Digest urth.v022.n002

Actually, according to something I read somewhere lately (don't you love that?--such a perfect Usenet reference), perhaps an article in The Atlantic, Jesus may well have spoken some or even a fair amount of Greek, from the evidence that the next town over from Nazareth (the name of which escapes me, naturally) was a highly Hellenicized trading town---before you pounce to point out that the occupation was Roman, not Greek, the author made the point that the lingua franca was at that time Greek (you take my meaning--the English of today, heh, heh). On the other hand, it's unlikely that he went around spouting Greek at wedding parties, on top of Mounts and on the cross.

I also. But then I've always been partial to the Sarge. -alga

Hello, this is my first post to the list--this is the first time I actually have had anything meaningful to contribute to any discussion.

The town in question was Sephorris. It was a fairly large (relative to the other places in the area like Nazareth, only five miles away) town, and was apparently on some trade road. Lots of construction went on there in the early part of the first century CE, including a large amphitheater. If Jesus were a carpenter (or craftsman of some description--I believe the Greek NT uses the word 'teknon') he would of probably needed some Greek to gain employment in this city and communicate. And truly the language of the Roman Empire was Greek for the common people. Latin was used administratively. Even early church services in Rome were held in Greek. That's all. George Terry

Capernum and Sepphoris were two fairly large newly-buily, heavily Hellinized towns within walking distance of Nazareth. Neither is mentioned at all in the Gospels or in Acts, from which some scholars (notably but not solely John Dominic Crossan) have concluded that Jesus and the movement he headed during his life did not address themselves at the Greeks and Romans in Judea. If Jesus was a tekton (craftsman, usually translated "carpenter") before he became a teacher/prophet/revolutionary, he probably did speak at least enough Greek to do business in those cities.

Right. Based on the scanty evidence, he certainly spoke Aramaic as his primary language, and probably spoke Aramaic to his flock. The Gospel of Mark is littered with Aramaic statements which Mark then helpfully translates into Greek. Jesus probably never spoke Latin, though. (For reasons that are unclear to me, I've been reading a lot of early-New-Testament scholarship over the last year-and-a-half. I highly recommend John Crossan's recent The Birth of Christianity as one of the best scholarly works I've ever read--incredibly well-researched, wide-ranging, funny, just flat-out brilliant. You will never look at Christianity the same way again.) Has anyone here mentioned the scene in Acts 17:23 cf where Paul lectures the Greeks on the true nature of the "Unknown God" to whom they have altars? [22] So Paul, standing in the middle of the Are-op'agus, said: "Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. [23] For as I passed along, and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, `To an unknown god.' What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. [24] The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by man, [25] nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all men life and breath and everything. [26] And he made from one every nation of men to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their habitation, [27] that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel after him and find him. Yet he is not far from each one of us, [28] for `In him we live and move and have our being'; as even some of your poets have said, `For we are indeed his offspring.' The relevance to The Book of the Long Sun should be, I think, obvious. Wombat, a.k.a. Kevin Maroney kmaroney at crossover.com Kitchen Staff Supervisor, New York Review of Science Fiction http://ebbs.english.vt.edu/olp/nyrsf/nyrsf.html

I haven't read Crossan, but I've read some fairly compelling critiques of his work which might interest you. N.T. Wright's Jesus and the Victory of God argues that Crossan et. al. misread Jesus and the early church by abstracting them too much from the context of first century Judaism. There's a good review of it here: http://www.ozemail.com.au/~gsmunro/wright.html Wright is very readable and also happens to be the best speaker I've ever heard. I've never heard anyone who takes questions, really listens to them, and responds in such a thoughtful, eloquent way, genuinely answering the question, not just going off on some subject inspired by it. If you can ever find tapes of his lectures, they are wonderful. Catholic scholar Luke Timothy Johnson's book The Real Jesus also has some interesting critiques of Crossan et. al. The subtitle, "The Misguided Quest for the Historical and the Truth of the Traditional Gospels" tells you a lot about where he's coming from, but I think some of his points about the limits of historical inquiry are telling. It's time for me to read some of Crossan's side of things, though. Thanks for the recommendation. -Rostrum

I'll check him out. The review doesn't give me much sense of his position or his criticism of Crossan, but I certainly need to read some other authors. Crossan fits my own prejudices well, though, which is certainly one of the reasons I like him. I will point out that Crossan himself does not seem to subscribe to the worst excess of The Jesus Seminar, but has sometimes been treated as if he does. Burton Mack, another leading Jesus Seminar scholar, is much more virulently anti-miracle, anti-faith than is Crossan--Mack seems to be angry at every one of the authors of the New Testament. Some of Crossan's views seem explicitly idiosyncratic, but he's also very good about identifying those--for instance, his insistence in Who Killed Jesus? that the crucifixion/resurrection narrative in The Gospel of Peter actually predates the canonical gospels is clearly a minority opinion, but he argues for it quite well. Anyway, it's fun stuff. Wombat, a.k.a. Kevin Maroney kmaroney at crossover.com Kitchen Staff Supervisor, New York Review of Science Fiction http://ebbs.english.vt.edu/olp/nyrsf/nyrsf.html