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I went to see The Passion of the Christ yesterday. I had my own trauma trying to find a place to park in Birmingham City Centre, eventually driving past the cinema and getting lost in a one way system, abandoning the car at the nearest available car park, wishing I had got the bus, and running like fury down Broad Street to make it in time. The viewing was essentially for Church leaders so I felt a little like Abe Foxman in Florida who sneaked in to a preview screening there; but I was honest about who I was and where I came from and they were happy to wave me in and give me a copy of the "promotional DVD" which I have yet to watch. I sat between two Anglican clergymen, both of whom I knew, and one a former colleague in the department here Birmingham so I did not feel too out of place.

I was absolutely dreading seeing the film. That may sound a little odd if you have followed my blog with its multiple postings on this film over recent weeks and months; you might almost think that I had an obsessive interest in the film. My worry was essentially focused on one thing: the violence. I am one of those people who just hates seeing violence anywhere in life. When the kids at school called "scrap", I was the one child who chose not to run to watch. I detest violence, find it very upsetting, and am not one of those people who finds is palatable as soon as it is represented on screen. And I know I am not alone in this. One colleague has told me that he has no intention to view the film at all. "I don't do violence", he said. Another friend emailed me and suggested I took a stand and did not go. But my problem is that I have followed Jesus films since I was a child. I have always been fascinated by the attempts to depict Jesus' life. I remember gathering round with the family to watch Franco Zeffirelli's Jesus of Nazareth on Sunday nights in 1977, something of a major national event. I always loved seeing King of Kings when it was shown every Easter and learnt to think of Jesus as looking like Jeffrey Hunter. Later, as a teenager, I loved Jesus Christ Superstar, the film, the soundtrack, the stageshow; I could not get enough of it. I still love it now. Perhaps that's one of the reasons why I also loved Life of Brian when it came out in 1979. I had grown up on Monty Python and Jesus films, and here were the two combined!

When I began lecturing in Birmingham, I found that using clips of Jesus films were a marvellous way of sparking off discussion, of getting students interested in the subject. At this stage I discovered Scorsese's Last Temptation of Christ, the lecturer's dream, so full of interesting scenes to spark discussion, whether historical, theological or filmic. When I began lecturing on Jesus films, I often used to say that it was unlikely that we would get a major Jesus film in the old Hollywood epic tradition. How wrong I was. First The Miracle Maker and the CBS Jesus in 1999-2000, and now The Passion of the Christ. I simply had to see this new film, albeit allegedly one of the most violent films ever made.

I am not going to try to write a review on The Passion of the Christ. There are reviews galore in this film, and I have repeatedly drawn attention to them here. And, as I have frequently commented, these film critics really know how to write; academics could learn a few things from them. Many of my thoughts have thus already been expressed more coherently by other critics. The review that came to my mind most frequently when watching the film was Mark Kermode's. He is quite right that the film is "shocking . . . but utterly compelling". I thought several times about his comment on Newsnight Review last week that one had a kind of "ominous dread" of what was to come next.

This is a very powerful film. This film gets inside your head and makes you think about it. You wake up at night thinking about it. The images are so compelling, so moving that they demand a lot from you. I wonder whether those reviewers who have reacted with vitriol are actually trying to expel the images from their minds, to prevent the film from doing its work.

Having seen the film, I am surprised about just how over the top some of these reviews are. The repeated charge of "pornography" seems quite out of place to me. Yes, the film is horribly violent but it is not gratuitously violent. Pornography is all about titillating the viewer, drawing him/her to want more to satiate their appetite for flesh. Mel Gibson does not encourage the viewer to want to see more. All the time he is asking you to turn away, to think about what is happening, to be appalled at the Roman guards' brutality, to share both of the Marys' grief. This is not pornography. Indeed the scourging scene, so often commented upon in the reviews, is not twenty minutes of watching Jesus being scourged. The camera itself cannot bear to look on and repeatedly draws away, sometimes so far that you can only hear it in the distance. I am not saying that it is not traumatic. It is. Very traumatic, deeply disturbing, very upsetting. Of course it is possible that a particular kind of viewer might derive sadistic pleasure from looking upon this, but if so they do so against the grain of the film. Unlike pornography, it is not beckoning you to watch more, much less to revel in it. The real villains of the piece, the sadistic Roman guards, are the ones who are utterly depraved. They are able to look on, to laugh, to increase the torment. The viewer turns away, cries, demands them to stop.

