Mel Gibson's The Passion, sparking concern from the ADL.

I am not looking for cases where Gibson interpolated where the Bible has no detail, but for the claimed cases where he departs from existing detail.

This is the Film dicussion part of the forum. We discuss movies here so there is on such thing as "it's only a movie." It's only a movie to those who haven't seen the movie. If you don't want to discuss films, there are many other forums where they do not discuss films.

c.i. I am sure meant that there is no detailed description of the cross as well as there is no detailed discription of the scourging. Again, where in the Bible do you find Mary wiping up blood off the floor after Jesus is scourged? I looked through John and Mathew and couldn't even find that she was present. Of course, how could you have all the cutting to her anquished face (once too many times, incidentally, giving away the manipulative effect).

"Braveheart" had the same problems -- it was a great movie as an action adventure flick but as historical drama it was really claptrap. It will help one like "Passion" if they ignore what liberties Gibson has taken.

I was actually speaking in general terms as I understood and remembered what I read about the liberties Gibson took in making the movie with so much detail from the time he started carrying the cross to when he was nailed to the cross. I'm not familiar with the bible so it's impossible for me to provide any specifics.

This is a "How To" movie on how scourge and crucify. The script is a technical manual with barely any dramatic impact at all. However, too much of the technique is invented and not even according to what historical artifacts and writing tell about scourging and crucifixion. I was waiting for them to tear out Jesus' heart a la "Braveheart."

BTW, c.i., most of the historical record shows that the cross was more likely "T" shaped and not in the iconic form it's been shown as for centuries. I believe was the Catholics in their iconography who decided a "T" shape was not symbolically pleasing.

As I mentioned somewhere earlier, Jewish women during the second temple period would not have wiped up the blood. It was unclean. I think this was done because Emmerich's visions relate this happeneing. Emmerich's visions are directly tied into the Catholic mystical tradition.
To paraphrase Monty Python:
Just becasue some tubercular schizophrenic has an hallucination, it doesn't make it Jesus!

Brandon,

One very important point on which Gibson departs from the NT record is in putting Satan physically and actively into the story. In the Garden scene, Satan appears to Jesus in an attempt to derail his mission. No such scene is played out in the gospel record. Again, as the Jews watch Jesus being scourged, and feeling obvious satisfaction, the figure of Satan is circulating among them as if he (or maybe she in this case) were possessing them. Nothing like this is spoken of in the gospel record. In fact there is nothing in the NT record stating that the Jews were present at the scourging. Satan appears a couple more times in the movie. All this is bogus.

I believe three of the gospels mention in one line that Jesus was scourged. Nothing is said as to what extent. In the movie, he was whipped over every inch of his body. I am often amazed at the way in which Hollywood heros survive the beatings they receive and bounce back to do amazing things. I suspect that any human being beaten as Jesus was in this movie would not be doing much of anything for some days--if ever. Gibson's Jesus is then made to carry a heavy cross made of timbers that looked about 6x6 for a distance of perhaps miles, to the place of execution. I imagine that cross might weigh a hundred pounds or more. Somehow, given that these events ever occurred, I doubt it was as Gibson shows them. This is simply an excess of Hollywood and a love of special effects.

The use of special effects were so much in evidence in this movie, that I at no time got lost in the art, and, as it were, became a part of it all. My impression throughout was that it was all sooo Hollywood.

Another thing. The gospel stories are rather spare. They present what I would call a mythos intended to support a new religion. Because the story is spare it provides little more than an outline upon which a movie script and visuals can be hung. So all the details of the many scenes and actions must be filled in by the script writers and the director and his creative team. All this gives the film various themes, tones, nuances, points of view, actions and much more that doubtless never happened. So, I find it ludicrous to think that this movie is telling it the "way it happened," as Gibson aspires.

On the question of the portrayal of the Jews as responsible for Jesus death, there can be no doubt that the NT places this blame on them and pronounces them accursed for all time as a result. The NT writers, in my opinion, made these claims for theological reasons, and not because they had a passion for the truth.

So, if his goal is to tell the story as it is presented in the NT, Gibson is correct in putting major blame on the Jews. However, given 2000 years of Christian persecution of Jews as Christ killers because of the doctrine of blood liable, a doctrine that layed the foundation of blame that eventually undergirded the holocaust, right in the center of a Christian continent, should Gibson have chosen this moment to create this particular work of art? You decide.

By the way, I have seen the movie. My religious background is Presbyterian and Baptist, but for nearly all my adult life I have been, what for a better name, what we will call a secular humanist.

Just for a totally different perspective.........I give you this.
I too wept watching The Passion of the Christ
















Talk amoungst yourselves. :wink:
I'm verklempt.

Well, this is certainly a polite, intelligent, and thoughtful response, but, although you have cited instances where Gibson interpolates between details in the Bible, and instances where he adds detail possible and not contradicted by the Bible, you have not, to my way of thinking, given an instance in which he contradicts the Bible. Indeed, you have even criticized him to some extent for adhering to it.

Brandon, In the first paragraph of my post, I was replying to your above request. I think I covered that pretty well. You now seem to have shifted your ground somewhat by saying that what you were really looking for was something else.



This is quite another question. I will not say that the movie does not contradict the NT account in any respect; however, that is not a point in which I am interested. I leave you to find another interlocutor on that one.

You are correct in saying that I criticize Gibson for adhering to the gospel account on the question of blood liable in responsibility for Jesus death. In the context of todays religious climate, I think it unwise to reintroduce that doctrine. Some Jews may have been complicit in the death of Jesus. If so, those are the ones who were responsible--not all Jews for all time as claimed in the NT.

The parts of my post that follow the first paragraph were simply general thoughts and reactions to the film.

Thank you for your reply to my post.

I don't believe I have shifted my ground. Since Gibson has been criticized for ignoring the truth, I have been seeking specific examples - and have not heard any.

As to the advisability of presenting this story in the present climate, if the film is merely an accurate and realistic translation of the relevant portion of the Bible into cinema, I can't get very upset about it.

Thanks Ceili. Though I regrettably no longer fully feel the point of view expressed in the article, I found it refreshing -- a chord of truth amidst all the cacophony.

Yet here you were claiming that the Bible did not mention the cross, and offering no mea culpa when shown you were wrong.

Special offer for devout Christians!

I love Landover Baptist; I visit them often just to see what new stuff they've come up with ... they're always a hoot!

Yup. They and Whitehouse.org are frogging hilarious!

Bob, that's hilarious!

I tried to post the thing as a photo, but it is made of of four different jpegs, so I had to go with a link instead.

Bob, thanks, that was fun. *lol*

Contradicting the NT and elaborating on it using the slick, Hollywood techniques Gibson has utilized are two separate things to consider. He's not made an art film as he claimed -- he's made a popular entertainment and stands to gain millions from the effort. He succumbed to the sub-titles because of marketing problems and an admission of his own affectations. Does this sound like a sincere man? And where does he go from here? This is the man who has questioned the worth of his own materialistic existence and claims to have satisfied it by practicing fundamental Catholicism. The angst of the tearjerking manipulation of this film is baseless as art. I prefer the real thing in looking up at the ceiling at the Sistine Chapel and being transported into the spirit of the faith. Gibson is aping great art and movies have a pronounced tendency to not stand on their own as an art in itself. He's not advance the art of cinema even one baby step. In fact, he's set it back to the Dark Ages.