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Some thoughts on Mel's film:

Many applaud Mel for telling the historical "truth" against all odds. This raises several questions for me:

If Mel was concerned about accuracy and historical truth, why did he use as his source material documents written by nuns nearly two millenia after the Jesus of Nazareth was killed?

Furthermore, his other source material, the Gospels themselves (Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John, whose texts were composed in Greek between 70 C.E. and 100 C.E.), differ significantly on matters of fact. In Mark, Jesus's last meal is a Passover seder; in John, Jesus is dead before the seder begins. Mark and Matthew feature two night "trials" before a full Jewish court, and a dramatic charge of "blasphemy" from the high priest. Luke has only a single trial, early in the morning, and no high priest. John lacks this Jewish trial scene entirely. The release of Barabbas is a "Roman custom" in Mark, a "Jewish custom" in John. Between the four evangelists, Jesus speaks three different last lines from the cross. And the resurrection stories vary even more.

The probable cause for these contradictions: the evangelists wrote some forty to seventy years after Jesus's execution.

Now the language of the film (Latin and Aramaic) which is supposed to lend "authenticity" also raises questions:

Aramaic was indeed the daily language of ancient Jews in Galilee and Judea, but Latin would scarcely have figured at all. When the Jewish high priest and the Roman prefect spoke to each other, they would have used Greek, which was the English of antiquity. And Pilate's troops, employees of Rome, were not "Romans." They were Greek-speaking local gentiles on the imperial payroll.

Upon close analysis of what is known about the film, one concludes that the true historical framing of Gibson's script is neither early first-century Judea (where Jesus of Nazareth died) nor the late first-century Mediterranean diaspora (where the evangelists composed their Gospels). It is post-medieval Roman Catholic Europe.

Therefore, all claims that the film goes to great lengths to tell historical "truths" are put in question, and it becomes clear that this is a film not about the true story of a hugely significant historical event, but rather, it is a $25 million representation of the traditionalist Catholic ideology to which Mel Gibson subscribes, with no basis in actual historical fact.