Many of the reviews have said that the crucifixion almost comes as an anti-climax after the scourging. I disagree. Watching the soldiers crucify Jesus was easily the most traumatic part of the film. Really upsetting. The use of flashback here is particularly moving, the Last Supper, "Love one another . . .", the Good Shepherd, the Sermon on the Mount,"Love your enemies and pray for your persecutors . . ." Very powerful. The Greatest Story Ever Told attempted to do something similar by juxtaposing John the Baptist's beheading and Antipas's demand that Jesus be arrested with "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness's sake . . .", which is brought forward as the first beatitude. But the link is easily lost; Gibson really makes it work with the use of flashback.

Some have commented that the flashbacks are all too brief. I understand those comments. One longs to see more, especially as Jim Caviezel's Jesus is so warm and personable. The scene in Nazareth, when Jesus builds a tall table and shows it to Mary, is delightful. It is the kind of table that people may use in the future ("It could catch on"). Jesus and Mary both laugh. There is a trend here in recent Jesus films that bucks the trend of all the older films. In an article I wrote in 1997 about Jesus Christ Superstar, I commented on how rare it is to see Jesus smile anything other than a beatific smile in a Jesus film. Yet since then, we have had several portrayals of Jesus as a man with a sense of humour, from Bruce Marchiano's American applie-pie Jesus in the Visual Bible's Matthew (1996), to Jeremy Sisko's Jesus (1999), the first Jesus to dance, to the claymated Jesus voiced by Ralph Fiennes in The Miracle Maker (2000) who jokes with Mary and Martha and makes his parables amusing, to the most recent Jesus, Henry Ian Cusick in the Visual Bible's The Gospel of John (2003), who pulls off the remarkable feat of making the Johannine Jesus warm and friendly.

But having said that the flashbacks in The Passion of the Christ are terrific, I think the timing is about right. It just tantalises the viewer with reminders of Jesus' life. They provide the film's context, encouraging the viewers to fill in more from their own knowledge. It would be interesting to ask how the film would view to someone who had no knowledge at all of the Jesus story, like the Japanese viewers John Dominic Crossan was referring to in his most recent piece on beliefnet. My guess is that the flashbacks would appear so fascinating, so tantalising, that it would leave one wanting to find out more, perhaps even to read the Gospels! Perhaps Mel Gibson will think of cashing in by doing a film on Jesus' ministry. After all, prequels are all the rage these days. And, in my humble opinion, it is how the Gospels were themselves built up; the Passion Narrative came first, the extended introduction afterwards. (Go on, Mel, do us another Jesus film!)

Now some reviews have said that the film has no real feel of joy, of triumph, of redemption. That was not my experience of it. [Note: SPOILER COMING] It is true that it gives us the briefest of glimpses of the resurrection, but it leaves the viewer on that note -- Jesus has not even emerged from the tomb yet -- and you are left dwelling on what happens next. Again, it drives you back to the Gospels. In fact the ending reminded me a little of the ending of Mark's Gospel; it has that tantalising feel of "But I want to know what happened next". Given the historic difficulties faced by Jesus films in portraying the resurrection effectively, this could be seen as a brilliant decision. Gibson has resisted what would have been an obvious and perhaps clichéd final scene with Jesus meeting Mary Magdalene in the garden, so that the film could have been framed by those two gardens at each end of the story.

But also there was redemption in the cataclysmic events that happen at the death of Jesus, a tear from heaven, an earthquake, the devil cast to the pit of hell, a remarkable scene. I thought it was implied pretty strongly that the soldiers, the Temple authorities, Pilate, everyone realised that something world shattering had happened. Nothing was ever going to be the same again for any of these characters.

On the alleged anti-Semitism, in the film itself, this has been at best greatly overstated. Many of the elements that troubled the so-called ad hoc committee about the early script do not appear in the film. Perhaps, after all, their views were taken into account. With respect to the Matt. 27.25 line, "His blood be on us and on our children", it is not only that there is no subtitle but that it is lost in the crowd -- you can hardly even hear Caiaphas say it. Part of the problem now is that it is difficult to watch the film without scrutinising it at every turn for signs of anti-Semitism and one can end up seeing things that really are not there. Paula Fredriksen commented on Caiaphas's bad teeth, for example. Well, yes, he has bad teeth but so do many of the other characters on screen.

