Posted on 02/26/2004 8:32:25 AM PST by .cnI redruM
How very christian of you.
Piffle. There is no mystery here. I have been quite clear about the exact nature of the conspicuous capacity of the Gospels to instill fatal hatred for jews in christian hearts--which will continue to happen if the christian churches don't perform a genuine act of contrition, by making some very slight omissions to render the gospels truthfully. That is asking very little in comparison to the magnetude of the past sins committed by christians toward jews since Constantine turned it into an evangelical religion with a military component.
The real Christians I know are loving, compassionate etc... many have/will risk they lives doing missionary work for people they do even know.
Was Torquemada a real christian? How about the Pope that drowned the Anabaptest children? How about the chieftains of the 1st Crusade who sacked and burned ghettos on the way to the Holy Land? How about the priests who molest children and the Vicars that protect them? How about the priests who kidnapped jewish children to be brought up catholic in foreign lands? That's a mighty select sampling of christians you are drawing conclusions from.
1. The scene of Judas accepting money was offensive. Judas wanted Jesus to violently rebel. Money was not his main motivation. To have Judas on his knees on the floor grubbing for the coins that dropped, is extra biblical and can be considered anti semetic in that it glamourizes an anti jewish stereotype.
2. Jesus being nearly garroted by the fall off the bridge in chains was extra biblical, and again was just another shock to the senses that was done for that purpose. Not to convey what the scripture said.
3. Pilate was withdrawn from Jerusulem ironically, years later, for being such a brutal S.O.B. He was not a "good guy". He may have washed his hands, but the blood was still there all the same. Jesus is Christ. He revealed himself. Pilate's wife may or may not have comforted and aided Mary, and gave her towels, but that isn't in the bible. Gibson humanized them, yet did not humanize the Jewish Priests, who were wrong and malicious, but they were still human beings.
4. Gibson twisted the timing of events. If you read your scripture, you know that Barabas was released first before Jesus was flogged by the Romans. Gibson has "good guy" Pilate, having Jesus be flogged first, sort of offering up this punishment first, in order to mollify the crowd, so that when the choice between Jesus and Barabas came up, the crowd would have mercy on Jesus who already suffered. See Pilate wasn't so bad. Wrong. Barabas was a free man before the whipping.
5. Some historical arguments. THe man was drawn from the crowd the moment Christ took the cross, in order to make sure that it would get to the top. He wasn't picked out in the middle. This according to scripture. Secondly, in the movie, at one point, a couple Romans helped out for a while.
6. The crow. Only point of that was to assault our senses. It didn't happen. People would have noted that.
7. Judas being chased by the children, stumbling on the rotting, maggot covered donkey. Again, extra biblical, it's chief purpose was again to assault our senses, and it just didn't happen.
8. The flipping over of the cross was another brutality, that was not recorded, yet again, Mel decided that there wasn't enough violence in the account, so he would add some more.
9. Mary Magdalene as the prostitute. It's now considered by many that she was just demon possessed. Nowhere in the bible does it state that she was the prostitute. It was just assumed by later theologans that she was that person.
That all being said, I do feel that the movie is valuable because it shows us much of what Christ physically endured. My big fault with the movie was that Christ's greatest death was Thanatos, or spiritual death. Thousands of people were whipped and crucified brutally by the romans. We do not worship them. Christ's spiritual death was even greater than the physical one. His seperation from the father, his taking on the sins of this world. In the midst of the bloodbath that Gibson created, I think he might have taken more time on the spiritual death, other than a few passing lines and moments.
Addendum. There is a mother out there who is a major league idiot. During the end of the flaying scene, a 4 year old child, ran crying out our aisle, her mother chasing after her. Any parent who brings a 4 year old to see this movie is unfit to have children.
Although controversial, this is my opinion. Again, these are my negative opinions on the movie. I do think that the acting was wonderful, the cinematography great, etc. I just had some "issues"/
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