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Keryg 2021: Jesus and Pilate - what language did they speak?
Bishops Finger
Shipmate
John 18 vv28-40 tells of Jesus' interview with Pilate:
https://biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+18%3A28-40&version=KJV
The thought occurred to me (for no obvious reason) as to wonder what language they used?
https://biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+18%3A28-40&version=KJV
The thought occurred to me (for no obvious reason) as to wonder what language they used?
Comments
Probably Greek. It was a kind of lingua franca of the eastern Mediterranean at the time.
It's also possible a translator was used. The more interesting question is "who is reporting this conversation?" John explicitly tells us that none of Jesus' accusers were present and we're pretty sure that none of Jesus' followers were present for that conversation. The presence of a translator would resolve this difficulty.
Probably Greek.
Jesus ould have related this after the ressurection.
I also wondered about who reported the conversation. The idea that it was Jesus himself, after the Resurrection, is interesting.
It’s pure conjecture, of course, but I’ll admit to rather liking the idea that some in Pilate’s household learned what had happened and later became believers and shared the story.
Mrs Pilate ?
I believe the correct term is "co-Pilate."
The only time interpreters get noticed is when they are bad at their job. A good interpreter is as near invisible and forgettable as possible.
(By the way, I'm not sure if I know any Africans, of any standing, who don't see speaking at least two and more often three languages as the universal norm, for whom contemporary Western monolingualism is a source of quiet astonishment if not amusement).
Indeed
Also Pilate and Jesus wouldn't have been alone together (for a start, there'd be guards - imagine the reaction of the head of Pilate's bodyguard to the suggestion that Pilate be alone with someone charged with serious offences against Roman rule!). The important bit isn't so much whether there were just the two of them there, but that the Jewish leaders who were making the accusations weren't there and it may be relevant that Pilate also made his decisions alone without consulting any advisers etc.
I suspect @Alan Cresswell may be right in supposing that Pilate made his decisions on his own - the Jewish leaders were conspicuous by their absence at this point, but I daresay there were indeed various other people around.
I've always thought of Pilate's famous question *What is Truth?* being said quietly, although it was addressed to Jesus, in a musing tone (and probably therefore in Latin!). Someone must have overheard it, in order to report it later...unless it was Jesus himself who did so...
The apostles, and the rest of Jesus' friends, family, and followers must have had about a zillion questions to ask him, post-Resurrection...
True enough, but how many of those minor functionaries would be paying close enough attention to their boss questioning some minor rabble-rouser that they could give a verbatim transcript years later?
Video illustration.
Nah, even the Romans used Greek for philosophical musings, or at least the ones with enough education did. "What is truth?" sounds like the theme of a Socratic dialogue.
τι ειναι η αληθεια?
ti einai i alitheia?
...rather than:
quid est veritas?
(Translations courtesy of Professor G Oogle, so accuracy not guaranteed).
Perhaps Pilate did indeed have a Socratic dialogue in mind.
I'm afraid all this is rather idle speculation, of course, but I have a bit of time on my hands at the moment...
Given that there were two others crucified at the same time as Jesus there had to have been at least four people in custody who qualified for that punishment. But the fact that (at least according to the Gospel account) there were only those four in custody argues that from a Roman perspective this was regarded as a small-time operation, not "big news". After all, if this Jesus person was important they would have gone after his followers too. (e.g. At the end of the Third Servile War the Romans crucified 6,000 followers of Spartacus along the Appian Way.)
This is a very Anglophone and Francophone thing - there are lots of Western and Northern Europeans who speak multiple languages as a matter of course. My Flemish Belgian friend for instance speaks Flemish, French, English, and Dutch - and that's very normal for Flemings. My Swedish friends all speak English fluently along with other Scandinavian languages and most Danes and Swedes can also speak German.
I'm not claiming the arrest of Jesus was "big news" to the Romans, even those in Jerusalem at the time. But, Jesus had made a splash among the Jews and His arrest and trial could easily have been the talk of Jerusalem. Many of those who served Pilate would have been ordinary citizens of Jerusalem (though, certainly shown themselves to be loyal to Rome) and would have been fully aware of that.
"big or small deal" is pretty subjective. And lots of things that start off small-seeming go on to balloon, and vice versa. I really expected the Capitol thing in January to fall apart under the weight of "we never do these things," and how wrong I was.
So I expect Pilate had his eye on the Jesus thing, just as he had on a couple of other trouble spots no doubt, and would have escalated it to picking up followers as well if he thought it necessary. In fact, that was probably one of the decisions he was making as he interviewed Jesus--is this going to take off, or can I deal with this one guy here and call it a day?
Either way, I always have a sneaking sympathy for the poor chap, caught between a rock and a hard place in what must have been one of the most fractious and hard-to-please places in the Empire.
Yes, and we don't really have much idea as to where he went (prior to the Gospel accounts), or how well he was educated.
I do not subscribe to the ideas that Jesus went traveling internationally (other than as a refugee in Egypt) during his teens and twenties. That would just be so unusual for a boy of his class and location, and would tend to contradict the overall impression the Gospels give us, of someone whose ... oddity ... was rarely glimpsed before his public ministry began.
The locals certainly were surprised to hear his first sermon. They wondered where he'd gotten all that stuff. If he'd been a great traveller, I doubt anyone would have asked. Instead we'd have had grumbling about "damn furriners" and their crazy ideas, etc.
