The Passion Of Christ - Revisited

Very good Pegg. Thanks!

I saw the movie with Cindy, and it moved me greatly. I don't know if I can ever watch it again, but I might. I just don't know if I can handle it. But I often think about it, and I'm amazed that He went through that for me.

GT, thanks for your definition of gratuitous. That sums up nicely what the movie is supposed to do.

I think if the Bible was REALLY portrayed accurately, it would be rated NC-17 for violence, sex, and profanity. Think of the horrible stories that are often not taught in Sunday School, and rightly so:

• Tamar's raape by her brother, Amnon, King David's son, who was later killed by David's other son Absolom.
• The beheading of John the Baptist.
• Potipher's wife trying to seduce Joseph.
• Delilah seducing Samson
• Samson getting his eyes gouged out
• David, after playing the voyeaur and watching her bath, committing adultery with Bathsheba, then having her husband, Uriah murdered. All this while he was at home, instead of in battle where he belonged.
• Cain killing Abel.
• Peter hung upside down on a cross
• James beheaded.
• the slavery of the Israelites by the Egyptians.
• Joseph being sold into slavery by his 11 brothers
• the killing of all children 2 years and under by King Herod
• all male children born to the Hebrew slaves drowned in the river, ordered by Pharoah.
• many terrible wars in which whole peoples, man, woman, and child, were wiped out, including all livestock, and their cities burned to the ground
• The Great Flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, etc.

As you see, the Bible is a very violent book, which is why God's redemtion is so much more amazing. Why would he want to deal with all of us? We're a mess, but he loves us enough to save us from ourselves. I'm very grateful. If our evilness wasn't very evil, then His Goodness wouldn't be very good, now would it?

 

Talk about a good thread.

I didn't see it at the theatre. We bought the DVD. I thought it was a very accurate depiction of Christ's death. However, I still think that Jesus had short hair. 1Co 11:14 Doth not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him? And he had to be strong because he was either a carpenter or mason. The actual Greek word could be translated either way.

And also, people don't realize that he was quoting a psalm when he said this: ( And I would bet that he quoted the whole thing.) Sorry for putting this long psalm in here, but it is very relevant to the story.

Psa 22:1 <To the chief Musician upon Aijeleth Shahar, A Psalm of David.> My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?
Psa 22:2 O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent.
Psa 22:3 But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.
Psa 22:4 Our fathers trusted in thee: they trusted, and thou didst deliver them.
Psa 22:5 They cried unto thee, and were delivered: they trusted in thee, and were not confounded.
Psa 22:6 But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people.
Psa 22:7 All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying,
Psa 22:8 He trusted on the LORD that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him.
Psa 22:9 But thou art he that took me out of the womb: thou didst make me hope when I was upon my mother's breasts.
Psa 22:10 I was cast upon thee from the womb: thou art my God from my mother's belly.
Psa 22:11 Be not far from me; for trouble is near; for there is none to help.
Psa 22:12 Many bulls have compassed me: strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round.
Psa 22:13 They gaped upon me with their mouths, as a ravening and a roaring lion.
Psa 22:14 I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels.
Psa 22:15 My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death.
Psa 22:16 For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet.
Psa 22:17 I may tell all my bones: they look and stare upon me.
Psa 22:18 They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.
Psa 22:19 But be not thou far from me, O LORD: O my strength, haste thee to help me.
Psa 22:20 Deliver my soul from the sword; my darling from the power of the dog.
Psa 22:21 Save me from the lion's mouth: for thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns.
Psa 22:22 I will declare thy name unto my brethren: in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee.
Psa 22:23 Ye that fear the LORD, praise him; all ye the seed of Jacob, glorify him; and fear him, all ye the seed of Israel.
Psa 22:24 For he hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; neither hath he hid his face from him; but when he cried unto him, he heard.
Psa 22:25 My praise shall be of thee in the great congregation: I will pay my vows before them that fear him.
Psa 22:26 The meek shall eat and be satisfied: they shall praise the LORD that seek him: your heart shall live for ever.
Psa 22:27 All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the LORD: and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee.
Psa 22:28 For the kingdom is the LORD'S: and he is the governor among the nations.
Psa 22:29 All they that be fat upon earth shall eat and worship: all they that go down to the dust shall bow before him: and none can keep alive his own soul.
Psa 22:30 A seed shall serve him; it shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation.
Psa 22:31 They shall come, and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that he hath done this.

