What Language Was the Bible Written In?

From the Who Wrote the Bible? series

The Bible was not originally composed in a single language. Its texts were composed in three — Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek — across roughly 800 years, and each language opens a window into the historical circumstances of its authors. Understanding what language the Bible was originally written in means understanding how the world around these authors changed, from the iron-age kingdoms of Israel and Judah to the Greek-speaking cities of the Roman Empire.

Biblical Hebrew: The Foundation of the Old Testament

The vast majority of the Old Testament was composed in Biblical Hebrew, a Northwest Semitic language closely related to Phoenician, Moabite, and Ugaritic. Hebrew served as the literary and administrative language of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah from roughly the 10th century BCE onward. Even as spoken Hebrew gradually gave way to Aramaic in daily life, it remained the primary language for composing sacred and literary texts.

“Biblical Hebrew” is not one uniform language, though. It changed over time.

Linguists distinguish several stages of development, and these stages give scholars one of their tools for dating biblical texts. Avi Hurvitz, who spent decades at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem studying the chronology of Biblical Hebrew, developed systematic criteria for distinguishing early and late forms. His method identifies vocabulary and grammatical constructions that appear only in texts known to be late (such as Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles), then checks whether those features also appear in earlier texts — or are absent from them. When a text consistently uses late vocabulary and Aramaic-influenced syntax, scholars can corroborate dating conclusions drawn from other kinds of evidence. Hurvitz’s A Concise Lexicon of Late Biblical Hebrew (2014) catalogs these linguistic innovations in detail.

Angel Sáenz-Badillos, in A History of the Hebrew Language (1993), provides the broadest survey of these stages. He traces Hebrew from its earliest Semitic origins through its archaic, classical, and late biblical forms, analyzing the phonological, morphological, and syntactic changes that allow scholars to place biblical texts along a linguistic timeline. More recently, Ronald Hendel and Jan Joosten, in How Old Is the Hebrew Bible? (2018), brought historical linguistics, textual criticism, and cultural history together to demonstrate that Classical Biblical Hebrew — the language of Genesis through 2 Kings — can be dated to the late monarchic period by comparing it with inscriptional Hebrew from that era.

What do these stages look like in practice?

Archaic Biblical Hebrew appears in the oldest poetry embedded within later books. The Song of Deborah (Judges 5), widely considered one of the oldest compositions in the Hebrew Bible, uses grammatical forms and vocabulary that predate the prose surrounding it — possibly by centuries, dating to the 12th or 11th century BCE. The Song of the Sea (Exodus 15) shows similar archaic features. These poems were likely transmitted orally before being woven into the larger narrative frameworks that now contain them.

Standard Biblical Hebrew characterizes the major narrative books — the Torah sources, the Deuteronomistic History (Joshua through Kings), and much of the prophetic literature composed between the 8th and 6th centuries BCE. This is the Hebrew of prophets like Amos, Hosea, and Jeremiah.

Late Biblical Hebrew appears in texts composed during and after the Babylonian exile (~586 BCE onward). Books like Ezra, Nehemiah, Chronicles, Ecclesiastes, and Daniel show vocabulary borrowed from Aramaic and Persian, along with syntactic patterns that diverge from earlier prose. The shift is measurable. When scholars encounter these features clustering in a text, they have linguistic grounds — independent of the text’s content — for placing it in the post-exilic period.

Aramaic: The Language That Took Over

Aramaic belongs to the same Semitic language family as Hebrew but originated among Aramean peoples in Syria and Mesopotamia. By the 8th century BCE, it had begun spreading as a language of international diplomacy and trade.

The Neo-Assyrian Empire adopted Aramaic as its administrative lingua franca, and the language’s reach expanded enormously. The subsequent Neo-Babylonian and Persian empires continued this practice. By the 5th century BCE, Aramaic was the common language of much of the ancient Near East — and this linguistic shift left its mark directly on the biblical text.

Several passages in the Old Testament are composed not in Hebrew but in Aramaic:

Daniel 2:4—7:28 — The central section of Daniel switches from Hebrew to Aramaic at the point where the Chaldean advisors address the king (“in Aramaic,” the text notes) and continues in Aramaic through the vision chapters. Scholars have debated the reason. One explanation holds that the Aramaic sections circulated independently before being incorporated into the larger book. The Hebrew framing at the beginning and end may have been added when the book was compiled in its final form, around 167—164 BCE.
Ezra 4:8—6:18 and 7:12—26 — These sections contain official correspondence between Persian officials and the Jewish community in Judea. The use of Aramaic reflects the administrative language of the Persian Empire — the letters are presented in the language in which they would actually have been composed.
Jeremiah 10:11 — A single verse in Aramaic, possibly a marginal note or liturgical formula that entered the text during transmission.
Genesis 31:47 — Two Aramaic words (Yegar Sahadutha) appear when Laban names a memorial heap in his own language, while Jacob names it in Hebrew (Galeed). The passage itself draws attention to the difference.

By the time of Jesus, Aramaic had largely replaced Hebrew as the everyday spoken language in Judea and Galilee. Hebrew continued in liturgical and scholarly use, but the linguistic center of gravity had shifted.

Koine Greek: The Language of the New Testament

The entire New Testament was composed in Koine Greek — the “common” dialect that emerged after Alexander the Great’s conquests spread Greek language and culture across the eastern Mediterranean in the late 4th century BCE. By the 1st century CE, Koine Greek functioned as the lingua franca of the Roman Empire’s eastern provinces, spoken alongside local languages in cities from Antioch to Alexandria to Rome.

The choice of Greek tells you something about audience.

