The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 1) — Page lxv
GENERAL INTRODUCTION (ii) The religion of the Jews was recorded in Hebrew, and for this reason particularly, it was impossible for them to give up their language. (iii) In the scale of civilization and refinement, the Jews did not regard themselves as inferior to the Romans, but rather superior, and this must have made them proud of their language and reluctant to give it up. (iv) The Jews entertained hopes for the return of their political power. Nations which fear the future become pessimistic and therefore tend to lose pride in their language. But the Jews in the time of Jesus were awaiting the advent of their King who was to re-establish Jewish rule. Looking forward to such a future, they could not have been so negligent in protecting their language. (v) Jewish authors of that time wrote in their own language or in some corrupt form of it. If their language had changed, we should have had books of the time written in a language other than Hebrew. (vi) The oldest manuscripts of the New Testament are in Greek. But in the time of Jesus, the Roman Empire had not become divided into two halves. The centre of the Empire was still Rome. The Roman and Greek languages are very difficult. If Roman influence had at all penetrated Jewish life, it should have resulted in the assimilation of Latin (and not Greek) words into the Hebrew language. Yet the oldest manuscripts of the Gospels are all in Greek. This proves that the Gospels were written down at a time when the Roman Empire had become divided and its eastern possessions had become part of the Greek Empire, so that the Greek language had begun to exert its influence on Christianity and its literature. (vii) Phrases such as the following which are preserved in the Gospels in their original form are all Hebrew phrases. (1) "Hosanna" (Matthew 21:9); (2) "Eli, Eli, Lama Sabachthani" (Matthew 27:46); (3) "Rabbi" (John 3:2); (4) "Talitha cumi" (Mark 5:41); (viii) From The Acts (2:4-13) it appears that even after the crucifixion, Jews spoke Hebrew: And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven. Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language. And they were all amazed and marvelled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galilaeans? And how hear we, every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born? xxxix