I believe that it was Joachim Jeremias, in The Parables of Jesus (Engl transl 1955 by S H Hooke), who seriously pursued the idea that Jesus' parables as presented in the Greek language Gospels were best understood as reflecting an Aramaic language source.
Jeremias does not, unfortunately, cite the church fathers in the index (just the Christian OT & NT scriptures), as this may not have been in his zone of interest.
There are references to the language by which Jesus' teaching was supposed to have been recorded in some church fathers. My suggestions might be to search for Origen, Eusebius (sometimes citing earlier writers in paraphrase form), Jerome or Rufinus.
The fathers usually indicate that their tradition was that the Gospel of Matthew was written down first by "Matthew" in the "Hebrew language," with the other gospel writers interpreting as they were able. Whether that means the "double tradition" (Gospels of Matthew & Luke common materials, parables mostly) or something else, like a narrative account, is hard to guess. The sources were quite vague.
To make it worse, "Hebrew language" could mean Hebrew, their sacred language, or Aramaic, as this was the commonly spoken language of most rural Judeans, if we go by archeological relics of an accidental nature, as already pointed out. In Judean settled areas, forget about inscriptions in Aramaic, much less Hebrew, anywhere at any time (in 1st century CE anyways), except perhaps in Jerusalem. In the bigger towns, Greek use was much more common, as this was the "international" language in the eastern Mediterranean region, introduced by Alexander the Great and his generals as they conquered the region.
You could, if you have a larger local or decent college/university library nearby, and can devote a few hours to do some serious reading, look at Wilhelm Schneemelcher's New Testament Apocrypha (2 volumes, English Translations by R McL Wilson 1991 & 1992), which discuss the apocryphal gospels and other traditions, but mention the same passages as are used to attest to ancient Judean sources for NT gospels.
Good luck with that ...
DCH
Jeremias does not, unfortunately, cite the church fathers in the index (just the Christian OT & NT scriptures), as this may not have been in his zone of interest.
There are references to the language by which Jesus' teaching was supposed to have been recorded in some church fathers. My suggestions might be to search for Origen, Eusebius (sometimes citing earlier writers in paraphrase form), Jerome or Rufinus.
The fathers usually indicate that their tradition was that the Gospel of Matthew was written down first by "Matthew" in the "Hebrew language," with the other gospel writers interpreting as they were able. Whether that means the "double tradition" (Gospels of Matthew & Luke common materials, parables mostly) or something else, like a narrative account, is hard to guess. The sources were quite vague.
To make it worse, "Hebrew language" could mean Hebrew, their sacred language, or Aramaic, as this was the commonly spoken language of most rural Judeans, if we go by archeological relics of an accidental nature, as already pointed out. In Judean settled areas, forget about inscriptions in Aramaic, much less Hebrew, anywhere at any time (in 1st century CE anyways), except perhaps in Jerusalem. In the bigger towns, Greek use was much more common, as this was the "international" language in the eastern Mediterranean region, introduced by Alexander the Great and his generals as they conquered the region.
You could, if you have a larger local or decent college/university library nearby, and can devote a few hours to do some serious reading, look at Wilhelm Schneemelcher's New Testament Apocrypha (2 volumes, English Translations by R McL Wilson 1991 & 1992), which discuss the apocryphal gospels and other traditions, but mention the same passages as are used to attest to ancient Judean sources for NT gospels.
Good luck with that ...
DCH
There is at least one professor who entertains the idea Jesus spoke Greek during his teachings: https://www.wisluthsem.org/did-jesus-speak-greek/
It is odd that if Jesus spoke Aramaic primarily, the gospel writers would translate into Greek using the same basic language with mostly just additions or subtractions. And if he spoke Aramaic, you would expect at least one copy of “sayings in Aramaic” to appear — that would be significant because the words would be transmitted and discussed with perfect fidelity. And if he spoke Aramaic, it makes no sense to specify the few times where he does speak Aramaic in the Gospel and writing it as such, like Matthew 27:46.
Then there’s the Bar Khokba findings: we have Old Testament scrolls written in Greek: https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/dai ... iscovered/ . There’s the letter from the “cave of letters” which says “the letter is written in Greek as we have no one who knows Hebrew” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_of_Letters . If even the fierce Jewish nationalists of the revolt used Greek scrolls, and at one point had no one present who knew Aramaic or Hebrew despite being what looks like a headquarters for the rebels, what does that tell us about the normal Jewish experience at the time? They would be even less likely to know Hebrew/Aramaic or use a Hebrew scroll. But as this is a century after Jesus, perhaps it doesn’t necessarily tell us anything?
So now I wonder what the church fathers say on this matter.
Statistics: Posted by DCHindley — Fri Apr 05, 2024 8:36 pm