WhichSemiticLanguageDid Jesus and OtherContemporaryJewsSpeak? STEVENE.FASSBERG TheHebrewUniversityof Jerusalem Jerusalem91905,Israel WHICHSEMITICLANGUAGEdidJesusandothercontemporaryJewsspeak Aramaic,Hebrew,orAramaicandHebrew?Theanswerdependsonwhenthe question wasaskedand of whomThe linguisticlandscapein Palestineduring the first twocenturiesoftheCommon Era isa subjectthat haslonggeneratedintense interestJIthasattractedChristiansandscholarsofChristianityaswellasJews Anoral presentation ofthis paper wasgivenin the graduatecolloquiumoftheDepartmentof Theologyat theUniversity of Notre Dame onApril26,2010I thank ProfessorGary Anderson for the invitation to participate in the colloquium as well as for his comments on an earlier draftof this essay 1There havebeen manyoverviewsofthesubjectAfewofthemore noteworthy treatments mthelastfewdecadesare the collected papersofJoseph AFitzmyer inThe SemiticBackground oftheNewTestament(BiblicalResourceSenes,GrandRapidsEerdmans,1997),JamesBarr, "WhichLanguageDidJesusSpeak'?SomeRemarksofaSemitist,"BJRL53(1970)9-29, idem,"Hebrew, AramaicandGreek inthe Hellenistic Age,"CHJ279-114,here82-90,Jonasc ' Greenfield,"TheLanguagesofPalestine,200 CE -200eE ,"in JewishLanguagesThemeand VariationsProceedingsofRegionalConferencesofthe Association forJewishStudiesHeldatthe University ofMichiganand NewYork Universityin March-April1975(edHerbert Paper,Cam-bridge,MAAssociationforJewishStudies,1978)143-54,MaxWilcox,"Semitismsinthe New Testament," ANRWII 252(1984)978-1027,Loren Stuckenbruck,"AnApproachtothe New TestamentthroughAramaicSourcesTheRecentMethodologicalDebate," JSP8(1991)3-29, JohnMeier, AMarginalJewRethinkingtheHistoricalJesus(4vols, ABReferenceLibrary, NewYorkDoubleday,1991-2009)1 255-68,Matthew Black, AnAramaicApproachtotheGos-pelsand ActswithanintroductionbyCraig AEvansandanappendixbyGezaVermes (3rded , Peabody, MAHendrickson, 1998), Maurice Casey, AramaicSourcesofMark sGospel (SNTSMS 102,CambridgeCambridgeUniversityPress,1998)1-110,idem, AnAramaicApproachtoQ SourcesfortheGospelsofMatthewandLuke(SNTSMS122,CambridgeCambridgeUniversity Press,2002)51-65,AlanMillard,ReadingandWritingintheTimeofJesus(BiblicalSeminar, 263 264THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY|74,2012 and scholars of JudaismThe formerhave tended to concentrateon the ipsissima verbaofJesusandtheSemitismsinthetextofthe NTandwhatthisevidence implies about the compositionof the NTThe latter have concentratedmostly on Late BiblicalHebrewand TannaiticHebrewand whatone maylearnfromthem about the status of Hebrew as a vernacular2 Scholars havealsoscrutinizedtheepigraphicmaterial from Palestineforthe lightitsheds on thelinguisticsituationgraffiti,writingson tombsandossuaries, and the Judean Desert documentsSome scholars of the NT and of Second Temple-periodJudaism,however,have beensomewhatselectiveabout the JudeanDesert material they consider to be linguisticallyimportantThey have generallyattached great weight to the data from the Aramaic DeadSea Scrolls but have viewed with suspicion whatis attestedin the HebrewDeadSeaScrollsand the Hebrewdocu-mentsfromotherJudeanDesertsitesThelowestimationinwhichtheHebrew material is held manifests itself in the tendency to ignore modern linguistic research into the HebrewdocumentsfromQumran,Wadi Murabbacat, NahalHever,Ketef Jericho,and MasadaMoreover,therearescholars whoseemunawareof the tre-mendous strides made in the past few decades in the study of Tannaitic Hebrew and its relevance for the use of Hebrew m the first two centuries of the Common Era In this article I bring to bearon the topicof language usagein Palestinethe insightsoflinguisticstudieson theJudeanDesertHebrewdocumentsandTan-naiticHebrew,aswellasothersourcesBecausethepublicationoftheJudean Desertdocumentshasirrevocablychangedthecourseof AramaicandHebrew scholarship, the survey of the subjectwill be divided into two partsthe first half willdealwiththe periodleading up to thediscoveryof the DeadSeaScrollsin 1947,andthesecond,withthescholarshipthatfollowedthepublicationofthe scrollsThoughGreek and, to a limited extent, Latin werespokenin Palestineat this time, I will restrict myself to Aramaic (excluding Nabatean3) and Hebrew I. BeforetheJudeanDesertDiscoveries AChristianSourcesandScholars Theearlychurchfathersdo notoftenrefertothelanguagethatJesusand theapostlesspoke, butonecan find scatteredremarkssuchas thatofEusebius SheffieldSheffieldAcademic Press, 2000), Jan Joosten, "Aramaic or Hebrew behind the Greek Gospels?" Analecta Bruxellensia 9 (2004) 88-101 2 Foranup-to-datediscussionofTannaiticHebrew,seeMosheBar-Asher,"Mishnaic HebrewAn Introductory Survey," CHJ4 369-403, here 371-72 3 For recent Nabatean evidence, see The Documents from the Bar Kokhba Period in the Cave of Letters HebrewAramaic and Nabatean-Aramaic Papyri (edYigael Yadin et al, Judean Desert Studies 3, JerusalemIsrael Exploration Society, 2002) WHICHSEMITIC LANGUAGEDID JESUS SPEAK?265 {Dem.ev. 3.4.44), who reports that the apostlesspoke , "the Syrian language."Healsoreports(Histeccl3.39.16)that,accordingtoPapias(60-130CE. ) , , "Matthew organized the oraclesin the Hebrew language."Whereas is taken tomean"Aramaic,"thereferentof andrelatedwordsin theNT andJosephussuchas or isdebated. Prima facie,thelatter termsreferto Hebrew, beita personorthelanguage.Yetitis thought bymany that and itscongenersin thesecorpora must referto Aramaic.4 This opinion isinformed by the Aramaic-lookingtransliterated words attestedin thesesourcesand bythe beliefthatat the end oftheSecond Temple periodHebrewhad alreadydiedout asaspokenlanguageor wasnearlydead.5 The assumption ofthe disappearance of Hebrew asa vernacularisbasedin part ontheworkofAbrahamGeiger,whoarguedin1845thatMishnaicHebrew wasan artificialand learned language.6For some, the moribund state ofspoken HebrewintheSecondTempleperiodisprovenbytheexistenceofAramaic translations(targumim) oftheHebrewBibleand bythe dearth ofHebrewepi-graphic material apart fromthe Dead Sea Scrolls.7 Accordingly,formany schol-ars, thissituation leavesonly Aramaicasa realSemitic vernacularin Palestine at the time ofJesus. In the earlymodern era, the first printed edition of theSyriac NT from1555 advancedtheclaimthatSyriacwasthelanguageofJesus.8In theseventeenth century, Brian Walton, the editor of the London polyglot, preferred the Aramaic of Targums Onqelos maJonathan.9Giovanni de Rossiconcluded in 1772 that Jesus, 4The terms have