 

Who said they have "problems" with the movie for reasons as you have described? I can only speak for myself when I say that my own reasons for not wanting to see the movie are a bit more complex than that. Since I haven't really expressed any of my views on the topic of Christian theology in this thread, I don't think it would be fair to make the assumptions you have made about my beliefs, if that's what you were doing. I have heard in reviews about the movie that it is extremely if not outrageously gorey (i.e. Mel goes way overboard on the gore) and that Mel's version (and I quote here from the Washington Post) "traffics in lurid, almost pornographic imagery of blood, brutality and mortified flesh, rivaling Martin Scorsese's "Gangs of New York" in its ghastly, stylized violence". The Washington Post goes on to describe that "Gibson has exhibited a startling lack of concern for historical context, both of the Passion's ritualized reenactment and of its story itself, which over the past several centuries has been used repeatedly to foment violence against Jewish communities. And yet, even within what often looks like a self-indulgent exercise in humiliation, pain and gratuitous gore, there is no denying the moments of genuine and powerful feeling in "The Passion of the Christ" -- some of which, by the way, evoke Jesus's most profound teachings of Jewish principles."

I sure don't think I'd want to take the kids to see this, let alone myself, despite some of the more profound moments described in the movie by this writer.

But apart from this review of the movie, perhaps if I use an example it will help explain why I do not want to see the movie. Imagine the KuKluxKlan has just made a movie about Christ's last days, or better yet, about the history of slavery in America. Would you go see the movie? Does it even matter what the movie is about? I'm not saying here that Mel=KKK, but I am assuming that you don't support the ideology of the KKK, and that is enough to not see the movie.

 

I agree that children should not see this movie. My kids won't see it until they're probably 12 or 13 and even that is a guess. It will depend a lot on their maturity level. Until they are emotionally mature enough, they wouldn't be able to comprehend the amount of suffering that Jesus went through willingly for us. It's enough for my kids to know that Jesus was killed, even though he had done nothing wrong, as a final sacrifice (and yes, I've told my 5 yr old daughter about animal sacrifices to atone for sins back in biblical times) so that we can have a relationship with God. I don't go into the gory details of how painful it was and how long he suffered, etc. In the same way, I don't go into detail about the bible stories that Eric mentioned in his post, even thought there are some of those stories that my kids know about - Moses surviving the infanticide of Pharoh, Noah's Ark (everyone and everything else died), etc. I think that discretion should always be used in choosing what kind of media children are exposed to until they are old enough to decide for themselves what they can handle. I have a friend who is extremely sensitive to violence of any kind in movies. She suffers from nightmares for weeks after watching a movie that contains a certain level of violence. She has chosen to not see the Passion, and I fully agree with her decision. She knows what she can and can't handle.

I don't at all understand your comparison of Mel and the KKK. How is Mel's ideaology anything like that of the KKK?

 

Yeah, that bit lost me too....

 

I understand where you're coming from. I'm old enough (darn it ) to get continually bombarded by AARP with wonderful bargains and registration forms to join their group. I don't like their politics, and throw away their ads since I refuse to help fund their political arm.

I don't know what you dislike about Gibson, but I understand your reasoning.

He's Catholic and I'm not. He's politically pretty conservative, which I'm comfortable with. But the story of the Crucifiction is pretty denomination neutral. His film follows what the Bible says.

Wouldn't EVER happen, but if the same movie had been done by Michael Moore, I'd have had a hard time contributing to it.

