Failures of the Aramaic Solution: Aramaic’s Inability to Explain Jesus’ Halachic Questions on the Sabbath (Luke 14:5; Matt. 12:11-12a)

How to cite this article: JP Staff Writer, “Failures of the Aramaic Solution: Aramaic’s Inability to Explain Jesus’ Halachic Questions on the Sabbath (Luke 14:5; Matt. 12:11-12a),” Jerusalem Perspective (2022) [https://www.jerusalemperspective.com/26023/].

Updated: 1 May 2025

A great deal of scholarly research on the words of Jesus rests on the assumption that Jesus’ teachings were spoken and transmitted in Aramaic before being translated into Greek. However, the foundations of this scholarly assumption have proven to be shaky, not because Aramaic was not a spoken language in the time of Jesus, but because the scholarly assumption ignored or dismissed the possibility that Jesus spoke and taught in Hebrew. Scholars used to assume that by the time of Jesus Hebrew was a dead language known only to the religious elite but foreign to the common people, and since Jesus’ teaching was addressed to the masses, he must have taught in Aramaic.^[24] But this assumption is not valid. Over the last three quarters of a century it has become increasingly clear that Hebrew was by no means a dead language in the time of Jesus. The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Bar Kochva Letters, and accumulating epigraphical evidence has shown that Hebrew continued to be used as a language of discourse well into the second century C.E. When combined with the evidence from rabbinic literature, it is possible to trace developments in the Hebrew language beyond the literary Hebrew preserved in the Hebrew Scriptures. In other words, Hebrew was by no means a fossilized language in the time of Jesus; the Hebrew of the Second Temple period was a vibrant, living language with vocabulary and grammar that distinguishes it from classical Biblical Hebrew.^[25]

Proof that Hebrew remained a spoken language into the second century C.E. means it is possible that Jesus taught in Hebrew. But is it probable? Wouldn’t Jesus have preferred to teach in Aramaic, which was known alike to Jews and Gentiles of the East? Are there any indications that Jesus did use Hebrew in his teachings? There are indeed. Jesus’ teachings are of a religious nature, often dealing with the interpretation of Scripture or proper religious observance. Both these subjects were regularly discussed in Hebrew. In the pesharim discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls, as well as in the various compilations of midrashim in rabbinic literature, exegesis of the Hebrew Scriptures is conducted in Hebrew.^[26] Discussions regarding religious observance (halachah) were also conducted in Hebrew, as demonstrated in the Halakhic Letter from Qumran (4QMMT) and in the vast compilations of halachot contained in the Mishnah and the Tosefta. Since the types of literature we have just mentioned were composed for religious scholars, it might be argued that the examples we have cited are too academic to establish the probability that Jesus taught the masses in Hebrew, but we can also cite popular examples of religious teachings, such as rabbinic sermons (derashot) and parables (meshalim), which were also delivered in Hebrew.^[27] The delivery of these more popular styles of discourse in Hebrew suggests that the masses were fluent Hebrew speakers, since it would have been counterproductive for the sages to have taught the public in a language they did not understand.

Since Jesus delivered sermons to the masses on subjects pertaining to the interpretation of Scripture and religious observance using parables to illustrate his message, it is both possible and probable that Jesus spoke and taught in Hebrew. This probability means the old scholarly assumption that the words of Jesus, which have been preserved in Greek, go back to Aramaic originals must be reexamined. Jesus’ sayings in Luke 14:5 and Matt. 12:11-12a that justify healing on the Sabbath are a good test case, since many scholars have attempted to explain the difficulties within these sayings and their similarity to one another by appealing to a conjectured Aramaic original. Now that the assumption that Aramaic was the probable language in which Jesus taught has been called into question, how well do these explanations based on the Aramaic model hold up?

