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Reuters Staff
Social media users share a quote attributed to Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, which suggests that Jesus was an English speaker. The quote was attributed incorrectly.
Examples can be seen here, here and here.
The description of one post here reads: ” If English was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for us. ‘Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on why Spanish should not be spoken in a white Christian nation like America. The new face of the Republican Party. Always something. ”
Greene, 46, who said she was inspired to enter politics by former US President Donald Trump, accepted his false claim that he won the November 3 election. Before taking office last month, she also voiced support for a series of unfounded conspiracy theories, including the ‘QAnon’ theory that elite Democrats are part of a cabal of satan-worshiping pedophiles and cannibals.
Reuters could not find evidence that Greene said the quote is mentioned in these claims. Nick Dyer, Greene’s communications director, told Reuters in an email that the quote attributed to Greene was “false”.
The quote itself has a long history and has appeared on many websites over the past two decades. It appeared in an opinion piece in October 2004 in The New York Times here and an article in January 2006 in CBS News here attributed to Miriam “Ma” Ferguson, who served as the first female governor of Texas from 1925 to 1927 and 1933 to 1935 served (here).
In a 2006 University of Pennsylvania blog here, linguist Benjamin Zimmer explains that the quote goes back even further in history, with a similar phrase dating back to 1881.
Pope Francis recently said the language Jesus would speak every day would probably have been Aramaic (here, here).
VERDICT
Untrue. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene did not mention the quote in these posts.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work here.