Posted on 03/22/2004 2:16:45 PM PST by presidio9
My current theory is that Christians and Jews see two different films when they watch Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ." For example, when Satan slithered through the crowd, I saw nothing objectionable. It's conventional Christian theology that the temptation to do evil (or Satan himself) is everywhere. But many Jews saw Satan acting through a specifically Jewish gathering. Jews also noticed that when God becomes angry at the killing of Jesus, he doesn't wreak havoc on the Roman forum or Pilate's house, he destroys the temple.
Jews don't understand why Christians don't seem to get this. They tend to think that Christians are either blind to the movie's message or insensitive to the feelings of Jews.
I don't think that's it. Ordinary Christians were so overwhelmed by the film that they didn't much want to involve themselves in yet another debate about whether a few Jews or a few Romans were mostly responsible for killing Jesus.
This was the first movie available to a mass audience that powerfully portrayed the scope of Jesus' sacrifice. That's why so many of the faithful came out of the theater shaken, weeping or talking about their need to become better Christians. Nobody came out wanting to talk about Gibson's father.
The Christian unwillingness to analyze this film showed in a more obvious way. The core audience - evangelicals and fundamentalists - is meticulous about literal reading of Scripture and at least standoffish about Catholic interpretations. Yet they flocked to a film with a profoundly Catholic sensibility, based on the sometimes eccentric visions of a 19th-century nun and filled with free-wheeling scenes found nowhere in the Bible.
You could argue that Gibson's movie departed from the Gospels almost as much as Hollywood potboilers such as "The Robe." But to audiences, this didn't matter much. It was emotionally true to the Gospels, and audiences found that good enough.
A survey released last week by the Institute for Jewish and Community Research reports that 83% of people familiar with the film say it made them neither more likely nor less likely to blame Jews today for Jesus' Crucifixion. Two percent said they are more likely to blame Jews. The results are an indicator that the dire predictions of a big wave of anti-Semitism were wrong. Some 40 million to 50 million Americans have seen the film, and the mainstream press still seems to be awaiting an explosion of anti-Jewish feeling among Christians. It hasn't arrived.
I don't think it will.
That was the whole point of Jesus' death. The Jews performed animal sacrifices for attonement of their sins at the Temple. Jesus died for everyones sins as the sacrificial Lamb of God. The jewish Temple was no longer needed. Jesus' death abolished the need to perform animal sacrifices.
Also, God now would dwell among, and in those who believed Him. That was why the veil in the Temple was torn in 2.
What about the portrayal of Mary in the movie would be deemed not "true" to her Biblical role?
I fear to ask.
Peace be with you also.
Semper Fi
I guess the article's author could take this up with the Pope. Tell him that he just doesn't get it. "It is as it was."
I find it offensive when individuals (such as this John Leo) purport to speak for an entire ethnic group...such as The Jews. Some percentage of Jews agree with Leo, but is there a homogenous opinion among Jews? This reminds me of Al Sharpton and his ilk.
What about the table scene?
The children also write their good deeds on tiny slips of paper and put them in the manger "to make a soft bed for Jesus."
I lead a small group that is doing a 'Passion" study and I also co-lead a not so small group dedicated to a six week study on the 'Passion'. Most who saw the movie (and these are all evangelicals with three fundamentalists thrown in for fun) say the one thing in the movie that moves them most, impressed them most, or that they most related to was Mary and her sufferings. And that is what they want to talk about, but neither study delves into that subject. Mary is only a footnote.
The scene where she lays on the floor in temple to be close to Jesus imprisoned below. Mary at the Jewish trial. Mary at the scourging. Mary follows Jesus most of the way when he was carrying the cross.
BTW this is not only extra-biblical it also conflicts with Catholic tradition. (See the stations of the cross.)
Luke would disagree. He starts his gospel with Mary. Luke 1 is one of the most beautiful responses to obedience to God's will of anyone in the bible and Luke uses this event to introduce the gospel. He uses Mary's motherhood to appeal to his listener. Mary is there at the beginning and she is there at the end. She is the bookends.
At the end, Luke again has Jesus responding to "the women who were beating their breasts and wailing for him" (Luke 23:27)
He then says to the women "Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For the days are surely coming when they will say, 'Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed.'
If Gibson's movie evoked a female/motherhood response to women in your group, then he brought alive in them the emotion that Luke raised by the above words of Jesus. Through the eyes of a mother we see the picture of the fallen innocent child placed next to the suffering Christ and at once the scripture "do not weep for me, but weep for your children", comes alive.
I'm a man and can only glimpse how a mother would react to Jesus's suffering. Luke attempts to tell us. Gibson attempts to show us. Based on the reaction you see, it looks as if Gibson accomplished the objective of bring Luke's scripture alive.
I think it interesting that you would choose the book of Luke to base your argument. Though Mary is at the beginning and the end of Luke, she is nowhere to be found in Luke's version of the Passion. Not one word. Yes, Jesus did address the women of Jerusalem in Luke 23:28-29 (the eighth station of the cross), but it does not say that Mary was among them and since Mary was not from Jerusalem we can only assume that she was not. Footnote: We can conclude that later in Luke 23:49, 55-56 when he mentions the women of Galilee who had followed him, that Mary was included with them, even though she was never mentioned by name.
Mary is also totally missing from the Passion in both the books of Mark and Matthew. Again not one word.
But we do find Mary in the book of John. The one and only time Mary is mentioned during the period of Passion is in John 19:25-27 when Jesus gives her to be mother to John and John son to Mary.
This lone one minute conversation is all that the Bible gives us of Mary during the Passion. She is only a footnote. Yet in Gibson's movie she is portrayed as the leading lady if not the very star of the movie herself.
The studies, which I lead, never deal with the subject of Mary. While a main character in the movie, biblically through the Passion she plays a minor role. And it seems that the Protestants have turned a blind eye to all but what they want to see in this movie so the subject is never covered.
Thus my dilemma, Mary is the one almost everyone (male and female) identifies with in this movie and what they want to talk about. Mary is also a subject that Protestants have mostly avoided in the past and are only now starting to deal with as a result of the movie. Unfortunately for me, too slowly to have answers for those who have questions now. Don't get me wrong, I know the Protestant position on Mary, but without the study guides and sermons backing me up, I have to prove everything myself. And that can be a hard job trying to tell 28 people in two different groups that have fallen in love with the Mary in the movie, that all may not be as it appears.
I must be a very poor writer. Let me rephrase my argument. MARY=MOTHERHOOD. Replace Mary for motherhood and then relook at Luke. You find motherhood at the outset and at the cross. Motherhood was a central part of Luke's message or he would not have included it as part of his passion story. The fact that women identify with Mary is because they identify with motherhood.
Luke see's it. Your participants see it. I agree the RC's overdo it but it is there. Its in Jesus's words.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.