| Charge one as to departing from the gospels to make Jews look worse than the gospel story: In none of the Gospels does the high priest Caiaphas stand there with his cruel, impassive fellow priests witnessing the scourging.
I think this is picking at nits. John 19:6 says that the chief priests and officers, who were doing the bidding of Caiaphus, wanted Jesus Crucified after having seen the results of the scourging. It's hard to argue that Caiaphus would have been squeamish at Christ's torture and mutilation, so it's hard to see how the license taken by Gibson in the scene you describe unfairly reflects on Caiaphus. Charge two is that the satan wraiths merge with the Jewish "mob" (which wraiths are also apparently not in the gospels). Whether the overall gestalt of the message is that the Jewish mob were temporarily taken over by Satan, or that they were the functional equivalent of Satan, I don't know. I have not seen the film.
There is no "merging." Satan's spirit form walks among the Jews at one point, shadowing Mary, Mother of Jesus, who is walking amongs some Jews on the opposite side of the courtyard. There is no indication that Satan has possessed the Jews, or is in league with them. But to the extent Mel departs from the gospels, to make the Jews look worse to believers than the gospels "teach," he is fair game for criticism. What say you?
To the extent that Gibson departed from the Gospels and related Scriptures (such as Isaiah 52 and 53, as well as Psalm 22), the intent was for dramatic effect, not to make the Jews look bad. Sometimes the deviations create balance in favor of some righteous Jews. In the trial before the Sanhedrin, Gibson depicts two of the chief priests as objecting to the trial, yet they are not found in Scripture. These may have been Joseph of Arimathea, a Sadducee, and Nicodemus, a Pharisee. Both were members of the Sanhedrin and were secretly followers of Christ, and we learn later that they arranged for Jesus' burial. I'll make a point of looking for them in the credits the next time I see the film. I agree that Kraut's overall thrust is over the top
That's being charitable. To falsely accuse someone of a blood libel is to commit the same libel. I'll be following Krauthammer to see if he reconsiders at all. I very much want to hear him go at it with Dennis Prager, who is also Jewish, but has been supportive of Gibson's efforts in making this film, and his sincerity in trying to avoid any impression of anti-Semitism.
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