 

A note to all who have posted in this thread:

I would like to let you ALL know that I have thoroughly enjoyed reading your discussion of this topic. This would make an excellant model for people of the world to debate any topic that touches so many in so many ways.

You all are to be commended!
Well done

 

One last annectdote from my own bunch of experiences of the movie...

Like a lot of others, I was dubious about a modern film intentionally using all "dead" languages and subtitles to keep the authenticity at max. And I can only imagine how tough it was for probably the majority of actors to learn their lines and deliver them believably in a language that they didn't know. Like memorizing nonsense code.

When my parents went to see it, the lady in the seat next to my mom was a middle-aged Arab immigrant from somewhere in the Middle East, that spoke fairly broken English. She'd never read the Bible, didn't know the story of the crucifixion, and was basically there to see what all the shouting was about.

The Aramaic that the Jewish characters spoke in the movie was close enough to the lady's native tongue that she could follow the dialogue directly, instead of reading the subtitles, and was so blown away by it that she told my mom after it was over that she was going to buy a Bible to read about it for herself.

 

cindysnoopy & MrPewty, I wasn't saying Mel = the KKK and I wrote that in my post. I was simply trying to explain that if someone whose ideology you find totally unacceptable (such as the KKK, or Al-Qaeda, etc.) were to make a movie about just about anything, then that reason alone (i.e. their unacceptable ideology) would be enough of a reason for you to not want to see their movie. And that's why I don't want to see Mel's movie.

Here is an example of one of the things about Mel's ideology (which coincidentally is similar to views held by members of the KKK) that I find unacceptable, which is a quote from an article about Mel from The Nation:

You'd think it was impolite to make anything of the fact that Gibson's father is a Holocaust denier who claims the European Jews simply moved to Australia. True, we don't choose our parents, but Mel Gibson has not only not dissociated himself from his father's views but indirectly affirmed them ("The man never lied to me in his life," he told Peggy Noonan in Reader's Digest; pressed to affirm that the Holocaust was real, he replied that many people died in World War II and some were Jews--the classic Holocaust-revisionist two-step). Nor would it do to dwell on the "traditional" (i.e., ultra right-wing) Catholicism Gibson practices, which specifically rejects the reforms of Vatican II, presumably including its repudiation of the belief that "the Jews" are collectively responsible for the death of Christ.

 

Actually, GT, I have to disagree. There are quite a few things that were not in the bible such as "the scene in which the Jewish guards who arrest Jesus whip him with chains, throw him over a bridge and dangle him over the water, choking, for fun; or in which Caiaphas and his most Fagin-resembling sidekick show up to watch Christ's scourging by the Romans; or in which Satan (played by a woman, for a nice touch of misogyny) flits among and merges with the crowd as it shouts, "Crucify him! Crucify him!" [from The Nation].

 

Okay, understood.

I never paid much attention to Mel Gibson's politics, instead assuming that I would have known about it if he were a KKK sympathiser. (That's why I didn't contradict you, instead, pleading confusion)

I knew he was right wing(so am I), and I knew he was Catholic(so am I - lapsed). I believe that what he gave us was as literal an interpretation of the last days of Christ as it was possible to do without actually hurting an actor. (Christ as historical figure - regardless of one's religious beliefs, I don't think there is any doubt he existed, and he suffered) As I said earlier in the thread, I haven't seen it. I will eventually, when I can steel myself to the violence.

However, I am surprised at his comment regarding the holocaust. While I am not one who would deny anybody the freedom to state what they believe, I find holocaust deniers to be among the most putrid of people.

I shall have to look into that.

 

Thanks Star. The model of efficiency as usual.

 

I saw one of the interviews, on ABC, with Diane Sawyer IIRC, where they tried to make an issue of Mel's Dad, and the Holocaust. Mel, who loves and respects his dad, made it clear that they don't share all the same views, and that he (Mel) did understand the truth about the Holocaust, but that out of respect for his father, he would NOT discuss or criticize him on prime-time television, and refused to play that game. Would have been easy to just say that his dad was wrong, but Mel has a STRONG sense of propriety, and I very much admired the stand he took. Much ado about nothing, but a lot of the press went nuts over it anyway.