One of the ways of looking at this is to ask how the film's depiction of Jewish leaders compares with that of other Jesus films. I would say that Jesus Christ Superstar comes off far worse. In that film the Jewish authorities are on the whole played by Jewish actors whereas Jesus and his disciples are not. It carelessly writes in phrases like "permanent solution". The Passion of the Christ does not, on the other hand, enhance any of the admittedly troubling elements in the Gospels. Perhaps it could have done more to make some of the Jewish authorities less clearly out-and-out baddies; it could have done more to show Pilate's nasty, ruthless side. All these and similar elements might have been given some more attention had Gibson assembled an advisory committee consisting of Jews and Christians and others as did Garth Dabrinsky on The Gospel of John.

But that point having been conceded, I think those who have gone looking for anti-Semitism in the film have missed some pretty important elements that severely limit the plausibility of the charge. In particular, I am amazed that no one in any review I have seen (and I have read a lot!) comments on Simon of Cyrene. This is a wonderful character, beginning very reluctant to help this random criminal but in time realising that he is in the presence of someone special and encouraging Jesus. And he is directly castigated by one of the Roman guards as "Jew!" Now, I think I am correct in saying that this is the only character in the entire film who is specifically characterised as a Jew, and he is one of the most sympathetic characters in the film. I regard this point as significant and am annoyed that something so blatant has been universally missed by critics.

I would also want to echo those who say that the baddies in this film are without question the Roman guards, nasty, depraved, violent, selfish men who occupy a great deal of screen time.

One or two other random thoughts: Bob Schacht's review on Xtalk, focusing on the stations of the cross, provides a brilliant insight into the film and I was grateful to have read that before seeing it. It is quite right. It explains why the road to Golgotha is so long -- it occupies much of the film.

In reviews I have seen, no one has mentioned Veronica's appearance on the road to Golgotha. Perhaps people are not familiar with this legend, that Veronica gave Jesus a cloth and he wiped his face and his face was imprinted upon it for ever more. And one more thing -- in the subtitles Caiaphas was repeatedly spelt "Caiphas". An error?

In conclusion, a powerful film. Shocking, violent, utterly compelling; an amazing cinematic experience. On the Guardian's film site, I rated it at 8/10.

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Thanks to Helenann Hartley for this link from The Tablet from the principal of Heythrop College in London (where, once upon a time, I was a tutorial assistant):

A remarkable Passion
John McDade
Mel Gibson has made a stunning and justifiably violent account of a Christ who bears the weight of the world's sin. But, says our critic, his film is not anti-Semitic

An excerpt:

When Christ rises from his prayer in the Garden, he crushes under his heel the snake which has crept from the devil's bosom - in iconography it is Mary who crushes the head of the serpent, and this sends us back to the conflict between the serpent and Eve's offspring in Genesis 3:15. When Christ dies, there is a remarkable shot (a God's-eye perspective?) in which Golgotha, seen from above, is like a globe of the world from which the figures of Satan and his brood are summarily eliminated. The devil (and certainly not the Jewish people) is the real antagonist of Christ; one of the film's structural features is the polarity between Satan and Mary, eyeing each other on the road to Golgotha. "See, mother," Christ tells her as he falls a second time, "I make all things new" - a remarkable line from Revelation 21:5. Satan mimics Mary's motherhood by cradling a devil-child in her bosom (a child who drives Judas to kill himself for his suicide on the tree is the devil's counterpoint to Christ's tree of life), while at the end of the film, Mary holds her dead Son in her lap in a Caravaggio-style pietà, looking outwards towards the viewer - the one point in the film which explicitly engages the viewer in the drama.

In one of the most moving sequences, drawn from the writings of Sr Catherine Emmerich, an eighteenth-century German visionary, the Blessed Virgin and Mary Magdalene are given towels by Pilate's wife which they then use to soak up the blood from the scourging at the pillar. Gibson uses this action to give a flashback to Magdalene's rescue by Jesus from the Pharisees' stones: she is identified as the woman caught in adultery. The sequence of the scourging - lasting for 20 minutes or so - is dramatically the high point of the film. After the first series of beatings, Christ, already brutally scarred, raises himself up from the stones and prepares to take more: this is the Son of God carrying through his divine work. When, finally, the Cross is about to be lifted up and set in the hole prepared for it, we are shown in flashback Christ raising the bread at the Last Supper - "This is my body for the life of the world" - and then the Cross is dropped into place. The Eucharistic Body, the Sin-bearing Body and - right at the end, in a brief, silent, enigmatic sequence - the Risen Body, are the single locus of salvation. Gibson gives us profound themes from orthodox Christian faith in a popular medium; that, in itself, is remarkable . . . . .

