MORE ON THE CHEESEMAKERS: Jan-Wim Wesselius e-mails that he proposed an Aramaic translation of "Blessed are the cheesemakers" on the ANE list some time ago. The message read, in part:

As there is a lot of Aramaic, you can always supply missing lexical and grammatical items from other dialects. What is difficult is to build a basic reservoir of words and expressions, but once you have done that you can produce translations of most texts with ease. What Aramaic should one use as the basis for Jesus' language? I would go for the Palestinian Targum in its reliable (Genizah) texts: avunan de-vashmayya, yetqaddash shemakh etc., and, on a lighter note, berikhin avde govna. Sokoloff's dictionary would then be a great help, of course. Most of Qumran Aramaic is way too conservative to use for this purpose, later JPA, Samaritan and CPA lack the vowels and represent a later type of language in any case.

My emphasis. Sadly, Mel Gibson did not use the line in The Passion of the Christ.

But that reminds me of something I thought of when I saw the movie but forgot to put in my review. Remember the scene early on when Jesus has been arrested and the Marys are talking to a Roman guard who sends his underlings off on an errand, telling them "Go! Go!" in Latin? I can't help thinking that this little exchange was an intentional echo of the "Romans go home!" episode in the Life of Brian.