In how many languages was the Bible originally written?

The three languages

The Bible was originally written in three languages over the course of more than a thousand years.

Hebrew. The overwhelming majority of the Old Testament was written in Biblical Hebrew, a Northwest Semitic language related to Aramaic, Phoenician, Moabite, and other ancient languages of the Levant. Biblical Hebrew is the language of the Torah, the historical books, the prophets, the Psalms, the wisdom literature, and most other OT books.

Aramaic. Small portions of the Old Testament are in Biblical Aramaic, a sister language to Hebrew that became the lingua franca of the Near East in the first millennium BCE. Aramaic appears in:

• Daniel 2:4b–7:28 (a substantial section, including Nebuchadnezzar’s dreams and the four kingdoms).
• Ezra 4:8–6:18 and 7:12–26 (administrative correspondence with the Persian court).
• Jeremiah 10:11 (a single verse).
• Genesis 31:47 (two words — a place-name spoken by Laban).

Aramaic was also the everyday language of first-century Palestine, and Jesus is generally understood to have spoken it. A few Aramaic words are preserved in the Greek New Testament (e.g., Talitha koum, Mark 5:41; Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani, Matthew 27:46).

Greek. The entire New Testament was written in koinē (“common”) Greek, the everyday Greek of the Mediterranean world following the conquests of Alexander the Great. Koinē Greek is distinct from classical Attic Greek and was the lingua franca of the eastern Roman Empire. The Greek of the NT varies in literary register — Luke writes in a more polished koinē, while Mark’s Greek is more colloquial and Hebraic in style.

What is not original

The Latin Vulgate (4th–5th century CE), the Syriac Peshitta, the various ancient versions, and all modern translations are translations from these three original languages. The King James Version (1611) was translated primarily from the Hebrew Masoretic Text and the Greek Textus Receptus.

A note on the Septuagint

The Septuagint (LXX) — a 3rd–2nd century BCE Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible — is itself a translation, not an original. But it is one of the earliest translations and is frequently quoted in the New Testament; some NT quotations of the OT follow the LXX wording where it differs from the Hebrew.