[Jesus rebuking the Pharisees]
oped:Actually during Jesus time the common languages spoken in the land [ Jerusalem] were Aramaic,Greek and Roman Latin...only the Pharisees held the old language of Hebrew...so Jesus also knew the language of old...but for the most part Jesus spoke to the crowds in Aramaic...
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Pope
Francis and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu traded words on
Monday over the language spoken by Jesus two millennia ago.
"Jesus was
here, in this land. He spoke Hebrew," Netanyahu told Francis, at a
public meeting in Jerusalem in which the Israeli leader cited a strong
connection between Judaism and Christianity.
"Aramaic," the pope interjected.
"He spoke Aramaic, but he knew Hebrew," Netanyahu shot back.
Like many things in the Middle East, where the pope is on the last leg
of a three-day visit, modern-day discourse about Jesus is complicated
and often political. [ID:nL6N0OC0X6]
A Jew, Jesus was born in Bethlehem in the Roman-ruled region of Judea,
now the Israeli-occupied West Bank. He grew up in Nazareth and
ministered in Galilee, both in northern Israel, and died in Jerusalem, a
city revered by Jews, Christians and Muslims, and to which Israelis and
Palestinians lay claim.
Palestinians sometimes describe Jesus as a Palestinian. Israelis object to that.
Israeli linguistics professor Ghil'ad Zuckermann told Reuters that both
Netanyahu, son of a distinguished Jewish historian, and the pope, the
spiritual leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics, had a point.
"Jesus was a native Aramaic speaker," he said about the largely defunct
Semitic language closely related to Hebrew. "But he would have also
known Hebrew because there were extant religious writings in Hebrew."
Zuckermann said that during Jesus' time, Hebrew was spoken by the lower classes - "the kind of people he ministered to".
(Writing by Jeffrey Heller; Additional reporting by Dan Williams; Editing by Louise Ireland)
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