[Qwinn]

"I am not sure either agnostic knows enough of the nuances of the texts and the religious history, to fathom all the subtleties."

Agnostic One is quite well versed in his Bible history. Actually, I've had quite a few Catholics on this board state that Agnostic One has a better grasp of Catholic teaching than most Catholics do. (Agnostic One was raised Catholic and became agnostic at 15 years of age)

"It will be due to compelling visual images that depict Jews as a people as Satanic and as killers."

Which, when you see the movie, you will realize is absolutely, overwhelmingly absurd. There is simply no justification for it. The Romans are depicted as 10,000 times worse than any Jew. There is absolutely no way to assume that Christians would hold the Jews responsible, and NOT Italians responsible, unless it is with the specter of "Medieval tropes", as you put it. What is being done is laying collective guilt on all Christians for the sins of their distant ancestors, which is bigotry itself - exactly the same kind of bigotry that Christians are being falsely accused of harboring.

If you don't think people would walk out of Schindler's List wanting to kill Germans - if you don't think people would walk out of the Passion wanting to kill Italians - then there is no way one can glean from this movie that Christians will walk out of it wanting to kill Jews, unless you are possessed of some -extreme- anti-Christian bias.

Qwinn

[AlbionGirl]

Not only is not anti-semitic, I thought the portrayal of Caiaphas was a bit mercurial. His face seemed to soften as he was witnessing the Scourging of Christ, implying that a bit of compassion was seeping in. But then as soon as he began to try to get Christ to denounce his claim that he was the Messiah and Christ refused, his face became hard again as did his heart. He really didn't come off as totally bad to me or as a one-dimensional character, but instead a hard-headed, powerful mixture of Church and State man.