Posted on 04/06/2004 3:44:00 PM PDT by presidio9
By now, more than a month since its release, Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ has elicited countless reactions from Catholics, Jews and fundamentalist Christians. Millions of viewers have so far contributed to the movie's nearly $300 million in gross earnings. Film critics and cultural commentators have weighed in on it in large numbers. Scientifically flavored responses, however, have been relatively sparse. Here's mine.
Even about modern day mega-stories we're often clueless. Forty years ago in the full glare of the modern media, John F. Kennedy was assassinated, and we have only a hazy idea of the motivation of the killer or, possibly, killers. Only a bit more than 30 years ago, the Watergate controversy erupted before a phalanx of cameras and microphones, and we still don't know who ordered what nor the identity of Deep Throat. And only two and half years ago, well into the age of the Internet, the World Trade Center and Pentagon were attacked, and we have yet to learn the complete story. These (and many, many other) examples of our ignorance of the details of recent events don't seem surprising. We're accustomed to suspending judgment, to estimating probabilities. We realize that people dissemble, spin, exaggerate, and misinterpret. And we know that even more frequently events transpire with no witnesses, and so we've developed an appropriate skepticism about news stories (and personal opinion pieces such as this).
Absence of Historical Evidence
But such skepticism sometimes deserts people when they consider more distant historical happenings. This is very odd since historians are subject to even more severe limitations than those facing contemporary journalists and writers. After all, printing presses and Palm Pilots haven't been around that long, but hearsay and unreliable narrators have.
The occasion for these observations is Gibson's gory movie and an under-reported fact about its basis: There is little, if any, external historical evidence for the details presented in the somewhat inconsistent biblical versions of the Crucifixion.
Unless we take literally and on faith the New Testament accounts written many decades afterward (between 70 and 100 A.D.), we simply don't know what happened almost two millennia ago, at least in any but the vaguest way. (This, of course, is part of the reason that Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, which purports to fill in the details of the story and its aftermath, has been No. 1 on Amazon, selling about 7 million copies to date.)
But, just for the moment, let's pretend that compelling historical documents have just come to light proving that a group of Jews was instrumental in bringing about the death of Jesus, that Pilate, the Roman governor, was benign and ineffectual, etc. Even if all this were the case, does it not seem hateful, not to mention un-Christian, to blame contemporary Jews? Blame is all the more inappropriate if Jesus' suffering is, as many Christian theologians claim, a condition for others' being saved.
Comparison With Socrates’ Death
We can gain a little perspective by comparing the Crucifixion of Jesus with the killing of another ancient teacher, Socrates — the Passion of the Christ versus the Poisoning of Socrates, if you will. Again the standard story is somewhat problematic, but even if we give full credit to Plato's 2,400-year-old account of Socrates' death, what zealous coterie of classicists or philosophers would hold today's Greeks responsible?
To ask the question is to dismiss it. It would be absurd, not to mention un-Socratic, for anyone to attribute guilt to contemporary Athenians. (Incidentally, Socrates needs a Mel Gibson or Dan Brown; the Amazon rankings of the various editions of The Trial and Death of Socrates range from poor to abysmal.)
The case of Socrates suggests another comparison. Would a cinematic account of his death focus unrelentingly on his clutching his throat and writhing in agony on the ground after drinking the hemlock? Would such an imagined film's moving cinematography and its actors speaking in archaic Greek do anything at all to increase the likelihood that the events really occurred as depicted?
Whatever one's beliefs or lack thereof, Socrates and Jesus were great moral leaders, whose ideas constitute a good part of the bedrock of our culture. Their lives and teachings are, in my avowedly secular opinion, more important than the details of their deaths, which are likely to remain nebulous at best.
Many important stories of the recent and distant past contain large holes and blank spots. Acknowledging uncertainty about them requires a braver heart than denying it.
"Enlightened" academics continue to miss the point: His Suffering, Death, and Resurrection were far more important than what He had to say.