beendiscussed oftenSee BD AG, 212, MM,178; and recently Hannah M Cotton, "The Bar Kokhba Revolt and the Documentsfrom the JudaeanDesertNabataeanPartici-pationin the Revolt(PYadin 52) inThe BarKokhbaWar ReconsideredNewPerspectiveson theSecondJewishRevoltagainstRome(edPeterSchfer,TS A J100; TbingenMohrSiebeck, 2003)133-52, here146-47 5 Joosten, "Aramaicor Hebrew7"89 6 Abraham Geiger, Lehr- und Lesebuchzur Spracheder Mischnah(BreslauFEC. Leuckart, 1845)1-2GustafDalman'sacceptanceofGeiger'spositiondid muchtospread thisviewamong NTscholarsSeeDalman,GrammatikdesJudisch-PalastinischenAramisch(2nded,Leipzig Hinnchs,1905)10-11, idem, DieWorte Jesumit Bercksichtigungdes nachkanonischenjudischen Schrifttumsund der aramischenSprache(2nd ed, LeipzigHinnchs,1930) 5 7 For a differentview of why the targumimarose, see AbrahamTal, "Is There a Raisond'tre foran AramaicTargumina Hebrew-SpeakingSociety7" REJ160 (2001)357-78On therelative scarcityofinscriptions,see Joseph AFitzmyer,"TheLanguagesof Palestinein the FirstCentury A D," CBQ 32 (1970) 501-31, here 529In general, Fitzmyer's views as a NT scholar and Aramaist have carried great weight with other NTscholars 8 Johann AWidmanstetter and Moses Mardenus, Libersacrosanctievangelude IesuChristo domino& Deonostro(ViennaMichael Zimmermann,1555) 9 Brian Walton, Biblia sacrapolyglotta,vol\,ProlegXIIIDe LinguaSyriaca,&Scripturae Versiombus Syriacis(LondonThomas Roycroft,1657)87-93 266THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY|74,2012 whowasfromthe Galilee, must havespoken the localdialect of theGalilee.10 In contrast, in1883Franz Delitzsch translated the NT into BiblicalHebrew because he believedthat Hebrew continued to be the literarylanguageand the high regis-terofspeechat the time ofJesus.11AyearafterDelitzsch's translation appeared, Emil Kautzsch publisheda criticalanalysisofthe transliterated wordsin the NT, which he assignedto "Palestinian Aramaic."12 The lastdecade of the nineteenthcentury witnessedthe publication of sev-eral worksdealingwiththe speechofJesus,almostallofwhichwerebasedon the connection between Jesus of Galilee and Galilean Aramaic. Two other related Palestinian Aramaicdialects, Christian Palestinian Aramaicand Samaritan Ara-maic,werealsonotedfortheinformationtheymightshedonJesus'speech. In1891, J. T. Marshallpublishedaseriesofarticlesin whichheexpressedthe beliefthatPalestinian Aramaicshouldbeusedforthe reconstruction ofJesus' speech, in particular, the Galilean Aramaicin which the Palestinian Talmud was writtentogetherwiththelanguageoftheSamaritanTargum.13ArnoldMeyer pointedtoGalilean AramaicasJesus'mother tongueinamonograph in1896, inwhichhealsostressedthe relevanceofChristian Palestinian Aramaic.14 The 1898DieWorte JesubyGustafDalman,whichisperhapsthe bestknownand mostinfluentialinvestigationinto thelanguageofJesus,arguedthat theclos-est Aramaicdialectto Jesus'speechwasTargum Onqelos,Dalman also noted, however,theimportanceoftheGalileanAramaicattestedinthePalestinian Talmud.15On the other hand, in the sameyearthat the first edition ofDalman's bookappeared, AlfredReschreconstructedSW,aHebrew pre-canonic Gospelof .16 The first important workon the subjectin the twentieth century belonged to JuliusWellhausen,whocame downon the sideof Aramaicasthelanguagethat 10 GiovanniBernardode Rossi, Dellalingua propriadiCristoedegliEbreinazionalidella Palestinada'tempide 'Maccabei(Parmadalla Stamperia reale,1772)12-16 11 FranzDelitzsch,The HebrewNewTestament oftheBritishandForeignBibleSocietyA Contributionto HebrewPhilology(LeipzigDorfflmg,1883) 30 12 EKautzsch, GrammatikdesBiblisch-AramischenmiteinerkritischenErrterungder aramischenWorterim NeuenTestament (LeipzigFCWVogel,1884)Oneseesclearlyfrom Kautzsch'sdiscussionthatalmostall of theSemiticwords transliteratedinto Greekhave Aramaic morphology 13 JMarshall, "The AramaicGospel,"The Expositor4thseries(1891)31-17,109-24, 205-20, 275-91, 375-90, 452-67, 4208-23, 373-88, 435-48 14 ArnoldMeyer, JesuMutterspracheDasgalilaischeAramischinseinerBedeutungfr die Erklrungder RedenJesuund der Evangelienberhaupt(FreiburgJCMohr,1896) 15 Dalman, DieWorte Jesu,1 st ed , the popularity of the book led to a revised English version in1901 and a revisedGerman version in1930 (see 6 above) 16 AlfredResch, DieLogiaJesunachdemgriechischenundhebrischenTextwiederher-gestelltEinVersuch (LeipzigHinnchs,1898) espx-xi WHICHSEMITIC LANGUAGE DID JESUSSPEAK?267 Jesusspoke.17FriedrichSchulthessclaimedinhis1924grammarofChristian PalestinianAramaicthatthisdialectwasthecontinuationofthelanguagethat Jesusspokeand thus wasmore important forreconstructing the originalspeechof Jesusthan wereGalilean AramaicorSyriac.18Paul Kahle thought differentlyand consideredthe Galilean Aramaicof the Cairo Geniza fragmentsof the Palestinian Targumthat he publishedin1930to bean accurate reflectionoffirst-centuryC.E. Aramaic.19Thisviewwasadopted byMatthewBlackin1946in thelastsignifi-cant studyto appear beforethe discoveryofthe Judean Desert documents.20 B. JewishSourcesandScholars Jewishscholarshavelookedto rabbinicliterature, in particular the Mishnah, forthekeytowhatlanguageswereusedinPalestineinthefirstcenturiesC.E. ThoughredactedbyJudahthePrincesometimeafterthebeginningofthethird centuryC.E.,theMishnahincludespassagesthatwerecomposedbeforethe destructionof theSecond Templein 70C.E.and that describein the presenttense ritesthat tookplacewhilesacrificeswerestillbeingofferedinthetemple,e.g., ^ cnpimn Danari crrxnpionatrmnpn, "They that are near bringfreshfigsandgrapes;theythatarefromfarawaybringdried figsand rai-sins"(m. Bik.3:3).21Logically,the languageofthismishnaic passage andsimilar descriptionsreflectsthe Hebrewofthe periodin whichJesuslived. There are a fewisolatedremarksfromthe periodofthe Amoraimaboutlan-guage,includingthose that relate to the earliertannaitic period.22One finds in the BabylonianTalmud (b. RosHas.26b;seealsob. Meg.18a) a lengthypassage that relatesthat even though the rabbisno longerknewthe meaningof severalHebrew words,the handmaid ofJudah the Prince did: 17 Julius Wellhausen,Einleitungin diedreierstenEvangelien(Berlin: Georg Reimer,1905) 14-34. 18 FriedrichSchulthess,GrammatikdesChristlich-palstinischenAramisch(Tbingen: J. C. B. Mohr,1924)3. 19 PaulKahle,TheCairoGeniza(London:BritishAcademy,1947)129.Hepublishedthe textsin MasoretendesWestens (2 vols.;Stuttgart:W. Kohlhammer,1930)2:1-62. 20 Black, AramaicApproach,20-21. 