The languages ​​of the Bible

The Old Testament was written in Jewish e Aramaic.

Hebrew is the ancient language of Israel, the language of the Patriarchs. Originally, the Hebrew language was the language used by the Jews when they still mostly lived in the Middle East. It is estimated that approx 2300 years ago Hebrew fell into disuse as a spoken language, replaced by Aramaic.

L’aramaico, belonging to the family of Semitic languages ​​such as Arabic and Hebrew, it is one of the most important languages ​​of antiquity. It had its original headquarters in present-day Syria.

The New Testament was written in ancient Greek. We know that there was a Greek translation of the Old Testament, called Translation of the Seventy, begun in the III century BC. Translations of the New Testament began almost immediately after it was completed. Its first translation was probably in Latin, since this was the official language of the Roman Empire, even though the early Christians spoke in Greek. In 384 D.C.. St. Jerome, secretary of Pope Damasus, went to live in Bethlehem for several years and learned Hebrew to be able to read the texts in the original. Its Latin translation is known as the Vulgate. Since then, several translations have been made, which are based on Jerome's version, even if every authentic translation must start from the original Greek and Hebrew texts.