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When we talk about the approach to the interpretation of the New Testament (NT), the question of the language in which the Gospels and Apostolic Letters are written is very serious and key. It is obvious that several thousand ancient NT manuscripts have come down to us today. All of them are written in Greek. However, the main question is in which Greek language they were written. In other words, was the NT written in the same language as the Greek philosophers Plato, Aristotle, and others? Unfortunately, there are three opposing views to this problem. Let's analyze each of them in its historical order.

1. Traditional church.

According to the traditional understanding, developed both in Eastern Orthodoxy and in Western Catholicism of the first millennium, the Byzantine dialect of the Greek language was considered the language of the New Testament. And this is not surprising, because most of the early fathers christian church they spoke precisely this language, since they themselves were from Byzantium. Until this day in Orthodox seminaries students studying Greek NT are taught a specific pronunciation characteristic of Byzantium in the 4th-7th centuries.

This approach to understanding the nature of language has serious implications. Byzantine Greek is derived from the classical Greek language in which the philosophers wrote. Accordingly, in traditional church exegesis, when analyzing the meaning of certain New Testament words, ideas taken from classical philosophical categories prevail. So, for example, the word “logos” from the first chapter of the Gospel of John (“In the beginning was the Word…”) is perceived in traditional Christianity through the prism of the concepts of the Platonic Logos – a transcendent, impersonal, abstract universe creator. And the words "psukhe" and "pneuma" translated in the Synodal Bible as "soul" and "spirit" are interpreted through the prism of Stoic ideas about the confrontation between the bodily and spiritual principles in man.

The main problem with this approach is that the text of the NT turned out to be completely divorced from its authors, the disciples of Jesus, who were Jews. The apostles had no education in the field Greek philosophy and therefore had no idea about philosophical terms and categories used in classical Greek philosophy. The Talmudic treatise Menachot quotes one of the Tannai sages, Rabbi Ishmael, who answers a question from his nephew who wants to teach his son Greek wisdom. Rabbi Ishmael says that a father can teach Greek philosophy to his son at any time, but not during the day or at night, because, according to what is written in the first Psalm, the righteous meditates on the Torah day and night, and therefore, to study philosophy from he has no time.

This approach to understanding the origin of the NT language puts up an insurmountable wall of separation between the "Greek" New Testament and the "Jewish" Old Testament, effectively making Christianity an entirely new religion that has nothing to do with Israel and its God. This vision reflects the long-standing contradictions between the two absolutely different worlds: Hellenistic and Jewish. The origins of the Hellenistic mentality with its religion, culture, concepts and philosophical apparatus are clearly traced in civilization ancient egypt. Hellenism, which prevails in the world education system to this day, was formed as a result of the capture of the Middle East by Alexander the Great in the 3rd century BC, and finally supplanted the ancient Semitic civilization that had existed there since the 3rd millennium BC.

Biblical Hebrew and Imperial Aramaic, the languages ​​of the Old Testament, are among the most widely spoken Semitic languages. In fact, from the very beginning, books Holy Scripture were created not in the Hellenistic Greek, but in the Semitic cultural historical environment. Moreover, both the Torah and the prophetic books of the Tanakh were written long before Plato and Aristotle, long before the Greek philosophical apparatus was formed. That is why philosophy with its approaches, methods and apparatus cannot be used to interpret biblical truths and concepts. In addition, the philosophical system of understanding of the world is absolutely alien to the Semitic mentality.

That is why looking at the interpretation of the New Testament through the prism of philosophical approaches and methods, based only on the fact that the Greek language was used when writing the NT, is fundamentally wrong. In promoting such hermeneutical principles, the Fathers early church firstly, they turned Christianity into "baptized" paganism; secondly, they introduced alien non-biblical doctrines into Christianity.

2. Protestant view

Already at the dawn of the development of the philology of biblical languages, it became clear to researchers that NT Greek differed significantly from classical Greek. That is why there has always been a consensus in Protestant exegesis that the language of the NT is Koine, a dialect of Greek.

