107 THE NARRATIVE ROLE OF SEMITIC LANGUAGES IN THE BOOK OF ACTS JOHN C. POIRIER Philological studies have suggested that “the Hebrew dialect” (τῇ Ἑβραΐδι διαλέκτῳ) in Acts 21,40; 22,2; and 26,14 refers to Hebrew, not Aramaic. But why would Paul speak Hebrew when addressing fellow Jews? This article suggests that he did so in order to be understood by the Jews but not by the Roman tribune (who would have understood Aramaic). This scenario is supported by a number of details within the account, and by a parallel case in 4 Maccabees. The article also suggests that something similar lies behind the use of Hebrew by the resurrected Jesus (26,14). Although there have been a number of good studies on the question of which language is denoted by “the Hebrew dialect” (τῇ Ἑβραΐδι διαλέκτῳ) in Acts 21,40; 22,2; and 26,14,1 it can hardly be said that the best philological investigations of the matter have made much of an im- pact on the commentary tradition: scholars continue to write as though “the Hebrew dialect” refers to Aramaic.2 This is due to a widespread presumption that Paul would have used Aramaic rather than Hebrew to address a crowd in Jerusalem, based on the well-known (but not uncon- tested) fact that the main vernacular of first-century Jewish Palestine was Aramaic. This presumption, coupled with the supposition that “the H. Birkeland, The Language of Jesus (Oslo 1954) 13; J.M. Grintz, “Hebrew as the 1 Spoken and Written Language in the Last Days of the Second Temple”, JBL 79 (1960) 32-47, esp. 42-5; K. Penner, “Did Paul Speak Hebrew? Ancient Names for Hebrew and Ara- maic”, paper delivered at the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies Annual Meeting, May 30, 2003. See J. Cantineau, “Quelle langue parlait le peuple en Palestine au 1er siècle de notre ère?”, Sem 5 (1955) 99-101; H. Ott, “Um die Muttersprache Jesu: Forschungen seit Gustaf Dalman”, NovT 9 (1967) 1-25. Although the interpretation of τῇ Ἑβραΐδι διαλέτῳ as “Hebrew” has been championed by those who think that Hebrew was the main vernacular of first-century Jewish Palestine, I hope to show that its philological supports are materially separate from any preconceptions about what languages were most widely spoken. Note the disarming casualness with which the equation “τῇ Ἑβραΐδι διαλέκτῳ = Ara- 2 maic” is often stated: e.g., F.F. Bruce, The New Testament Documents: Are they Reliable? (Grand Rapids, MI 51960) 38, writes “The New Testament writers usually call [Aramaic] ‘Hebrew’, thus not distinguishing in name between it and its sister language in which most of the Old Testament was written”. I do not mean to imply that scholars who voice a more philologically aware view are nonexistent: J.B. Tyson, Images of Judaism in Luke-Acts (Co- lumbia, SC 1992) 30, correctly accepts the philological argument for Paul’s use of Hebrew. Filología Neotestamentaria - Vol. XVI - 2003, pp. 107-116 Facultad de Filosofía y Letras - Universidad de Córdoba (España)