21 J.. Epstein, ProlegomenaadlitterasTannaiticas:Mishna,TosephtaetInterpretationes Halachicas(inHebrew; Jerusalem:Magnes; Tel Aviv:Dvir,1957)21-58;Bar-Asher,"Introduc-torySurvey,"369.Allrabbinictextscitedinthispaperfollowthereadingsofthedatabaseof TheAcademyoftheHebrewLanguage,Ma 'agarimOnline:OldWineinaNewFlask(http:// hebrew-treasures.huji.ac.il). 22 M. H. Segal, TOTOn y\tf?pnpi(Tel Aviv:Dvir,1936)14-15; E. Y. Kutscher,"Some Prob-lemsoftheLexicographyofMishnaicHebrewandItsComparison withBiblicalHebrew"(in Hebrew) in ArchiveoftheNewDictionaryofRabbinicalLiterature(2 vols.;Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University,1972-74)1:29-82, here 57-60(Englishxx-xxii). 268THECATHOLICBIBLICAL QUARTERLY|74,2012 VCPD>*?"*?pa-frirnrnrnmrrn&nXTOW^ pm rmiW?* ^ "pomTaym*?maxpo's Ta75;rr1?,axnrnsns ninaxpmm*cim 1? mrrna*KTOW mirrmmrrnoi myaw "laanm rfrcfto^apm^v 1? ^ nrsannx ^ x*7 i " wn^ o annxTalyn^maxrrnannonaxpi-im1? ^pwnn-an^nnaxxpm1?KTOWla^nxxoan'apm " xnux Therabbisdidnot knowwhatwasmeantbyf^lTO[srgn] (untiloneday) theyheardthe handmaidof Rabbi,onseeing the rabbisenteratintervals,say to them: "Howlong are you going to come in by srgn srgn[intervals]?" The rabbisdid notknow whatwasmeantbyiTf?]fr[= ^halaglgt], (until one day) they heard the handmaid of Rabbi, on seeing a man peeling purs-lane plants,sayto him:"Howlongwillyoube peelingyourlaglg[purslane plant]?" The rabbis did not know what was meant by "panmrfrO^O [salsleh utrmmek"Extol(lit.,'curl,trill')herandsheshallexaltthee'Prov.4:8] (until one day) they heard the handmaid of Rabbi say to a man who was curling his hair: "Howlong will you be msalsl[curling] your hair?" The rabbisdid not know whatwasmeantby7awnXXtt [wdt^'thbemaft3 hasmd"andI willsweepit with the broomof destruction"Isa.14:23],(until oneday) theyheardthehandmaidofRabbisaytohercompanion:"Takethe ttet3 [broom] and ta3t [sweep] the house." Thispericopehasbeeninterpretedasindicatingthatasimplewomanfromthe lowerclassesknewwordsthatexistedinhervernacularHebrew,whereasthe rabbis, part oftheintellectual class, were unfamiliar with them, probably because they spoke Aramaic.23 Moreover, onereads in theBabylonian Talmud(b. B.Qam. 82b;seealsob.Sotah49b)acommentonlanguageuseattributedtoJudahthe Prince,inwhichitappearsthathecomplainedabouttheinroads Aramaichad made andtried toencourage theuseof Hebrew andGreek: ywh^iCW-p 'X TP]W"7IK BTTpH ]*)VfrIXnti?^0110, "AndRabbisaid:'In theLandofIsraelwhy (does one use) Aramaic? Oneshould useeitherthe holy tongue or Greek.'"Isthis, too, an indicationthat Hebrew wasstill spoken despite increasing useof Aramaic, orwasit wishfulthinkingonthepartofJudahthePrince,assome havethought, since Hebrew wasnolonger spoken? YetanotherintriguingremarkaboutlanguagesisfoundinthePalestinian Talmud,whichadducesasayingofRabbiJonathanfromBeitGuvrin(Eleu-theropolis),afourth-centuryAmora:WWnMW^5"pirmi r ai]T)1V 73N 23SeeHarris Birkeland, The Language of Jesus (Oslo:J. Dybwad, 1954) 16.Kutscher ("Some Problems," 58-59) wondered ifthehandmaid, who might have been elderly, wasoriginally from Judea where they still spoke Hebrew, and moved with the rabbis to the Galilee, where only Aramaic was spoken by the younger generation of rabbis. WHICH SEMITIC LANGUAGE DID JESUS SPEAK?269 Tirr^nnyw^t"omo mp*? nfriVwDVwn inn rarwnp, "Rabbi JonathanfromBeit Guvrin said:'Fourlanguagesare appropriate foruse.They are Greek [lit., 'foreignlanguage'] for song, Latin for battle, Aramaic for dirges, Hebrew for speech'" (y. Meg.71b; see also>>. Sotah 21c). Liketherabbis,medievalJewishgrammariansandlexicographerswere awareofthelinguisticdifferencesbetweentheHebrewoftheBibleand the Hebrew of the Mishnah: the subjectarose in their debates as to whetherMish-naic Hebrew should be exploited for biblical exegesis.24 The nature of Mishnaic Hebrewsurfacedalsoin the frameworkoftheRabbanite-Karaitecontroversy concerning the origin and validity of the oral law.25 Implicit in Saadia Gaon's lin-guistic work flll&XHUD1?TSDO*?y T0SJ1 ("Explanation of the Seventy Isolated Words") was the idea that Mishnaic Hebrew was a popular, spoken language.26 The modern study of Mishnaic Hebrew can be said to have begun inthe mid-nineteenthcentury withGeiger, who thought thatthe rabbisspoke Ara-maicbutwrotea bookishHebrew.27 Most other scholarsfollowedhim until MosheH. Segalrevolutionized the field in a1908articlein whichhe dem-onstratedthatcertainfeaturesofMishnaicHebrewreflectedprocessesofa livinglanguage.28Furthermore,Segalbelievedthattheuseofthe rabbinic expressionD7X ]W^,"the languageofman,"indicated explicitlythat the languageof the rabbiswasa spoken entity and not an artificialone.29Segal's analysisoftheMishnaic data persuaded Hebraists: hisexamplesofa living language along with the evidence from the nascent scholarly investigation into reliable mishnaicmanuscripts and the oral traditions of the Mishnah relegated Geiger'sviewofan artificialHebrew to footnote status.30 This newapproach 24 Kutscher, "Some Problems," xix; Nissan Netzer, "Mishnaic Hebrew in the Works of Medi-eval Hebrew Grammarians (During the Period of Original Creativity: Saadia Gaon -Ibn Balcam)" (in Hebrew; Ph.D. diss., Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1983); Aharon Maman, "The Linguistic School: Judah Hayyj, Jonah ibn Janh, Moses ibn Chiquitilla and Judah ibn Balcam," in Hebrew Bible,Old Testament:The History of Its Interpretation (ed. Magne Saebo; Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2000) 1.2:261-81, here 270-71. 25 Ofra Tirosh Becker, "Rabbinic Hebrew Handed Down in Karaite Literature" (in Hebrew; Ph.D. diss., Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1999). 26 Netzer, "Medieval Hebrew Grammarians," iv. 27 Geiger, Lehr- und Lesebuch,1. 28 Moshe H. Segal, "Misnaic Hebrew and Its Relation to Biblical Hebrew and to Aramaic," JQR o.s. 20 (1908) 647-737. 29 M. H. Segal, A Grammar of Mishnaic Hebrew (Oxford: Clarendon,1927) 15. 30 Moshe Bar-Asher, "The Study of Mishnaic Hebrew Grammar Based on Written Sources: Achievements,Problems,andTasks,"inStudies in MishnaicHebrew(ed.MosheBar-Asher; ScrHier37; Jerusalem:Magnes,1998) 9-42,esp. 29-32; idem, L'hbreumishnique:tudeslin-guistiques (OrbisSupplementa11; Leuven: Peeters,1999) 3-45; Shelomo Morag, "The Study of Mishnaic HebrewThe Oral Evidence: Nature and Appraisal," in Studies in Mishnaic Hebrew (ed. Bar-Asher), 43-57. 270THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY|74,2012 toMishnaicHebrew,however,metwithonlylimitedacceptanceamongnon-Hebraistsforquitesome time.31 II. AftertheJudeanDesertDiscoveries AAramaicinPalestine The Aramaic Dead Sea Scrolls providedscholars for the first time with Ara-maic documents of early Palestinian provenance, as demonstrated linguistically by Edward Yechezkel Kutscher.32JonasC. Greenfieldadded that,althoughQumran Aramaic belonged to "Standard Literary Aramaic," its language reflecteda Pales-tinianorigin.33 The publicationof the scrollsledscholars to mine thedocuments fordatarelevanttothetransliterationsandSemitismsofthe NT. Theexistence of scrolls at Qumran writtenin Aramaicas well as the evidenceof Aramaismsin the Hebrewscrollsfoundin thesame cavesstrengthenedthe claimof those who believed that Aramaic was the dominantlanguage in Palestineand, forsome, the onlynaturallyspokenSemiticlanguagethereduringtheperiod.Formost,the Aramaicscrolls quicklycame to be perceivedas the closestand best exampleof the type of Aramaic that Jesus spoke, though the degree to which the language of theliterary texts from Qumran reflectedactualcontemporaryspeech was (andis still)debated.34Itquicklybecameanaxiomthatthelater,better-attestedPales-tinian AramaicsourcessuchasGalilean Aramaicalsoshouldbeconsultedafter taking into account the time lag between themand the periodin which Jesus and the apostles preached. This is clearly stated, for example, in the most recent retro-version of the Lord's Prayer into Aramaic.35 Notallwerepersuadedbythe AramaicDeadSeaScrolls,however.Kahle 31 AsnotedbyBarr,"WhichLanguage,"19Segal'sviewisnowacceptedbyalmostall scholars, thoughsome still refuseto accept the possibility that Hebrewwas spoken by more thana small portionof thepopulation 32 EYKutscher,"TheLanguageoftheGenesisApocryphonAPreliminaryStudy,"in Aspectsof the Dead Sea Scrolls(edChaim Rabin and Yigael Yadin, ScrHier 4, JerusalemMagnes, 1958)1-35 33 JonasCGreenfield,"StandardLiteraryAramaic,"inActesdupremiercongresdelin-guistiquesmitiqueetchamito-smitique,Paris,16-19 juillet1969(edAndreCaquotandDavid Cohen, The HagueMouton,1974) 280-89It is not certain, however, that all the DeadSeaScrolls reflectPalestinianAramaicTheTargumofJobwaswritteninaslightlydifferenttypeofAra-maicfromthatof theGenesis Apocryphonandother Aramaic worksfoundat QumranTakamitsu Muraoka("The Aramaicof the Old Targum of Job from Qumran Cave XI," JJS25[1974]425-42) believes that it representsanEastern type of Aramaicand was not native toPalestine 34 For a survey, seeStuckenbruck,"MethodologicalDebate,"3-29 35 AComparativeHandbookto theGospelof MarkComparisonswithPseudepigrapha,the Qumran Scrollsand RabbinicLiterature(edBruce Chilton et al , New Testament Gospels m Their Judaic Contexts1, LeidenBrill, 2010) 48-60, esp58 WHICHSEMITIC LANGUAGE DID JESUS SPEAK?271 stillclung tenaciously to his pre-scrollsview that the languageof the Cairo Geniza fragmentsof Palestinian Targum wascloser to the Aramaicof Jesusthan all other dialects36 He wasfollowedin this byhisstudents and other colleaguesAlejandro DiezMacho'sdiscoveryin1956ofTargum Neofiti,acompleteexemplarofthe PalestinianTargum,servedtostrengthentheir resolve,sincethelanguageofthe targumwassimilarto Kahle'sCairo Geniza fragments37 HebrewinPalestine ThepublicationofHebrewscrollsatQumrandatedtobetweenthethird century CEand68c,theyearthatthesitewasdestroyed,wasnoless revolutionaryforHebrewstudiesthanitwasforAramaicAlreadymthe first decadeofresearchintotheDeadSeaScrolls,Henoch Yalon,Moshe Goshen-Gottstein, and Ze'evBen-Hayyimshowedthat the Hebrewof thescrollsshared isoglosses withLate BiblicalHebrew, Tannaitic Hebrew, the Samaritan oral and writtentraditionsofthePentateuch, theHebrewreflectedinGreektranscrip-tions(LXXandtheHexapla),aswellastheoriginallanguageunderlyingthe medievalexemplarsofBenSiraandthe DamascusDocumentfromtheCairo GenizaKutscher 's1959bookonthelanguageandlinguisticbackgroundof theGreat IsaiahScrollconvincedmostreadersthatdeviationsin thelanguage oflQIsaafromtheMT reflectedvernacularHebrewand AramaicinPalestine around the timeofJesus38 The viewofthelanguageoftheDead SeaScrollsasessentiallyliterarybut betrayingcolloquialfeaturesisstillmaintainedbymostHebraists39In contrast toKutscherandthemajorityview, however,ShelomoMoragandBen-Hayyim emphasizedinthemidtolate1950sthevernacularelementsinthescrollsand implied that the Hebrewof the scrollswasa previouslyunknown Hebrewdialect TodayEhsha Qimron isthe foremostproponent of the dialectalapproach40 36 Paul Kahle, The CairoGeniza(2nd ed, OxfordBlackwell,1959)208 37 AlejandroDiezMacho,"UnacopadetodoelTargumjerosolimitanoenlaVaticana," EstBib15(1956)446-47SeealsoMatthewBlack,"TheRecoveryoftheLanguageofJesus," NTS3 ( 1957)305-13A decade later, however,Blackacknowledgedthe importance of the Aramaic scrollsfromQumran asa linguisticpropotype ofthe Gospels {Aramaic Approach,3rded, 44) 38Eduard YechezkelKutscher, The Languageand LinguisticBackgroundofthe IsaiahScroll (in Hebrew, JerusalemMagnes,1959,Engtrans , STDJ 6, LeidenBrill,1974) 39 JoshuaBlau,"AConservativeViewofthe LanguageoftheDead SeaScrolls,"inDiggers at theWellProceedingsofaThird InternationalSymposiumon the Hebrewofthe Dead SeaScrolls andBenSira(edTakamitsu Muraoka and John FElwolde,STJD 36,LeidenBrill,2000)20-25, and, in the same volume, AviHurvitz, "WasQH a 'Spoken' Language?On Some Recent Views and PositionsComments,"110-14 4 0Ehsha Qimron,"The NatureofDSSHebrewand Its Relation to BH and MH,"inDiggers attheWell (edMuraoka and Elwolde),232-44 272THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY|74,2012 Two of theHebrew documents that turned up at Qumran werefound todiffer in language from other manuscriptsthe Copper Scroll (3Q15) and MiqsatMacase ha-Torah (4QMMT)JMihk designatedthe languageoftheformer"dialecte mishmque"anddeclaredthatitprovedthatMishnaicHebrewwasalanguage spokenbytheJudeanpopulation41QimronandJohnStrugnellcategorizedthe latter, 4QMMT,as the text that reflectsmost closelythe Hebrewspokenat Qum-ran42In an article recapitulating the salient linguisticfeaturesof theHebrew Dead SeaScrolls,Moragdividedthe Qumran Hebrewmanuscriptsinto threedifferent languagevarietiesMostscrolls,accordingtoMorag,werewrittenin "General QumranHebrew",4QMMT waswrittenin "Qumran Mishnaic", and the Copper Scroll, becauseof its similarity,on the one hand, and dissimilarity,on the other, to Tannaitic Hebrew, waswrittenin the unique "Copper ScrollHebrew "4 3 Additionalsitesin