I hope the author would write the same sentence when speaking about "reparations" and placing the "blame" of black enslavement on "contemporary" whites.
Just in case the Reverend JOHN SHELBY SPONG was unable to 'woo' you with his views that " that the traditional concept of a supernatural God is no longer relevant - that modern progress in thought has made such an idea obsolete", here we have yet another 'professional' analysis, compliments of ABC.
Over the centuries, many have come forward claiming to be from God - name one! Scripture clearly testifies to the fact that Jesus was indeed, sent by God.
Catholic Ping - let me know if you want on/off this list
Aside from his ignorant comments on the dating of the Gospels, he didn't even bother to read Plato's extremely detailed account of the death of Socrates for himself.
Crito made a sign to the servant, who was standing by; and he went out, and having been absent for some time, returned with the jailer carrying the cup of poison. Socrates said: "You, my good friend, who are experienced in these matters, shall give me directions how I am to proceed."- from the Phaedo, translated by Benjamin Jowett.The man answered: "you have only to walk about until your legs are heavy, and then to lie down, and the poison will act."
At the same time he handed the cup to Socrates, who in the easiest and gentlest manner, without the least fear or change of color or feature, looking at the man with all his eyes, . . . as his manner was, took the cup and said: "What do you say about making a libation out of this cup to any god? May I, or not?"
The man answered: "We only prepare, Socrates, just so much as we deem enough."
"I understand," he said; "but I may and must ask the gods to prosper my journey from this to the other world--even so--and so be it according to my prayer."
Then raising the cup to his lips, quite readily and cheerfully he drank off the poison. And hitherto most of us had been able to control our sorrow; but now when we saw him drinking, and saw too that he had finished the draught, we could not longer forbear, and in spite of myself my own tears were flowing fast; so that I covered my face and wept, not for him, but at the thought of my own calamity in having to part from such a friend. Nor was I the first; for Crito, when he found himself unable to restrain his tears, had got up, and I followed; and at that moment, Apollodorus, who had been weeping all the time, broke out in a loud and passionate cry which made cowards of us all.
Socrates alone retained his calmness: "What is this strange outcry?" he said. "I sent away the women mainly in order that they might not misbehave in this way, for I have been told that a man should die in peace. Be quiet then, and have patience."
When we heard his words we were ashamed, and refrained our tears; and he walked about until, as he said, his legs began to fail, and then he lay on his back, according to the directions, and the man who gave him the poison now and then looked at his feet and legs; and after a while he pressed his foot hard, and asked him if he could feel; and he said, "No;" and then his leg, and so upwards and upwards, and showed us that he was cold and stiff. And he felt them himself, and said: "When the poison reaches the heart, that will be the end."
He was beginning to grow cold about the groin, when he uncovered his face, for he had covered himself up, and said--they were his last words--he said: "Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius; will you remember to pay the debt?"
"The debt shall be paid," said Crito; "is there anything else?"
There was no answer to this question; but in a minute or two a movement was heard, and the attendants uncovered him; his eyes were set, and Crito closed his eyes and mouth.
Such was the end . . . of our friend; concerning whom I may truly say, that of all the men of his time whom I have known, he was the wisest and justest and best.
Yes. Which is why Christians have been trying to explain that they don't.
I was thinking the same thing. Lately a lot of libs are tossing so much extraneous material into their essays and speeches, that the essays are becoming too painful to read and the speeches are too painful to listen to.
They can't seem to compose their thoughts so they shout (like Ted Kennedy and Howard Dean), self-contradict (like Kerry, Gore and the Clintons) or pointlessly ramble. They seem to think that the guy who uses the most words, shouts the loudest, or agrees with every side wins the argument.
Actually, his Resurrection (which means we always have his spirit with us) and what He had to say are the important things: Love kind of is important to many of us. The manner of death is a technical detail.
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