WI: Hebrew over Latin/Greek

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Reletively simple PoD.
During the Council of Nicaea its agreed that all church-owned biblical accounts of Jesus and his disciples are to be written in Hebrew instead of Latin or Greek.

What effect does this have over the growth of the Church as well as Christian attitudes towards the Jews?
What effect would a Hebrew speaking clergy have on Chrisitan Europe post Rome?
 

Pellaeon

Banned
This is my first post but I think it would lead to a more Judiac Christianity or a Christianity that is at least more respectful of Jewish contributions or at least the Jewish origins of Christianity.

Though I'm not sure how this is possible Latin and Greek were the lingua Franca and language of the educated respectively. To learn the bible one would have to learn Hebrew and I don't think that's something everyone would have gone along with.
 
It would be pretty much be like if people insisted not to translate Kierkegaard from Danish, but that people should read him in the original language, I suspect the result would be that Kierkegaard would be pretty unknown outside Scandinavia and I suspect in this case it would mean that Christianity didn't spread outside the Semitic World (pretty much the Arab peninsula, Levant and Mesopotania at the time).
 
It would be pretty much be like if people insisted not to translate Kierkegaard from Danish, but that people should read him in the original language, I suspect the result would be that Kierkegaard would be pretty unknown outside Scandinavia and I suspect in this case it would mean that Christianity didn't spread outside the Semitic World (pretty much the Arab peninsula, Levant and Mesopotania at the time).

Too late for such a restriction at this point. By Nicaea Christianity had already pervaded all corners of the Empire. The mother of Emperor Constantine was Christian, for instance.
 
Everybody at the council was speaking Greek and the original language of the NT Scriptures was Greek. Why would they do this? You'd need a plausible POD much earlier
 
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Everybody at the council was speaking Greek and the original languages of the NT Scriptures were in Greek. Why would they do this? You'd need a plausible POD much earlier
Yeah. This.
They'd have to translate all those documents into a language no one (in the church) used much.

Besides. Hebrew, as a spoken language, was dead. Later parts of the Old Testament, for instance, are written in Aramaic; the Talmud was in Aramaic, not Hebrew; Jesus would have used Aramaic with his disciples....
Hebrew is a total non-starter, ESPECIALLY by as late as Nicaea
 
Just a few days ago, there was a thread about non-Pauline Christianity. I.e. the Council of Jerusalem, or something around that time, basically in the 1st century CE.
While Aramaic certainly was the language of most Jesus-followers among Judaism, their choice of a sacral language would certainly be Hebrew.
By the way, such a much more Jewish Christianity might treat most of what we call the "New Testament" as a rather loose collection of texts with a status more akin to OTL Judaism`s Mishnah and Talmud, and maybe even really overlapping with them. Accounts of the life of Jesus would certainly be considered to be a part of the Tanakh, but that might be it. All the rest (which certainly wouldn`t include Paul´s epistles since only a non-Pauline Christianity can plausibly be expected to favour Hebrew over Greek) would assume a different status and might be in Hebrew, Aramaic or maybe even other languages. It´s difficult to stop that from happening, with a Jewish Christianity, it is only (but firmly so) the Tanakh which can be linguistically strictly controlled. (Especially so if we consider that TTL´s Judaism is, quite generally, going to be more proselytising and less reclusive, given the absence of imperially enforced Christianity.)
 
It would be odd, since Jesus himself didn't speak Hebrew (at least not in daily life), he spoke Aramaic, including during his Crucifixion (Matthew 27:46). Most all Jews only used Hebrew as a liturgical language, the rest would've used Greek or Aramaic in every other context. Especially since at that point, Christianity has basically no links with Judaism, hence no reason to use Hebrew. They might as well just make Aramaic the official language of the Church (since after all, it's the language Jesus himself spoke, and we can assume every quotation of Jesus in the Bible was originally in Aramaic, compare the Arabic language and Muhammad).
 
It would be odd, since Jesus himself didn't speak Hebrew (at least not in daily life), he spoke Aramaic, including during his Crucifixion (Matthew 27:46). Most all Jews only used Hebrew as a liturgical language, the rest would've used Greek or Aramaic in every other context. Especially since at that point, Christianity has basically no links with Judaism, hence no reason to use Hebrew. They might as well just make Aramaic the official language of the Church (since after all, it's the language Jesus himself spoke, and we can assume every quotation of Jesus in the Bible was originally in Aramaic, compare the Arabic language and Muhammad).

Well that's the argument these ATL church officials could use. "Hebrew is the language of the book, so let just continue with that."
And we're talking about only Church owned copies of the synoptic gospels. The lay person(s) could always have copies in their native tongue.
I'm not saying it's the most plausible thing in the world but its still an interesting "what if" with major butterflies abound.
 
Latin and Greek were lingua francas. Reasonable enough an idea at the time, as Jews and Gentiles alike might understand it. With missionaries who could read them going out and doing so. Much better now that the Catholic Church has moved away from using old copies of Latin as the original source to using the sources the Latin translations came from. Brings out certain subtleties.
 
Well that's the argument these ATL church officials could use. "Hebrew is the language of the book, so let just continue with that."
I'm not saying it's the most plausible thing in the world but its still an interesting "what if" with major butterflies abound.
Of course by this point there would be issues of there not being as large a focus on the Jews. Jesus went to them first and focuses upon them, but a lot of people who showed a great deal of faith were foreigners. I believe the Apostles then mostly went to Jewish communities around the known world, while also preaching to Gentiles, while Paul and other Disciples put more focus on Gentiles. Hebrew would have been a bit... well, not discredited. However the lens most versed in it would be those against Christianity for generations or centuries by this point. Not exactly going to be easy finding people to write and read the stuff for you.
 
Well that's the argument these ATL church officials could use. "Hebrew is the language of the book, so let just continue with that."
And we're talking about only Church owned copies of the synoptic gospels. The lay person(s) could always have copies in their native tongue.
I'm not saying it's the most plausible thing in the world but its still an interesting "what if" with major butterflies abound.

Hebrew is the language of the Old Testament. But the church officials aren't Jews, and the New Testament was written in Greek. The writers of the New Testament most all would've spoken Aramaic as their native tongue as well, but they wrote in Greek since it was the lingua franca of the Roman Empire (excluding the sources the writers used which may have been written in Aramaic).

For Hebrew to have any importance, you'd need a Jewish Christianity which would severely limit the spread of Christianity.
 
It would be pretty much be like if people insisted not to translate Kierkegaard from Danish, but that people should read him in the original language

Given that the NT was written in Greek, and nobody spoke Hebrew as a first language any more, it would arguably be more like people insisting that Kierkegaard be translated into and then only read in Latin, with no Danish editions of his works being published at all.
 
Everybody at the council was speaking Greek and the original languages of the NT Scriptures were in Greek. Why would they do this? You'd need a plausible POD much earlier

Well the "NT" wasn't really the "NT" until Nicaea so I still think theirs some creative room here, even if Greek was the lingua franca of the officials in attendance.
That being said let's open it up to more plausible avenues.
If Hebrew can't work, certainly Aramaic could. What could a Aramaic speaking priesthood look like?
 
Liturgy isn't the only context for language. Individual languages could be used for:
  • Personal life
  • Liturgy
  • Trade
  • Administration
  • Diplomacy
  • Education
 

Deleted member 67076

During the Council of Nicaea its agreed that all church-owned biblical accounts of Jesus and his disciples are to be written in Hebrew instead of Latin or Greek.
This would never happen. Greek and Latin had more prestige, and the Church had long since agreed it would follow the initial Greek wing of the church and appeal to the masses rather than sticking as a small sect of Judaism.
 
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