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Why was the New Testament originally written in Greek and not in Hebrew or Aramaic and are there any original Greek manuscripts in existence?
Most scholars agree that the New Testament was written in Greek. There are no surviving original manuscripts, but there are some reasonably old ones. One reasons that the New Testament was written in Greek and not Hebrew is that Hebrew was no longer a day-to-day language, even among the Palestinian Jews, who now spoke Aramaic. The Diaspora Jews spoke Greek.Among the major books of the New Testament:
- The Epistle to the Hebrews is almost universally regarded as an exceptional work of Greek writing. Even in the early centuries of the Church, commentators wrote of its elegant Greek style.
- Paul's epistles were written in Greek, for a Gentile audience.
- Mark, Matthew and Luke contain substantial sections of text that are identical in Greek, because the authors of Matthew and Luke used Mark as their major source. If translation from or to Aramaic (or Hebrew) had been involved, the translation process would have resulted in changes to the text, but not the meaning. Matthew used the Greek 'Septuagint' translation of the Hebrew Bible for his Old Testament references, indicating that he was more familiar with Greek than with Hebrew. Luke inadvertently conjoined Mark's previous/subsequent text surrounding the Missing Block, using the same Greek words. So, all the New Testament gospels were written in Greek.
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Answered
Was the Old Testament written in Greek or Hebrew?
The Old Testament was written in Hebrew, but during the third and second centuries B.C. the Old testament was translated into the Greek Septuagint as the Hebrew language was d…ying out. The people needed the Scriptures in the tongue they understood. (MORE)
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Why was the New Testament written in Greek when the main language was Hebrew?
Although the everyday language of the Palestinian Jews was Aramaic, the New Testament was written in Greek because it was directed at a Greek-speaking audience. Christianity h…ad, by and large, failed to take hold among the Palestinian Jews. (MORE)
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Which language originated first Hebrew or Greek?
Scholars have identified the origins of the Hebrew language as a dialect of Canaanite around 900 BCE. The Greek language of Homer's Epics existed long before 1000 BCE, so Gree…k is much older than Hebrew. (MORE)
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Updated Answer
Was the Old Testament written in Hebrew and the New in Greek?
Answer Yes, the majority of the Old Testament was written in Hebrew, with some later Aramaic works; the New Testament was written in Greek. The Old Testament… was translated into Greek centuries before Christ, and the Greek version of the Hebrew Bible became known as the Septuagint or 'LXX'. In the nature of things, there are some identifiable mistranslations and errors in the LXX. To look at a few of the New Testament books:- Paul wrote his epistles to Greek-speaking Gentiles, so naturally he wrote in Greek. We can see from the evidence that the earliest Gospel, that of St Mark (not Matthew as commonly supposed), that it was written in Greek. St Matthew and St Luke also wrote in Greek, basing much of their Gospels on that of Mark. When they both use the same text as Mark, their Gospels are virtually identical in Greek, something that could not have happened unless they were writing in Greek and using a Greek source text. Matthew, in particular, relied on quotations from the Old Testament and we are able to see that he was relying on the Greek LXX, not the Hebrew Bible. Similarly, St John's Gospel can be shown to have been written in Greek. In fact, John uses some plays on words that only work in Greek, but not in Hebrew, Aramaic or English. (MORE)
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In The Bible
Are there any original New Testament manuscripts in existence?
NONE All we have are copies, of copies, of copies of the alleged originals. With the scribes adding, deleting, or changing the text to suit what he believes in. " …The Four Gospels were unknown to the early Christian Fathers. Justin Martyr, the most eminent of the early Fathers, wrote about the middle of the second century. His writings in proof of the divinity of Christ demanded the use of these Gospels had they existed in his time. He makes more than three hundred quotations from the books of the Old Testament, and nearly one hundred from the Apocryphal books of the New Testament; but none from the Four Gospels. The Rev. Dr. Giles says: "The very names of the Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, are never mentioned by him [Justin] -- do not occur once in all his writings" (Christian Records, p. 71)." Main article: Mark 16 "Starting in the 19th century, textual critics have commonly asserted that Mark 16:9?20, describing some disciples' encounters with the resurrected Jesus, was added after the original autograph. Mark 16:8 stops at the empty tomb without further explanation. The last twelve verses are missing from the oldest manuscripts of Mark's Gospel.[27] The style of these verses differs from the rest of Mark, suggesting they were a later addition. In a handful of manuscripts, a "short ending" is included after 16:7, but before the "long ending", and exists by itself in one of the earliest Old Latin codices, Codex Bobiensis. By the 5th century, at least four different endings have been attested. (See Mark 16 for a more comprehensive treatment of this topic.)" Answer Quote: we only have eight copies of Herodotus's historical works, whose originals were written in 480-425 BC. Likewise, only 5 copies of Aristotle's writings have found their way to the 20th century, while only 10 copies of the writings of Caesar, along with another 20 copies of the historian Tacitus, and 7 copies from the historian Pliny, who all originally wrote in the first century, are available today (McDowell 1972:42). These are indeed very few. When we consider the New Testament, however, we find a completely different scenario. We have today in our possession 5,300 known Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, another 10,000 Latin Vulgates, and 9,300 other early versions (MSS), giving us more than 24,000 manuscript copies of portions of the New Testament in existence today! (taken from McDowell's Evidence That demands a Verdict, vol.1, 1972 pgs.40-48; and Time, January 23, 1995, pg.57). Though we do not have any originals, with such a wealth of documentation at our disposal with which to compare, we can delineate quite closely what those originals contained. From link below entitled "The Bible's Manuscript Evidence". The point in all this is that no-one doubts the existence of Julius Caesar, or Aristotle, or Tacitus, yet they do cast all sorts of doubt on the New Testament documents which have massively more support textually. (MORE)
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Was the New Testament written in Greek?
Yes. The 'Old Testament' was written in Hebrew and Aramaic, but the 'New Testament', was written in Greek. Yes, the New Testament was written in Greek
