Re: Languages in Gibson's Passion

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
>2) Pilate addressed the Jewish crowd in fluent Aramaic (which I doubt very
>much he bothered to learn)
>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.)
>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. Even the famous trilingual inscription above
>the cross appeared to be
>bilingual, with no Greek.
>John Leland
>
>
>
>
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.

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