A perhaps blasphemous thought

Miscellaneous General
1

I was watching Reverend X, and a bizzare thought crossed my mind.

In ancient Judea, people generally spoke a language called Vulgar Koine. Which is to say that they didn’t speak the proper Koine that was spoken in ancient Greece.

Obviously, all the rural and barely literate people in eastern Meditteranean spoke a very dirty, crude, and distorted version of what the Greeks once spoke. We may reckon that vulgar Koine was to Koine what Irish/Carribean/Southern-Californian/etc English dialects were to English.

I am trying to put myself in the shoes of a civilized Roman, learned in Greek classics, who comes to visit Judean and finds Jesus of Nasareth preaching in the local language. What would it have sounded like to him?

Indeed, Jesus must have sounded exactly like this:

“I ain’ followin’ Man’s rule…Biyootches. Oh, ya laughin’ biyotch? You fin’ it funny? Uh huh. You fin’ it funny? Huh? You ain’ talkin’, you ain’ hearin’ me out. I’ll do it again. I’ll say it again. I come in name of da Lord. Repeat after me, bitch. I come in da name of ma father, Lord A’mighty. Rulah of heaven, and earth, and evereh god damn thing in between. Next question, mah flock. Speak to me, say your name. Talk to me. Correct God! Say wha? Muddafuffa, I ain’ lookin’ for you. You prob lookin’ for somebody else. What do ya know of da Lord? Huh? Whatcha know about da Lord? Say what? I come as da Son of God and da Holy Spirit. Lessay focused!”

2

I think the difference would have been greater

3

Since Jesus was a rabbi, I don’t think he was “barely literate”.

4

But Judeans did speak Vulgar Koine, right? And there were a few others popping around as messiahs around the same time as Jesus?

So the average messiah of those times could still resemble the type?

5

Funny post, but Jesus is typically considered to have been well-educated for a man of his time and social class. There’s evidence that he could speak Aramaic, Greek, and Hebrew, so he wasn’t exactly a dullard.

6

In ancient Judea, people generally spoke a language called Vulgar Koine.

This just isn’t true. Koine was a basic form of Greek, so it wasn’t the native tounge of many in Judea.

The Gospels, as far as evidence suggests were written in very basic Koine Greek (that is to say there is no compelling evidence to suggest any of them were originally written in Hebrew - and John, if you consider that a Gospel, was most certainly written in Greek). Read the Richard Lattimore (the man who best translated the Iliad in English) New Testament to get a general idea as to how it may have come across. Koine (which is the simplification of Greek, I think you may be confused on this point) was pretty much not a big deal to most people, as it was kind of an international language - and anyone who used it probably had some decent education (but there is no reason to think Jesus knew it nor is there much reason to think of him as some type of simpleton -Matthew, the tax collector, however it makes sense he would have some familiarity with the language to write a basic Gospel)

Jesus was from Galilee, so he he spoke Aramaic (there is no reason to think otherwise). He was also literate enough to read the “non vulgar” Hebrew Scriptures… now as to whether or not he was reading the *Septuagint may be a valid question, but I don’t think he was - and I think that is the mainstream scholarly consenus on that point(?).. even so point being even if it was the LXX (which was written in Koine), it was not considered “vulgar” reading by anyone. It was held in very high esteem.

Moreover, so far as we know, Jesus had very little contact with Romans, particularly “elites” (just the trial maybe, and he said very very little there anyway) - as was the cast for most people in the Empire. And those he came into contact with were probably used to dealing with a plethora of people (such as arbitrators and soldiers), so in any case his accent would not have been a surprise to anyone.

Moreover: he was from a line of carpenters - so that is kind of “middle class”. And he talked to people of all stripes (from the very high to the very low) in Judea on a regular basis, as well as perhaps to Romans of authority (such as the centurion, and perhaps he was interesting enough to garner the attention of Pilate’s wife). Something to consider.

All this begs the question - what the hell would it matter how anyone sounds to some hipster fashionista that he simply wasn’t concerning himself with anyway? I hate to psychologize, but I suspect you have an ulterior motive or point to be made. If so please spell it out.

Sum up: In order of the probability of languages Jesus knew: 1) Aramaic 2) Hebrew 3) Greek. If he knew koine Greek, it most likely wasn’t his primary language, but not many higher ups would have cared as most people in the area weren’t good at it and it was just a language “to get by” in anyway. If anything was going to come across as extermely simplistic to the learned, it would may have been the Gospels not the actual man, who seems to have been pretty accesible to people of all stripes with his inherent “cultural” mannerisms.

*I understand there was no THE LXX- but the point still holds

7

I am trying to put myself in the shoes of a civilized Roman, learned in Greek classics, who comes to visit Judean and finds Jesus of Nasareth preaching in the local language. What would it have sounded like to him?

Also, I think at this time anyone speaking “classic Greek” in Attica was probably seen as a pompous fool or a tourist. It would have sounded like you speaking Shakespearian to me. At this point I think it was mostly a strictly an “academic” language. It was encouraged in writing however (which the New Testement was not written in). The language had evolved at this point, not sure how the average Roman learned Greek (that is did they learn Koine or not), or how it sounded to most of the Attican’s though.

I think a better analogy would be how a Lebanese, Algerian, or Vietnamese peron would speak French to the French and perhaps French when they dealt with other nations under French rule. Or an Indian speaking English. No one expects them to sound “good”, it is simply a practicle language due to circumstance. It was just one of those international business languages like English, French, or Latin

Furthermore and to stress - any yokel who acts as elitist due to language in such a manner in is not worth paying attention to- it is kind of like a dude who is a patriot because his country is strong, even though he doesn’t do much other than happen to live in the country.