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Re: Languages in Gibson's Passion

From:Steg Belsky <draqonfayir@...>
Date:Sunday, March 14, 2004, 6:19
To get this more on-topic, and in line with the Subject...

I talked to a friend recently who saw the movie.  He downloaded it off
the internet (how to see it if you don't want to pay for it because you
think it's antisemitic or you just hate Mel Gibson), and his copy was
very obviously videotaped by someone sitting in a theater.  It's
actually sorta funny, he showed me how in the middle of the Judas
Betraying Jesus scene, someone comes back from the bathroom and sits
down :-P .
But anyway, he showed me a few scenes, and I must agree with him that
the subtitles for Aramaic and Hebrew (Hebrew appears in the movie when
people are praying) aren't completely accurate.  Also, the
pronunciation is way off... we heard no emphatic consonants at all, no
pharyngeals, and Jesus definitely said /k/ instead of /x/ or /X\/ at
least once.  I'd have to watch some more again with better sound
quality (which i'd rather not do, that movie is *way* past my gore
limit), but i got the impression that the Hebrew was much too 'Modern
Israeli'-like for the 1st Century CE.
And about historical accuracy... why are all the priests dressed up
like they're trying to be the high priest?  Only the high priest had
colorful clothes, all the regular priests should have been wearing all
white!
My friend also commented interestingly that the Devil in the scene
right before the betrayal seemed like a very contemporary view of Evil.
  It looked "like someone out of a Nine Inch Nails video, not like a 1st
century conception of evil".  At least the Devil didn't look
stereotypically Jewish :-P .


-Stephen (Steg)
  "mai hhazit, dedama didakh sumaq tefey?  dilma dama dehahu gavra sumaq
tefey."


On Friday, March 12, 2004, at 01:01  AM, Matthew Kehrt wrote:
> Rather offtopic:
> For an overview of the Gospels, although one somewhat biased towards a > nonreligious viewpoint, see > http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_ntb1.htm