. . . . . Gibson has not given us a film that manipulates its audience, and certainly not one which provokes Christians to anti-Jewish sentiments. He does not incite the viewer to view Jews negatively, nor - although violence is pervasive - does he elicit any vicarious thrill at what takes place. Nor does he encourage hatred of any person or group in the film. This film is not in the tradition of Passion Plays. Christ's forgiveness of all, spoken from the Cross, is dramatically serious and guides the viewer about how to think and feel. Contrast this with real cinematic manipulation of hatred and violence . . . . .

I disagree about Emmerich's vision of the mopping up of the blood as "one of the most moving sequences"; I wasn't quite sure what the purpose was of them cleaning up after Jesus. But otherwise, an interesting review.

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It seems that this week's Church Times makes The Passion of the Christ its cover story, but no on-line versions of the articles unfortunately.

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Thanks to Helenann Hartley for this item from BBC News:

Italy 'triples Passion screens'
The Passion was filmed in Italy last year. The Italian release of Mel Gibson's film The Passion of the Christ is to be tripled from 150 prints to more than 500, it has been reported.

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I have blogged several times about William J. Fulco, S. J., who was "Theological Consultant and Translator of Latin / Aramaic" (if I remember the credit correctly) on The Passion of the Christ. On RogueClassicism, David Meadows points out this interesting little article about Fulco and his work on the Aramaic and the Latin in the film. This appears on Metromix.com but originates from the Chicago Tribune:

AT RANDOM ON LANGUAGE
The Jesuit scholar who translated `The Passion'
By Nathan Bierma

On the subtitles:

"He was real hard-set against them," said Alan Nierob, Gibson's publicist. "He initially thought they would be a distraction. . . . It's a very visual movie."

Gibson also wanted to avoid the phony air of British English that has plagued so many film renditions of the life of Jesus Christ, Nierob said.

Well it doesn't sound phony if you are British! And for those who can cope with "the phony air of British English", I would strongly commend Henry Ian Cusick's recent performance as Jesus in the Gospel of John. Having said that, I loved the use of Aramaic in The Passion of the Christ. The article goes on with some nonsense about Greek and Latin, but herewith Fulco's interesting comments:

"I tracked down some obscene graffiti from Roman army camps," Fulco said. "Somebody who knows Latin really well, their ears will fall off. We didn't subtitle those words."

Fulco even confessed to some linguistic mischief.

"Here and there I put in playful things which nobody will know. There's one scene where Caiaphas turns to his cohorts and says something in Aramaic. The subtitle says, `You take care of it.' He's actually saying, `Take care of my laundry.'"

Other linguistic tricks of Fulco's serve a function in the script.

For example, he incorporated deliberate dialogue errors in the scenes where the Roman soldiers, speaking Aramaic, are shouting to Jewish crowds, who respond in Latin. To illustrate the groups' inability to communicate with each other, each side speaks with incorrect pronunciations and word endings.

Later, "there's an exchange where Pilate addresses Jesus in Aramaic, and Jesus answers in Latin. It's kind of a nifty little symbolic thing: Jesus is going to beat him at his own game," Fulco said. "One line [in that exchange] I kind of enjoyed is when Jesus says, `My power is given from above, otherwise my followers would not have allowed this.' That's [spoken in] the pluperfect subjunctive."

It is the strangest experience reading these articles after having seen the film. I have read so many articles on this film, as anyone who reads this blog regularly will know, but until now I had no point of reference.

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The Passion of the Christ is gradually making its way around the country in preview screenings for church leaders and the like. Today it arrived in Birmingham and I went along. I'll offer some reflections later -- still a bit shell-shocked at the moment -- but this review is from Matthew Page who saw the film yesterday. Thanks to Matthew for sending this over; several of his comments resonate with my own thoughts on the film.

The Passion of the Christ
A review by Matthew Page

If you believe everything you’ve been told about this film then you’re probably expecting the most realistic, anti-Semitic film to ever usher in a major revival. So it’s probably best to lay aside those brain cells assigned to the task of remembering all the pre-release discussion and concentrate on the film itself.

