What language did Jesus and Pilate use?

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pinctor

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I was considering the meeting of Jesus with Pontius Pilate and wondered what language they used. The dialogue sounds too brisk to have been uttered through an interpreter, so we are left with Latin, which humanly Jesus probably did not know, or Aramaic, probably unintelligible to Pilate, or Greek.
Has anyone any ideas on this?
 
I’ve traveled outside the US and had to learn foreign languages.

The first part of fluency in learning another language is understanding it. I may not have a good grasp of the grammer, and I may not have enough vocabulary at my fingertips to think of the right words to say. But if I have been making a serious effort to learn the language, I can understand fairly well what they are saying to me even though I am not yet able to reply coherently.

Jesus lived in a multi-lingual region, with constant exposure to Romans his entire life. It’s quite possible that Pilate was speaking in Latin, which Jesus understood well enough, and Jesus was speaking in Aramaic, which Pilate understood well enough.

Another possibility: The part of Israel around Nazareth and Capernaum had a lot of Greek influence. Many people who lived in the region knew Greek and Aramaic both. We can infer that Jesus learned a fair amount of Greek while growing up. During His ministry, the bible records Jesus going into predominantly Greek-speaking regions and talking to the people there without an interpreter.

As an educated Roman Pilate certainly know Greek. Is is possible Jesus and Pilate were speaking in Greek?
 
Nan_S said:
I’ve traveled outside the US and had to learn foreign languages.
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Bravo, and kudos for not being part of the national stereotype:

"Q. If someone who speaks 2 languages is bilingual, and someone who speaks 3 is trilingual, what is the term for somebody who speaks only 1 language?

A: An American"
:):):):):)🙂
As an educated Roman Pilate certainly know Greek. Is is possible Jesus and Pilate were speaking in Greek?
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More than possible, and more likely than our LORD speaking Latin, or Pilate being fluent in Aramaic. Scripture has our LORD travelling to the Decapolis (a Greek place-name itself) east of the Sea of Galilee, which was settled by Greek colonials, and conversing with average citizens there. Scripture does not mention one of the disciples being a full-time translator.

ICXC NIKA.
 
Since both Greek & Latin were well nigh universal languages at the time, I would think that both Jesus & Pilate were well able to converse in either one, or both.
 
pinctor said:
I was considering the meeting of Jesus with Pontius Pilate and wondered what language they used. The dialogue sounds too brisk to have been uttered through an interpreter, so we are left with Latin, which humanly Jesus probably did not know, or Aramaic, probably unintelligible to Pilate, or Greek.
Has anyone any ideas on this?
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Since Greek was the lingua franca for much of the eastern half of the Roman Empire (a relic of the days of Alexander the Great’s conquests) and Latin was not used as much as it was in the western half, I personally think it was Greek. After all, Jesus would have been able to speak some market Greek since Jesus worked as a tekton for most of His life, and since the region in which Jesus grew up - the Galilee - was a multi-cultural and multi-lingual area.
 
GEddie said:
Bravo, and kudos for not being part of the national stereotype:

"Q. If someone who speaks 2 languages is bilingual, and someone who speaks 3 is trilingual, what is the term for somebody who speaks only 1 language?

A: An American"
:):):):):)🙂
Click to expand...
Or a Briton 😛

In my opinion, the choices for the likely language are, in order of probability, 1. Greek, 2. Latin, and 3. Aramaic. Unfortunately, until someone comes up with the videotape of the trial, all we can do is guess.

DaveBj
 
pinctor said:
I was considering the meeting of Jesus with Pontius Pilate and wondered what language they used. The dialogue sounds too brisk to have been uttered through an interpreter, so we are left with Latin, which humanly Jesus probably did not know, or Aramaic, probably unintelligible to Pilate, or Greek.
Has anyone any ideas on this?
Click to expand...
My opinion is that they conversed in Latin. Their dialogue flows very naturally in Latin. The Latin does not sound like a translation from another language.

I think that the Herodians, when speaking with Jesus in the Gospels also used Latin. The Herodians were impressed that Jesus could speak Latin, and could give an answer that was in accord with Roman thought (stark distinctions), but they did not really accept the truth of what He was saying.

[Mark]
{12:13} And they sent some of the Pharisees and Herodians to him, so that they might trap him with words.
{12:14} And these, arriving, said to him: “Teacher, we know that you are truthful and that you do not favor anyone; for you do not consider the appearance of men, but you teach the way of God in truth. Is it lawful to give the tribute to Caesar, or should we not give it?”
{12:15} And knowing their skill in deception, he said to them: “Why do you test me? Bring me a denarius, so that I may see it.”
{12:16} And they brought it to him. And he said to them, “Whose image and inscription is this?” They said to him, “Caesar’s.”
{12:17} So in response, Jesus said to them, “Then render to Caesar, the things that are of Caesar; and to God, the things that are of God.” And they wondered over him.
 
