These Scriptures were “Jesus’ Bible,” though the title “Bible” was not used in His time. Jesus’ Bible contained just over 23,000 verses and save for a few short sections in Aramaic, was otherwise written in Hebrew. Yet the New Testament, including the Gospels that preserve for us biographical accounts of Jesus’ life and teachings, was composed in Greek.
In the end, do we not all read our Bible in an English translation (or some other translation into whatever our mother tongue is)? Indeed, we do, but as any multilingual person knows, nuances are often lost in translation. Even monolinguals realize this: this is why we want to have Bible scholars and, if possible, pastors as well, who know Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, so they can help us understand better the nuances that might otherwise elude us even in our best translations of the Bible.
What Jesus cited from His “Bible” in Hebrew is reported to us in the Gospels in Greek, and the Greek is then translated for us into English (or some other mother tongue): first from Hebrew to Greek, then from Greek to English. Having Bible scholars and pastors explain to us the nuances we might have missed between the Greek Gospels and our mother tongue, as excellent and needed as that is, considers only the latter: from Greek to English. What about from Hebrew to Greek? Might we still be missing out on nuances that have likewise been lost when the Hebrew Scriptures Jesus cited are reported to us in Greek?
Most scholars agree that most of His teachings were not delivered in Greek, but Aramaic. Are there any nuances we might be missing when these teachings are recorded for us in Greek rather than Aramaic? Might there be unique multilingual dynamics related to Jesus reading His "Bible" in one language (Hebrew), and discussing it in another (Aramaic)?
It is such questions I will be exploring at this year’s Janzen Lectureship, highlighting a few of the potentially "missed nuances." I will also share why there is reason to revisit the paradigm under which New Testament scholarship has historically addressed these matters, and that our Gospels may not be as far removed from Jesus (or the “historical Jesus” as scholars put it) than typically assumed.