theJudean DesertWadiMurabbacat, Nahal Hever, Ketef Jericho,and Masadahaveyieldedepigraphicfindsfromaslightlylaterperiod than the scrollsfoundat Qumran, namely, from the destruction oftheFirst Tem-ple(70eE ) until the endoftheSecond Revolt(135c )The corpora include, amongother things,legalmanuscripts,lettersofSimon BarKosiba(more com-monly known as Bar Kokhba), and the earliestHebrew versionof Ben SiraSome of these documents, like the Dead Sea Scrolls, have revealedunequivocalsigns of aHebrew vernacular44Theyalsosharesalientfeatureswith Tannaitic Hebrew45 Withregardto the Bar Kosibamaterial, Mihk, Yigael Yadm,and otherssur-misedthatBarKosibaadoptedtheuseofHebrewandimposeditonadminis-tratorsandsoldiersfornationalisticreasons46AfrequentlycitedarticlebySeth Schwartzonlanguageandideologycontinuesthislineofthought47Suchan 4 1Benoit, J Mihk,and Rde Vaux, Les grottes de Murabbacat (2 vols ,DJD 2,Oxford Clarendon, 1961)170 42 EQimron and JStrugnell, Qumran Cave 4 V Miqsat Macase ha-Torah (DJD 10, Oxford Clarendon, 1994) 108 43ShelomoMorag,"QumranHebrewSomeTypologicalObservations,"FT 38(1988) 148-64 44 See, for example, the prefixing of the direct object marker -$)(= 07 ), "the soil" (Mur24 5,8) 45 For a detailed description of the language of the documents, see now Un Mor, "The Gram-mar of the Epigraphic Hebrew DocumentsfromJudaea between the First and the Second Revolts" (in Hebrew,Ph Ddiss ,Ben-Gunon Universityof the Negev, 2009) 46 DJD 2 70, Yigael Yadin, Bar-KokhbaThe Rediscovery of the Legendary Hero of the Sec-ond Jewish Revolt against Rome (New YorkRandom House, 1971)181, Nicholas de Lange ("The Revivalof the HebrewLanguagein the ThirdCenturyCE," JewishStudies Quarterly3 [1996] 342-58, here 343) has argued that the renewed use of Hebrew in the third century e Eafterit died out as a spoken languagein the second century was a deliberate policyon the part of the rabbis, which was motivated by political and theological considerations 47SethSchwartz,"Language,Power,and Identity in AncientPalestine," Past and Present 148(1995)3-47 WHICHSEMITIC LANGUAGE DID JESUSSPEAK?273 approach,however,turnsablindeyetothedemonstratedvitalityofTannaitic Hebrewduringtheperiod(seebelow),whichissurprisingsincethelinguistic relevanceof the Judean Desert documentsforthe study of Tannaitic Hebrew has beenacceptedbyHebraistssincethepublicationofthefirstscrolls:todayall works that treat the Hebrew of the Judean Desert documents relate, perforce,also to Tannaitic Hebrew and vice versa.48 Somescholarsof the NT and postbiblicalJudaismhaveacknowledgedthat colloquialelementshavepenetratedtheliterarytextsoftheHebrewDeadSea Scrolls,buttheyhavepreferredtodownplaythepossibilitythatavernacular Hebrew was spoken by more than a limited number of learned Jews; in their opin-ion,theHebrewDeadSeaScrollsareevidenceforliteraryHebrew.49Thegen-eral skepticismover the Hebrew of the DeadSea Scrolls expresses itself,among other things, in the lack of attention paid to linguistic research.50 For example, one hardlyfindsmentionofthescholarshipofKutscher,Ben-Hayyim,Morag,and, for works written after1986, Qimron.51 Not all haveapproachedthe Hebrewevidence with such reservations, how-ever.Forexample,JeanCarmignacwasconvinced,on thebasisof hisworkon thescrolls,thatthelanguageunderlyingtheGospelswasaHebrewsimilarto that of the scrolls.52 It is curious that two otherscholars who argued thatHebrew waswidelyspokenin Palestinedidso solelyon the basisofSegal'sdescription 48 Thisis welldemonstratedin theproceedingsof thefivesymposiathathavebeenconvened since1997ontheHebrewoftheDeadSeaScrollsandcontemporarycorporaSee,forexample, themostrecentlypublishedvolume,ConservatismandInnovationin theHebrewLanguageofthe HellenisticPeriodProceedingsofa FourthInternationalSymposiumontheHebrewoftheDead SeaScrolls& BenSira(edJanJoostenandJean-SbastienRey,STDJ73, LeidenBrill,2008) 49 SeeBlack,AramaicApproach(3rded),48-49,Fitzmyer,"LanguagesofPalestine," 529-31,Meier,MarginalJew,1 262-63,Casey,AramaicSources,80FrankZimmermann{The AramaicOriginoftheFourGospels[NewYorkKtav,1979]17),despitehisacquaintancewith theBarKosibamaterial(heignorestheDeadSeaScrolls),deniestheuseofHebrewasaliving languageandfallsbackon thestandardpositionbeforethe discoveryof the JudeanDesertmaterial, namely,thatHebrewwasrestrictedtolearnedusealoneBarr("WhichLanguage"and"Hebrew, AramaicandGreek"),JSevenster(DoYou KnowGreek9HowMuchGreekCouldtheFirst JewishChristiansHaveKnown9[NovTSup19,LeidenBrill,1968]),and Wilcox("Semitisms") are more open to the possibilityof extensiveHebrewspeech than most scholarsJoosten("Aramaic or Hebrew,"90)isexplicit"In the time ofJesus, Hebrewwasactivelyspokenand written,along-side Aramaic, bymanyPalestinian Jews" 50SymptomaticofthisisthefactthatinFitzmyer'simportantandinfluential"Languages ofPalestine"onlyfourpagesaredevotedtodiscussingHebrew(thesamenumberasisdevoted toLatin),asagainstelevenforAramaicand tenforGreekThereisnomention,forexample,of Kutscher 's1959bookonlQIsaa(LanguageandLinguisticBackground) 51EhshaQimron,TheHebrewoftheDeadSeaScrolls(HSS29,AtlantaScholarsPress, 1986) 52 Jean Carmignac, La naissancedesvangilessynoptiques(2ndedwithresponsetocritics, PansO E I L ,1984)esp10 274THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY|74,2012 ofMishnaic Hebrewand not on the basisofepigraphicremains from the Judean Desert. The Semitist Harris Birkelandwrotein1954 that Jesusspokea vernacular Hebrew, though he barelymentions the Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrollsor the Bar Kosibaletters.53Similarly,JehoshuaM.Grintz, ascholaroftheOT andSecond Temple period, positedin a1960article that Hebrewwasthe spokenand written languagein Palestineat the end oftheSecond Temple period, but he didsowith onlyscant referenceto the epigraphicevidence.54 ForHebraists,theexistenceofbothHebrewandAramaicdocumentsat Qumran and other sitesin the Judean Desert, as well as the Hebraismsin the Ara-maicdocuments and the Aramaismsin the Hebrewdocuments, demonstrate that speakersinPalestinebeforeandafterthe turn oftheCommon Era wereatleast bilingual(in manycasesalsotrilingualwithGreek).55 Theyalsofindadditional support for Aramaic-Hebrewbilinguahsmin inscriptionson tombsandossuaries inHebrewand Aramaic.JosephNavehhasarguedthat the useofHebrewnick-names in everydaylife is yet another indication of the living use of thelanguage.56 AnimportantsourceofinformationaboutHebrewinthefirstandsec-ondcenturiesoftheCommon