What Language Did Jesus Use?

QUESTION: What language did Jesus use?

ANSWER: The Aramaic. The ancient name of Syria was Aram, the language of which was the northern branch of the Semitic, the tongue of the descendants of Shem. After the return from Babylon it was the dialect in which the Jews conversed and Jesus preached. The only remains of its literature in the Gospels are a few words in the New Testament: Talithacumi, ephphatha, Bethesda, Aceldama, Boanerges, and Bar-jonah. The Syriac and the Peshito versions very much resemble the Aramaic, as does the palimpsest of the Gospels recently discovered by two very learned and enterprising twin sisters, Mrs. Gibson and Mrs. Lewis, widows of Oxford professors.

— Steele's Answers pp. 133, 134.

The Growth of the Child Jesus

QUESTION: Explain Luke 2:40: "And the child grew, and waxed strong, filled with wisdom; and the grace of God was upon him."

ANSWER: Jesus had a normal bodily and mental  growth. He learned from his mother and Joseph to speak Aramaic, his mother tongue. The rabbi taught him to read Hebrew, then a dead language. His knowledge of the Holy Scriptures came from hearing them read every sabbath in the synagogue. Dr. Stalker suggests that through the kindness of the sacristan, or sexton, this model boy whom everybody admired had access on week days to the sacred scrolls kept in the synagogue and that he diligently studied them. But at twelve his knowledge that God, not Joseph, was his Father, was a supernatural, spiritual intuition. Such intuitions continued to unfold as long as he lived on the earth.

— Steele's Answers pp. 24, 25.