In his letter of July 22, Mr. Seidel wrote, “There are no original language copies of the gospels. Those that do exist are copies and all in classical Greek.” He is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts. We currently have no autographs (original manuscripts) of the Gospels. The earliest copies that we do possess date from the second, third and fourth centuries. The Greek used in these manuscripts is not Classical Greek, but Koine Greek. Furthermore, many of these early manuscripts are written not in Greek, but in Syriac, Coptic, and Old Latin.
He also wrote, “Jesus spoke Aramaic, not Greek.” Jesus certainly spoke Aramaic, his native tongue, but no one, including Mr. Seidel, knows for sure whether or not Jesus spoke Greek. Greek was the lingua franca of the Greco-Roman world that Jesus lived in, and it was spoken by many Jews. Also, Jesus grew up and lived in Nazareth, about four miles from Sepphoris, a Hellenized Jewish city that was the governmental and business center of Galilee, populated with many carpenters and stonemasons. This doesn’t prove that Jesus spoke Greek, but it does increase the possibility.
Robert Maccini
Concord