Is εἰρήνη ὑμῖν (peace be with you) in John 20:19 Jesus using the common greeting שָׁלוֹם לָכֶם (shalom lachem) in the first century?

Question

To clarify this question, I am asking if שָׁלוֹם לָכֶם (shalom lachem) was a common greeting in the first century?

εἰρήνη would normally be translated שָׁלוֹם

ὑμῖν -- the dative as used here would be translated with לָ and the 2nd person plural with the ending כֶם added to the preposition.

However, there seems to be some debate about when this became a common greeting. For example, see How ‘Shalom Aleykhem’ Originated and Why It Doesn’t Appear in the Bible

Note Franz Julius Delitzsch translated "and said to them, 'Peace be with you'" וַיֹּאמֶר אֲלֵיהֶם שָׁלוֹם לָכֶם

שָׁלוֹם אֲלֵיהֶם fits the greeting better.

Answer 1

The majority of scholars believe that Aramaic rather than Hebrew was spoken by Jews in Palestine by Jesus' time. If this is the case, we would have to concede that Jesus using the greeting שָׁלוֹם לָכֶם (shalom lachem) would have been anachronistic.

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What Jesus did say, however, would probably have been very close. We do not have any ancient Aramaic versions of the New Testament, but we have 2nd century Syriac - a closely related dialect - in the Peshitta:

ܘܗܝܕܝܢ wə-haydēn
On the evening of that

ܘܐܦ ܫܪܪܐ ʾāf sharrā
and the first day

ܡܛܠ ܟܘܢܬܐ ܕܫܪܪܐ məṯallāh kunthā d-sharrā
of the week, when the disciples were together,

ܘܩܝܡܝܬܐ ܕܐܝܟܐ wə-qāyamēṯā d-ʾēkā
with the doors locked

ܗܘܘ ܒܐܢܫܐ hūn bə-ʾanšē
for fear of the Jewish leaders,

ܘܬܪܝܢܘܬܐ ܗܘܘ ܡܫܝܚܐ wə-taryēnwāṯā hūn mšīḥā
Jesus came and stood among them and said,

ܐܠܐ ܡܢ ܠܐܒܘܢܝܬܐ Shlama lakum
“Peace be with you!”

Shlama lakhon is a very close facsimile of the Hebrew shalom lachem. If scholars were mistaken and Jews were still speaking Hebrew, or even if they were not but preserved this particular phrase for idiomatic reasons, we can be almost certain that Jesus would have said shalom lachem and not some other phrase.

In any case, I think it is safe to believe that Jesus said either shalom lachem or something in Aramaic that was very close.

Other semitic languages to this day have very similar phrases. Arabic and non-Arabic speaking moslems alike greet each other with the familiar As-salamu alaykum (السلام عليكم).