Endnote 23 – Sepphoris—An Urban Portrait of Jesus

The urbanization of Galilee points to the probability that Jesus spoke Greek as well as Aramaic. Present-day debates among New Testament scholars are turning from the question of whether or not Jesus spoke Greek to how well he spoke Greek. Careful study of the Greek text of the Gospels has led some scholars to conclude that a number of parables were composed originally in Greek rather than Aramaic. Batey, “Jesus and the Theatre,” p. 572, note 2; Robert W. Funk, Parables and Presence (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1982), p. 28.