Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Clivedurdle · 05-07-2006, 08:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sunspark

Body language also plays a huge part in what people mean their words to convey, and we can't recover that (if he did, indeed say those exact words).

Body language is a key part of theatre!

Quote:

The Clemency of Pilate
In all the gospel accounts Pilate’s first words to Jesus are Are you the King of the Jews?but only John relates in some detail the exchange that ensued. Accor ding to Mark, Matthew and Luke, the exchange between Pilate and Jesus was limited to the question Are you the King of the Jews? and the answer, You say. From the synoptic gospels one could gather the impression that You say is all that Jesus ever said in the entire procedure before Pilate. John, whose account of this episode is more complete, agrees on this important point. To be abso lute ly exact, according to the three synoptic gospels Jesus would have answered, You say and according to the gospel of John, You say that I am king.

To Pilate’s question Are you the King of the Jews? Jesus answers with a question that aims at establishing what Pilate means by King of the Jews. There follows an exchange in which Jesus tries to explain that if he is a king he is not a king in the ordinary sense of the word:

My kingdom does not belong to this world

If my kingdom belonged to this world,

My followers would fight [for me].

No, my kingdom does not belong to this world.

The contradictions inherent in kingship was a favorite theme of Seneca; he returns to it again and again in his plays. In his Thyestes the chorus tries to define what constitutes a true king:

You do not realize, in your craving for palaces,

wherein kingship consists. It is not wealth

Nor the purple robe nor the royal tiara...

It is the sound mind which possesses true kingship, and a king so defined has no need of horses nor of armor...

That Pilate approached the problem of Jesus from a philosophical angle is evident from his response to Jesus’ declaration that his kingdom was not of this world:

So then, you are a king?[1]

Pilate, from his skeptical point of view, cut short Jesus’ metaphysical argument and, ignoring subtle dis tinc tions, asked him whether he granted to be a king. Pilate’s question was a rhetorical one and did not require an answer, since the answer was implied in what had been said before. Pilate was taking a typical Skeptic position. A major thrust of Skeptic philo sophy was to oppose the search for essences or for the intrinsic qualities of things. There is no point in arguing about the true nature of objectsthey are what they appear to be.

http://www.nazarenus.com/2-2-clemency.htm

EthnAlln · 05-07-2006, 09:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

Body language is a key part of theatre!

Indeed it is! I believe it was Aristophanes who said that the three most important aspects of acting are, "Delivery! Delivery! Delivery!" ("Hypokritia! Hypokritia! Hypokritia!") Actually, I'm not sure who said that; it may have been someone else.

And you are absolutely right. Pilate's all-important "delivery" cannot be recovered from the transcript, which is probably not a literal account anyway, any more than the magnificent oration of Pericles reported by Thucydides. If only there were some particle words to give us a clue as to the interpretation! In the words of Jesus that you quoted, "If I were a king, my followers would have fought..." my Greek Gospel has an editorial insertion of [an] in the main clause, omitted by the evangelist, to tell the reader that this is a present-contrary-to-fact construction.

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