And it is an unusual one. A smash hit filmed in two almost dead languages. The resurrection of a genre in a generation far more cynical than that which killed it. A violent film about love. Victory through death. This web of apparent contradictions seems appropriate for a film about the ultimate paradox -–Jesus – God in human form.

That this was a labour of love for Mel Gibson is well known. Most people seem greatly impressed that he spent his own money to finance it. However, what I personally find a far greater testimony to his devotion to the project is the way that he spent that money. 40 years ago George Stevens also spent $25 million making The Greatest Story Ever Told. This was an astronomical amount in those days, but it doesn’t look even half as good as The Passion (although it was twice as long!). It’s the care that Gibson has taken that speaks loudest; lavish sets painstakingly detailed make-up, detailed costumes. Jerusalem just feels real, in a way that the campy sixties biblical epics just don’t touch. Furthermore, hardly a camera shot goes by which doesn’t seem to have undergone an awful lot of consideration, and reconsideration, until it is just right.

Sadly, most of these highs seem to have been missed by many of the reviews. Instead praise in the Christian press has focused on two areas – its power to move people and its realism and historical accuracy. Personally I wasn’t greatly moved. Partly I guess that whereas many people have hardly ever seen a film about Jesus, I have seen 20-30 and have undergone many times what a lot of people are experiencing for the first time - being moved by a Jesus film. Perhaps more significantly I never really accepted that this was Jesus. There is so little time to get acquainted with Caviezel’s Jesus and thus connect with him before he begins his ordeal. Additionally, whilst the use of Aramaic was academically interesting I found it emotionally distancing (despite having watched many foreign films).

I also found the violence and uneven historicity took me out of the film. Some of this was to enable the film look more like Caravaggio’s paintings, but this left the much trumpeted realism resting almost solely on the amount of violence and blood. Whilst I admire the leap away from the sanitised crucifixions of Jesus of Nazareth and King of Kings (where actor Jeffrey Hunter had to shave his armpits!), Gibson seems to have leaped so far that he flies over the end of the sand pit altogether and crashes into an advertising hoarding. Its one thing to dwell on the violence, but another to import additional acts of violence so more dwelling can be achieved. Scenes such as those where Jesus is thrown over a bridge, or a crow pecks out the bad thief’s eyes can be defended as artistic license. However, artistic license is essentially the outworking of the director’s mind, how he views the person / story concerned. Here, nearly all of the insertions are extra violence, extra torture, extra blood – Mel clearly has issues. In places this compromises the plausibility of the story itself. The Romans were brutal, but they were also disciplined. They wouldn’t have needed to be told a third time to calm down. A Pilate as weak as this one would never have lasted in ruthless Roman society. Perhaps most telling is that the film spends longer on the road to Golgotha than on the time spent on the cross itself. The actual crucifixion was far longer in reality, but passes quickly here. It’s almost as if once Jesus is on the cross Gibson can’t do anything more to him, and so moves on.

Such quibbles should not detract too greatly from the overall quality of the film. The performances are uniformly excellent. The most poignant moments for me came from looking at Mary’s reacrions, not Jesus. The colours and textures in the film are beautiful, but restrained, and there is some great camera work. Gibson pulls all the tricks out of the bag in this respect. There are shots from high above, and shots from the ground, points of view and upside down angles. Long ponderous takes are mixed with fast disorientating sequences. There are a few too many slow motion shots; perhaps the teardrop seemed a bit too sentimental and the earthquake too DeMille, but mostly these devices work well. It took me a while to decide that I liked the horror-esque techniques in a seemingly straight historical drama, but on reflection they capture the strangeness of that unique day when the “hands that flung stars into space to cruel nails surrendered”.

There is much to applaud Gibson for. The Passion of the Christ is a Jesus film which manages to give Jesus Gravitas without detracting from his humanity. In fact of all of the films that I’ve seen this one best captures Jesus’ dual nature – divinity & humanity. This is a Jesus that I could follow, and after decades of Robert Powell’s blue eyes, Jeffrey Hunter’s monotone, Willem Dafoe’s instability and Bruce Marchiano’s cheesy grin that is a major achievement.

Will it fan the flames of another round of anti-Semitic pogroms? Probably not. Will it be the key to opening the floodgates of a major revival? Fairly unlikely I imagine. Will it give a generation a Jesus they can relate to and some understanding of what he did for them? Possibly. And for a film about Christ, that is probably the highest single piece of praise you can give.

