[B-Greek] "The Passion" and Koine Greek

Kevin W. Woodruff cierpke at prodigy.net
Wed Sep 17 16:37:17 EDT 2003


James:

Koine Greek is now a "dead language" whereas Latin and
Aramaic (or more correctly Syriac) are still being
spoken. I'm sure that had something to do with it. 


Kevin 
--- James Jackson <jajackso at excite.com> wrote:
>  
> Mel Gibson has made a film (scheduled for release
> ca. Easter 2004) called “The Passion”. He stated
> that he wanted it to be historically accurate and
> therefore the characters will only speak Aramaic and
> Latin. With the understanding that this is a
> Hollywood production I’m curious as to why there
> would be no Koine Greek spoken in this movie. Would
> the Roman-educated prefect Pilate have known the
> Greek language or Hebrew or Aramaic? How did he
> interact with the Jewish religious leaders? Perhaps
> through a translator?
> In Matthew 27:46 the GNT seems to have a Greek
> transliteration of the Aramaic words that Jesus
> spoke from the cross: HLI HLI LEMA SABACQANI. In
> Acts 26:14 it states that Jesus spoke to Saul in the
> Hebrew language. It seems the New Testament makes a
> special mention of the times when the Greek language
> was not spoken.
> So I guess my question is, was Koine Greek a
> prevalent language spoken in Israel during the first
> century? I realize that there were many Hellenistic
> Jews living in Israel at that time and would have
> spoken Greek to each other. However I am not sure
> what language would have been spoken between those
> of different nationalities during that time.
> I was hoping to hear some Koine Greek spoken in this
> movie but it does not seem that it will happen.
> James Jackson
> 
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=====
Prof. Kevin W. Woodruff, M. Div., M. S. I. S.
Library Director/Reference Librarian, Professor of Bible and Greek
Tennessee Temple University/Temple Baptist Seminary, 1815 Union Ave. 
Chattanooga, Tennessee 37404, United States of America
423/493-4252 (office) 423/493-4423 (home) 423/493-4497 (FAX)
Cierpke at prodigy.net  http://pages.prodigy.net/cierpke/woodruff.htm



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