Machiavelli

From this, it sounds as if many jewish people liked Jesus and would protest his crucifixion, it was only the high priests that were threatened by him and wanted him executed.

But if you watch Gibson's movie, and you'd think that almost every jew wanted to kill him.

spin

You've heard the expression that a week is a long time in politics?

Oh and an antidote for Mel's meat flick is "Monty Python's Life of Brian".

Can you imagine the idiot having his actors hamming it up in pseudo-Aramaic? Can you imagine how communicative you'd be in Chinese after say three months of lessons? And what makes anyone these days think that Jesus spoke Aramaic besides the few mumbo jumbo Aramaic words in the nt?


spin

CX

That's the fault of the Gospels not Gibson's portrayal. If you read the Passion Narratives in all 4 gospels you get this feeling. It's worth noting, however, that this blame place on the Jews develops from the first gospel through the last. Compare the passion in GMk to the passion in GJn with this in mind.

CX

Additionally, how can we even begin to know what ancient aramaic sounded like. Everything I've read about Koine says that it was unlike modern Greek and that we have almost no knowledge of what IT actually sounded like so what's the difference with Aramaic? Incidentally, if Jesus did not speak Aramaic then what did he most likely speak?

Machiavelli

Yea, it's like they saw that there were areas that needed to be embelished to fit their goals.

I do find it suspect that Gibson chose the more recent versions and offered no reference to the support of the common Jews as mentioned in Mark.

Layman

I did watch the movie. Gibson has Jews in almost every scene obviously distressed by Jesus' condemnation. He also shows, including the Temple Gaurd he healed, obviously Mary, Mary, John, and Peter, but also several unnamed Jews along the road to the cross, such as the man who carried his cross, several women obviously troubled by what was happening, and the mother who tried to offer Jesus water.

The Evil One

The fact that it was a very common spoken language in that time and place, so if you've got to make a wild guess based on no evidence, Aramaic is a reasonable bet?