Historical evidence suggests that the Koine dialect was a kind of slang that took shape in the multinational army of Alexander the Great. In other words, it was a simplified, vernacular form of the Greek language. Similar linguistic phenomena occur in our time. Thus, under the influence of colonization, the Creole dialect was formed, a dialect of the French language, which is spoken in the French colonies. Creole is actually a simplified form of basic French that has added local, mostly African words, idioms and grammatical constructions. Such languages ​​are pidgin - based on English, and papimento - based on Dutch.

Observing these modern linguistic phenomena, one can see one of the main difficulties that can arise for Protestant biblical exegetes. The fact is that Creole Creole, it turns out, is different. The Creole dialect spoken by the people of Haiti is completely different from the Creole dialect used in the countries of the former French Africa. And if in the case of Creole, Pidgin or Papimento, philologists can analyze these adverbs and divide them into subgroups depending on the area and the population that speaks them, then in relation to the Greek Koine, such an analysis and division is not carried out. Therefore, one often comes across Protestant exegetical commentaries in which one or another New Testament term is explained with the help of Greek words used somewhere in Rome or Athens.

The problems with this approach become apparent when analyzing the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Torah, which is believed to have been written in Koine Greek. The researchers of this translation have found many words there that are not characteristic of the Koine dialect and do not exist in the Greek language at all. Upon closer examination, it was noticed that these new, unusual words, such as, for example, "agape / love" were actually calques or derivatives of Hebrew or Aramaic words. The fact is that in the Greek language, many biblical concepts are simply absent, and therefore there are no words that could convey these concepts. So the translators of the Septuagint had to engage in word-creation.

If the problem of Hebraisms (Hebrew words and phrases) in the Greek language of the Septuagint is well known to Protestant exegetes, then for some reason traditional Protestantism does not pay attention to the existence of Hebraisms in the New Testament. In fact, the approach to the problem of NT language in traditional Protestantism is not much different from the approach prevailing in patristic literature. At a time when the Church Fathers turn to Greek to interpret the concepts and concepts of the New Testament philosophical categories, Protestant evangelical scholars, in interpreting New Testament words, often rely on concepts used in the Greek-speaking regions of the Roman Empire.

The problem with this approach is that Greek was not the common language of Judaea, from which the gospel writers originate. If, for example, by the 1st century AD in Egyptian Alexandria, the local Coptic language practically fell into disuse and was supplanted by the Greek Koine, then in Galilee the Greek dialect was foreign, and the population spoke the Palestinian dialect of the Aramaic language, preserving national identity. That is why it would be wrong to conclude that the Greek colloquial terms used by the people in Alexandria, Asia or Thrace were used in the same way by the Hebrew-speaking inhabitants of Jerusalem or the Aramaic-speaking Galileans. Such incorrect linguistic premises lead to errors in exegesis and are at the root of typical evangelical doctrines, such as the opposition of law and grace, or the opposition of the new covenant to the old.

3. Pseudo-Messianic View or Conspiracy Theory

These ideas are mainly propagated on the Internet by people who call themselves Messianic Jews, but in fact they are often not Jews.

Their theory is that the New Testament was written by Jesus' (Jewish) disciples in Hebrew, after which the "devious" papists seized the Hebrew original of the NT and replaced it with the fake Greek text used in Bible translations today. The main goal of supporters of the theory of such a conspiracy is actually very narrow and specific. The ideas about the hidden Hebrew text of the NT are being propagated by the same people who advocate the universal and uniform use of the four-letter name of God YHVH and the complete ban on the use of the words Lord, Jesus, etc. in liturgical practice. As noted in our earlier study, the Tetragrammaton YHVH does not occur in the New Testament text. That is why the supporters of the ideas about the Sacred Name, having no other arguments, say that the text of the NT has been changed, and that they supposedly know what was written in this "original" text.

These ideas are initially utter absurdity. First, the NT could not have been written in Hebrew because Jesus' disciples were Galileans and spoke Aramaic. Post-Biblical Hebrew at that time was spoken only by the educated Jerusalem elite, and the disciples of Jesus were clearly not one of them. Secondly, there is absolutely no historical evidence that the Aramaic original of the NT ever existed, let alone that anyone ever removed it. Third, not all of the NT writers were from Galilee and spoke Aramaic. In particular, Luke, the author of one of the Gospels, the book of the Acts of the Apostles, and, possibly, the co-author of the letter to the Hebrews, was not from Galilee and did not speak Aramaic.