Well, that gets kinda iffy...
You see, the writers get to make editorial decisions as well. And if they are multilingual (which they almost certainly were!), they could easily remember the story (or have had it told them) in Aramaic, and when they go to retell it, they hit a Bible-passage-being-quoted, and either physically or mentally reach for the Septuagint--regardless of what language the original was in, because they're writing in Greek, you know? My husband does the equivalent all the time. It's just easier than to do a brand-spanking-new translation on the spot out of Hebrew or whatever.
To prove that Jesus actually used the Hebrew in preference in a particular situation, you'd have to find a distinctive reading (variant) where the Hebrew had X but the Septuagint has Y--and it would have to be something that survived translation into Koine Greek by the Gospel writer. And it would have to be something where we ourselves still possess a Hebrew manuscript with that variant (a lot of them got destroyed, so iffy).
to illustrate:
Jesus says, "Blessed are the tomatoes," which is a direct quote from 1 Hezekiah 32:4 in a Hebrew manuscript tradition. Except the Septuagint has "Blessed are the watermelons." The Greek of the Gospel has "μακάριοι οἱ τωμήτως," so the Gospel writer has preserved the Hebrew variant. We can then be fairly sure that Jesus was quoting the Hebrew and NOT the Septuagint.
If, on the other hand, Jesus favored the Septuagint (all the time, or just on occasion), we would never know, because this is very likely to be the Gospel writer's own default, and how could you tell them apart? I suspect the only time we'd be sure is if it was an occasion on which Jesus was making a honking big deal of a variant found only in the Septuagint (say, for some doctrinal reason), and never in any extant Hebrew manuscript--because we could then see that whatever his source was, it contained the variant (and was therefore either the Septuagint or a Hebrew manuscript now lost that led up to the Septuagint translation). So I take it back. We just can't be sure--since we have no proof of any variants that occur ONLY in the Septuagint and not in their (contributory, now lost) Hebrew manuscripts. Because we don't have most/all of those manuscripts.
That's the usual Orthodox take. How did the disciples know all this stuff that only Jesus was privvy to? He told them. Duh. They had a few days between the resurrection and the ascension to hash things over.
I'd imagine multilingualism is very common in parts of the world where
a) it is advantageous to learn a dominant language on top of your own, such as the Northern European example above, or
b) there is significant linguistic diversity. For example, in southern India, it would be common for the educated to speak the official language of the state they are from and/or the language used by their community as their native language and have significant command of both Hindi and English on top of that.
It's also simple enough that if that was a complete representation Pilate could even have done his role in Aramaic or Jesus in Latin (which would then explain the silence after).
John's version includes some extra steps which would only work with proper communication (Greek?) though.
I'm impressed it took that long for someone to post that! (watching an interesting thread from the gallery)
We have Christians all over the world and Jesus needs to be able to hear their prayers.
In any case, the impression I get from John's account is that, somehow, Jesus and Pilate understood each other very well...
Here, Pilate was under pressure from the Judaean authorities and anxious about provoking more unrest, needing to placate the crowds. It was emotional blackmail and his response was couched as a performative Jewish ritual, to stand in public before the crowd (as a Roman demagogue might, exhibiting by his dress and posture the force of the occupying power) and then to call for a bowl of water, ritually wash his hands of the uncleanliness associated with the murder he was being forced to order. By words and actions, Pilate declared himself innocent and passed on responsibility for the death of Jesus to those who would understand that symbolic washing of hands. This ritual would hold deep significance for those Jewish spectators present and Pilate was addressing them in their own frame of reference.
First, irrespective of how long he'd been in Judea, from other references there is every reason to suppose that Pilate was an oppressive yob.
Second, nobody knows how good Pilate was at languages. He may have been. He may not have been. He may have been relatively fluent. Or his exchanges may never have been at any level higher than 'kitchen kaffir' and I've chosen that term with every awareness of its history and the sensitivities it may arouse.
Third, washing one's hands publicly is a symbolic act which makes good sense in every culture. I find it impossible to believe otherwise. It's not dependent on knowing anything about C1 Judaism. The gospels were written for gentiles as well as Jews. Nobody felt there was any need to explain what Pilate meant by referring to Jewish traditions that a gentile might not understand. Yes, though, I agree, Pilate deliberately chose a gesture that had a clear symbolic message.
Fourth, irrespective of whether Pilate imagined he was exculpating himself, I don't think any of the gospel writers or any theologian since has ever accepted that by his gesture he succeeded. The underlying message is that whatever both Jewish and Roman leaders might have done to try and shift moral responsibility for executing the Son of God onto each other, both of them are fixed with it.
I agree with you that Pilate was not able to exonerate himself, that is the irony of the drama. It was not a sincere gesture, it was a calculated ploy to place responsibility back with the Judean authorities and with the crowds calling for blood. Although there's a history in the early church of that claimed Pilate was a good man (apocryphal literature argues he converted later and in fact was declared a saint by certain faith communities) who saw the justness and innocence of Jesus, history has weighed in on the side of culpability. Each time we repeat the Apostles’ or Nicene creed, we recall that Christ suffered and died under Pontius Pilate.
All I wanted to touch on, in the light of this thread, was the cross-cultural aspect of the handwashing gesture.
The bolded text strikes me as extremely unlikely.
A completely racist phrase which is unacceptable here or anywhere, in my mind.