The Passion Of The Christ

I haven't heard of any mass protests being staged by anyone on either side of the historical debate of this movie but I am very surprised that there isn't talk of some type of court injunction being put together to stop the showing of the movie on it's scheduled opening.The newspapers keep refering to the contorversey that it is stirring up out here and I can't believe an effort to ban it on the west coast hasn't surfaced in the news.I am not positive but I believe the cable news channels said that France banned the movie from being shown in their country for just that reason.

Consequent: The thing that strikes me as odd about your overall argument is the passion that you bring to the table at trying to disprove any credibility for jesus Christ. I would be more understanding as to your insistance upon literal accuracy IF you were as zealous towards, say, a Star Trek movie. If you were to say that there is NO way that anti matter could fuel a ship based upon todays science. If you laughed at the possibility of dematerialization through transporters. Even if you pointed out some minor flaws such as tensile strength of materials based on Warp speed velocities! The thing is, the ONLY thing that you have a passion for bashing and shredding seems to be the question of whether God became man and visited this planet. You say And I say, why so huffy? It appears that you are defending something that has already been defeated on this planet. The "I AM" Spirit that raises up in you and exalts human wisdom as a god. Of course, I still love you. You do not disgust me, but the spirit which runs your mind is a defeated punk.

Do you know how to read?

I read books on a regular basis. I am no scientist, but I manage to read many books on sociology and inner city life. I have a passion to help the kids who get in trouble and end up at the juvenile detention centers. It takes more than just the Bible to help them, but the relationships are the central focus. As believers, we are plugged in to a higher source, and the kids instinctively know that we care about their mental health and family values. 65% of them will go to prison if nobody cared. It takes more than a good education to help them, but I will concede that literacy is a plus for them. As for you and your views, I do not mean to belttle you. I will say, however, that you value human wisdom as the highest possible source of truth. I do not.[This message has been edited by Phatboy, 02-23-2004]

Good, but that was not my point. If you had taken the time to read through the various threads on this site, you would have found that my participation is far from limited to "Jesus". In fact, I find the NT to be rather banal. I'm far more interested in the Tanach and Syro-Palestinian archaeology. Your ad hominem attack was simply and precictably not very good.

This is definitely premature without having seen the movie. We all know how often the media hypes stuff up, whether deserving of hype or not. To tell the story of Jesus, killed by the people he came to save, yet forgiven for it, how could you not include the people who killed him? If it wasn't the ancient Jews, it would have been someone else. If it had been the ancient Aztecs, would you now call this antiMexican garbage? The Bible isn't antisemitic - Jesus was a Jew and Christians see themselves as spiritual descendants of the Jewish people. But you can't get around the fact that the people he came to save killed him. That is simply the story, it is not a condemnation of the Jews.

The point is: If those extra-historical scenes are in the movie then I would call it anti-semitic.Wasn't cruxification a Roman punishment? Who was it who killed Jesus?And if Jesus hadn't been cruxified then what? So somebody had to.

Have you been paying attention?How interesting it is that you focus on "the ancient Jews" and say nothing about the Romans. Why do you think you told "the story of Jesus" the way you did? How many "ancient Jews" killed Jesus? A dozen? A hundred? A thousand? Was it "a few Jews", or "some Jews" or "the ancient Jews"?You come here, having done zero research, and present yourself as the voice of reason. In fact, in your own naive and transparent way, you symbolize the problem.

WTF? What is your problem CA?You are rather acidic in your posts, I'm surprised the Admins havent jumped on you.I think both you and godsmac have a point, and I think in some way are standing on the same ground. Your railing against the generalization of jesus' killers, godsmac is mearly pointing out that his killers would invariable be the people in his environment.Point being: The nationality, creed, race, sex, of his killers is inconsequential to the story.

What I find interesting is your insistence that The Passion should be held to the same level of accuracy as escapist fiction ("a Star Trek movie").Is that what it is ? Is that what it is being presented as ?If it is being presented as "how it happened" then surely historical accuracy is an important question.

Well, maybe that's because when folks try to take away my wife's right to choose, they're not quoting out of the script to Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (the best of 'em, btw) when they do so.The reason we atheists pick on the Bible is because we live in a culture where plenty of people are using it to try to tell us what to do.(Oh, and personally, I'll attack Star Trek: The Next Generation at the slightest provocation. Don't get me started on my deep abiding hatred for Catherine Polaski.)

I want to see this before I pass judgement on it. I felt the same way when The Last Temptation of Christ was released. That beautiful film was unfairly denigrated by those least likely to criticize this new one.One could callThe Merchant of Venice anti-semitic or Othello racist (I remember reading that Laurence Olivier was criticized for playing the role in blackface - I thought it was brilliant). I've seen and read both of these plays many times and I have to say that these criticisms are easy to make. But that doesn't change the fact that these two plays are among the absolute finest ever composed.I doubt Mel Gibson is going to trump Shakespeare with his new film, but I will reserve my own judgement until I've seen it.

Well, it pretty much is - it's hard to rationalize a play where the happy ending means a Jew renounces his religion. But Shakespeare was writing in a time where that's exactly what a happy ending meant - Shylock is going to heaven now instead of being damned for all eternity.On the other hand, it's the year 2004, now. There's no excuse for anti-semitism. Is that what Gibson's play is about? I don't know.You know what bothers me more than the anti-semitism angle? The violence. This is a movie about a bloody, painful execution. And people are going to take their kids to see this! I know plenty of fundamentalist Christians (of every stripe) have kind of a fetish about the crucifixion, but I don't think it's appropriate for kids.What is the deal with kids and movies these days? I love movie violence, like Kill Bill (that movie was like a Christmas present to me), but both times I saw it in the theatre folks were their with their 14-year-old kids. Maybe I'm an old fuddy-duddy but there's something about institutionalized rape that would make me uncomfortable as a 14-year-old seeing it with my dad, or as a dad seeing it with a 14-year-old.I guess I'm just curious about what kind of mindset makes it ok for a kid to see clearly adult levels of violence under parental supervision, as though the presence of the parent is going to make it all ok.

crashfrog writes:

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On the other hand, it's the year 2004, now. There's no excuse for anti-semitism.

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Would you hold a modern production of The Merchant of Venice to that standard? The material is, of course, very old. Shakespeare did indeed write it at a time when such attitudes weren't seen as harmful. If we would not criticize a modern theatre company for producing TMOV with it's anti-semitic plot intact, should we condemn, sight unseen, a film based on similarly anti-semitic but classic source material?It may be that this film is so anti-semitic that it could serve as nazi propoganda, but I don't think we know that for certain yet.

No, because I distinguish between the script and the performance. The script is anti-semitic. That doesn't mean that you have to automatically play it that way.I caught a performance once at the Cottesloe Theatre in London (part of the National Theatre) that treated Shylock's forced conversion as a tragedy, which it sort of is. The play ceased to be anti-semitic and instead became about anti-semitism. The problem is that they didn't use the Bible as a script. They wrote a new script based on the Bible. If that script is anti-semetic, it's inappropriately so and they don't have a culture of anti-semitism to hide behind, because in the year 2004 we should be past that.But we shouldn't condemn it sight unseen anyway. I'm trying not to, I guess. And I really don't care so much because I don't plan on seeing it.