The most important thing is that if the Gospels were written in Aramaic, they simply would not reach their audience. Even if we are talking about Jews, then, according to historical data, in the first century of our era, 70% of the Jews did not live in the territory of Judea and Galilee, but were in the diaspora.

This is confirmed by the story recorded in the second chapter of the book of the Acts of the Apostles, confirming the fact that the Jews who lived in the Diaspora did not speak either Hebrew or Aramaic. The situation of that time is not much different from today. Although there are more than five million Jews in Israel, more than 75 percent of Israel's 18 million Jewish population around the world does not speak Hebrew at a level that allows you to freely read any literature. For example, the vast majority of American Jews speak English and have very limited knowledge of Hebrew. Only a small part of Orthodox Jews can freely read and understand the Tanakh and other religious literature. Such is the nature of any diaspora. Therefore, if someone today wants to publish some work and wants to be read by as many people as possible, then it is best to do it on English language, which is today the most spoken and studied language in the world. At the time, that language was Greek. It was owned by most of the Jews of the Diaspora, as well as by the majority of the inhabitants of the Roman Empire.

This is why neither Hebrew nor Aramaic could be used in writing the books of the New Testament. Greek at that time was the single most appropriate language for fulfilling Jesus' commission to spread the gospel throughout "the whole world" recorded in Matthew 24:14.

4. What language are the books of the New Testament written in?

Even though the books of the New Testament are written in what appears to be Koine Greek, there is one important difference between NT Greek and Koine dialect. Not all authors of the NT books have Koine Greek as their first language. This primarily concerns Matthew, John, Peter and Jude. These apostles were born and raised in Galilee to fishing families. Before the events that took place during Pentecost, described in the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, their Greek was very limited. Having received the gift of "other tongues", former fishermen Although the Galileans received the ability to write in Greek, the Greek language did not become native to them.

That is why the Greek language of the Gospel of John and his Epistles, as well as the book of Revelation, is considered quite simple and not sophisticated. All this is typical for authors who write in a language that is not native to them. Due to the fact that in the 1st century there were no specific grammatical and stylistic rules for the epistolary style, it becomes clear why in many places John practically creates tracing paper from the Aramaic language, literally translating his thoughts into Greek, without taking into account the fact that such phrases in Greek does not exist. John also very often translates word for word into Greek Aramaic idioms that are often found in rabbinic literature. Without knowledge of the traditional speech patterns used by the rabbis, it is impossible to fully understand such phrases as, for example, "sin unto death", which occurs in the 1st Epistle of John. Without knowing how the rabbis quoted the Old Testament scriptures, it is impossible to understand the book of Revelation. And without knowledge of early rabbinical theology, it is impossible to understand the essence of the disputes between Jesus and the Pharisees.

Like John, Matthew constantly uses Aramaic quotations transliterated into Greek in his Gospel. The expressions "talita kumi" or "elohi elohi lama shabahtani" are the words of Jesus spoken in Aramaic. Some scholars suggest that the Gospel of Matthew was originally written in Aramaic. There is logic in this. After all, Matthew actually wrote for readers living in Judea and speaking Aramaic. However, the Aramaic original of this Gospel has not been preserved.

If someone has a desire to hear the Aramaic speech of Jesus, then I recommend the Old Syriac translation of the Gospels, made at the end of the 1st - beginning of the 2nd century, presumably in Antioch. Syriac (not to be confused with the Arabic spoken today in the Syrian Arab Republic) is a dialect of Aramaic very close to the Palestinian Aramaic spoken by Jesus. Of course, like the Old Syriac gospels, the complete Syriac translation of the NT, called the Peshitta, are translations from the Greek. However, the Syrian Christians, who lived on the border with Galilee only a few decades after the completion of the writing of the NT books, understood the linguistic and cultural context of the time well, and their translation is very accurate and useful.

