Is Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" really anti-Semitic? [One FReeper's analysis]

Vanity | March 8, 2004 | Eala

[Eala]

ping

[eskimo]

Is Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" really anti-Semitic?

Why doesn't someone poll all the Semites and get an accurate opinion?

[Eala]

You need to poll all the non-Semites too. Go for it.

[Pukin Dog]

I saw the movie yesterday.

The Antisemitism was totally overblown. If anything, the movie was more sympathetic to the Jews than the Bible.

What we are witnessing in the media, from all these detractors is a GUILT SPASM. It is out there, and they don't want to deal with it. They especially don't want what we saw in The Passion affirming our values.

They are afraid that we might just decide to do something about our faith, instead of letting secularism run loose on this nation. We might over time destroy them with our votes.

[Eala]

Sorry. *\;-)

But as a Muslim Egyptian colleague wrote me a while back, "How can I be anti-Semitic? I am a Semite too!"

[Theresawithanh]

I haven't seen the film yet, but people I trust who saw it said it was not antisemitic.

However, to throw in something I find interesting, apparently Mel Gibson's father is on the record as being a so-called holocaust denier, and supposedly, Mel Gibson won't refute his father's views. Anybody else pick this up?

[thoughtomator]

This Jew agrees with you on all counts. I think the movie is actually philosemitic.

[spyone]

Thanks for your thoughtful post!

[Yaelle]

You should see if you can fax this over to Rabbi Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center of Tolerance in Los Angeles. I like the way you broke the movie down to show where a true antisemite would have made his points. I think he might appreciate it.

In my semitic opinion, Mel was going for accuracy and effect upon the hearts of his fellow Christians and nothing else.

[thoughtomator]

Yeah that's been around. I think it's kind of low class to demand a man denounce his own loopy father... and unjust to condemn a man for his father's sins.

[thoughtomator]

Yeah that's been around. I think it's kind of low class to demand a man denounce his own loopy father... and unjust to condemn a man for his father's sins.

[per loin]

One ought cease beating a dead horse when the maggots have started to feed. They splatter so.

[eskimo]

You need to poll all the non-Semites too. Go for it.

Not really. I don't know any non-semites that even have an opinion on the subject. I have to admit I don't know any Jewish, Arab or Etheopian type Semites so that is why I suggested they be asked.

[WKB]

Peter Speaking to the Jews said this:

Acts 3:12 When Peter saw this, he said to them: “Men of Israel, why does this surprise you? Why do you stare at us as if by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk?
Acts 3:13 The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus. You handed him over to be killed, and you disowned him before Pilate, though he had decided to let him go.
Acts 3:14 you disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked that a murderer be released to you.
Acts 3:15 You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this.

[Theresawithanh]

And I agree with both of you. Maybe I should have expanded my post to express that could be the reason the movie has been called antisemitic.

[ambrose]

Peter Speaking to the Jews said this:

This coming from a guy who denied even knowing Jesus, once the going got rough?

[WKB]

This coming from a guy who denied even knowing Jesus, once the going got rough?



In the 21st Chapter of John Jesus had a little one
on one with Peter and got all that worked out.
All of us need a One on one with Jesus sometime
get things back in order.

[Urbane_Guerilla]

Great report.

I have looked forward to this movie so much. I am going to wait until dvd.

It is extremely distressing that folks like Krauthammer deem the movie anti-semitic, but even wonderful commentators like Krauthammer can have their idiosyncratic take on things.

It just does not make sense to me, someone who has been closely following this movie for a year, that day by day the movie would gets reviews of being a profoundly moving masterpiece by so many people who are utterly aware of the controversy involved. How can so many people come out of the movie expressing awe at the deep connection the movie made with their most finely attuned sense of humanity? Because they hate Jews? Because they are clueless rubes?

I don't think so.

I am looking at the reviews without having seen the movie. The reviews such as this one strike me as being the more natural, the more considered, the more plausible reviews.

The reviews by Krauthammer, Sullivan, the guy at Powerline -- all of whom I respect and admire -- strike me as having an ax to grind.

The reviews of this movie are fascinating, very telling. But not in a good way ... in a way which is unsettling. Someone is wrong ... very wrong, and wrong in a way which is not good for America, or for anyone who does not want to live under sharia.

This is more than a question of religious belief ... it goes to something deeper and more alarming.

[eskimo]

This coming from a guy who denied even knowing Jesus, once the going got rough?

Indeed he did as Christ told him he would, but he was forgiven. He was also crucified and requested that his cross be set upside down because he was not worthy to die as Jesus did. Such respect for his Lord is, in no way, to be ridiculed.