Erathatseemstohavegoneunnoticed bynon-HebraistsistheresearchconductedonTannaiticHebrewsincethetimeof Segal.57TheevidencefromreliablemanuscriptsoftheMishnahsuchasMSS Kaufmann,ParmaA,andCambridge,eventhoughtheyaremedievalcopies (approximatelyeleventhtofourteenthcenturiesC.E.),revealsarich,dynamic, anddevelopingHebrewwhosedetailshavebeenstrikinglycorroboratedin the pastfewdecadesbyaninvestigationoftheHebreworaltraditionsofdifferent Jewishcommunities fromYemen,Iraq, Syria,and North Africa.58Thediversity anddevelopmentsin theattestedtraditionsofTannaiticHebrewhavenot been 53 Birkeland, Language,22-23He added, however,acurious twistheinsistedthatthe ver-nacular Hebrew spoken byJesus wasthe basisforthe later and artificialMishnaic Hebrew 54 Jehoshua MGrmtz, "Hebrew as the Spoken and Written Languagein the Last Days of the Second Temple," JBL79(1960) 32-47, here 46-47 55 Note that Bar Kosiba wrote letters in Hebrew as wellas m Aramaic, and he refersto himself in both Hebrew and Aramaicfashion30 "Q ITOtfand fiyftttf 56 Joseph Naveh, "HebrewversusAramaicinthe Epigraphic Finds oftheSecond Temple-Bar-KokhbaPeriod" (in Hebrew), Les56(1992)301-18,Rachel Hachhh, JewishFuneraryCus-toms,PracticesandRitesin theSecondTemple Period(JSJSup94, LeidenBrill,2005) 57 To a certain extent, the reason forthis is that until the1980salmost all the literature on the subjectwaswritten in ModernHebrew 58SeeMoshe Bar-Asher,"The DifferentTraditions ofMishnaicHebrew," in "Workingwith No Data"Semiticand EgyptianStudiesPresentedtoThomasOLambdin(edDavid MGolomb, WinonaLake,INEisenbrauns,1987)1-38,idem,"WrittenSources", Morag,"OralEvidence" Kutscherdemonstratedthat the editors ofprintededitions oftheMishnah consciouslyand uncon-sciouslychanged Tannaitic features to correspond to the better-known formsand grammar of Bibli-calHebrew, whereasmedievalmanuscripts werelesssubjectto this"bibhcizmg"ofthelanguage and thus preserveda more authentic representationof Tannaitic Hebrew WHICH SEMITIC LANGUAGE DID JESUSSPEAK?275 broughtintothediscussionbythosewhoconsidertheuseofHebrewtohave beenseverelyrestricted.TheheterogeneityofTannaiticHebrewknowntoday toHebraistssuggeststhatitis theproductofalanguagethatwaswidelyused andspoken.HadTannaiticHebrewbeenmerelyalearnedlanguageusedby justa fewforreligiousandliturgicalpurposes,it would not be as variegatedas we now know it to have been. Rabbinicliteratureitself hints at the existenceof dialectsinTannaitictimes.59Segalarguedmorethana hundredyearsagothat MishnaicHebrewwasalivinglanguagetheevidencethathasaccumulated since then in supportof his claim hassteadilyincreased. Two morerelevantsourcesforspokenHebrewhavealso beenoverlooked. The first isSamaritan Hebrew,in particularthe oral recitationof the Pentateuch. Ben-Hayyim's work in the1950s on the parallels between Samaritan Hebrew and the Hebrew Dead Sea Scrolls strongly suggested that colloquial formsof Hebrew were spoken in Palestine by Jews and Samaritans.60 The second is the Palestinian piyyutimfromthe Byzantine period, which at times also display featuresof a liv-ing language that are paralleledin the traditionsof Tannaitic Hebrew asreflected in manuscripts and oral traditions.61 III. UntilWhenWasHebrewSpokenasa LivingLanguage? Asalreadynoted,severalscholarshaveviewedHebrewasmerelyaliter-arylanguageand,ifspoken,limitedtoonlyafewscholarlyfamiliesorpockets ofPalestinianJews.KlausBeyerpresentedanextremeviewofthedemiseof Hebrew as a vernacularin dating the death of Hebrew in Palestine to 400B.C.E.62 Asimilar,butslightlylessextremepositionisthatofSchwartz,whobelieves thatfrom300B.C.E.onHebrewwasnolongercommonlyspoken.63Theanti-Hebrewbias hascontinuedinto the twenty-firstcentury.In2001thelateHanan Eshel,anarchaeologistandhistorian,arguedthatdocumentsfromtheJudean 59 Bar-Asher,"IntroductorySurvey," 381-83. 60 Ze'evBen-Hayyim, Studiesin theTraditions of the Hebrew Language(Madrid/Barcelona: InstitutoAriasMontano,1954)77-92;idem,"TraditionsintheHebrewLanguage,withSpecial ReferencetotheDeadSeaScrolls,"inAspectsoftheDeadSeaScrolls(ed.RabinandYadin), 200-214. 61 JosephYahalom,PoeticLanguageintheEarlyPiyyut(inHebrew;Jerusalem:Magnes, 1985)162-76; Israel Yeivin, "The Contributionof the Piyyut Language to the MishnaicLanguage" (in Hebrew), Massorot9-11(1997)77-89; idem, "CharacteristicLinguistic Featuresof Piyyut" (in Hebrew),inStudiesin HebrewandJewishLanguagesPresentedtoShelomoMorag(ed.Moshe Bar-Asher;Jerusalem: Center for Jewish Languages and Literatures, Hebrew Universityof Jerusa-lem and BialikInstitute,1996)105-18. 62 KlausBeyer,TheAramaicLanguage:ItsDistributionandSubdivision(trans.JohnF. Healey; Gttingen: Vandenhoeck& Ruprecht,1986) 40-43. 63 Schwartz, "Language," 3. 276THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY|74,2012 Desertdemonstrated that the scribeshad a poor graspofHebrew: he considered the Aramaismsin the Hebrewdocument Mur. 42to beevidencethat itwasdif-ficult forthe author to communicatefullyin Hebrew.64 Eshelalsothought, asdid others beforehim, that the choice of Greek as the medium of writingin P. Yadin 3 indicated a poor command of Hebrew.65 Andas recently as 2009, Avigdor Shinan, anexpertonmidrashicliterature, wroteinacommentaryon Pirqe Abot("The Sayings of the Fathers") that Aramaicwasthe languageofspeech throughout the mishnaic period.66 Onthe other hand, itisa givenforalmostallHebraistsand Aramaiststhat Hebrewwasmore widelyusedthan had beenpreviouslythought. Basedon the epigraphic material, Naveh has maintained that Aramaicwasmore common than Hebrewindailylifein theSecond Temple period, yetHebrewwasstillwidely spoken.67Bernard Spolsky, buildingon the workofothers, suggeststhat the lan-guages spoken bycommunity and in the region werethe followingin descending order offrequency:68 Jews: Judean villagesHebrew GalileeAramaic, Hebrew, Greek CoastalcitiesGreek, Aramaic, Hebrew Jerusalem, upper classGreek, Aramaic, Hebrew Jerusalem, lowerclassAramaic, Hebrew, Greek 64HananEshel, "HebrewinEconomicDocumentsfromtheJudeanDesert" (inHebrew), Les63 (2001) 41-52Yet, out of eighty-three words in Mur42, only two are formed from Aramaic roots (,"purchase," and 12, "negligence")There are three attestations of the Aramaic third personmasculine singularpronominalsuffix(33,"hewroteit"[2x]and 7W1,"himself)A preferableinterpretationwouldbethatthe useof AramaicinHebrewdocuments(andHebrewin Aramaicdocuments)is proof of bihngualismon the part of thescribes 