NEARLY one in three children think Jesus Christ spoke English, according to a study.
The UK-wide survey – carried out by makers of a language app in Edinburgh – asked 10 to 16-year-olds what language they thought the Son of God used.
Historians believe Jesus probably spoke Aramaic, Greek and Hebrew.
But findings from the survey of 1100 UK school children revealed that 31% thought Jesus spoke English and 36% thought he spoke Jewish – a language that doesn't actually exist.
Just 11% guessed he could speak Greek, 6% said he spoke Hebrew and Aramaic was only chosen by 5% of those who answered. Another 11% admitted they didn't know.
The survey was commissioned by GrowStoryGrow – a computer app designed to help toddlers learn foreign languages. Val Thornber, founder of GrowStoryGrow, said: "Some people might be quick to judge the results, but I wonder what the survey would show if carried out in France, Spain, America or elsewhere.
"It's also a sobering reminder that while we think we are at our most advanced in this day and age, people were tri-lingual thousands of years ago, before we had smartphones, tablets and the internet to translate material for us."
A second survey of 1000 adults found that only 65% of parents and grandparents are planning to buy a chocolate Easter egg for at least one family member – down from 75% in 2012.
More than 20% of people said they were ditching chocolate eggs for iTunes or Amazon vouchers.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article