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Mel Gibson and the Maccabees
Beliefnet ^ | Dec 8th, 2004

Posted on 12/08/2004 11:31:33 AM PST by missyme

Anyone who took offense at Mel Gibson’s "The Passion of the Christ", with its depiction of Jewish leaders condemning Jesus, should get ready soon to be offended all over again.

Gibson, it is reported, has his heart set on doing a movie version of the story commemorated by Hanukkah. His text will be the novel "My Glorious Brothers" by Howard Fast.

Ironically, this book is a sentimental favorite with the older-generation Jewish audience that also tends to be the main financial supporter of Gibson’s primary antagonist, the Anti-Defamation League, which led the drive to condemn "The Passion" as anti-Semitic.

The Fast novel tells the story of Jewish heroes, circa 167 B.C.E., who defeat Greek oppressors of the Jewish people, retake the Jerusalem Temple, and relight the great menorah.

So what’s so offensive? If this sounds, on the contrary, like a mollifying gesture to ADL national director Abraham Foxman, you might want to look a little more closely at what Hanukkah is actually about.

Many Jews grew up thinking of Hanukkah (which in 2004 falls on December 8-15) as an innocuous children’s festival. Actually the Maccabean revolt was deadly serious business, and it recalls one of the great tensions in our own modern American society: the conflict was between what today one might call religious fundamentalists and the secular elite.

Here’s what happened. Jewish Palestine had fallen into the clutches of the Greek kingdom of the Seleucids, with their tyrant Antiochus Epiphanes, headquartered in Syria. While the Greeks were not anti-Jewish per se, they had little patience with the perceived particularism and parochialism of Judaism. (I say "perceived" because Judaism’s vision, when properly understood, is in fact highly universal.)

The Greek vision was one of mutual theological acceptance. They were relativists, in the sense we know today, believing that not only the God of Israel but all the gods should be worshipped at the Jerusalem Temple--and believing that dissenters from their “tolerance” deserved to be suppressed.

Religiously committed Jews, however, were less troubled by the Greek Syrians themselves than by Jewish “Hellenists” in Palestine, and in the holy city itself, who had thrown in their lot with the Greeks. This was a way of social climbing. By embracing Greek culture, with its aggressive relativism, ambitious Jewish elites hoped to improve their own social standing in Greek eyes.

They embraced Greek customs that religious Jews found disturbing – exercising naked in the gymnasium, with an emphasis on discus-throwing in the nude, or (far worse) effacing their circumcisions through a surgical operation involving cutting a flap of skin around the penis and letting it hang by weights.

In his standard history of the period, "Alexander to Actium," Professor Peter Green calls this “select club of progressive Hellenizers” a “specially favored cosmopolitan class dedicated to social and political self-advancement,” seeking “sociological privilege and status.”


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: abrahamfoxman; adl; ancienthistory; antidefamationleague; celebrateperversity; culturewar; diversity; godsgravesglyphs; greeks; hanukkah; harveyweinstein; hellenists; hollyweird; howardfast; israel; jewishpalestine; jews; judaism; liberalbigots; melgibson; melgibsonbashing; miramax; mygloriousbrothers; pc; politicalcorrectness; religion; religiousintolerance; secularhumanism; thepassion; tolerance; weinstein
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To: Aquinasfan

You must never have seen "The Cabin Boy"


41 posted on 12/08/2004 12:59:54 PM PST by winodog (We need to water the liberty tree)
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Comment #42 Removed by Moderator

To: Cinnamon Girl

Palestine is the Roman translation for the Greek word Phillistines


43 posted on 12/08/2004 1:01:22 PM PST by Gaelic
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To: Alouette


44 posted on 12/08/2004 1:02:32 PM PST by elhombrelibre (Liberalism is proof that intelligent people can ignore as much as the ignorant.)
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Comment #45 Removed by Moderator

To: missyme

If you were butch you rose high in the organization. If you were fem you got a pink triangle and you went to the camps. They were into leather.


