Posted on 03/06/2004 8:17:26 AM PST by Joblie
MEL GIBSON says that his film, The Passion of the Christ, is a faithful representation of the biblical story of Jesus' trial and execution. He also says the movie isn't anti-Semitic. He cannot be right on both counts.
The New Testament is, among other things, an anti-Semitic tract. It is the source of the anti-Semitism which has characterised Christianity for two millennia.
If the film isn't anti-Semitic, it's out of line with the Gospel. In face of complaints from US Jewish leaders, Gibson removed from the film's sub-titles - although not from the Aramaic sound-track - the response of the Jews to Pilate's hand-washing disavowal of blame for sending Jesus to be crucified: "His blood be upon us and our children."
But why? The quote is there in Matthew 27:25. Its meaning is clear and has been fulfilled in unspeakable ways down the ages.
Luke 23:28-29 gives the same point a more vicious twist, depicting Jesus telling weeping women he encounters on the Way of the Cross: "Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me but for yourselves and your children. For behold, the days are coming when they will say, 'Blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never gave suck!'"
Better for Jews that they'd never been born, then.
There's been no shortage of Christians ever since to ram this murderous message home to Jewish neighbours.
John's Gospel (8:44) has Jesus telling the Jews they are descended neither from God nor from Abraham but are children of the Devil.
The early Fathers of the Church took inspiration from the Bible as they preached hatred of the Jews.
In the works of Tertullian, Justin, John Chrysostom, etc., Jews are relentlessly libelled... the obscene Jew, the Satanic Jew, the murderer-of-God Jew, the whoremonger Jew, etc.
And so it continued. Pope after Pope, Council after Council, confirmed and codified the subhuman status of the Jews.
Every century is pock-marked by examples. (Council of Toledo, 694: Jews living in Spain declared slaves, possessions confiscated, all children removed from them at seven and prepared for marriage to Christians.)
Hitler didn't suck the idea of Jews wearing yellow badges out of his thumb. He took it from the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215.
The Nazi persecution can be seen as a practical expression of traditional Christian attitudes to Jews.
"From the beginning until the end of Hitler's rule, the bishops never tired of admonishing the faithful to accept his government," Guenter Lewy recalled in "The Catholic Church and Nazi Germany."
Individual Catholic clerics who opposed the Nazis' anti-Semitism were a tiny minority, totally unrepresentative.
Catholic apologists concede now that the Vatican and the German bishops should have given stronger, more courageous leadership.
But this is dodging the issue. One of the reasons they didn't is that, by and large, they agreed with the Nazis.
From its beginning, Protestantism was as bad. The editor of the Nazi hate-sheet "Der Sturmer," Julius Streich, cited Martin Luther, reasonably, in a plea of justification at Nuremberg.
In his disgusting treatise "On the Jews and their Lies" in 1543, Luther had called for the fire-bombing of synagogues, the demolition of Jewish homes, the silencing of rabbis, the banning of Jews from public places, the confiscation of Jewish property and the enslavement of "all strong young Jews and Jewesses."
Christian hymns provided the theme music for the Holocaust.
Even after the gates were flung open on the horrors of Auschwitz, Christian teachers, in Ireland as elsewhere, continued to instruct infants that the scattering of the Jews and the persecutions they endured were punishment for the killing of the Christ.
Argument over Gibson's blockbuster gore-fest diverts attention from what's important.
If the film fuels anti-Semitism, it's to be condemned, irrespective of its merits as a movie.
But let's not allow a satisfying controversy obscure the fact that the founding text of Christianity is bloodily sodden with hatred of Jews.
I've seen no evidence that the movie has caused anger toward Jews. I am, however, hearing a lot of anger about the accusations of anti-semitism. People aren't going to burn synagogues but I'm betting some will close the doors to their country clubs and their dinner parties to people who attack their religion.
True.
Well, when we go, they will go also. We're the only friends they've got! (Too bad it's not reciprocal)
The more these people open their mouths, the more their sickening agenda is exposed.
Hmmm..., I've been trying to invite people who attack my religion to potlucks at my church for years. For some reason they won't come. Maybe if I tell them they can't come I can get them there...?
Sure man! That was in the movie right?
Wrong!!!!
It appears the very thought of this film is bringing out old hate speak for some idiots.
Religious bigotry exists, but was not the point nor the basis of the film, and they all know it.
The occasion give them reason to spew their BS.
John 8-44 is a mild chastisement from Jesus to a group that is dissing him.
The crowd then claims the Jesus is of the devil.
It was a tough sermon! And a rough crowd!
True. Luther writes: "First to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them. This is to be done in honor of our Lord and of Christendom, so that God might see that we are Christians, and do not condone or knowingly tolerate such public lying, cursing, and blaspheming of his Son and of his Christians. For whatever we tolerated in the past unknowingly - and I myself was unaware of it - will be pardoned by God. But if we, now that we are informed, were to protect and shield such a house for the Jews, existing right before our very nose, in which they lie about, blaspheme, curse, vilify, and defame Christ and us (as was heard above), it would be the same as if we were doing all this and even worse ourselves, as we very well know."
Great idea!
Next thing you know, you'll stop inviting the local abortionist over for fondue and cocktails....
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