Re Dave's Greek/Latin question:

I'm not sure what was the case during Jesus' time, but a couple of centuries later Greek was the common language of the eastern part of the Empire (including the Middle East and thus Judea) while Latin remained the common language of the western part (including western Europe).

What bugs me is that the Roman soldiers appear to be speaking ecclesiastical Latin rather than classical Latin. When Pilate tells the crowd"ecce homo," he pronounces the" cc" soft, as in medieval Latin and modern Italian. But during that period the" cc" would still have been pronounced hard --"eck-ay" rather than"etch-ay." Gibson makes his Romans sound like Catholic priests!

This would seem a minor glitch to most people, but to a classicist it's like Washington crossing the Potomac in a motorboat.