65 Papyrus Yadin312-15 has been translated"It was writtenin Greek becauseof nomeans having been foundto write it in Hebrew" (Hayim Lapin, "PalmFronds and CitronsNotes on Two LettersfromBar Kosiba's Administration," HUCA64[1993]111-35, here114-15)Morerecently Cotton ("BarKokhba Revolt") has discussed the lines and stressed the difficultyof the Greek read-ingShedismissestheolderinterpretrationofthelinesandraisesthepossibilitythatSoumaios, whoismentionedmthepapyrus,isnotSimeonBarKosiba,butrathera Nabatean,andforthis reasonit is difficultfor him to write in the Jewish Aramaic(as opposed to Nabatean)script 66 AvigdorShinan,PirkeAvotANewIsraeliCommentary(inHebrew,JerusalemYediot AcharonotandHemedBooks,2009)26-27IthankProfessorAndersonfordrawingShinan's remarks to myattention 67 Naveh, "Second Temple Period," n 68 BernardSpolsky,"JewishMultihnguahsmintheFirstCenturyAnEssayinHistorical Sociolrnguistics," in Readingsin the Sociologyof JewishLanguages(edJoshua AFishman,Con-tributions to theSociologyof Jewish Lanugages1, LeidenBrill,1985) 35-50, here 41 WHICHSEMITIC LANGUAGE DID JESUSSPEAK?277 Non-Jews in Palestine: GovernmentofficialsGreek and some Latin Coastal cities (Greek colonies)Greek Elsewhere:Aramaic WillemF. Smelik hasaptlysummarizedcurrentthinkingamong thosewho dealwithHebrewandAramaic:"Allrecenttreatmentssupposebi-ormulti-lingualismand usually Aramaic as the principalspoken language."69 Thereis no doubt that AramaicoverwhelmedHebrewafterthesecondcen-turyC.E. and that Hebrew gradually became restricted to liturgyand writing. But did it really disappear entirely as a spoken language?70 There are tantalizing snip-petsthathint thatHebrewmighthavecontinuedasa vernacularin Palestine,at least to a limitedextent. Rabbi Jonathan'scommentin j>. Meg.71b (and y. Sotah 21c;seesectionIBabove),iftakenatfacevalue,indicatesthatHebrewwas still usedas a vernacularin thefourthcenturyC.E. Moreover,thereis a papyrus, OxfordMS. Heb. d. 69 (P), which on palographiegrounds is dated to the fifth or sixth centuryC.E. Although it comes from the Amoraic period, it is written in part in the type of Mishnaic Hebrew that is reflectedin reliable tannaitic manuscripts. For example, one finds px("man") with final nun instead of mem, the proper noun p r("Yudan" ("Lecazar" < -infrx, "Elazar") with aphaeresis of the initial alef.11 "irrntaDf?unif7wnmnirnx- ->iwvpwpxnv ^imx ivn. . . pon-pny V?imxi nmrxnmi?iraopvDXT n*t?wdrwbm-n ms*5 runa ' CTN ^ .. . send me them with a trusted man since I need them greatly. Your welfare and the welfareof all your household, may it be fruitful and increase forever. Goodbye. And if Yudan brings you thisletter, give them(the owed carats)to him. Your servant and your dust, your disciple. Issi (Esi/e?) wrote this on behalf of Lacazarb. Yose. TheuseofHebrewatthisperiodinaliturgicalorreligiousworkisnot unex-pected; the document, however, is a personalletter about business. Nolessintriguing isa Geniza Judeo-Arabicfragment (T-S. Ar. 21/17), pos-siblyfromthetenthcenturyC.E., in which theauthor writes of sitting in themar-69WillemF.Smelik,TheTargum of Judges(OTS36; Leiden: Brill,1995)8. 70 JosephNaveh,"HebrewversusAramaicintheEpigraphicFindsaftertheBarKokhba Revolt"(in Hebrew), Les57(1992)17-38. 71Seethe discussionin Mordechai Mishor, "ANewEdition ofa HebrewLetter: OxfordMs. Heb.d.69(P)" (in Hebrew), Les53(1989) 215-64. 278THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY|74,2012 ketsand streetsofTiberiasinvestigatinghowthe simplefolkspeak Aramaicand Hebrewv ^ DKta ya[no]Kannaum nxnxo ^> VK ^nnum?2 wIN rf?*x xaa ^IODIP *?n[xn]l7^xi nata ^' rrraD'irmi [=] yx ^ ^ ^ ^ : ^ | / ] pj xa^ Ihavebeensittingfor a longtimem the squaresand streetsof Tiberiaslisten-ingto the speechof the marketand of thesimplefolkand investigating(their) languageandits origins,seeingifsomething wascorrupted from whatI con-sideredto be (its) basis,or ifsomething was missingfromwhatseemedtobe (correct), and how the Hebrewand Aramaiclanguagesand their varietieswere pronounced,thatisto say, the languageoftheTargumand other(dialects), becauseit is similarto the Hebrewlanguage AtfirstblushbothMSHebd69(P)andT-SAr21/17 indicate that Hebrewstill mayhavebeenusedin Palestineafterthe endofthetannaitic period, and notonly fornonsecularpurposes73 IVWrittenversusOralEvidenceandthe ParallelofNeo-Aramaic Inclosing,I wouldliketooffera parallelforthe useofaspokenlanguage longafterthere are no longer written records ofitI turn to Aramaic, thelanguage thatdisplacedHebrewin Palestineand whichservedforcenturiesasthelingua francaoftheNear East until afterthe Arabconquestsin the seventhcentury e E Followingthe spread of Islam and Arabic, the number of Aramaicspeakersbegan todecline until sometime beforethe modern period, at which time it wasconfined toliturgicalusein some Near Eastern churches, or soit wasgenerallythought in theWest Inrecentdecadesscholarshaveisolatedafewmanuscriptreferencesthat indicate that Christians and Jewsin the Middle Agesactuallyspoke AramaicAn 72 Allony, " ben Yehuda Hannazir and His Treatise 'Kitb 3Usl al-Lughaal-cIbrmyya'" (m Hebrew),Les 34 [1970]75-105,here98-101For an argumentagainstthe attributionof this work to ben Yehuda Hannazir, see Ilan Eldar, "On the Identity of Some Geniza Fragments" (in Hebrew), Alei Sefer 12 (1986) 51-61, here 59-61 73 Assuggestedalready by YKutscher, "Present State of Research into Mishnaic Hebrew (EspeciallyLexicography)and Its Tasks" (in Hebrew), in Archive of the New Dictionary 1 57-60, Steven DFraade, "Rabbinic Views on the Practice of Targum, and Multilinguahsm in the Jewish Galilee of the Third-SixthCenturies," in The Galileein Late Antiquity (edI ee ILevine, New YorkJewishTheologicalSeminary, 1992) 253-86, here 273-82, Bar-Asher, "Introductory Survey," 369-702Admittedly, the evidence of the Judeo-Arabicmanuscript for a vernacular Hebrew in the tenth century is considerably more difficulttofindthan the evidence of the Hebrew manuscript fromthefifthor sixth century eE WHICHSEMITIC LANGUAGEDID JESUSSPEAK?279 Arabicmateriamedicawork,al-Kitbal-Mustacri byibnBaklarish,preserved inamanuscriptfromtheearlyeleventhcentury,containsa Neo-Aramaicgloss in Arabictranscription:^=^4JJL}>JIJ^^^j*i-X^A"themilkofwomen: 'women' in suryaniyyais baxta"74The twelfth-centuryJewish travelerBenjamin of Tudela mentions visiting Aramaic-speaking Jewish communities in Kurdistan:75 mnnt>7]pnrannxvn.