As far as the Nation report you quote, it's been quite a while now since I've seen it, and anybody with fresher memories feel free to correct me, but as near as I remember...

The film did not show him being beaten with chains, but with whips with metal chunks embedded in the tips of the whip lashes, which is historically accurate. I don't recall seeing Christ being hung by the neck. I don't know whether Caiaphas or others from the San Hedron showed up or not, but it's irrelevant to the main story. As I noted earlier, a few scenes were in character, but not specifically in the Bible. As far as Satan's portrayal, Satan can look like whatever he/she/it wants to look like, and there is no doubt that he would have been a major player in that event, as important as it was. Consider that allegory if you will, but I have no doubt Satan was there, and stirring up the crowd. Christ was his most dangerous adversary, and he was clearly intent on removing/discrediting Christ.

The Nation was NOT an unbiased observer.

 

For anyone interested here is the link to the article in The Nation
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040329&s=pollitt

It was not so long ago.

 

GT, here is a link that you might be interested in because it shows, as did the article in The Nation, that the info on Mel's holocaust denial was actually taken from a Reader's Digest interview with Mel:

http://www.supportmelgibson.com/adlinsultschristians.htm

Note the angry responses from Jewish leaders about what Mel said.

Out of curiosity, would you also consider The Washington Post to be a biased observer, because I have a link to one of their articles which is similar to the article in The Nation. Would you like me to post it?

 

I've never read The Nation, but I imagine it's the sort of stuff Michael Moore would like. (I was using Leni Riefenstahl to describe Moore long before they used it in that article.)

I can't really speak to the article itself, because I haven't seen the film and I'm not a religious person anyway, but I can't imagine The Nation ever being objective.

 

I don't know about the Washington Post, as I've never read it, but why should they be different? I live in Canada, and I have one of the most biased news organizations on the planet as a taxpayer funded national broadcaster.

 

Bit of a low blow that. Nothing to do with Mel Gibson, but actually some crackpot Nazi using Gibson's movie to get his (oops, spot of misandry there) point of view to a wider audience. Mel Gibson's response to the Reader's Digest question was not what I would have said, but I saw no holocaust denial there.

btw, I'm not trying to up my post count. The edit button disappears too quickly

 

'nuff said, I get it now.

 

I suppose if it wasn't the Jews who were responsible, and Satan wasn't responsible, and the Romans weren't responsible, then who the heck WAS responsible?

GT already answered this, but I have to add my favorite example of things that weren't "in the Bible": It never says Jesus went to the bathroom.

At some point, we have to fill in with our imaginations what went on, because the Gospels give an overview of the life of Christ. If they gave a minute by minute account, they would be impossible to read,and besides, as an example, people at that time knew that scourgings were long torturous processes, they didn't need long explinations. Nowdays, we DON'T know what scourging means, so Mel gave us an up-close example.

BTW Newsflash, though I don't understand much of what you believe, I appreciate your dialogue, and am glad we can continue to talk the way we have been. It's been nice. Welcome to Major Geeks.

 

I have a lot of catching up to do with this thread...you all are doing great here and I thank you for a wonderful discussion.

Now, for the part I quoted Set aside the issue of did the Holocaust happen or not..I believe it did, many don't but that doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things IMO. I'd like to make this point. 'IF' someone believes something, truly believes with all their heart and then shares their belief with someone else, be it their child, a friend a neighbor, does that make them a liar just because others say something different? Personally, I don't think so.

There are those that believe with all their heart that God didn't/doesn't exist, there are those that believe with all their heart that He did/does exist...does that make any of these people on either side of the issue liars?

Simply put. No, I don't think so. We are all entitled to our own opinions and beliefs and if those beliefs were instilled in us from the time we were small children it makes it that much harder to see or believe otherwise no matter how much proof is put before us. Some are successful in finding, then following what is the socially acceptable belief, others can't get past what they grew up beleiveing....it doesn't make them liars simply because they don't share the same beliefs.

