Paul's letters

[gnostic]

What languages were they originally composed in?

He wrote letters, addressing to followers to the Romans, Corinthians, Thessalonians, Hebrews, etc. Did he write to the Romans in Latin, to Jews in Hebrew (or did he write them in Aramaic?) and the rest in Greek?

It is clear from the Acts, that he was bilingual.

 

[FerventGodSeeker]

What languages were they originally composed in?

He wrote letters, addressing to followers to the Romans, Corinthians, Thessalonians, Hebrews, etc. Did he write to the Romans in Latin, to Jews in Hebrew (or did he write them in Aramaic?) and the rest in Greek?

It is clear from the Acts, that he was bilingual.

The oldest manuscripts we have of his letters are in Koine Greek.

FerventGodSeeker

 

[gnostic]

Thank you, FerventGodSeeker. I thought that might have been the case.

I am just presuming that the he might have written in Latin if he was writing to the Romans, but then again, Rome is a bilingual society...well, maybe in the upper class or the learned scholars, at least, could speak and read Greek for a couple of centuries before Paul's time. Greek was the preferred language in Rome for many Roman authors before the time of Julius Caesar and Cicero. Someone like Nero, had loved the Greek culture.

Koine Greek was widely spoken in the eastern part of the empire, because of the former Hellenistic kingdoms, so it would be understandable if Paul or any other apostles could speak/read/write Greek as well Aramaic or Hebrew.

 

[James the Persian]

They were certainly written in Greek. Apart from the fact that Romans considered Greek to be the language of learning, it was both the lingua franca of the eastern Meditteranean and the predominant language of the diaspora Jews. As many of the early Christians came from the latter community, even in western cities like Rome, it would have made sense for Paul to use Greek if he wished to be understood.

James