The Bible was written in three languages across more than a thousand years. The Old Testament is almost entirely Hebrew — the language of ancient Israel — with a few passages in Aramaic (parts of Daniel and Ezra), reflecting the era after the exile when Aramaic had become the common tongue. The New Testament is entirely in Koine ('common') Greek, the everyday Greek that Alexander's conquests had spread across the eastern Mediterranean. So the Bible's languages are not one but three, layered by the centuries and empires it passed through.
- Old Testament: mostly Hebrew, with Aramaic sections (Daniel 2–7; Ezra 4–7).
- New Testament: Koine ('common') Greek, all 27 books.
- Koine Greek was the everyday Greek spread across the East by Alexander's empire.
What the evidence showsThe languages of the text are well established — Hebrew with some Aramaic for the Old Testament, Koine Greek for the New — and they line up with the historical periods the books come from.
Where it stopsKnowing the language a book was written in does not by itself settle when or by whom it was written — those are separate questions handled elsewhere on the site.
Sources & further reading