I DETEST THIS FILM ..WITH A PASSION [Christopher Hitchens on the Passion of the Christ]

The Mirror ^ | February 27, 2004 | Christopher Hitchens

[VRWC_minion]

I must say it is a amusing to see all the pro-war freepers who loved Hitch because of his stand on Iraq

Many freepers distinguish between the message and the messenger, unlike the immature.

[hellinahandcart]

No one is saying that ALL Jews killed Christ. No one is saying that today's Jews killed Him. But Jews did kill Him, make no mistake.

Qwinn? That's what I'm talking about.

samtheman? With the exception of the Samaritan woman, every single person in the Gospels, hero or villain, was either a Jew or a Roman. That encompasses Jesus, his family, his apostles, his followers, and the recipients of his miracles, as well as his enemies and betrayers.

I thought you were objecting to the idea that "the Jews" killed Christ, which I can certainly get behind, but now you seem to be saying that we should instead say that no Jews were involved. That would be to revise the Gospels, and I'm just not going to go there.

The mob saying "his blood be upon us and our children" does not translate into collective guilt even then, since the mob were not the whole of Israel or even of Jerusalem. They spoke for themselves. Others acted for themselves (though how much free will a human can have when God decides to exercise His, is a mystery to me). And is certainly not for US to presume to put the blood on their descendants ourselves, ever. That is utterly wrong.

And I have to say I've only heard of the one church in Denver that "The Jews Killed Jesus" outside their church. The congregation seems to have tried to save the pastor from himself by taking down that particular snippet of scripture, it was only up for about a day, and it was not an exhortation to go out and take revenge. It was just stupid.

[Qwinn]

"Is there a part of the bible that says "Jews"?"

Um. The word "Jews" appears literally hundreds of hundreds of times in the the Gospel of John. And it repeatedly states that the Jewish leaders were plotting to kill him. It also refers many times to "the Jews that believed in him". It talks about how "the Jews" would continually come up with ways to test him, to try to trip him up. It also talks about Jews that became his disciples.

I'm not disagreeing with the rest of your point. I'm just saying though, yeah, the Bible very much does make a point of who was a Jew, who was a Gentile, who was a Samaritan, who was a Pharisee, who was a Roman, etc. etc. etc. And it states very explicitly, several times, that Jews sought to kill him. The Romans aren't even brought in till the end.

I can see many reasons for this being pointed out without the desire to spread blame. Like, to, uh, explain the temporal reason why he was killed. 99.9% of Christians I know, though, don't care what the temporal reason was, cause they believe it was preordained. It doesn't change the fact, though.

My question is, why aren't Italians getting upset about their portrayal in this movie, UNLESS it is because Christians today are being blamed for the actions of Christians who lived several centuries ago?

Qwinn

[Ditter]

Many here like Hitchens because he dislikes the clintons. Sorry, that isn't enough to make me to like this commie scumbag.

[Tribune7]

was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate,

This has been the official Catholic take on the issue since 381.

[Qwinn]

Oops, yes, you're right, I meant prowar.

Qwinn

[Americathy]

Hope no one discovers a group of people, all descendants of Pilate.

[hellinahandcart]

There was a bible verse also on the sign.

I saw the sign. There was a reference to Thessalonians, but only part of the verse was on the sign.

[MinuteGal]

Excerpt of interview with Christopher Hitchens, April 25, 2002 during "Conversations with History", Institute of International Studies, University of California at Berkeley:

Hitchens: "On my mother's side, the family background was people in the town of Breslau, a Jewish family, before the turn of the 20th century, whose attitude was a little more liberal, a little more international, you might say more cosmopolitan".

Leni

[Austin Willard Wright]

You are obviously a newbie. Freepers are masters of personal invective and intense personal loyalities and hatreds I am not complaining mind you. It can be great fun.

[gedeon3]

I am taking my entire family tonight.

[Joe Republc]

Matthew 7:6

Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.

-- Joe

[Tribune7]

LOL

[truthandlife]

Wow, this guy really needs to be prayed for.

From the Bible. Luke 23:34: 'Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.'

[Clean_Sweep]

"He's not just an atheist. He's downright hostile and contemptuous when it comes to people who really believe."

I'm convinced the reason people that act like this is because, in there own hearts they know they are dammed to hell.

[HostileTerritory]

I've read the implication of current day Christian guilt for either the Holocaust or pogroms in at least 4 reviews of the Passion so far in the last week.

I don't know who brought up "Christian guilt", but they're dead wrong. I suspect that you're mischaracterizing the argument that the anti-Semitic threads in some aspects of Christianity (in particular, the writings of Luther and much of what the Church did in the Middle Ages and such) contributed to the anti-Semitism that led to the Holocaust. This is not the same as "all Christians bear guilt for the Holocaust", which was your claim of equivalence with the pre-Vatican II claim of "the blood is upon me and all of my children."

I want to emphasize that Jews recognize that the Catholic Church and Lutheran Church have rejected any baggage they carried of anti-Semitism, because it was a historical relic and unconnected to Christ's message of salvation. The Lutheran Church was never anti-Semitic, there were just some problematic stuff Luther wrote about Jews.

No Jew in any position of responsibility would make the straw man argument you're making.

[sauropod]

Josephus.

[Americathy]

I have read some Luther. Very intelligent but maybe a little over the top. I never got the impression he blamed the Jews (I could be wrong), but I did get the impression he didn't like them very much.

[Americathy]

I believe Tacitus also

[HostileTerritory]

that the events of his life as listed in the Bible are generally historically accurate,

Again, I'm asking you what you base this on. For obvious reasons, Jews and Muslims don't accept this depiction of events. This is the root of the controversy over The Passion. It's not a trivial issue.

The problem here is that you talk about your agnosticism to give yourself some objective credibility on Christian issues. But when you argue, you reach back to argue from the perspective of a Christian, such as when you privilege the Bible over other historic texts. I assume your family has some Christian (Catholic?) heritage. It's intellectually dishonest to claim to be objective when you hold non-objective viewpoints. Why else do you keep up with the "I'm an agnostic, and even I believe..."?

If you're an agnostic, why do you believe that the synoptic gospels are accurate? They were written after the fact of Jesus' death in a specific political and cultural environment. Do you believe that this environment did not affect the writing?

I'm afraid that I have to grab a plane. I'll be happy to talk about this next week if you're interested in an honest discussion.