However, if we are talking about other authors of the NT, in particular about Paul, then the situation with the language is more complicated. Paul did not live in Judea, but was born in the Diaspora, where Greek was spoken. However, despite the fact that the Greek language was not a foreign language for Paul, one should always take into account the peculiarities of the dialect inherent in the Jews of any diaspora. Similar phenomena can also be observed in current situation when, for example, in orthodox Jewish communities America, where everyone speaks perfect English, specific words and expressions are used that are not understandable even to an English-speaking American who is not part of this group.

The existence of a special Jewish jargon in any language is explained by the fact that certain terms, primarily related to the religious life and culture of the Jews, simply do not exist in languages ​​whose speakers do not profess Judaism. Therefore, Jews who speak a particular language very often remake the words and expressions used in this language in their own way. Thus, in his epistles, Paul uses Greek terms and phrases differently than they are used in traditional Greek pagan culture. Therefore, without a knowledge of early Judaism, the Greek language of Paul cannot be fully understood.

The only author who writes in standard Koine Greek is Luke. Born into a Greek-speaking family, Luka received a traditional Greek education and became a proselyte as an adult. He, like no one else, understands the difficulties experienced by a non-Jew who comes into contact with the Jewish cultural and religious environment. That is why in his Gospel Luke describes in detail all the details of the Jewish cultural environment in which Jesus lived. Other evangelists simply omit these elements, considering them obvious. That is why the Gospel of Luke is the most detailed biography of Jesus, and the book of Acts is a historical document describing the emergence and development of Christianity. In his writings, Luke seems to be building a bridge between the Jews who followed the Messiah and the Greeks who join Judeo-Christianity. Therefore, the books of the NT written by Luke are most easily perceived by a modern reader who has received an education based on the Hellenistic worldview. At the same time, in terms of language complexity, Luke's Greek is the most difficult of all the books of the NT.

As can be seen from the above reasoning, the problem of the language of the New Testament is complex and multifaceted. For many centuries, Christian and Jewish students of the Bible existed as if in parallel worlds without knowing anything about each other. It is only in the last few decades that exegetical scholars have taken notice of the literal translation of Aramaic phrases, idioms, and Hebrew terminology in the Greek text of the NT. This was made possible through academic contacts between Christian and Jewish Bible students. The founders of this branch of Christian New Testament exegesis defended their doctoral dissertations in Jewish academic institutions and had the opportunity to study rabbinical literature. On the other hand, many Jewish scientists also defended themselves and conducted research in Christian universities. In particular, many specialists in the field of Talmud studies studied the Syriac language in Christian educational institutions, in which many Eastern church fathers wrote their works. It turns out that the Babylonian dialect of Aramaic, in which the Babylonian Talmud is written, is very similar to the Syriac dialect of Aramaic. Therefore, knowledge of Syriac helps in the translation and understanding of the grammar and syntax of the Talmudic text. Thus, we can see that only through mutual cooperation between Christian and Jewish science can each of the parties enrich their knowledge in different areas of history, linguistics and biblical studies.

Alexander Bolotnikov,

Director of the Research Center "Shalom",

Doctor of Divinity

Who wrote the Bible? The question, which at first glance seems absurd, actually has a very clear answer. The author of the holy book is God himself. And the people who wrote down his messages here on earth are only his "co-authors". It is clear that such an answer is suitable only for a believer. But even if it is accepted, many questions still remain. Of course, it is easiest to assume that the Pentateuch of Moses was written by Moses, the Book of Isaiah by the prophet Isaiah, the Song of Solomon by King Solomon, and so on. But the Bible is a book that has been read for several thousand years, examining every word and every sign literally under a microscope. During this time, a lot of questions and contradictions have accumulated, complicating a literal understanding of biblical text. And here faith has nothing to do with it - science comes into play.

