Was Matthew originally written in Hebrew or Aramaic?<\/a><\/p>\nThe simple fact is that it was the Holy Spirit, who inspired the apostles and prophets of the New Testament to write in the Greek language. “These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual<\/em>” (I Corinthians 2: 13). The evidence that the original documents were in Greek is large and varied. The earliest Hebrew copies of the New Testament date far later than the Greek copies and they are clearly translations from Greek.<\/p>\nIt appears that Jesus probably spoke in Aramaic and switched to Hebrew as needed. These languages were of limited use in the world at large. To reach the wider audience of the Gentiles, as God declared He intended, the Greek language, which was widely known, was used as the “universal” language of that time. “Indeed He says, ‘It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant To raise up the tribes of Jacob, And to restore the preserved ones of Israel; I will also give You as a light to the Gentiles, That You should be My salvation to the ends of the earth’<\/em>” (Isaiah 49:6).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Question: Why are all of your translations in Greek instead of Hebrew, which would be the language Jesus spoke in? Answer: The following is specific toward Matthew, which is usually the one book people like to claim was originally written in Hebrew:\u00a0Was Matthew originally written in Hebrew or Aramaic? The simple fact is that it…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[20],"tags":[219,311],"class_list":["post-19744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-bible","tag-translations"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":14679,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/was-matthew-originally-written-in-hebrew-or-aramaic\/","url_meta":{"origin":19744,"position":0},"title":"Was Matthew originally written in Hebrew or Aramaic?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 21, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: One of the problems I would have with\u00a0your explanation\u00a0is whether or not Matthew wrote the words in Greek or did he write the words in the original Aramaic.\u00a0 Most Bible scholars believe that Matthew wrote in Aramaic and while Mark's words are almost identical, he too was a Jew\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":28480,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/was-the-new-testament-written-in-greek-or-aramaic\/","url_meta":{"origin":19744,"position":1},"title":"Was the New Testament written in Greek or Aramaic?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 17, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: In what language was the New Testament written: Greek or Aramaic? Answer: The New Testament was written in Greek. All the earliest manuscripts are in Greek. The style of writing is in the Greek style, though some of the writers, such as Matthew, wrote with a Hebrew \"accent,\" if\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":29671,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/was-matthew-only-clarifying-what-jesus-said-on-the-cross\/","url_meta":{"origin":19744,"position":2},"title":"Was Matthew only clarifying what Jesus said on the Cross?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"October 21, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: In\u00a0Was Matthew originally written in Hebrew or Aramaic?\u00a0you stated: This verse is one of several in Matthew which shows that Matthew was originally written in Greek. You see, if it was written in Hebrew or Aramaic as has been recently popular to claim, there would be no need to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":14214,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-new-testament-was-written-in-hebrew-not-greek\/","url_meta":{"origin":19744,"position":3},"title":"The New Testament was written in Hebrew, not Greek!","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 18, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: You seem to teach that the original New Testament was originally written in Greek. I hate to differ with you. Nowhere is that fact proven. I believe that Luke may have written his manuscript in Greek, since he was of Syrian descent and also perhaps the books of Acts,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/02\/John-Rylands-Fragment-300x169.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":19624,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/couldnt-jesus-use-of-lord-for-yhwh-be-due-to-later-tampering-of-the-text\/","url_meta":{"origin":19744,"position":4},"title":"Couldn’t Jesus’ use of Lord for YHWH be due to later tampering of the text?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 25, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: In \"Why is YHWH translated LORD?\" you said: Some, such as the Jehovah's Witnesses, object to using LORD in place of YHWH. However, they are ignoring God's own translation of His name. For example, Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 6:5 in Matthew 22:37, \"Jesus said to him, 'You shall love the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":39665,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/what-language-was-the-new-testament-written-in\/","url_meta":{"origin":19744,"position":5},"title":"What language was the New Testament written in?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 11, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: What is the real Greek of the New Testament? Koine Greek or Aramaic? Wikipedia says suggests it is Aramaic Greek, but I was taught it was Koine Greek but you can find many websites that say it was Koine Greek, this has become very confusing to me. Which is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19744\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}