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Thanks to Jim West in his blog and on Xtalk for this link with the sad news of the death of Jürgen Roloff and a brief obituary:

Prof. Dr. Jürgen Roloff verstorben
Am 21. Februar 2004 ist Prof. Dr. Jürgen Roloff, emeritierter ordentlicher Professor für Neues Testament an der Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, im Alter von 73 Jahren verstorben.

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Thanks to Kevin Bush, author of the Tom Wright Page, for this news. This study week has been advertised:

Reading Paul in the Third Millennium
A Study Week in Rome with Bishop N.T. Wright
Sunday 16 May — Friday 21 May, 2004

And the previously mentioned programme on the resurrection will be showing (in the UK) on Channel 4 at 7 pm GMT on Easter Monday. He is also doing four programmes on Radio 3 on the four Sundays running up to Easter called "Spring Journey." I'll keep a look out for the latter and post links here if they are archived.

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Thanks to Dalen Jackson for drawing my attention to some material from Michael J. Cook of Hebrew Union in Cincinnati, USA. He was one of those who was on the famous "ad hoc committee" that reported on the script of The Passion of the Christ last year (along with Paula Fredriksen, Mary Boys, Amy-Jill Levine, Gene Fisher and Eugene Korn. Any others?). This is his public statement on the Reform Judaism web site:

Commission On Interreligious Affairs of Reform Judaism:
Some Jewish Reactions to Mel Gibson's, "The Passion of the Christ"
by Michael J. Cook, Ph.D

There is then a more recent update which is pretty cynical about the whole Icon spin-machine. It is undated but is clearly issued before Cook has seen the film:

Commission On Interreligious Affairs of Reform Judaism
Update on Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ"
by Michael J. Cook, Ph.D

On the same site, Cook has made available a long PDF document made up of excerpts from correspondence he has had with colleagues about how to tackle the reactions to the film. The document was prepared before he had seen the film and there is a long checklist at the end to see how far the final version differed from the script that was so criticised by the ad hoc committee:

Excerpts from Postings Concerning:
“OUR GIBSON STRATEGY” ©
including a “Checklist” of 48 critical motifs to look for in the Mel Gibson film, The Passion of the Christ
by Michael J. Cook, Ph.D.

If you've followed the controversy surrounding the film, it makes interesting reading.

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Thanks to David Mackinder for pointing out to me that the next round (4) of the Crossan and Witherington correspondence on The Passion of the Christ has begun at beliefnet (so far just Crossan's fourth email). Incidentally, why on earth is it called "Scholarly Smackdown"? What is that supposed to mean?

Scholarly Smackdown: Round 4 (Crossan)

In this instalment, Crossan focuses again on the question of anti-Semitism, relating his own experience of visiting an Oberammergau Passion Play in 1960 and going on to give his own reading of the identity of the crowd in Mark (cf. his previous contributions to this exchange) and asking questions about how the film will play in places like Japan, where many will not know the story, or to Muslim audiences. "What will Muslims see when 'the Jews' act so viciously to Jesus, a prophet from their Holy Quran?" Not many of the Muslims I know would be likely to go to see this film, I think, so the question may not arise. But I'd also guess that those who do would be more concerned about Jesus dying on the cross, which the Qu'ran does not affirm, than about alleged depictions of Jews, not least in that the term "the Jews" is not one that the film (apparently) uses. But I may be wrong.

Update (22.05): Dwight Peterson and David Mackinder help me out with my ignorance over "smackdown", apparently a term from professional wrestling. The image is presumably of two scholars, one "liberal" and one "conservative" battling it out as would two sweaty wrestlers. Not a happy image!

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Thanks to Jeff Peterson for the link to this piece on NRO:

Portrait of Pilate
Critics miss the point in Gibson's portrayal of Pontius Pilate
John O'Sullivan

. . . . Pilate is portrayed as a sympathetic character, they argue, who wants to spare the innocent Christ but who yields to the demands of Caiaphas and the mob that He should be crucified. Caiaphas, however, harbors no such reluctance. He agitates clearly for Christ's death. And this is undoubtedly what Gibson's film shows — just as it is also undoubtedly the account in the Gospels.