46 posted on 12/08/2004 1:10:29 PM PST by johnb838 (Killmore.)
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To: missyme; biblewonk
Very interesting. Now, this movie by Mel, I might actually see.
47 posted on 12/08/2004 1:10:32 PM PST by newgeezer (fundamentalist, regarding the Constitution AND the Holy Bible, i.e. words mean things!)
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To: Red Badger

The "great menorah" was second only to the Ark of the Covenant as a mighty Hebrew relic. The Menorah was carried away by the soldiers of Titus in the destruction of Jerusalem, and actually appears in a relief on the Arch of Titus in Rome. (A soldier is carrying the Menorah in the triumphal procession; presumably the artist thought that it looked curious enough that it was memorable and worth depicting.)


48 posted on 12/08/2004 1:16:02 PM PST by SedVictaCatoni (<><)
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To: Gaelic

That doesn't answer my question.


49 posted on 12/08/2004 1:19:44 PM PST by Cinnamon Girl (OMGIIHIHOIIC ping list)
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To: SedVictaCatoni

50 posted on 12/08/2004 1:21:37 PM PST by Alouette ("Who is for the LORD, come with me!" -- Mattisyahu ben Yohanon, father of Judah Maccabee)
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To: Borges

What's their excuse now?


51 posted on 12/08/2004 1:21:55 PM PST by johnb838 (Killmore.)
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To: katana

I'll go see it too. Just like I want to see this new movie with Jim Caviezal called "I Am David." It is about the MSM taboo subject of the brutality of Communism. The story of a young boy sentenced to, living in, and escaping from a labor camp.


52 posted on 12/08/2004 1:23:54 PM PST by johnb838 (Killmore.)
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To: Cinnamon Girl

Jewish story filmed by staunch Catholic.

OTOH, what the story portrays, the overrunning of the Temple for multi-cultural use is no different that allowing Tibetian monks or Moslems to use the Altar in Catholic Churches or some of the other rubbish that is going on now in post VII parishes.


53 posted on 12/08/2004 1:28:40 PM PST by Jaded ((Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society. - Mark Twain))
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To: elbucko

Actually, Kerry's paternal grandparents converted to Catholicism while still in the Austrian Empire, several years prior to their emigration to the United States.


54 posted on 12/08/2004 1:31:01 PM PST by Wallace T.
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To: Wallace T.
several years prior to their emigration to the United States.

Nevertheless, conversions from one religion to another usually are for some perceived benefit. In my case, I thank God everyday that I am a heathen and do not have such issues.

55 posted on 12/08/2004 1:38:28 PM PST by elbucko (Feral Republican)
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To: missyme
I was wondering when someone would figure out who the Maccabees were...
56 posted on 12/08/2004 1:39:03 PM PST by Question_Assumptions
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To: wideawake
It's a beautiful, inspiring story.

Inspiring, yes. Beautiful, not exactly. It's horribly gruesome.

57 posted on 12/08/2004 3:25:46 PM PST by Aquinasfan (Isaiah 22:22, Rev 3:7, Mat 16:19)
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To: sartorius

Thanks for #45. That was helpful.


58 posted on 12/08/2004 3:31:12 PM PST by Aquinasfan (Isaiah 22:22, Rev 3:7, Mat 16:19)
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To: Aquinasfan
Inspiring, yes. Beautiful, not exactly. It's horribly gruesome.

So was the crucifixion. And there has never been a more beautiful act.

59 posted on 12/09/2004 6:06:13 AM PST by wideawake (God bless our brave soldiers and their Commander in Chief)
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To: missyme
766 tedious words, when all you really wanted to say was...

1) Get ready to be offended all over again. ( you sound hopeful it will offend )

2) You're not a fan the "Passion"
60 posted on 12/09/2004 6:27:35 AM PST by Chaffer
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