[So Cal Rocket]

The author of this piece is in this picture... I'll leave it to the reader to determine which one he is:

[Dawgreg]

Hold on freepers.......is this the same person who was a buddy of Whacko Jacko and said he would trust him with his kids? Pleeeeeeeze tell me I'm wrong! I humbly stand corrected if he's not the one.

[kevkrom]

The real 5 big losers:

1. Radical ADL-type "Jews": those whose cultural identification far exceeds any religious inclination -- people who are generally more anti-Christian than they are pro-Judiasm -- tried to prevent people from seeing this movie. In essence, however, they did more to promote the film than anything Gibson could have done alone.
2. Film reviewers: hypocrites who adore senseless violence in films hated this movie because the violence had a purpose
3. Political pundits: many became amateur film reviewers but still wrote "reviews" completely slanted by their political positions taken before they even saw the film -- if they did at all
4. Hollywood producers: they failed to support the film on political grounds and are being left out of its success -- they are also now subject to accusations of "black-listing" Gibson in the future and will have to choose between alternatives that all expose them for being hypocrites
5. The rest of liberal Hollywood: The Passion overshadowed everything else in this year's Oscars (with the possible exception of LOTR) -- combined with the Super Bowl fiasco, they were forced to face an audience expecting higher standards of decency and couldn't get away with using the awards show as a political platform... and in an election year to boot!

[Jim_Curtis]

Yet this guy had nothing to say about the anti-egyptian movie "The Ten Commandments" when 1st born children were dying and thousands of men in skirts were drowning by the thousands.

[68skylark]

I know a lot of people here have very strong feelings about this movie -- because of the way it's been attacked -- and I don't want to wade into an emotional argument if I shouldn't. But can I ask Freepers what they think of the first point of this article -- about the breakdown of previous prohibitions on movie violence?

Seems to me that other movie makers are now going to push the same boundaries, with motives that are FAR less pure than the makers of this movie. I'm not arguing that the movie shouldn't have been made -- but it DOES seem like a legitimate concern anyway.

[AAABEST]

New Disorder: Passion Induced Stress Trauma (PIST)

[pgyanke]

Even in the New Testament, the passion of Christ occupies at most a chapter or two in each of the gospels, while the life of Jesus is spelled out more than 10 times that number.

This is what these sociopaths miss... Jesus DIED for all of us. He sacrificed himself as an offering for our sins. The Old Testament doesn't foretell Jesus's ministry, His healings, or His compassion, it foretells His horrible, bloody death at the hands of those He came to save.

Was Jesus special because He taught the Law? No. Moses and the prophets taught the Law also. Yes, even the part about loving God with all you heart, soul, strength and mind and your neighbor as yourself. This wasn't something new.

Was Jesus special because of His miracles? No. Moses and the prophets performed the same miracles... healed, raised the dead. One even went so far as to stop time itself.

God could have sent any prophet to DO what Jesus DID and SAY what Jesus SAID in His ministry. In fact, He had repeatedly done just that in the past.

ONLY JESUS COULD DO WHAT HE DID ON THAT CROSS TO ACCOMPLISH WHAT HE ACCOMPLISHED.

[KellyAdmirer]

Hey Schmuley, when you make a quarter of a billion dollars on a film, you don't NEED any more projects in Hollywood.

And why is it that these detractors feel it appropriate repeatedly to attack people for the sins of their fathers? Haven't they, ahem, read the Bible?

[af_vet_1981]

I find this opinion piece by Shmuely Boteach to be unnecessarily combative, vituperative, and accusative. He should know better. He does know better. Of course he is entitled to an opinion but he should articulate it respectively. This article was not inspiring ...

I hope those who have seen The Passion and value it will not allow him to bait you to anger with his caustic rhetoric in this article.

[per loin]

A very sick individual. Boteach finds that he has common ground with a notorious child molester, but condemns Gibson.

