Jesus Primarily Spoke Aramaic

Jesus is believed to have primarily spoken a Galilean accented dialect of Aramaic since Aramaic was the most commonly spoken language of Judea in the first century AD. He also seems to have understood some Greek since he talked with Romans who would have primarily spoken that language.  Also, it was a point of pride and honor for a Jewish man to stand up in the synagogue and read from the Hebrew scriptures,

Biblical Hebrew,and most modern representations of the language, has an abjad writing system rather than an alphabet as in English. Abjabs are writing systems in which there are only consonants with no written vowels. The word is a technical term named for the fist four letters of the Arabic abjad in their original order of sequence: alif, ba, jem, dal. The first four letters in the Hebrew abjad retain the original Semitic sequence: aleph, bet, gimel, dalet.

The first widely used abjad was ancient Phoenician. It was much easier to learn and to write than the Egyptian hieroglyphics (a pictographic writing system). The Phoenician sea merchants quickly adopted the writing system for their business records.

The modern "alphabets" of Greek, English, Spanish, Russian, and other similar languages represent both consonantal and vowel sounds using their glyphs (aka letters). Each glyph represents a different sound.

The English word "alphabet"is derived from the first two letters of the Greek alphabet: alpha and beta.

Psalm 119

Psalm 119 is an acrostic poem intentionally built by the author. This is an ancient Hebrew literary form which is not evident in translation.  The poem is built on the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, in alphabetical order.



Verses 1 - 8 all begin with the letter Aleph.

Verses 9 - 16 all begin with the letter Beth.

Verses 17 - 24 all begin with the letter Gimel.

Verses 25 - 32 all begin with the letter Daleth.

Verses 33 -40 all begin with the letter He.

Verses 41 - 48 all begin with the letter Waw.

Verses 49 - 56 all begin with the letter Zayin.

Verses 57 - 64 all begin with the letter Heth.

Verses 65 - 72 all begin with the letter Teth.

Verses 73 - 80 all begin with the letter Yodh.

Verses 81 - 88 all begin with the letter Kaph.

Verses 89 - 96 all begin with the letter Lamedh.

Verses 97 - 104 all begin with the letter Mem.

Verses 105 - 112 all begin with the letter Nun.

Verses 113 - 120 all begin with the letter Samekh.

Verses 121 - 128 all begin with the letter Ayin.

Verses 129 - 136 all begin with the letter Pe.

Verses 137 - 144 all begin with the letter Tsadhe.

Verses 145 - 152 all begin with the letter Qoph.

Verses 153 - 160 all begin with the letter Resh.

Verses 161 - 168 all begin with the letter Sin/Shin.

Verses 169 - 176 all begin with the letter Taw.