[Cronos]

Just as an aside -- ARE there any speakers of modern Aramaic? I thought it died out under the onslaught of ArabicandIslam.

[Americathy]

Aramaic is a dead language, I think.

I know a lot of people who love Hitchens. I don't have anything against him personally but I think his writing and thinking is mediocre at best. Just my opinion.

[twigs]

While I believe Aramaic is a dead language, I talked with a woman last night who knows a Greek scholar who also knows Aramaic. She was looking forward to getting his perspective of the movie.

[elli1]

ARE there any speakers of modern Aramaic?

According to Google, there are approx. 400,000 speakers of modern Aramaic located in small communities in Turkey, Syria, Lebanon & other places in the ME. For all practical purposes, it is a dead language though. I wonder (don't know) if Biblical era/ Jewish scholars understand the language (like Latin?) and if Gibson chose those languages because they would be understood by the scholar community?