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Re: Aramaic

> The use of Greek at that time was comparable to the current dominance of
> English.  So an interesting question would be, how much do modern-day residents
> of Israel (Jews and Palestinians) speak English?  When would large crowds be
> addressed in English, and when in Hebrew?

  Well, I think it might be appropriate to remember how Paul responded
when the mob was demanding his death because they thought he'd brought
heathen into the temple...he addressed them in Aramaic (Acts 21:40, 22:2)
and they calmed and listened (for a time) to hear what he had to say.
This leads me to think it more likely that Jesus would have used Aramaic
when teaching things that he truly wanted the people to understand (that
he would have wanted to minimize the foreign-ness of the ideas by expressing
them in familiar and comforting language).
					Scott S. Bertilson
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