An Evaluation of the Aramaic and Greek Language Criteria... 39 in three chronological episodes in Mark’s Gospel that these episodes' sociolinguistic situation would require Jesus to switch between languages in order to accommodate his audience and to establish or affirm his social identity, perhaps as the Messiah. I begin with a brief background of the debate between Casey’s Aramaic and Porter’s Greek hypotheses, highlighting their main arguments9. Next, I discuss the various social factors involved in code-switching, a typical linguistic phenomenon in a multilingual society. This section is followed by an evaluative analy- sis of a tripartite pericope in Mark 14,32-65, commencing with Jesus’ prayer at Gethsemane, to his betrayal by Judas, and ending with his trial before the Sanhedrin10. Thereafter, I give my concluding remarks. A few assumptions need mention before proceeding. First, I take the final text as it appears in the NT as my starting point. Second, I take the position that an “authentic saying [or action]” can only at best be defined as “one [in] which we have good reason to believe is as close to something that Jesus said [or did]”11. And third, I have only selected Casey’s work to be representative of the Aramaic hypothesis, for I believe that his work is more than adequate and is one that is most relevant for the purposes of this study. In the case of the Greek hypothesis, there is not a doubt that 8 A linguistically sound methodology such as this appears to be a more objective ap- proach that can answer C.S. Rodd’s objection against Casey of deliberately selecting four passages where his method can be effectively applied, to which Casey has responded in the affirmative. See Casey, “An Aramaic Approach”, 277. 9 I have not taken into account in this study that Jesus might have known and spoken Hebrew in liturgical contexts and perhaps Latin as well. See Porter, The Criteria for Au- thenticity, 131-32. 10 In choosing this particular pericope, I take my cue from Casey’s claim that Jesus spoke and taught in Aramaic based on the recorded Aramaic words Abba in Mark 14,36 and Rabbi in Mark 14,45, and from Jesus’ messianic claim “son of man” in Mark 14,62; in particular, Casey argues that Mark’s use of Aramaic words suggests that everyone knew that Jesus spoke Aramaic, not Greek, for these Aramaic words must be explained. That can be done by supposing that Jesus spoke the lingua franca of Jews in Israel during his ministry, and that some words were left in the original tongue by the translators. (See Casey, Aramaic Sources, 65; cf. Casey, “In Which Language”, 327.) I have to agree with Casey that these Aramaic words must be explained in light of the surrounding Greek texts, although, that Jesus spoke the Aramaic lingua franca of Jews in Israel may not necessarily be an accurate presumption or, at least, the best method forward as Casey has suggested. On the contrary, it is possible that Jesus could have spoken the Greek lingua franca, such that these Aramaic short utterances are only instances of code-switching. It is most likely that Greek became the lingua franca of ancient Palestine and eventually displaced Aramaic in the eastern Mediterranean as a result of the mas- sive hellenization program of Alexander the Great and his successors. A large number of studies support this theory. See Porter, The Criteria for Authenticity, 135, n. 18-20. 11 E.P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (Philadephia 1985) 357, n. 30. Even here the best that we can offer is the ipsissima vox (voice) of Jesus and certainly not his ipsissima verba (actual words).