How Did Jesus Pronounce Greek?

It may come as a surprise to many that the pronunciation of Koine Greek taught in schools and seminaries today is very different from how it was spoken by Jesus and the first Christians.

Consider the following Greek word:

καί

Students today are taught to pronounce this word as “kai”. Indeed, that would have been how it was pronounced during the Classical period, more than 400 years before Jesus’ birth. However, Jesus and the first Christians would have pronounced this word as “keh”. During the Koine period, the combination αι was pronounced as “eh” rather than “ai”.

How do we know this? After all, it is not as if we have audio recordings of people during that period speaking Koine Greek. Fortunately, what we do have is a lot of material evidence in the form of written manuscripts and inscriptions.

For example, the Alexamenos graffito contains an inscription which reads:

αλεξαμενος σεβετε θεον

Alexamenos worships God.

The Greek word for “worships” should really be spelt as σεβεται. Students today are taught to pronounce that last syllable, the combination αι, as “ai”. However, the creator of the graffito had mistakenly written σεβεται as σεβετε—spelling the combination αι as the vowel ε, which was pronounced as “eh”. This indicates that the combination αι was being pronounced identically to the vowel ε, as “eh”.

Another example of this can be found in Papyrus 66, one of the earliest known copies of the Gospel of John. The text of John 14:14 in Papyrus 66 reads:

εαν τι αιτησηται μαι εν τω ονοματι μου εγω ποιησω

If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.

The Greek words for “ask” and “me” here should really be spelt as αιτησητε and με respectively. However, the scribe of Papyrus 66 had mistakenly written them as αιτησηται and μαι—spelling the vowel ε as the combination αι. Of course, he does not always make this mistake. Again, this indicates that the combination αι was being pronounced identically to the vowel ε, as “eh”.

These are only two of many examples of the vowel ε and the combination αι being consistently mistaken for one another in spelling. These mistake spellings form part of a cumulative case that in Koine Greek, the combination αι was pronounced identically to the vowel ε—not as “ai”, but as “eh”.

And all that is only for the combination αι! By consistently applying the same methodology for other consonants, vowels, and combinations, we would produce a pronunciation scheme for Koine Greek which would be very different from the one commonly taught in schools and seminaries today.