Hughson T. Ong, «An Evaluation of the Aramaic Greek Language Criteria in Historical Jesus Research: a Sociolinguistic Study of Mark 14,32-65.» filologia-neotestamentaria, Vol. 25 (2012) 37-55 page 37

Vol 25 (2012)

Hughson T. Ong, «An Evaluation of the Aramaic Greek Language Criteria in Historical Jesus Research: a Sociolinguistic Study of Mark 14,32-65.», Vol. 25 (2012) 37-55

Did Jesus ever speak in Greek? This is the question I have sought to answer in this paper. Using M. Casey’s Aramaic and S.E. Porter’s Greek hypotheses as my starting point, I attempt to show based on sociolinguistic principles that Jesus must have been fluent and would have used Greek and Aramaic in his daily conversation with various audiences in different linguistic situations and contexts. Specifically, I show that the sociolinguistic situation in the three chronological episodes of Mark 14,32-65 necessitates a code-switch on Jesus’ part by virtue of his multilingual environment.

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An Evaluation of the Aramaic and Greek Language Criteria in Historical Jesus Research: A Sociolinguistics Study of Mark 14,32-65 HUGHSON T. ONG Did Jesus ever speak in Greek? This is the question I have sought to answer in this paper. Using M. Casey’s Aramaic and S.E. Porter’s Greek hypotheses as my starting point, I attempt to show based on sociolinguistic principles that Jesus must have been fluent and would have used Greek and Aramaic in his daily conversation with various audiences in different lin- guistic situations and contexts. Specifically, I show that the sociolinguistic situation in the three chronological episodes of Mark 14,32-65 necessitates a code-switch on Jesus’ part by virtue of his multilingual environment. Keywords: Mark 14, 32-65; sociolinguistics, code-switching, Greek, Aramaic, language criteria, historical Jesus. 1. Introduction There is a very high probability that Jesus was multilingual1, since ancient Palestine and its neighbors were multilingual societies2. But a critical issue concerns the particular language Jesus would have used predominantly, especially in his teachings and conversation with his au- dience. This language issue is important as it relates to the authenticity 1 For an extended argument on Jesus being a multilingual, see S.E. Porter, The Criteria for Authenticity in Historical-Jesus Research: Previous Discussion and New Proposals (New York 2004) 89-99, 126-80. A wealth of sources regarding the bilingualism and mul- tilingualism of ancient Palestine and ancient literacy can also be found in this volume. See Porter, The Criteria for Authenticity, 90, n. 67; 131-33, n. 8-11; 164-65, n. 104; 166, n. 106. 2 For a quick survey of ancient Palestine being a multilingual society, see L. Rydbeck, “The Language of the New Testament”, TynBul 49 (1967) 361-68; J.A. Fitzmyer, “Lan- guages of Palestine”, CBQ 32 (1970) 501-31; J.C. James, The Language of Palestine and Adjacent Regions (Edinburgh 1920). See also S.E. Porter, Verbal Aspect in the Greek of the New Testament, with Reference to Tense and Voice (Studies in Biblical Greek 1; New York 3 2003) 111-56; S.E. Porter, “Introduction: The Greek of the New Testament as a Disputed Area of Research”, in S.E. Porter (ed.), The Language of the New Testament: Classic Essays (JSNTSup 60; Sheffield 1991) 11-38. Filología Neotestamentaria - Vol. XXV - 2012, pp. 37-55 Facultad de Filosofía y Letras - Universidad de Córdoba (España)