So, I would have to say (using your example) that Mel's statement was accurate...he said the man never lied to him which would be the truth because his father truly believes it to be so. While I don't share his fathers belief I wouldn't call him a liar either. It's not up to me to judge people's beliefs or point fingers...that's up to the Man upstairs.

 

I haven't seen this movie yet, mainly because of the emotional torment a lot of the people I know who have seen it said that they had gone through. Maybe that says I'm not emotionally or spitiually responsibile to see it, I don't know.

I do intend on watching it sooner or later, I got the DVD for Christmas and it's sitting there unopened. Maybe this weekend :|

 

No offense MrPewty, but when Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, and Abe Foxman of the ADL, both consider Mel's statement to be offensive, then that's what matters to me. It was surprising to find that website was so generous as to post their responses. Did you read what they said? Does their opinion not matter to you? It matters to me. Even without their responses to Mel's statement, Mel's statement alone speaks volumes to me about his denial of the holocaust.

I'm just pointing out one of the issues about Mel's ideology that I find unacceptable and which I find to be serious enough to at least warrant closer attention. If you don't share my concern then that's your business. I'm not trying to convince you of anything, just saying that it matters a great deal to me, and enough so that I find I'm not interested in seeing his movie.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

BTW Thank you to eclayton for the welcome--I *very much* appreciate it!

 

Even though we are on opposite ends of the aisle (I am a Christian he is an athiest), like Kodo, am going to refrain from posting what I feel about the movie (or the subject matter of the movie) as well because it will no doubt offend people.

My only comment which I think is pretty sterile: A year later and I do not ever think of the movie unless someone else brings it up, and I will never watch it again.

 

Yes, that's what I meant when I said that those were not the words I would have chose. I don't see him denying the holocaust. He is engaging in what the Rabbi calls "competetive martyrdom".

To me, the holocaust is the greatest crime, regardless of numbers. If you want to argue that Stalin's decimation of the Ukraine is the greater crime, simply because of the numbers, then that is fair comment. I would not agree, but so what?

 

(*That damn 5 minute edit button. One would think that if you started to edit within 5 minutes of posting, it would let you finish.*)

Anyway, of course I didn't mean you NewsFlash when I said "you" in the last post. I meant it in a general sense.

I also wanted to add that I saw no offense. It's good debate.

I think Mel Gibson and his movie have been hijacked by some reprehensible people for their own ends.

I'm gonna have to go rent it!

 

MrPewty, the whole point of the matter is not about what is the greatest crime or who had the greatest numbers, it is about acknowledging the fact that people were "snuffed" simply for what they are, and the fact that Mel has not yet acknowledged that. I assumed this point was made abundantly clear by Abe Foxman in his response to Mel's statement:

"At the very least it was ignorant, at the very most its insensitive. And you know what? He doesn't get that either. He doesn't begin to understand the difference between dying in a famine and people being cremated solely for what they are."

 

No, the whole point of the matter is that you said Mel Gibson denied the holocaust.

I said I haven't seen that.

The seriousness of the crime, I think we agree on.

 

I don't particularly care about Abe Foxman's opinion of Gibson's words. I prefer to read/listen to Gibsons own words and draw my own conclusions. From your own article link:

His father's views, not his. The media tried real hard to focus on Mel's FATHER'S weird views and pin those on Mel. It's called guilt by association, and is frequently bogus. Mel has not been a Holocaust denier, but he absolutely refused to trash his own father in public, which let the press keep picking at it.

Same article. Mel's own words:

That is not denial. The fact that he sees other valid atrocities as just as meaningful as the Jewish deaths does not make him heartless, or ignorant, or insensitive. He simply has a different perspective than the ADL or other Jewish advocacy groups that think that anything Jewish is more important than anything else.