But is it anti-Semitic? For what the critics miss is that this account makes Pilate a far worse villain than Caiaphas. After all, Caiaphas believed that Christ had committed the ultimate sin of blasphemy by claiming to be the Son of God. As a leading representative of religious laws that condemned adulterers to death by stoning, he was almost bound to call for His execution. Caiaphas is making a terrible mistake. He may also have corrupt political motives for his actions. But he is plainly sincere in believing that, however conveniently, he has the law of God on his side.

Pilate is on much weaker ground. He condemns to death a man he believes to be innocent — and he does so, moreover, in a shifty manner that seeks to fix all guilt for the murder on Caiaphas and the mob and to exculpate himself.

From the standpoint of the New Testament, according to the traditional teaching of the Christian church, and in Mel Gibson's movie, Pilate is by far the greater villain. And if any charge of bigotry can be sustained against Gibson, it is that of anti-Romanism since in addition to Pilate's murderous cowardice, the Roman soldiers are shown gleefully enjoying their torture of Christ . . . . .

It's an interesting potential corrective to the claim that Pilate is exonerated either in the film or in the Gospels, though it does not engage with the key points made by many Biblical scholars, viz. the difference between the portrait of Pilate in the Gospels and his portrait in Philo and Josephus; the historical problems associated with Caiaphas apparently manipulting Pilate; and the specific issue of "innocence" and "guilt", the terms around which the issues is debated.

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Thanks to Helenann Hartley for this one from BBC News:

Passion 'could earn Gibson £160m'
The film has had one of the biggest openings in US cinema history
Director Mel Gibson could personally earn more than $300m (£160m) from The Passion of the Christ, according to respected US financial experts Forbes.

And to Jim West for this one on Biblical Studies Resources, also from BBC News:

Clergy's verdict on Passion film
Some church groups in the US have been given screenings of the film
Religious figures in Scotland have been giving their verdicts on Mel Gibson's controversial new film which portrays the death of Jesus.

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On b-greek, Carl Conrad recommends several blogs of interest, including this one, for which thanks. If, as a result of that message, there are any fresh visitors here, let me explain that the last couple of weeks has been a bit unusual in this blog's six month history in featuring about ninety per cent of its posts on the new film The Passion of the Christ. I know that my interest in Jesus films is not shared by all readers of the blog and I suspect that some are heartily sick of the whole thing. Some readers have joked with me about the sheer volume of posts on the topic. But even if you are not interested in the topic of Jesus films, you may be interested in some of the debates that have been spawned by it, and the Biblical scholars who have appeared in the press in connection with this (Paula Fredriksen, John Dominic Crossan, Amy-Jill Levine, Joe Zias, Krister Stendahl, Geza Vermes to name just a handful of the many). In due course, the blog will look a little more balanced again and will continue to cover all the areas of interest to users of the NT Gateway, including -- of course -- the Greek New Testament. Indeed that day may come sooner than expected. I am going to see a preview of the film tomorrow and if the reports of the violence are anything to go by, it's entirely possible that I will not manage to sit through it all!

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Thanks to David Mackinder for this excellent piece from Easterblogg:

Mel Gibson versus Franco Zeffirelli

A couple of excerpts:

In Jesus of Nazareth the Sanhedrin conducts a lengthy, reasoned debate about the meaning of prophecy, religious liberty, and the dangers of an uprising against Rome. Zeffirelli's debate is a little stilted, but depicts the Sanhedrin as containing men of conscience who were deeply divided about how they should treat Christ. At one point one of Zeffirelli's elders exclaims, "We are a people who love ideas and argument, then reject our prophets." Zeffirelli's Caiaphas is a doddering old man who dreads rebellion and is obsessed with fear that if Jesus really is the Messiah, then he will replace Caiaphas as leader. In sum, Zeffirelli presents the elders as real human beings, not cartoon villains.

The most telling point of difference between the films is the utter lack of joy in Gibson's telling. The Passion of the Christ is all torture, screaming, bleeding, and weeping. There's no sense that anything about Christ or his ministry is hopeful. Even in flashback scenes that precede the torture close-ups Gibson is so keen about, all is sad and depressing. We see a one-minute flashback to the Sermon on the Mount: Jesus preaches expressionless as if reading from the Federal Register, while the crowd looks about as happy as if they'd been forced there at gunpoint. There's a one-minute flashback to the Last Supper: Jesus drones in monotone while the expressions of disciples suggest they're all facing execution. This is either a total misreading of the Christian story, or reflects Gibson's desire to make that story one about misery rather than love. The Sermon on the Mount proclaimed a new hope for the human prospect; the Last Supper was a night of warm intimacy among friends. You'd never know from Gibson . . . .