Books of Ezra

The books that make up the Christian Old Testament and the Jewish Tanakh were created around the 13th century BC. They went to religious communities in different lists and different versions. There was no unanimity among the Jewish theologians - what some considered a sacred text, others could easily declare an apocrypha. Such disorganization greatly harmed the recently emerged monotheism. Many, unable to understand the intricacies and intricate interpretations of the books of the Tanakh, preferred to return to the old and familiar paganism, devoid of such problems.

This greatly disturbed the Jewish priests. The person who undertook to put things in order in the Jewish Holy Scriptures was the high priest Ezra, who lived in the 5th century BC. He, in fact, can be called the "father" of Judaism. And for Christians, he is the "father" of the Old Testament. Ezra collected books, determined which edition should be considered correct, and began to introduce among the Jewish people the law sent from above, in word and deed.

However, some books of the Old Testament were written after the death of Ezra, in the period from the 5th century BC to the 1st century after the birth of Christ. First of all, these are the so-called Maccabean books. They are referred to " history books» Bible, as they tell not so much about the relationship with God, but about the history of the Jewish people. However, they are still considered sacred.

True, the same problems arose with them as with ancient books: which text should be considered inspired by God, and which should be just a priest's reflections on history? The Jews dealt with these questions only towards the end of the 1st century. At a meeting of the Sanhedrin, held in the city of Yavne after the Roman army destroyed the main shrine of Judaism - Jerusalem Temple, the Jewish canon was officially approved. Tanakh is 22 (according to another account - 24) books: the Pentateuch of Moses (Torah), the Books of the Prophets (Neviim) and the writings of the wise men of Israel, as well as prayer poetry (Ketuvim).

List of books of the Bible

In the 1st century arose new religion- Christianity, which inherited from Judaism not only the Old Testament (as the books of the Tanakh began to be called, as opposed to the New Testament left to people by Jesus Christ), but also all the problems associated with it. Understand what needs to be moved from old faith into the new, and what is better to leave in the past was not so easy. Moreover, the early Christians got acquainted with most of the biblical books in Greek. Not in the Hebrew in which they were originally written. This introduced a certain amount of distortion and misunderstanding due to the peculiarities of the translation.

While Christians existed in the form of independent, scattered and, as a rule, secret communities, there was no talk of any canon. Each deacon or presbyter himself determined which books to read to his flock. Moreover, the words of Jesus interested them much more than the Jewish heritage. Finally, Christians gathered to deal with the Old Testament only in the 7th century, after they had resolved the most difficult intra-church disputes and decided on the most important theological concepts.

At the Council of Trulla, held in 692, the hierarchs of the Eastern Churches (which would later become Orthodox) agreed to recognize as sacred 39 canonical books (that is, those that were recognized by the Jews) and 11 non-canonical (of those that the Sanhedrin different reasons were rejected). This list of 50 Old Testament books is valid in traditional Orthodoxy to this day.

However, the Bishop of Rome (who would become the head of the Catholic Church several centuries later) refused to sign the decisions of the Trullo Council. The fact is that among the conciliar decisions there were quite a few that condemned certain customs adopted by the Western Church, but rejected by the Eastern ones. Such, for example, as the celibacy of priests or some rules of fasting. Refusing to sign the decisions of the council, the head of the Roman church also refused the approved list of books of the Old Testament. So the Catholics had to live without a canon right up to the 16th century. Only in 1546, at the Council of Trent, a list was approved, which included 46 Old Testament books. By the way, among the Eastern churches, too, the agreement did not last long. Many of them later revised the canon adopted by the Council of Trullo. And today, many of them have a list of books of the Old Testament that is very different from that accepted then. For example, in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church The canon contains 54 books.

In parallel with the Catholics, the Protestants who appeared in the 16th century also thought about the canon of the Old Testament. In an effort to cleanse Christianity of everything superfluous, the reformers approached the Jewish heritage very critically. The followers of Martin Luther decided that only those books that survived in the original language should be recognized as canonical. Those that have come down to them only in Greek translations can only claim the status of apocrypha. Therefore, in the Protestant Old Testament only 39 books.

