Who Wrote the New Testament — and Why in Greek?

The New Testament we read today was written in Greek.

Yet a question often lingers beneath the surface: Who actually wrote it?

And more intriguingly, who was the first person to put the Christian message into writing?

To answer these questions, we must first understand the linguistic reality of the Mediterranean world in the first century. The most widely spoken language across the region was Greek—specifically Koine Greek, often referred to as Hellenistic Greek. It took me nearly forty years to fully grasp the significance of this fact.

The earliest writings of the New Testament are generally considered to be the letters of Paul the Apostle. Around AD 50, Paul wrote First Epistle to the Thessalonians from Corinth. Other Pauline letters followed soon after. The four Gospels, by contrast, were written later, roughly between AD 60 and 90.

Jesus himself most likely spoke Aramaic in everyday life. Yet the accounts of his life, teachings, and crucifixion were preserved in Greek. This was not accidental.

Paul was not only a religious figure; he was a Roman citizen, a trained theologian, and a highly educated man fluent in both Greek and Latin. His ambition was clear: to spread the message of Jesus beyond local communities and into the wider world. Greek was the language that made this possible. It was the common tongue of trade, philosophy, and communication across the Roman Mediterranean.

Even before Paul began writing, the teachings of Jesus had already spread widely throughout Roman territories via oral tradition and early Christian communities. Writing in Greek allowed these teachings to be fixed, shared, and preserved across cultural and geographic boundaries.

When the Roman Empire later adopted Christianity as its official religion, Latin translations of the Bible flourished. Together, Greek and Latin became the twin linguistic pillars of Western civilization.

In future essays, I will explore how this linguistic foundation shaped not only theology, but also the development of English and Russian—languages profoundly influenced by the Christian tradition.