Navigating Gospel Truth: A Guide to Faithfully Reading the Accounts of Jesus's LifeSýnishorn

The Languages

In today’s study, we’ll examine the languages we find in the Bible.

Read John 19:19-20. What did the sign on the cross say?

As you probably know, Latin was the language spoken by the ancient Romans. So, writing the charge against Jesus in Latin, Greek, and Aramaic would mean that basically everyone could understand. But what exactly did the sign say?

All four Gospels tell us, but the wording is different in each. Now read Matthew 27:37, Mark 15:26, and Luke 23:38.

The basic message on the sign is the same in all four Gospels, but the wording is different. Mark’s version—like his Gospel—is the shortest. It’s possible that the three different languages had slightly different wording and that each Gospel author chose to translate a different language or combine them. Perhaps the Aramaic sign said, “Jesus of Nazareth” while the Greek sign just said, “Jesus.” It’s also possible that the Gospel authors summarized the sign in different ways. But the message is the same, and we shouldn’t worry about differences like this.

So, did Jesus teach in Greek or Aramaic—or both? We don’t know for sure. Sometimes, Jesus’s teaching seems specially designed for Greek. However, the Gospels also preserve snatches of Aramaic, showing that Jesus spoke in His mother tongue at least some of the time.

As Jesus hung on the cross with the sign above His head, He cried out to God in Aramaic.

Read Mark 15:34.

When Jesus cried out to God from the cross, He quoted the first verse of Psalm 22 in Aramaic: His mother tongue. Nearly two thousand years later, many of us can read this in our own heart language—whether that is English or Chinese, Swahili or Portuguese—thanks to expert scholars doing the work of translation for us. We see the gritty reality of Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews, dying for us, abandoned by God so that we could be welcomed and embraced. That message is proclaimed all around the world today, translated into hundreds of different languages, and currently being translated into even more, so that billions of people can put their trust in Jesus.