168 292
168
györgy spiró
language, and they had passed
it on to their successors in
Rome. Cultured Latini spoke
more polished Greek, but this
was also Greek; Jews spoke
the same Greek as the Greeks
themselves, it was impossible
to tell them apart from their
pronunciation.
Joseph and his family were
exceptional in that they
also spoke Aramaic at
home, which was related
to Hebrew, the original but
by then extinct language of
the Holy Scriptures. There
was a somewhat calculated
dimension to this: Joseph had
the view that as long as it was
necessary to do business with
commercial agents who spoke
only Aramaic, his children
should learn it too.
Rome’s Jews had, for
some time, spoken neither
Aramaic nor Hebrew, and
the Hebrew texts had been
translated into Greek for the
congregation in the house of
prayer. A Greek translation
of the Old Testament was
already in existence: the
Septuagint, which seventy-
two scholars translated in
seventy-two days on the
island of Pharos in Alexandria
about two centuries before.
At home, left to themselves,
everyone would read aloud
from this Greek Torah. It was
not permitted to recite the
Holy Scriptures by heart,
lest one commit the grave
error of misremembering a
text and saying something
other than what was written;
that might have unforeseen
consequences for the whole
of Creation. In the house of
prayer, on the other hand,
Hebrew texts were translated
impromptu in front of the
assembled community, and
of course a person was not