Filología Neotestamentaria - Vol. XXV - 2012, pp. 37-55 Facultad de Filosofía y Letras - Universidad de Córdoba (España) An evaluation of the Aramaic and Greek language criteria in historical Jesus research: a sociolinguistics study of Mark 14,32-65 HUGHSON 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 conversations 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. 1. Introduction There is a very high probability that Jesus was multilingual 1 , since ancient Palestine and its neighbors were multilingual societies 2 . 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 of Jesus’ sayings (and actions) found in the Gospel accounts 3 . Even more 1 For an extensive 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 on ancient Palestine being a multilingual society, see L. Rydbeck, “The Language of the New Testament”, TynBul 49 (1967) 361-68; see also J.A. Fitzmyer, “Languages 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. 3 The criteria of authenticating Jesus’ sayings and actions is a sub-discipline of the Historical Jesus studies, which originally was a sub-discipline of NT studies but has later developed into a distinct field of enquiry. M.A. Powell, ““Things That Matter”: Historical Jesus Studies in the New Millenium”, Word & World 29 (2009) 122.