section_path: Historical views/Language, ethnicity, and appearance
section_name: Language, ethnicity, and appearance
paragraph_text: Language, ethnicity, and appearance
  
  Jesus grew up in Galilee and much of his ministry took place there. The languages spoken in Galilee and Judea during the 1st century AD include Jewish Palestinian Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek, with Aramaic being predominant. There is substantial consensus that Jesus gave most of his teachings in Aramaic in the Galilean dialect. Other than Aramaic and Hebrew, it is likely that he was also able to speak in Koine Greek.
  
  Modern scholars agree that Jesus was a Jew of 1st-century Judea. Ioudaios in New Testament Greek is a term which in the contemporary context may refer to religion (Second Temple Judaism), ethnicity (of Judea), or both. In a review of the state of modern scholarship, Amy-Jill Levine writes that the entire question of ethnicity is "fraught with difficulty", and that "beyond recognizing that 'Jesus was Jewish', rarely does the scholarship address what being 'Jewish' means".
  
  The New Testament gives no description of the physical appearance of Jesus before his death—it is generally indifferent to racial appearances and does not refer to the features of the people it mentions. Jesus probably looked like a typical Jewish man of his time and place; standing around 166 cm (5 ft 5 in) tall with a thin but fit build, olive-brown skin, brown eyes and short, dark hair. He also likely had a beard that was not particularly long or heavy. His clothing may have suggested poverty, consisting of a mantle (shawl) with tassels, a knee-length basic tunic and sandals.