca. Greek
  continued to be a universal language until the
  end of the first century." Wallace

92
1.3 Types of Koinh, Greek

• 1. Vernacular or Vulgar (e.g., papyri, ostraca)
• "This is the language of the streets-colloquial,
  popular speech. It is found principally in the
  papyri excavated from Egypt, truly the lingua
  franca of the day." Wallace
• 2. Literary (e.g., Polybius, Josephus, Philo,
  Diodorus, Strabo, Epictetus, Plutarch)
• ""A more polished Koine, this is the language of
  scholars and litterateurs, of academics and
  historians. The difference between literary Koine
  and vulgar Koine is the difference between
  English spoken on the streets and English spoken
  in places of higher education." Wallace

93
1.3 Types of Koinh, Greek

• 3. Conversational (New Testament, some papyri)
• "Conversational Koine is typically the spoken
  language of educated people. It is grammatically
  correct for the most part, but not on the same
  literary level (lacks subtleties, is more
  explicit, shorter sentences, more parataxis) as
  literary Koine. By its very nature, one would not
  expect to find many parallels to this either in
  the papyri (usually the language of uneducated
  people) or among literary authors (for their
  language is a written language)." Wallace

94
1.3 Types of Koinh, Greek

• 4. Atticistic (e.g.,Lucian, Dionysius of
  Halicarnasus, Dio Chrysostom, Aristides,
  Phrynichus, Moeris)
• ""This is an artificial language revived by
  litterateurs who did not care for what had become
  of the language . . . ." Wallace

95
1.3 Summary of NT Koinh,

• "

96
1.4 Multilingualism in 1st A.D.

• 1. Latin
• "The evidence of Latin in first-century Palestine
  indicates that it was used mainly by the Romans
  who occupied the land and for more or less
  official purposes. Thus there are dedicatory
  inscriptions on buildings and aqueducts, funerary
  inscriptions on tombstones of Roman legionnaires
  who died in Palestine, milestones on Roman roads
  with Latin inscriptions, and the ubiquitous Roman
  terra-cotta tiles stamped with various
  abbreviations of the Tenth Legion . . . ."
  Fitzmyer

97
1.4 Multilingualism in 1st A.D.

• 2. Greek
• ". . . it is not possible to document the use of
  Greek in Palestine prior to Alexander or to
  indicate what influence it might have had then.
  The earliest Greek text found there is apparently
  the bilingual Edomite-Greek ostracon dated in the
  sixth year of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (227 BC) .
  . . at Khirbet el-Kom. . . . Prior to this
  discovery the earliest known inscription was that
  erected by Anaxikles, a priest of the royal cult
  of Ptolemy IV Philopator, who was installed a
  Joppa shortly after the Egyptian victory over
  Antiochus III at Raphia in 217 B.C. it gives
  clear evidence of the use of the language by
  foreigners, but says little about the use of it
  by the indigenous population." Fitzmyer

98
1.4 Multilingualism in 1st A.D.

• "When the Hellenization of Palestine under
  Antiochus IV Epiphanes began, his efforts were
  aided by the Jews themselves, as both 1 Maccabees
  and Josephus make clear. There seems to be little
  doubt that the use of Greek language was part of
  this assistance. . . .
• "Though the names of a host of Hellenistic Jewish
  litterateurs who wrote in Greek are known, and
  some fragments of their writings are preserved in
  patristic authors such as Clement of Alexandria,
  or Eusebius of Caesarea, most important of these
  are Justus of Tiberias and Flavius Josephus, both
  of whom wrote mainly historical works. . . ."
  Fritzmyer

99
1.4 Multilingualism in 1st A.D.

• Josephus, at the end of Antiquities "My
  compatriots admit that in our Jewish learning I
  far excel them. But I labored hard to steep my
  self in Greek prose and poetic learning, after
  having gained a knowledge of Greek grammar but
  the constant use of my tongue hindered my
  achieving precision in pronunciation. For our
  people do not welcome those who have mastered the
  speech of many nations or adorn their style with
  smoothness of diction, because they consider that
  such skill is not only common to ordinary freeman
  but that even slaves acquire it, if they so
  choose. Rather, they give credit for wisdom to
  those who acquire an exact knowledge of the Law
  and can interpret

100
1.4 Multilingualism in 1st A.D.

• the Holy Scriptures. Consequently, though many
  have laboriously undertaken this study, scarcely
  two or three have succeeded (in it) and reaped
  the fruit of their labors."
• "Several famous Greek inscriptions are extant
  from this period. There is the Greek inscription
  forbidding non-Jews to enter the inner courts of
  the Jerusalem temple, the Jerusalem synagogue
  inscription which commemorates it building by
  Theodotos Vettenos, a priest and leader of the
  synagogue, the hymn inscribed in the necropolis
  of Marisa, the edict of Augustus (or some
  first-century Roman emperor) found at Nazareth

101
1.4 Multilingualism in 1st A.D.