^ICW^ TD ID Dim miroy1?nwrwnnum rrfaniaomnap xrftnn nftnpnxaaDW ^Tisnn m . . .mnnp ^ nonmaDm.-firmnowa^n^mz; Thenceit is five daysto Amadiawherethereareabout25,000Israelites.This isthe first ofthosecommunitiesthat dwellin the mountainsofChafton,where there are more than100Jewish communities.Here is the commencement of the land of Media. The Jewsbelongto the first exile whichKingShalmanezarled away; andthey speak thelanguage in which theTargumis written . .. Onealso finds a five-word Neo-Aramaicsentence inserted into theJudeo-Arabic Bibletranslation ofIbnSsnfromaround1570, whichwaswrittenbyapupil from Kurdistanwhocame tostudyinSafed:KTO p^TNypl ^ ,"Bring sticks(and)light afire!"76 Intheseventeenth century, EuropeanChristian travelersintheNearEast reportedforthe first time hearing spoken Aramaic; in the nineteenthcentury, the first Neo-Aramaic oral texts were published.77 The oral evidence testifyingto the survivalofAramaicasalivingvernacular ofChristiansand JewsinKurdistan (Iraqi, Iranian, andTurkish) andIranian Azerbaijanstunned Aramaists. In isolated villages, Christians and Jewscontinued from the seventh centuryC.E.ontospeak Aramaic uninterruptedlyinto the nineteenthand twentiethcentury until persecu-tionand massacreseither killedthemofforsentthemintoexile.Inaddition, insouthwestern Irananother Aramaic vernacular,Neo-Mandaic, wasspoken by Mandeans, the descendantsofthelate antiqueGnosticsect.The native Aramaic speakers managed topreserve their language because of therough terrain that cut offtheirremotecommunitiesfromthe restoftheworld,and theycontinued to speak their native Aramaic tongue as a vernacular despite thesurrounding adstrata 74 Suryaniyya usuallyindicatesSyriac, but the followingword is clearly Neo-Aramaic.See GeoffreyKhan, "The North-Eastern Neo-AramaicDialects," JSS 52 (2007) 1 -20, here 11. 75 Marcus N. Adler, The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela:Critical Text,Translation and Com-mentary (London: Henry Frowde,1907), Hebrew text p. to; English translation p. 54. 76SimonHopkins, "ANeo-AramaicQuotation in a Judaeo-ArabicSource"(in Hebrew), in Heritage and Innovation in Medieval Judaeo-Arabic Culture: Proceedings of the Sixth Conference of the Society forJudaeo-Arabic Studies (ed. Joshua Blau and David Doron; Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2000) 119-25. 77Simon Hopkins, "The Jews of Kurdistanin Eretz Israel and Their Language" (in Hebrew), Pecamim56 (1993) 50-74, here 53. 280THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY|74,2012 of Arabic, Kurdish,Persian,and Turkish. Theyspoke Aramaicat home and with co-religionists, but scarcely wrote a word in their vernacular.78 It is estimated that there are still a few hundred thousand native Aramaic speakers dispersed over the entire globe. The "rediscovery"of Neo-Aramaicshows that thelackof writtenevidence does not necessarilypoint to theabsenceofspeech.Languagesmaycontinueto bespokenlongaftertheyceasebeingwrittendown.Inthelightoftheparallel of Neo-Aramaic,thescatteredevidenceof the useof Hebrewafterthetannaitic periodshould not be rejectedout of hand. V.Conclusion There is no denying that Jesus spoke Aramaic: the transliterated words attrib-utedtohimintheNTareAramaic.AsaJewfromtheGalilee,hemusthave spokensomeformofGalilean AramaicthatantedatestheGalilean Aramaicwe knowfromtheLateAramaicperiod.ButasaJewlivinginPalestine,hemust alsohavespokenHebrew,sinceHebrewwasstillaliveduringthisperiodand evenlater.ThevernacularevidenceintheJudeanDesertdocuments,boththe earlier(HebrewDeadSeaScrolls)andlaterdocuments(suchas the BarKosiba letters)fromdifferentJudeanDesertsites,demonstratesthatHebrewcontinued tobeused,notonlyinwritingandprayerbutalsoinspeech.Moreover,manu-scriptsandoraltraditionsofTannaiticHebrewdemonstratethatHebrewwasa vital,developing,andmultifacetedlanguagewithdialectsthatwasspokenuntil atleast theendof thesecondcenturyC.E.In thelightof thisevidence,itseems mostunlikelythatJesus wouldnothave knownHebrewin additionto Aramaic. Not only would he have been able to read fromthe Torah, but he would have been able also to converse naturally in Hebrew. Moreover, Hebrew may not have died out at the end of the tannaiticperiod. ThelimitedevidencefromtheTalmudandepigraphicsourceshintsthatthere may yet have beensome pocketsof Hebrewspeech afterthe secondcenturyC.E. Theanalogyof Neo-Aramaic,a language that was thought to have perishedas a spoken language since it leftno written works, but in factcontinued to be spoken uninterruptedlyuntilpresenttimes,shouldgiveonepausebeforedecidingcat-egorically that Hebrew no longer was spoken after70 C.E., or even 200C.E. 78 Therearefewwrittendocumentsin Neo-Aramaic. The oldestdate to thesixteenth and seventeeth centuries and have religious content. ^ s Copyright and Use: As an ATLAS user, you may print, download, or send articles for individualuse according to fair use as definedby U.S. and internationalcopyright law and as otherwiseauthorizedunder your respective ATLASsubscriberagreement. No content may be copied or emailed to multiplesites or publicly posted without the copyrightholder(s)' express written permission. Any use, decompiling, reproduction, or distributionof this journal in excess of fair use provisions may be a violation of copyright law. This journalis made available to you through the ATLAS collection with permission fromthe copyright holder(s). The copyright holder foran entire issue of a journal typicallyis the journal owner, who also may own the copyright in each article. However, forcertain articles, the author of the article may maintain the copyright in the article. Please contact the copyright holder(s) to request permission to use an article orspecific work forany use not covered by the fair use provisions of the copyright laws or covered by your respective ATLASsubscriberagreement. For informationregarding the copyright holder(s), please referto the copyright informationin the journal, if available, or contact ATLA to request contact informationfor the copyright holder(s). About ATLAS: The ATLASerials (ATLAS) collection contains electronic versions of previously published religion and theology journals reproduced with permission.The ATLAS collection is owned and managed by the American TheologicalLibraryAssociation (ATLA) and receivedinitial fundingfromLilly Endowment Inc. The design and final formof this electronic document is the propertyof the American TheologicalLibraryAssociation.