Paul’s letters, the earliest New Testament documents (~50—60s CE), were addressed to communities in Greek-speaking cities: Thessalonica, Corinth, Galatia, Rome. Writing in Greek was simply the practical choice for reaching a geographically dispersed network of communities. The Gospels, composed later (~65—95 CE), similarly targeted audiences who read Greek as their primary or shared language.

The quality of Greek varies across the New Testament, and these variations tell scholars something about the authors behind these texts. The Gospel of Mark uses relatively simple, sometimes rough Greek with Aramaic syntax showing through — suggesting an author whose first language may not have been Greek. The Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts are composed in more polished, literary Greek. The letter to the Hebrews contains some of the most sophisticated Greek prose in the entire New Testament — so stylistically different from Paul’s letters that most scholars consider it the work of a different author entirely. Paul’s own Greek is fluent but occasionally ungrammatical, reflecting someone who thinks in complex theological categories but writes in a hurried, dictated style.

Traces of Aramaic survive beneath the Greek surface. Jesus’s words are occasionally preserved in Aramaic — Talitha koum (“Little girl, get up,” Mark 5:41), Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani (“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Mark 15:34), Abba (“Father,” Mark 14:36). These phrases are linguistic fossils: the spoken language behind the written Greek, preserved because early communities remembered Jesus’s actual words in his own language.

What Language Did Jesus Speak?

Most scholars conclude that Aramaic was Jesus’s primary spoken language. The Aramaic words preserved in the Gospels, the linguistic environment of 1st-century Galilee, and Aramaic-influenced syntax in some Gospel passages all point in this direction.

Hebrew was not extinct, though. It remained the language of Torah reading in the synagogue, and the Dead Sea Scrolls demonstrate that some Jewish communities — particularly at Qumran — continued composing texts in Hebrew through the 1st century CE. The Gospel of Luke describes Jesus reading from the scroll of Isaiah in the Nazareth synagogue (Luke 4:16—21), which would have been in Hebrew.

Greek is the more open question. Galilee was a multilingual region. The city of Sepphoris, just a few miles from Nazareth, was a Romanized urban center where Greek was commonly spoken. Stanley Porter, in Criteria for Authenticity in Historical-Jesus Research (2000), has argued that Jesus likely had working knowledge of Greek, identifying several Gospel passages where Jesus appears to converse directly with Greek speakers — including the dialogue with Pontius Pilate and the encounter with the Syrophoenician woman. Other scholars consider this reading speculative, noting that the Gospel authors may have simply rendered these conversations in Greek regardless of the original language. The evidence does not settle the question definitively.

From Original Languages to Modern Translations

The Bible that most English-speaking readers encounter is at least one translation removed from these original languages — and often two or three. The Old Testament in most Protestant Bibles is translated from the Masoretic Hebrew text, but translators regularly consult the Septuagint and Dead Sea Scrolls when the Hebrew is unclear or appears corrupted. The New Testament is translated from critical editions of the Greek text, which are themselves scholarly reconstructions based on thousands of manuscripts that differ from one another in places.

Every act of translation involves interpretation.

The Hebrew word almah in Isaiah 7:14 means “young woman,” but the Septuagint rendered it as parthenos (“virgin”) — a translation choice that shaped Christian theology when the Gospel of Matthew quoted the passage. The Hebrew word ruach can mean “spirit,” “wind,” or “breath,” depending on context. The Greek word ekklesia can mean “assembly,” “congregation,” or “church” — and which English word a translator chooses carries theological weight.

Understanding the three languages of the Bible — and the centuries of transmission between those original texts and modern translations — is a first step toward reading with the full compositional history in view. Uncanon’s reading tracks present these texts with scholarly context alongside every passage, including what scholars have found about the language, dating, and authorship of what you are reading.

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Uncanon presents the Bible in composition order with scholarly context before every passage — Setting the Scene, What Scholars Say, and Things to Notice — plus an AI guide you can ask questions at any point.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What language was the Old Testament written in?

The Old Testament was primarily composed in Biblical Hebrew, with several sections in Aramaic. The Aramaic portions include Daniel 2:4-7:28, Ezra 4:8-6:18 and 7:12-26, one verse in Jeremiah (10:11), and two words in Genesis (31:47). The Hebrew itself evolved over roughly 800 years of composition, from the archaic poetry of texts like Judges 5 to the later Hebrew of books like Ecclesiastes and Daniel.

What language was the New Testament written in?

The entire New Testament was composed in Koine Greek -- the common dialect spoken across the eastern Mediterranean following Alexander the Great's conquests in the 4th century BCE. Koine Greek served as the lingua franca of the Roman Empire's eastern provinces, making it the natural choice for texts intended to reach communities beyond Judea.

Was the Bible written in Aramaic?

Parts of the Old Testament were composed in Aramaic, but the New Testament was composed in Greek. Aramaic was the dominant spoken language in Judea and Galilee during the 1st century CE, and Jesus most likely spoke Aramaic as his primary language. The New Testament authors, however, chose Greek -- the shared language of the wider Mediterranean world.

What language did Jesus speak?

Most scholars conclude that Jesus spoke Aramaic as his primary language, based on Aramaic words preserved in the Greek Gospels (such as 'Talitha koum' in Mark 5:41 and 'Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani' in Mark 15:34). He likely also knew some Hebrew for reading Torah in the synagogue and may have had limited familiarity with Greek, given the multilingual environment of 1st-century Galilee.

What is Biblical Hebrew?

Biblical Hebrew is the form of Hebrew used in the Hebrew Bible, spanning roughly the 10th to 2nd centuries BCE. Linguists distinguish several stages: Archaic Biblical Hebrew (found in early poetry like the Song of Deborah), Standard Biblical Hebrew (the prose of most narrative books), and Late Biblical Hebrew (used in post-exilic texts like Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles). These stages reflect the natural evolution of a living language over eight centuries.