• concerning the violation of tombs, the Capernaum
  dedicatory inscription, and the numberless
  ossuary inscriptions, some written in Greek
  alone, others in Greek and Hebrew (or Aramaic)
  from the vicinity of Jerusalem.
• "From the Murabba(at caves have come examples of
  grain transactions (Mur 89-107). IOU's (Mur 114),
  contracts of marriage and remarriage among Jews
  (Mur 115-16), fragments of philosophical and
  literary texts (Mur 108-12), even texts written
  in a Greek shorthand (Mur 164). The letters from
  a cave in the Wadi Habra indicate that Greek was
  also used in a less official kind of writing.
  From the period just before the

102
1.4 Multilingualism in 1st A.D.

• Second Revolt there is a batch of letters which
  are communications between Bar Cochba and his
  lieutenants, and surprisingly enough written in
  Greek."
• "Soumaios to Jonathe, (son of) Baianos, and
  Masabbala, greetings! Since I have sent to
  you Agrippa, make haste to send me beams
  and citrons. And furnish them for the
  Citron-celebration of the Jews and do not do
  otherwise. Now (this) has been written in Greek
  because a desire has not been found to
  write in Hebrew. Despatch him quickly for
  the feast, and do not do otherwise. Soumaios.
  Farewell."

103
1.4 Multilingualism in 1st A.D.

• Acts 6.1 Problem
• ". . . Jesus' use of Greek. This question has
  been raised from time to time for a variety of
  reasons, and obviously little can be asserted
  about it. "Galilee of the Gentiles" (Matt 4.15)
  has often been said to have been an area of
  Palestine where the population was more bilingual
  than in the south, e.g., at Jerusalem. Hence it
  is argued Coming from an area such as this,
  Jesus would have shared this double linguistic
  heritage. While it must be admitted that there
  were undoubtedly areas where less Greek was used
  than others, nevertheless the widespread
  attestation of Greek material in Palestine would
  indicate that "Galilee

104
1.4 Multilingualism in 1st A.D.

• of the Gentiles" did not have a monopoly on it.
  The general evidence that we have been
  considering would suggest the likelihood that
  Jesus did speak Greek." Fritzmyer
• "However, what evidence there is that he used
  Greek yields at most a probability if it be used
  to insist that we might even have in the Gospels
  some of the ipsissima verba Iesu graeca, actually
  uttered by him as he addressed his bilingual
  Galilean compatriots, then the evidence is being
  pressed beyond legitimate bounds."

105
1.4 Multilingualism in 1st A.D.

• 3. Aramaic
• "If asked what was the language commonly spoken
  in Palestine in the time of Jesus of Nazareth,
  most people with some acquaintance of that era
  and area would almost spontaneously answer
  Aramaic. To my way of thinking, this is still the
  correct answer for the most commonly used
  language, but the defense of this thesis must
  reckon with the growing mass of evidence that
  both Greek and Hebrew were being used as well. I
  would, however, hesitate to say with M. Smith
  that "at least as much Greek as Aramaic was
  spoken in Palestine." In any case, the evidence
  for the use of Aramaic has also been growing in
  recent years."

106
1.4 Multilingualism in 1st A.D.

• Before 1947
• The first of the rabbinical writings, Me6gillat
  Ta(a6nt, dating from the first Christian
  century.
• Numberless ossuary and sepulchral inscriptions.
• "The most important to the extended texts are the
  Uzziah plaque, commemorating the first-century
  transfer of the alleged bones of the famous
  eighth-century king of Judah, an ossuary lid with
  a qorban inscription that illustrates the use of
  this Aramaic word in Mark 7.11 . . . ."
• Syntax of the NT

107
1.4 Multilingualism in 1st A.D.

• "Since the discovery of the Qumran material it is
  now evident that literature was indeed being
  composed in Aramaic in the last century B.C. and
  in the first century A.D. The number of extant
  Aramaic texts of literary nature is not small,
  even though fragments of them found in the
  various Qumran caves may be. Only a few of these
  texts have been published so far the Genesis
  Apocryphon, the Prayer of Nabonidus, the
  Description of the New Jerusalem, the Elect of
  God text parts of such texts as the Testament of
  Levi, Enoch, Pseudo-Daniel, a Targum of Job, and
  a number of untitled text to which a number has
  merely been assigned. Reports have been made on
  still other Aramaic texts from Caves IV and XI,

108
1.4 Multilingualism in 1st A.D.

• such as several copies of Tobit, of the targums
  of Job and Leviticus, of a text mentioning "the
  Son of God" and "the Son of the Most High" in
  phrases remarkably close to Luke 1.32, 35. All of
  this points to an extensive Aramaic literary
  activity and an Aramaic literature, at least used
  by Essenes, if not composed by them."
• ". . . an Aramaic IOU, dated in the second year
  of Nero (i.e., 55-56), came to light in one of
  the Murrabba(at caves, and a letter on an
  ostracon from Masada. And from a slightly later
  period comes a batch of legal documents, composed
  in Aramaic as well as