As for the New Testament, the followers of Jesus Christ agreed on it in a much more organized way. It includes 27 books that are recognized by almost all Christian denominations, with extremely rare exceptions. These are the four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, the 21 Epistles of the Apostles and the Revelation of John the Theologian. So it turns out that in Orthodox Bible you will find 77 books, in the Catholic one 73 and in the Protestant one 66.

Who wrote the Old Testament

Having dealt with the composition of the Holy Scriptures, let us return to the question of authorship. This problem is connected primarily with the Pentateuch (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy), which contains the main postulates of faith in the One God. Including the ten commandments, on which Jewish, and after it, Christian morality was built. For a long time the fact that these books were written personally by the prophet Moses was not questioned. The only deviation from this interpretation, which was allowed by the strict Jewish high priests, is that the last eight verses of Deuteronomy, which tell about the death of Moses, were written by Joshua. Some Pharisees, however, insisted that these lines were written by Moses himself, to whom a revelation was sent about how he would end his days.

But the longer and more attentively the Jewish and Christian scribes read the Pentateuch, the more clearly the contradictions in it became. For example, in the enumeration of the kings who ruled the people of the Edomites, those who lived after Moses are also mentioned. This, too, can be attributed to revelation. But this is why some plots (moreover, such important ones as the creation of the world or the construction noah's ark) are told twice in the Pentateuch, and with obvious discrepancies, it is already more difficult to explain.

Yet the fear of being accused of sacrilege was too strong. Only in the 18th century, the Frenchman Jean Astruc and the German Johann Eichhorn put forward the version that the Pentateuch is two primary sources mixed together. They proposed to distinguish them by the name of God. In some cases he is called Yahweh, in others - Elohim. Accordingly, the sources were named Yahwist and Elohist. In the 19th century, their theory was developed, suggesting that there were even more primary sources. Modern biblical studies believe that the Pentateuch is based on at least four sources. A similar story happened with the books of the prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel. And the textual analysis of the Song of Songs of Solomon showed that it was written, most likely, in the 3rd century BC. That is, 700 years later than the time when the historical King Solomon lived.

Who wrote the New Testament

Not fewer questions over time, accumulated among the researchers of the New Testament. The more attentively they read the lines of the canonical Gospels, the more often they asked themselves the question: was it really written by the apostles, companions of Jesus? Indeed, in none of the gospel texts (with the exception of the Gospel of John) there is no indication of the identity of the author. So, perhaps we are dealing only with retellings written down by those who studied with the apostles and wished to preserve their stories for posterity?

The version that Mark, Matthew and Luke are not the real authors of the Gospels was also first expressed in the 18th century. The peculiarities of the language in which these texts were written led many theologians to the idea that they could not have been created before the second half of the 1st century. Modern biblical scholars have generally agreed that the Gospels were written by anonymous authors who had at their disposal the stories of the apostles themselves (or their closest disciples), as well as some text that has not come down to us, which scholars call "Source O". This source was not a gospel story, but rather something like a collection of sayings of Jesus, most likely written down by direct listeners of his sermons.

The first to be written, according to Bible scholars, was the Gospel of Mark. This happened around the 60s and 70s. Then, on its basis, the Gospels of Matthew (70-90s) and Luke (80-100s) were created. That is why the texts of these three narratives are so close. The Gospel of John was created, apparently, in the years 80-95 and was written separately from everyone else. In addition, the author of the Gospel of Luke most likely wrote the Acts of the Apostles.

It's interesting that Catholic Church I fully agree with such a scientific interpretation of the authorship of the New Testament and do not consider it blasphemous at all. On the second Vatican Cathedral, which met from 1962 to 1965, Western theologians officially decided to abandon the wording: "God's church has always maintained and continues to maintain that the authors of the Gospels are those whose names are named in the canon of sacred books, namely: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John." Instead of names, "holy authors" were written.

Orthodox theologians also acknowledge the existence of the problem of authorship, emphasizing at the same time that this cannot in any way cast doubt on the very content of the Gospels. Today, the Bible is respected as a repository of wisdom and historical source by people of all religious views and beliefs. And the question about the real personalities of the "co-authors" of God does not detract from this respect. We are unlikely to ever know their names. But at least we can pay tribute to their great work.