Re: Languages in Gibson's Passion

On Monday, March 8, 2004, at 06:16 AM, John L. Leland wrote:

> I saw this film yesterday and was struck by several things that seemed to
> me
> linguistic incongruities:
> 1) the Latin was given the "church"pronunciation instead of the
> reconstructed
> "classical" pronunciation
Um - a bit slack of Gibson, methinks. The ecclesiastical pronunciation is
OK for Medieval Latin, but not Latin of the 1st cent. CE.

> 2) Pilate addressed the Jewish crowd in fluent Aramaic (which I doubt very
> much he bothered to learn)
I doubt very much either. It wasn't a normal habit of the Romans, with the
sole exception of Greek. Indeed, educated Romans of this period were
normally more or less bilingual in Greek & Latin, and Pilate certainly
would've been.

> 3) Jesus conversed with Pilate in fluent (church) Latin, which I doubt
> very
> much a Galilean (whose native territory was not under direct Roman rule)
> would
> have much opportunity to learn (I suppose theologically one could argue
> the
> Logos knows everything, but my personal theology would suggest the
> incarnate
> Christ did not know Latin.)
I agree about Latin. But it's likely that Jesus would've picked up some
Greek, as this was the lingua franca in the eastern part of the Empire,
having been brought to the area through the earlier conquests of Alexander.
  Even in Galilee, he'd probably hear some Greek from traders & others, and
certainly on his visits to Jerusalem for Passover, he'd have heard plenty
of Greek as that was the language of the Jewish diaspora.  It's not
improbable that Jesus & Pilate conversed in Greek Koine. But Latin? Fairly
improbable, I think.

> 4) Nobody at all used Greek, though in some cases (e.g. negotiations
> between
> Pilate and the Sadducee elite) it would seem a much more likely common
> language than either Latin or Aramaic.
Oh yes, I think it's as certain as anything can be that Pilate & the
Sadducees would've conversed in Greek Koine.

> Even the famous trilingual inscription above
> the cross appeared to be
> bilingual, with no Greek.
Yet the Gospels clearly state three languages: Greek, Latin & Hebrew (i.e.
  Aramaic)
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============
On Monday, March 8, 2004, at 07:53 AM, Joe wrote:
[snip]
>
> The only point I take issue with is No. 2.  It's always good for public
> relations if a leader makes an effort to learn language X.
It may be - but it's not a line the Romans took. The Romans were the
bosses and subjects towed the line or felt the wrath the Rome. The only
concession the Romans made was to Greek since they admired Greek
civilization.
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===============

On Monday, March 8, 2004, at 08:07 AM, Benct Philip Jonsson wrote:

> At 08:55 8.3.2004, Nik Taylor wrote:
>
>> In addition to which, the Bible has Pilate speaking *with* the crowd,
>> which must mean that they were using the same language, and, as I doubt
>> that the general public of Judea would've spoken Latin or Greek (the
>> elite, yes, but not the general public), Aramaic is the most logical
>> possibility.
>
> Most likely Pilate used a Greek-Aramaic interpreter
> when speaking both with Jesus and with the crowd.
Certainly with the crowd it's quite possible - there is nothing in the
Gospel accounts that would rule that out. But we must remember that the
occasion was the approaching feast of the Passover and quite a sizable
proportion of the crowd would be Greek speaking Jews from the diaspora.
There could well have been enough Greek speakers in the crowd to enable
Pilate's message to be conveyed.

It's also not impossible that an interpreter was used during Pilate's
interview with Jesus, tho one can't rule out the possibility that they
conversed in Greek Koine.

> A procurator held his office only for a few years,
> and I doubt most of them (aside from linguistically
> inclined persons*) would bother to learn any other
> language than the recognized international language,
> which was Greek.
Yes, all the evidence we have is that the Romans had little respect for
their subjects' languages, except Greek. The conquered learnt the language
of the conqueror if they wanted to trade & prosper - and they did learn
their conqueror's language, hence the several Romancelangs in our modern
world  :)

Pilate would've learnt his Greek at school. When Roman schoolboys (and,
occasionally, schoolgirls) read their Homer, they read it in Greek, not
some translation; they also learnt the contemporary spoken Greek. The
Roman elite of the 1st century CE were essentially bilingual in Latin &
Greek.

Ray
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