Joe_Kelley said:
That phrase always fascinates me. Literally it says Greek was the French tongue…:confused:
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Well, you may know about this already, but according to wikipedia:

A lingua franca (originally Italian for “Frankish language” - see etymology below) is a language systematically used to communicate between persons not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both persons’ mother tongues.

This can also be referred to as working language or bridge language.

…]

The original Lingua Franca was a mixed language composed mostly (80%) of Italian with a broad vocabulary drawn from Turkish, French, Spanish, Greek and Arabic. It was in use throughout the eastern Mediterranean as the language of commerce and diplomacy in and around the Renaissance era. At that time, Italian speakers dominated seaborne commerce in the port cities of the Ottoman empire. Franca was the Italian word for Frankish. …] The term lingua franca is first recorded in English in 1678.
 
GEddie said:
Bravo, and kudos for not being part of the national stereotype:

"Q. If someone who speaks 2 languages is bilingual, and someone who speaks 3 is trilingual, what is the term for somebody who speaks only 1 language?

A: An American"
:):):):):)🙂
Click to expand...
Nope. It’s ‘a Japanese’! 😃
 
I agree it’s most likely to have been Greek. Greek had been the lingua franca for a good 300 years years by the time of Christ, as a legacy of Alexander’s conquest, and Romans were fluent in it as a result of their very close contact with the Hellenic peoples.
 
GEddie said:
Bravo, and kudos for not being part of the national stereotype:

"Q. If someone who speaks 2 languages is bilingual, and someone who speaks 3 is trilingual, what is the term for somebody who speaks only 1 language?

A: An American"
:):):):):)🙂
Click to expand...
That is so true!! LOL!!
 
pinctor said:
I was considering the meeting of Jesus with Pontius Pilate and wondered what language they used. The dialogue sounds too brisk to have been uttered through an interpreter, so we are left with Latin, which humanly Jesus probably did not know, or Aramaic, probably unintelligible to Pilate, or Greek.
Has anyone any ideas on this?
Click to expand...
Hi pinctor,
A good topic. I was wondering about this while viewing the appropriate scene in ‘The Passion of the Christ’ recently.
Would it not have been standard practice for an interpreter to be employed by the governor?
I know that the film-makers would have taken artistic licence here for the sake of the scene’s fluidity; still, I have read that Pilate would have used classical Latin whereas Jesus spoke Aramaic.
God Bless,
Colmcille.
 
colmcille1 said:
Hi pinctor,
A good topic. I was wondering about this while viewing the appropriate scene in ‘The Passion of the Christ’ recently.
Would it not have been standard practice for an interpreter to be employed by the governor?
Click to expand...
Why would this be necessary? Greek would have been known by all.
colmcille1 said:
I know that the film-makers would have taken artistic licence here for the sake of the scene’s fluidity; still, I have read that Pilate would have used classical Latin whereas Jesus spoke Aramaic.
God Bless,
Colmcille.
Click to expand...
Latin was only used in Rome by the most learned people. Greek was the common tongue even in Rome.
 
NotWorthy said:
Greek was the common tongue even in Rome.
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Are you sure about that? AIUI, Latin was the local tongue in the area of Rome (known as Latium, or Lazio in modern times) and this made it the Imperial tongue. While the educated classes would know Greek, in Rome proper wouldn’t Latin be used?
 
GEddie,
I would have considered it was the reverse. The ordinary people used Greek and the more educated used Latin.
 
GEddie said:
Are you sure about that? AIUI, Latin was the local tongue in the area of Rome (known as Latium, or Lazio in modern times) and this made it the Imperial tongue. While the educated classes would know Greek, in Rome proper wouldn’t Latin be used?
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Nope. Noel Fitz has it right.
 
Greek and Latin in the Roman Empire were analagous to French and and Russian in imperial Russia. Just like French was the language of culture and society in Russia, so Greek was the language of culture and society in imperial Rome. Just as Russian was the language of the common people, so Latin was the language of the common Romans. The reason for the pre-eminence of Greek was that from the times of the Greek empire it had become the language that one could use to get along anywhere.

DaveBj
 
NoelFitz said:
GEddie,
I would have considered it was the reverse. The ordinary people used Greek and the more educated used Latin.
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No, it’s the reverse of that. Educated Romans learned Greek, although they normally spoke in Latin to each other. The common Romans knew only Latin. That’s why St Jerome’s standard Latin edition of the Bible is called the Vulgate, literally “belonging to the common ('vulgar”) people".
 
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