• ^[1] There is general consensus that υἱὸς ἢ βοῦς (huios ē bous, “a son or an ox”) is the original reading because it is the earliest attested and the lectio difficilior. See Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (London, New York: United Bible Societies, 1975), 164. A minority of scholars prefer to read “a donkey or an ox” because it seems to make more sense in Luke 14:5. However, as we shall argue, “a donkey or an ox” actually destroys the halachic underpinnings of Jesus’ argument. ↩
• ^[2] The presumption that the people who question Jesus are Pharisees rests on the identification of the Pharisees as Jesus’ partners in conversation in the preceding pericope (Lord of Shabbat [Matt. 12:1-8]) and the reference to “their [i.e., the Pharisees’] synagogue” in the opening of Man’s Withered Hand (Matt. 12:9). ↩
• ^[3] Manson (277), Marshall (579) and Gundry (225-227) adopted this view. See Thomas Walter Manson, The Sayings of Jesus as Recorded in the Gospels According to St. Matthew and St. Luke (London: SCM Press, 1957; repr., Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979 [orig. pub. 1937]); I. Howard Marshall, The Gospel of Luke: A Commentary on the Greek Text (NIGTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978); Robert H. Gundry, Matthew: A Commentary on His Literary and Theological Art (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982). ↩
• ^[4] Bultmann (12), Bundy (372 §271), Knox (2:84), Davies and Allison (2:316, 319), Neirynck (259), Nolland (2:746), Bovon (2:338, 345), Fleddermann (708) and Wolter (2:210) adopted this view. See Rudolf Bultmann, The History of the Synoptic Tradition (trans. John Marsh [Die Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition, 1921]; New York: Harper & Row, 1963); Walter E. Bundy, Jesus and the First Three Gospels (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1955); Wilfred L. Knox, The Sources of the Synoptic Gospels (2 vols.; ed. H. Chadwick; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953, 1957); W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, Jr., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew (3 vols.; ICC; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988, 1991, 1997); Frans Neirynck, “Luke 14,1-6: Lukan Composition and a Q Saying,” in Der Treue Gottes Trauen: Beiträge zum Werk des Lukas Für Gerhard Schneider (ed. Claus Bussmann and Walter Radl; Freiburg: Herder, 1991), 243-263; John Nolland, Luke (WBC 35A-35C; Dallas: Word Books, 1989, 1993, 1993); François Bovon, Luke: Hermeneia—A Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (3 vols.; trans. Donald S. Deer [Evangelium nach Lukas, 1989-2009]; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2002, 2013, 2012); Harry T. Fleddermann, Q: A Reconstruction and Commentary (Leuven: Peeters, 2005); Michael Wolter, The Gospel According to Luke (2 vols.; trans. Wayne Coppins and Christoph Heilig; Waco, Tex.: Baylor, 2016-2017). ↩
• ^[5] See David Flusser, “The Literary Relationship Between the Three Gospels,” in his Jewish Sources in Early Christianity: Studies and Essays (Tel Aviv: Sifriat Poalim, 1979 [in Hebrew]), 28-49, esp. 35. ↩
• ^[6] See Matthew Black, “Aramaic Spoken by Christ and Luke 14:5,” Journal of Theological Studies 1.1 (1950): 60-62; idem, An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (2d ed.; Oxford: Clarendon, 1954), 126. ↩
• ^[7] See Joachim Jeremias, “[Review of] Matthew Black, An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts, 2nd Edition [...],” Göttingische Gelehrte Anzeigen 210 (1956): 1-12, esp. 8-9. ↩
• ^[8] The tremendous effort of retranslating Luke over and over again by itself makes Black’s hypothesis highly improbable. Moreover, if each Greek manuscript (or family of manuscripts) of Luke’s Gospel represented a new translation from Aramaic, there would be far less verbal agreement among the manuscripts than there actually is. In any case, it is clear that the Gospel of Luke was composed in Greek, not in Aramaic (or Hebrew), although the author of Luke may well have utilized Greek sources that go back to a Semitic language (i.e., Hebrew or Aramaic). ↩
• ^[9] See Jeremias, “[Review of] Matthew Black, An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts, 2nd Edition,” 9. ↩
• ^[10] Pace Joachim Jeremias, New Testament Theology: The Proclamation of Jesus (John Bowden trans. [Neutestamentliche Theologie, 1. Die Verkündigung Jesu, 1971]; New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1971), 209 n. 4, who offers no evidence in support of his claim, and Nina L. Collins, Jesus, the Sabbath and the Jewish Debate: Healing on the Sabbath in the 1st and 2nd Centuries CE (London: Bloomsbury, 2014), 113, whose faulty interpretation of m. Betz. 3:4 ∥ t. Betz. 3:3 led her to an erroneous conclusion. Luz (2:187), who interpreted the relevant rabbinic and Qumran texts correctly, suggested that Jesus refers to the “non-Essenic” and also “non-rabbinic practice among Galilean farmers,” but this fails to take into account that Jesus' question is addressed specifically to the Pharisees. See Ulrich Luz, Matthew: Hermeneia—A Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (3 vols.; trans. James E. Crouch [Das Evangelium nach Matthäus, 1985-2002]; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001, 2005, 2007). ↩
• ^[11] In the Talmud we read:

  אמר רב יהודה אמר רב בהמה שנפלה לאמת המים מביא כרים וכסתות ומניח תחתיה ואם עלתה עלתה

  Rav Yehudah said in the name of Rav, “A domesticated animal that fell into a ditch of water, they bring cushions and coverings and set them under it, and if it comes up, it comes up." (b. Shab. 128b)

  This talmudic opinion presumes that a person may not actively pull up the stranded animal on the Sabbath. Menahem Kister, “Plucking on the Sabbath and Christian-Jewish Polemic,” Immanuel 24/25 (1990): 35-51, esp. 41 n. 24; Lutz Doering, “Sabbath Laws in the New Testament Gospels,” in The New Testament and Rabbinic Literature (ed. Reimund Bieringer, Florentio García Martínez, Didier Pollefeyt, and Peter J. Tomson; Leiden: Brill, 2010), 207-253, esp. 232. ↩