6 million Jews died in the death camps. Huge tragedy. About 6 million Christians died there too. Just as much a tragedy, but they didn't get the press that the Jews got. Hitler intended to irradicate both Jews and Christians (and any other religious people; he hated them all), but Christians were too diverse a group to use as a national scapegoat, while the Jews had been favorite scapegoats for centuries. And there have been other, larger atrocities. Starvation when done intentionally as a means of killing your enemies is just as heinous as gasing them. More so actually, as the pain & suffering goes on longer. And just as evil as bombing, shooting, or burning them.

Who is the more insensitive? The one who vilifies Hitler's Holocaust while ignoring Stalin, Pol Pot, and the Sudan today, or the one that sees tragedy in all of them?

 

MrPewty and GT, maybe you're right. Maybe Mel didn't completely deny the holocaust. But what he definitely did do, was to trivialize it to the point of being a non-event. To me that IS a way of denying it. It's kind of like, to use a simple example that does not involve genocide, if a married man in a monogamous relationship with his wife has an affair and his wife finds out about it, and he casually says to her "hey honey, it's no big deal, it didn't mean anything. I mean look at Ted--he's already had 15 affairs on his wife, and look at JFK--he probably had thousands!". Kind of sounds like the adulterous husband is denying the significance and meaning of the whole affair doesn't it? Kind of sounds like he thinks it's a non-event doesn't it?. Kind of INSENSITIVE isn't it? How do think the wife FEELS?

But now lets get back to the real issue at hand. Lets get back to the fact that Mel's father actually went on the record in The New York Times and said "that the annihilation of six million Jews must be a hoax, since it would have taken too long for the Germans to cremate that many bodies" and then went on to say in a New York radio show that "the Germans did not have enough gas to murder that many people" and that many European Jews who were reportedly murdered by the Nazis in fact "fled to countries like Australia and the United States." Now apart from that old cliche "like father like son" which comes to mind, what does Mel actually say about his father? He basically affirms his father's statements by saying that his father "never lied to me" when clearly his father's statements about the holocaust are in fact lies. While Mel's father may not have ever hesistated to express his true anti-semitic feelings to Mel, this does not mean that what he was actually saying to Mel was true.

Although Mel does not completely deny that the holocaust happened, he does distort and minimize it. Instead of acknowledging that the Nazis carried out a deliberate strategy of genocide, he reduces the Jewish victims to the same kind of accidental and random casualties that take place in every war. In his view, the Jews were only "some" of the many people who died in World War Two.

Yes there were other people singled out by the Nazis: Jews, Gypsies, Social Democrats, other opposing politicians, opponents of Nazism, Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals, habitual criminals, and "anti-socials" (e.g. beggars, vagrants, hawkers), and the mentally ill. Any individual who was considered a threat to the Nazis was in danger of being persecuted. These are facts that the Jews themselves have elucidated and pointed out. But The Jews were the only group singled out for total systematic annihilation by the Nazis. To escape the death sentence imposed by the Nazis, the Jews could only leave Nazi-controlled Europe. Every single Jew was to be killed according to the Nazis' plan. In the case of other criminals or enemies of the Third Reich, their families were usually not held accountable. Thus, if a person were executed or sent to a concentration camp, it did not mean that each member of his family would meet the same fate. Moreover, in most situations the Nazis' enemies were classified as such because of their actions or political affiliation (actions and/or opinions which could be revised). In the case of the Jews, it was because of their racial origin, which could never be changed.

 

(shrug) We've been all through this, and will simply have to agree to disagree. Not much point in trading the same points over and over.

 

Moses roamed the desert for 40 years. . . . . . . . . .

 

Are you saying that everyone is doomed to wander around this thread for forty years?

 

na. . maybe. . . . 34

 

That's way too long! I'll be an old woman by then

 

tis true
but children learn things from ther parents
a parent sculpts the child(to a degree)
then the child is no longer a child
and the journey begins following the same or differant ideals. . .

does Mel also believe it's ok to dodge a draft, because Father says its ok?
if he did, would he tell you

the only thing I know is I know nothing



Mr. Spock. . was also wise. . .