June
27
/ 2020
The gospels do not provide definitive evidence of the language spoken by the historical Jesus of Nazareth. There is evidence in the Gospel of Luke (Luke 2:41-51) that suggests Jesus, despite having a humble upbringing, did have a good education and even at a young age had an excellent understanding of Jewish scripture. Jesus lived in the Roman Province of Judea during the early first century A.D. when it was already an ethnically and linguistically diverse area. It is estimated that only 5-10% of Judea's population in the first century was literate (Holmén and Porter, 2011: pp.221). And while evidence suggest Jesus was literate it is highly unlikely that any of Jesus's disciples were literate. The lingua franca of Judea
