2 The Use of Hebrew and Aramaic in Epigraphic Sources of the New Testament Era

Abstract

The widespread conviction among New Testament scholars that Aramaic, and not Hebrew, should be considered the Jewish vernacular of the first century C.E. and therefore the mother tongue of Jesus, was shaped in the nineteenth century by prominent scholars like Abraham Geiger and Gustaf Dalman, who were, without doubt, experts in their field. However, the textual evidence they could base their conclusions on was thin at that time: no literature, neither Hebrew nor Aramaic, was extant from the period in question and archaeological research in the land of Israel had only just begun. This chapter provides the reader with a comprehensive statistical overview of language use in the epigraphic sources. The epigraphic evidence from the first century presents a complex picture of a trilingual society in which Greek, Aramaic, and Hebrew not only exist side by side, but exist closely intertwined and in living contact with each another. Keywords: Aramaic; Epigraphic Sources; Hebrew; Jerusalem; Jesus; New Testament Era