The original language of most of the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible). Hebrew appeared first in a written source in the late tenth century B.C. As is clear from spelling and style, some of the early poems found in the Old Testament (e.g., Exodus 15, Judges 5) may date from as early as the twelfth century B.C., but no identifiable text dates from this period. In the Old Testament itself, the language is known as "the language of Canaan" (Isaiah 19.18) or "the language of Judah" (2 Kings 18.26; Nehemiah 13.24).

Hebrew is a member of the Semitic group of languages, a part of the larger Afro-Asiatic family which also includes Egyptian, Berber, Cushitic, and Chadic. Many of these languages relate to dialects still spoken throughout Africa. The Semitic family of languages, which takes its names from Shem (the father of the Semitic peoples, Genesis 10.1), has the longest recorded history of any linguistic group, dating from as early as the third millennium B.C. (in Akkadian) to the present day (with Hebrew and Arabic).

The Semitic family is divided into eastern and western branches. Hebrew belongs to a Northwest Semitic (or Syro-Palestinian) branch, which is, in turn, divided into Aramaic and Canaanite subgroups. As a Canaanite language of the Northwest Semitic branch, Hebrew is similar to Phoenician, Ugaritic, Ammonite, Edomite, and Moabite.

Hebrew as a living language probably ceased around A. D. 200 after the Judean Jews were brutally defeated and the survivors were forced to leave their homeland. The language survived throughout the centuries, however, and was revived as the mother tongue of Jews in the late nineteenth century.

Biblical Aramaic

Aramaic is a Semitic language closely related to Hebrew. Several passages in the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible) are written in Aramaic. For example: Daniel 2.4—7.28; Ezra 4.8—6.18; 7.12-26>; Jeremiah 10.10-11; Genesis 31.47. Several words and phrases in the New Testament are also preserved in Aramaic (for example, Talitha Cumi, Maranatha, and Golgotha). It has been spoken throughout parts of Syria-Palestine from as early as the ninth century B.C. to the present day in modern dialects.

Like Hebrew, Aramaic is a member of the Northwest Semitic branch of the Semitic family of languages (itself a part of the larger Afro-Asiatic family). Whereas Hebrew is a part of the Canaanite subgroup, Aramaic stands in its own subgroup of the Northwest Semitic branch.

For a time Aramaic was considered a universal language. It followed Akkadian (an East Semitic language) as the diplomatic language for the Persian Empire of the ancient Near East from the eighth to the fourth centuries B.C. It was also one of the most common languages spoken during the emergence of Christianity and rabbinic Judaism. Jesus probably spoke a dialect of Western Aramaic.

Aramaic is an extremely important language for both Christians and Jews. Syriac, a dialect of Aramaic, was spoken by the early Christians in Syria. As a result, an early translation of the Old Testament was written in Aramaic: the Syriac Peshitta. Likewise, two of the earliest collections of biblical studies in rabbinic Judaism were written in dialects of Aramaic: the Babylonian and the Palestinian Talmud (literally, "the study"). Finally, the Targums are Jewish translations of the Hebrew Bible into Aramaic. The significance of Aramaic for biblical studies is obviously tremendous.

Several dialects of Aramaic are still in use today in parts of Syria (near Damascus), southeastern Turkey, western Iran, and southern Iraq.

Biblical Greek

The original language of all the New Testament books. The Greek of the New Testament is Koine ("common") Greek, a simplified dialect of more popular Attic Greek. Koine was the everyday language in the ancient world for over one thousand years: from the fourth century B.C. to the sixth century A.D.

The Greek language includes several closely-related dialects including Attic, Ionic, Doric, and Aeolic. The origin of these can be traced back to 2000 B.C. About that time, a group of Indo-European peoples called Achaeans arrived on the Greek peninsula speaking an early form of the language and mixed with the Aegeans who already lived there. This mixing of proto-Greek languages produced the Greek dialects of Aeolic and Ionic. The Iliad (around 750 B.C.E.) and the Odyssey (around 700 B.C.E.) were both written in Ionic Greek.

The Greek dialect used in Athens was known as Attic. The writings of the great Greek philosophers (like Plato, Euripides, and Demosthenes) were written in Attic. Because of the significance of these writers and of Athens itself, Attic had become the most commonly-used dialect of the Greek-speaking world by the fifth century B.C. It was used as the main form of communications by merchants, sailors, and soldiers who often spoke different dialects.

Slowly, however, this common form of Attic developed into the entirely new dialect called Koine ("common"), because it was both simpler than Attic and was the common language used across various dialects. Koine Greek was also the dominant dialect spoken in the Hellenistic movement of Alexander the Great and throughout the Roman period of rule. As a result, Hellenistic Koine was spoken and used by all social classes, including the ruling elite and the populace.

Although the Greek of the New Testament is classified as Koine Greek, it differs slightly from it because of the influence of both Hebrew and Aramaic. In fact, most people living in Palestine during the Roman period were probably bilingual if not trilingual. For example, New Testament scholars agree that Jesus certainly spoke Aramaic, probably Hebrew, and quite possibly Greek as well.

The significance of Greek for the study of Bible is invaluable. Not only was the entire New Testament written in Greek, a major translation of the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible) was done in Greek (known as the Septuagint). It was translated in the third to second centuries B.C. for Jews living in Alexandria, Egypt who spoke only Greek. In addition, several manuscripts found among the Qumran literature (the Dead Sea Scrolls) are preserved in Greek. These include a very important scroll of the Twelve Minor Prophets found at Nahal Hever.