[Dr. Frank fan]

...he'll be hard-pressed to find another controversial biblical story that guarantees controversy and profit. After all, you really can't much improve on the charge that the Jews killed God.

I guess not but who on earth made this "charge"? I haven't heard Mel Gibson make it.

The Passion has forced upon politically conservative Jews like myself a horrible choice: either betray Jewish interests by pretending that a movie making the charge of deicide

And what movie would that be? If The Passion, against whom is this "charge" made?

or be told that you are endangering Israel by undermining Christian support for the Jewish state.

This is one of the few things surrounding this stupid controversy to which it will be a pleasure to reply:

Mr. Boteach, you can say anything you like about Mel Gibson's movie The Passion of the Christ, criticize it, claim erroneously that it "charges deicide" against "the Jews", claim that it stole your gal, claim that it started the great Chicago fire, etc., and guess what? There is no way that you are endangering Israel by undermining Christian support for the Jewish state. Anyone who says so is just plain wrong and is underestimating Christians IMHO; Christian support for the Jewish state is rock-solid - even more so than Jewish support, in many cases - and is not dependent on whether or not you or any other Jew praises Mel Gibson's movie. I'm tempted to be insulted at the underestimation of Christians involved in making this claim (that their support for Israel will vanish if Jews publicly dislike Mel Gibson's movie), but the fact is, I'm only amused. It's truly funny that anyone would think such a thing. :)

Any Christian friend whose support can so quickly evaporate....

He's on the right track. What he's missing is that there are too few such people to matter.

when we object to being falsely portrayed as god-killers

What the heck is he talking about here? "we"? Was Mr. Boteach portrayed as a god-killer in Mel Gibson's movie?

Where is Christian sensitivity to an allegation that has led to the death of millions of Jews throughout the ages?

Where is Mr. Boteach's intellectual ability to determine whether, in fact, that allegation has actually been made in the Mel Gibson film?

what conclusions will the less educated draw as they are shocked by the bloody images of Jews demanding the crucifixion of Jesus?

Us dumb country bumpkins will see images of a small number of individuals doing something in a movie and think "Jews. Them's Jews. That there's what all Jews is like."

People like my friend Mike must now defend a deeply anti-Semitic film

What film would that be?

that portrays his own people as devilish murderers who crucified the Creator

Doesn't the film portray some, like, Roman soldiers crucifying Jesus, or something?

But Mel Gibson, in his wearisome, monotonous, and numbing depiction of endless blood and gore, utterly ignores things like Jesus's beautiful ethical teachings from the Sermon on the Mount, focusing entirely on the horrors of the crucifixion.

Uh well, after all, that is what the movie is about, the blood and gore stuff (it is called "The Passion..." after all, not "The Beautiful Ethical Teachings Of The Christ"). Similarly his earlier movie We Were Soldiers, which was about the Vietnam War, utterly ignored the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake.

Gibson tells us that what made Jesus special was not that he lived righteously but that he died bloodily.

I haven't heard Gibson say this. Cite? I imagine most Christians would say that what made Jesus "special" was that he was the "Son of God" and proved it by coming back to life. I'd be shocked indeed if Gibson were to say anything else.

The Passion is an evangelical tool.

Silly me I thought it was a movie.

Is that really Christianity's central message - not that Jesus lived an inspirational life by which the faithful should be roused but that he died a horrible death for which the sinners should feel responsible?

Actually, I do believe that is *closer* to being Christianity's central message than that whole "inspirational life" thing, yes. But not because this is what Mel Gibson's movie is about, per se.

A person can choose (for whatever reason) to make a movie about a Christian theme and that doesn't necessarily mean that the subject of the movie is the "central message" of Christianity.

Indeed, the only winners emerging from The Passion are Islamic extremists who will no doubt take pleasure in seeing Jews and Christians squabbling at a time of considerable danger to both Israel and the United States.

Well if that's what he thinks then why is he adding to Islamic extremists' pleasure by whining about a movie?

