In my last blog, I covered the development of the Old Testament. A Brief History of how the Bible came to be: Old Testament. Today I am going to cover what we know of the development of the Bible after the time of Christ.

Languages of New Testament Times

By New Testament times, Palestine was a very cosmopolitan place with most citizens being multilingual. If you read my previous blog, you can imagine, Jews would have spoken Hebrew, Aramaic, Egyptian and Greek; and with the expansion of Rome, yet another foreign empire to oppress the children of Israel, they would have learned Latin as well. When you consider Jesus communicated with a Roman centurion (Matt 8:5-13), Pontius Pilate (John 18:28-38), discussed the Torah with religious leaders at age 12 (luke 2:28-52), and spoke with a Samaritan women ( John 4:4-26), it seems Jesus was likely conversant in at least the four languages of Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek and Latin.

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