Page 137 - A Dissertation for Doctor of Philosophy

Though the native tongue of Jesus was Aramaic, 141 there are many evidences that he could also

speak and read Hebrew and Greek as well. 142 In his preaching, however, Jesus spoke Aramaic

since it was “the better-known language” of his audience. 143

Whereas his preaching was profound and compelling, the vocabulary he used was so simple and

clear that common people could easily follow. 144 His choice of words reflected his loving

attitudes toward his audience. Bond says, “He could not afford to be entirely misunderstood,”

since his message is to do with the “eternal destinies of men.” 145 In order to convey the message,

then, he chose words and phrases that were familiar to them. For example, the Sermon of the

Mount scarcely has a word “which a ten-year-old boy cannot pronounce and spell and

measurably understand.” 146

141
Jeremias, New Testament Theology, 4. “More precisely,” said he, “the mother-tongue
of Jesus was a Galilean version of western Aramaic.” See also, Joseph A. Fitzmyer, “The
Aramaic Language and the Study of the New Testament,” Journal of Biblical Literature 99
(1980): 11-18.

142 Stein, Method and Message, 4-6. For helpful discussion on the entire question of the
language of Jesus, see Joseph A. Fitzmyer, “The Language of Palestine in the First Century
A.D.” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 32 (1970): 501-31. J. A. Emerton, “The Problem of
Vernacular Hebrew in the First Century A.D. and the Language of Jesus,” Journal of Theological
Studies 24 (1973): 1-23.

143
Stein, Method and Message, 5. Jones, Teaching Methods, 16.
144
George H. Young, The Illustrative Teachings of Jesus (New York: Fleming H. Revell
Company, 1914), 13. See also Clarence W. Cranford, Taught by the Master (Nashville, TN:
Broadman Press, 1956), 26.

145 Bond, Master Preacher, 184.

146
Charles Reynold Brown, The Master’s Influence (Nashville, TN: Cokesbury Press,
1936), 27.