• ^[12] On reading יקימה as a pi‘el verb (“he will preserve it”) rather than as a hif‘il (“he will raise it”), see Jan Joosten and Menahem Kister, “The New Testament and Rabbinic Hebrew,” in The New Testament and Rabbinic Literature (ed. Reimund Bieringer, Florentio García Martínez, Didier Pollefeyt, and Peter J. Tomson; Leiden: Brill, 2010), 335-350, esp. 341-342. ↩
• ^[13] According to Kister, לעשות פרנסה does not necessarily refer to providing food, but is synonymous with לקיים (“to preserve alive”). See Joosten and Kister, “The New Testament and Rabbinic Hebrew,” 342. ↩
• ^[14] Firstborn kosher animals were normally to be sacrificed, but if they became blemished, they were no longer acceptable for the altar and could therefore be slaughtered and eaten (Deut. 15:19-23). The presumption of the example above is that it is only permitted to pull up the firstborn animal from the cistern for the purpose of slaughtering it, food preparation being permitted on a holy day but not on the Sabbath. ↩
• ^[15] Here, too, the presumption is that the mature animal may only be pulled out of the cistern for the purpose of eating it, which is why it may be slaughtered. Since the young animal is not to be slaughtered, it must be left in the cistern, as on the Sabbath. See Kister, “Plucking on the Sabbath and Christian-Jewish Polemic,” 41 n. 24; Doering, “Sabbath Laws in the New Testament Gospels,” 232 n. 116. ↩
• ^[16] See Luz, Matthew, 2:187. ↩
• ^[17] See Hatch-Redpath, 2:1438. ↩
• ^[18] In LXX φρέαρ serves as the translation of בּוֹר in 1 Kgdms. 19:22; 2 Kgdms. 3:26; Jer. 48[41]:7, 9. ↩
• ^[19] This point of comparison was already noted by Augustine of Hippo (354-430 C.E.):

  Congruenter «Hydropicum» animali quod cecidit in puteum, comparavit; humore enim laborabat: sicut et illam «Mulierem quam decem et octo annis alligatam» dixerat, »et ab eamdem alligatione solvebat, comparavit jumento quod solvilur ut ad aquam ducatur.

  He fittingly compared a man with dropsy [i.e., edema—JP] to an animal that fell into a well, for he was suffering from excessive fluid, just as he compared that woman, who he said was afflicted for eighteen years and whom he freed from that affliction, to a beast of burden that is set free so that it may be led to water. (Questions on the Gospels [Quaestiones evangeliorum] 2:29 §2)

  Text according to Collectio Selecta SS. Ecclesiæ Patrum CXXI Patres Quinti Ecclesiæ Sæculi S. Augustinus XIV (ed. D. A. B. Caillau and D. M. N. S. Guillon; Paris, 1838), 325-326. Translation according to Roland Teske, New Testament I and II (The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century I/15-16; ed. Boniface Ramsey; Hyde Park, N.Y.: New City Press, 2014), 391. ↩

• ^[20] See Joosten and Kister, “The New Testament and Rabbinic Hebrew,” 340-345. ↩
• ^[21] See Joosten and Kister, “The New Testament and Rabbinic Hebrew,” 341. ↩
• ^[22] Doering (“Sabbath Laws in the New Testament Gospels,” 233-234) dismissed this potential on the grounds that 1) “such an error requires involvement of a written Hebrew text, which remains speculative,” and 2) “scholars have considered an Aramaic, not Hebrew, substratum of the saying and its parallel in Luke 14:5.” We concede the first point, but do not regard a Hebrew vorlage as an unreasonable hypothesis. Doering’s second point begs the question. ↩
• ^[23] See Markus Bockmuehl, “Halakhah and Ethics in the Jesus Tradition,” in Early Christian Thought in its Jewish Context (ed. John Barclay and John Sweet; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 264-278, esp. 268-269. ↩
• ^[24] On the anti-Semitic origins of this outmoded (albeit prevalent) scholarly assumption, see Guido Baltes, “The Origins of the ‘Exclusive Aramaic Model’ in the Nineteenth Century: Methodological Fallacies and Subtle Motives” in The Language Environment of First Century Judaea (Jerusalem Studies in the Synoptic Gospels vol. 2; ed. Randall Buth and R. Steven Notley: Leiden: Brill, 2014). ↩
• ^[25] On the use of Hebrew in the Second Temple period, see Shmuel Safrai, “Spoken Languages in the Time of Jesus,” Jerusalem Perspective 30 (1991): 3-8, 13; idem, “Literary Languages in the Time of Jesus,” Jerusalem Perspective 31 (1991): 3-8. ↩
• ^[26] Cf. R. Steven Notley and Jeffrey P. García, “Hebrew-Only Exegesis: A Philological Approach to Jesus’ Use of the Hebrew Bible,” in The Language Environment of First Century Judaea (Jerusalem Studies in the Synoptic Gospels vol. 2; ed. Randall Buth and R. Steven Notley: Leiden: Brill, 2014). ↩
• ^[27] Virtually all rabbinic parables have been preserved in Hebrew. See R. Steven Notley and Ze’ev Safrai, Parables of the Sages: Jewish Wisdom from Jesus to Rav Ashi (Jerusalem: Carta, 2011), 6. ↩