A Short History of the Hebrew Language<\/a>” by Jeff A. Benner makes for a good read on this topic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Question: Was Israel of one language? Did the nation of Israel all speak the same language? Thank you. Answer: Israelites spoke Hebrew. After the captivity, Aramaic was spoke a good bit and portions of the Old Testament are written in Aramaic. During Jesus’ day, Aramaic was the common language and Hebrew was the “religious” language,…<\/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":[275,968],"class_list":["post-9012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-israelites","tag-languages"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":10844,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/can-you-say-more-about-aramaic-being-used-in-the-bible\/","url_meta":{"origin":9012,"position":0},"title":"Can you say more about Aramaic being used in the Bible?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 12, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I have a question concerning the two words, Arabic and Aramaic. In one of\u00a0your most recent answers, you spoke about Aramaic being used in the Bible, but not Arabic. What is the difference between the two words? I understand that Arabic would be spoken by Arabian peoples, so where\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":9012,"position":1},"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":[]},{"id":19744,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/why-are-translations-in-greek-instead-of-hebrew-the-language-jesus-spoke-in\/","url_meta":{"origin":9012,"position":2},"title":"Why are translations in Greek instead of Hebrew, the language Jesus spoke in?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 1, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"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\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":18670,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/which-is-the-better-way-to-pronounce-jesus-name-yahsua-or-yeshua\/","url_meta":{"origin":9012,"position":3},"title":"Which is the better way to pronounce Jesus’ name: Yahsua or Yeshua?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"May 6, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Thank you very much for your article on\u00a0\"Understanding\u00a0the\u00a0 Tetragrammaton: How is it\u00a0Pronounced.\" I am in total agreement with your research and conclusion as to the\u00a0Tetragrammaton\u00a0yhwh\u00a0being pronounced as\u00a0yahweh. Can you share your thoughts and opinion as to the pronunciation of our Lord and Savior, Jesus? Which is more correct in\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":14679,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/was-matthew-originally-written-in-hebrew-or-aramaic\/","url_meta":{"origin":9012,"position":4},"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":90477,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/how-come-the-ethiopians-and-the-canaanites-speak-semitic-languages\/","url_meta":{"origin":9012,"position":5},"title":"How come the Ethiopians and the Canaanites speak Semitic languages","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 13, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: How come the Ethiopians (Cush) and the Canaanites both descend from Ham, yet speak a Semitic language? Thank you. Answer: When God divided mankind's language, nothing is stated about how that division took place. Nothing says all of Ham's descendants spoke related languages. Linguists group similar languages. Thus, Hebrew,\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\/9012","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=9012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9012\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}