The part of the Bible (the Old Testament) that is from the first century was written in Hebrew and some Aramaic. All text in the New Testament was written in Greek in the first century AD. Some of these could first have been written in Hebrew and Aramaic, but it is controversial.

In the 200s BC, the Old Testament was translated into Greek, which was the contemporary international language. Most of the people in the Roman Empire who could read would be able to read all of the books in the Bible in Greek.