[eDebate] The Passion: ans White/Chand

[Terrance Shuman]

De-cloaking again, briefly...

At 01:45 PM 8/3/2003 -0400, Bob White wrote:

>Look, I don't mean to dump on Aramaic- as at least one of the
>above URLS I supplied above claims, it *was* the language spoken
>by Jesus and his pals on daily basis.

Actually, what you wrote originally was:  "Not a good sign here....Greek 
was the big language in that area back then...."

To me, that seems to suggest that you believe the film should have had the 
actors speaking Greek instead of either Aramaic or Latin.  I believe that 
view is mistaken.  The film chronicles the last 12 hours in the life of 
Jesus.  Given the characters and interactions portrayed, I think the 
filmmaker's choice is a reasonable one.

As for the sources you cite, not one of them supports your argument.  They 
all suggest that koine Greek was commonly used to communicate with people 
*who did not share a native language.*  They do NOT say that Jews would 
have spoken it *among themselves,* nor do they say that Roman soldiers and 
politicians would have spoken it *among themselves.*  At best, you can 
argue that Romans and Jews might have employed koine *when speaking to each 
other.*  I haven't seen the film, so I have no idea how many scenes that 
would involve.  But to suggest that the producers of the film "got it 
wrong" because they used Aramaic and Latin is absurd.

Similarly, when Dheeraj writes "Aramaic is not coming with it, sorry" he is 
making the same (silly) mistake.

Frankly, I find this sort of nit-picking kind of annoying anyway, since NO 
ONE involved in the thread has actually SEEN the film.  Shouldn't we wait 
until we've seen it before deciding on its quality or historical accuracy?

Solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and...well, not so tall as I used to be,

Terrance Shuman
Bishop LeBlond Memorial High School
St. Joseph, Missouri