But rather than blame the Jews for simply defending themselves against Mel Gibson's attack,

1. I'm not blaming "the Jews", I'm blaming individuals like Mr. Boteach here. 2. "the Jews" need no "defending" from Mel Gibson. Because 3. there was no "attack".

let's place the blame squarely where it belongs - on Mel Gibson, who could easily have made an inspirational movie about the life and death of Christ

Yes, he could have. He could have chosen to make a movie about a wide array of different things. He chose to make this movie.

without blaming the Jews for Jesus's death

I'm still not sure what movie Mr. Boteach thinks does this...

Will he put some of that money toward educating Jews and Christians about their common heritage and kinship?

1. Us dumb Christians don't know about our common kinship with Jews?

2. I find myself wondering what Mr. Boteach would think of a Mel Gibson-funded program to "educate Jews about the common kinship they have with Christians". Somehow I don't think he'd think too highly of it. Isn't it likely that it's only the Christians he wants to be "educated" with Mel Gibson's money?

I have a hard time understanding the tone of articles like this. Obviously Mr. Boteach is desperately searching for "losers from 'The Passion'", so much so that I wonder who he's trying to convince.

[truthandlife]

As Jesus said....

Luke 23:34 "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."

[Puddleglum]

Argument #1 is absurd because the author does not consider whose point of view we are seeing the violence from or the framework it is presented within. Some violence in films requires that you feel nothing for the injured person and is dehumanizing (an I - It relationship, to borrow from Martin Buber - the victim is something gross to laugh at as it goes splat).

Violence that creates sympathy with the target but then still injures that character is likewise a waste if its only purpose is to generate some catharsis (again, I - It, with the "thrill" finally taking precedence over the relationship). That is hardly the case with this film. It presents the violence in the framework of an I - Thou relationship - we sympathize with/for Christ and in that sympathy feel some hint of the sympathy He must have felt for us, all sinners trapped in a world of violence devoid of meaning until His sacrifice.

[HighWheeler]

"SHMULEY BOTEACH"

Is that the lab name for some nasty STD that Clinton has?

Pronounced: "schmu-LAY BO-tee-ACK"

[RoseofTexas]

Utterly obsurd!!

[FreedomSurge]

the Jews felt that, in Christianity, their core teachings had been perverted and abused. They read some of the New Testament's insidious attacks against them and wondered how a book claiming divine authorship can be so blatantly anti-Semitic. Although Christianity stemmed from Jewish origin, it took the concept of the Jewish God and associated it with a man; took the concept of sacrifice and associated it with a human sacrifice. Christianity took their cherished Torah and said that it had been superseded by a new testament. And finally, it took the concept of the chosen nation itself, claimed that the Jews had been abandoned by God, and called themselves the new Israel. Jews reacted in outrage. The Jews withdrew from mainstream Christian society. Christians' burning Jews at the stake, as heretics would do little to make them draw closer. - Rabbi Boteach

Rabbi Boteach, like many other Jews simply hates Christianity.

[gedeon3]

The writer is an ignorant idiot.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

1. Christian conservatives whose ability to protest violence in Hollywood films has now been severely compromised.

Idiots.

Conservatives of all stripes (not just Christians) have been protesting GRATUITOUS violence in Hollywood films for ages.

Hard to equate what was done to Jesus with a pimp poppin' a cap in some crack ho's head for holdin' out on him.

Nice try but no cigar on this point. Gad I hate it when people are intentionally disingenuous or worse, obtuse, to make a point.

[Plutarch]

As New York Times columnist Frank Rich writes...

Anyone quoting Frank Rich approvingly sacrifices any shred of credibility he may have yet remaining.

[Ann Archy]

Schmuly Boteach was Michael Jackson's best friend until recently!! What a schmuck for a Rabbi....how does a religious man cavort with Michael Jackson?

Rabbi Boteach is ANTI-CHRISTIAN!