Q: What languages did Jesus speak?

Q: What languages did Jesus speak?

A: Biblical scholars are quick to agree that Jesus and his disciples primarily spoke Aramaic, the common language of Judea in the first century AD, and that He most likely did so with a pronounced Galilean accent distinguishable from that of Jerusalem.

Growing up, Jesus would have also been instructed in and taught Hebrew by Jewish rabbis. Proof of this is manifested when our Lord reads from the Prophecy of Isaiah in the synagogue and quotes repeatedly from the ancient Hebrew texts during His ministry.

Since the towns of Nazareth and Capernaum in Galilee (where Jesus spent most of his time) were also centers of commerce for the Gentiles, most people in those regions had a general knowledge of Greek and were able to speak it to some degree. Given the fact that Jesus was a carpenter and would undoubtedly have had dealings with many Gentiles, we can safely assume that He at least spoke a rudimentary form of Greek. In addition, because there is no record that Pilate needed to use an interpreter while questioning Jesus, some scholars have used this as evidence that Christ may have also known Latin.

Fr. John