. . . . . Mel Gibson appears not to like the joyful, hopeful, universalist message of Christianity. Fundamentalism of all faiths and denominations tends to be angry at the world, and Gibson's is at bottom an angry telling of the Jesus story--an argument that Christ's followers should be full of fury about their enemies and their mistreatment. Perhaps Gibson, a wealthy celebrity, sits around telling himself that he is being mistreated by enemies. Or perhaps Gibson simply longed to earn millions by being the first filmmaker to manage the race-to-the-bottom feat of presenting a gratuitous, exploitive version of the crucifixion. Take your pick of these unattractive alternatives, then stick to Franco Zeffirelli. . . . . .

Two minor quibbles. Zeffirelli is called "the previous big-name-director attempt at the Jesus story". I'd say Martin Scorsese qualifies for that. And I am not sure about the comment that "The Gospels also never say Jesus was beaten by the Temple guards who arrest him". Mark 14.65?

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Thanks to Gail Dawson for this link to an article that quotes Krister Stendahl and Amy-Jill Levine extensively. It is from the Episcopal News Service and located on the Worldwide Faith News and it focuses on a "Forum for Inter-Religious Understanding" held at Rhode Island on 18 February:

Rhode Islanders consider The Passion
by Andrew Wetmore

Levine referred to her presence on what is usually called the "ad hoc committee" (though not here); it's worth quoting this line because of previous blog entries on it:

Levine said she had taken part in an ecumenical review committee that looked at the film script with Gibson's knowledge.

The comments quoted are all worth reading, including this:

Offering some advice for those who will see the Gibson movie, Levine said, "When you sit in the theatre and watch this story, picture my 13-year-old son on one side of you and my neighbor from down the street, who survived the Holocaust, on the other side. Try to see what they would see."

Concluding, Levine said, "This move is a symptom, not the problem. The problem is that Jews and Christians do not really know each other. They need to."

And from Stendahl's comments:

It was not until after World War II and the Second Vatican Council, Stendahl said, that "Christians began to learn how the things we say sound in the ears of the Jews. We have a new situation which calls upon us to make new attempts to help one another against the undesirable side effects of our devotion. The historical record is shocking."

The cross, he said, is a symbol of faith and hope for Christians. "But the Cross reminds Arabs of the Crusades. The Cross reminds the Jews of the Crusades and the pogroms (massacres). Historically, most attacks on the Jews in Europe took place in Holy Week, after the people in church heard the Passion narrative."

Stendahl suggested that, to live together, we have to practice three principles of communal living:

1. "Let the Other define herself. 75% of what our tradition says of another tradition is bearing false witness."

2. "Compare equal to equal. We all have our extremists and nuts. Don't compare ideal Christianity with the actual or distorted form of the Other."

3. "We will never have good relations without an element of holy envy. Find something in the Other that is beautiful and meaningful and that tells you something about God. You are not called upon to absorb it or to pass judgment on it."

Like many others, including Crossan, Stendahl sees the violence in the film as "pornographic":

"Violence is pornographic. I've always thought the suffering of Christ and the shout 'why have you forsaken me?' is the pain of the martyr-the pain of wondering was it all in vain, had it all been wrong. That's where the deep suffering is, not in the physical abuse." The way in which the movie describes the Passion, he continued, "is a celebration of suffering and death instead of a celebration of life and of the triumphal resurrection."

As I have commented before, one of the enormous effects for good that this film is having is that it is providing an opportunity for Biblical scholars to communicate to a broader public than usual. People are interested in what they are saying. Some people, who have not previously been exposed to it, are asking to hear the kind of discussion that has been going on in the academy for the last generation.

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I apologise in advance to anyone who will be offended by my posting a link to an article from The Onion here, but some readers might join me in finding this very amusing and -- in its own satirical way -- pretty astute:

Jesus demands creative control over next movie

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On About Ancient/Classical History, N. S. Gill draws attention to a reproduction of a short dictionary article by Benjamin Jowett from 1875:

Crux
Article by Benjamin Jowett, M.A., Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford on pp. 370-371 of
William Smith, D.C.L., LL.D.: A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, John Murray, London, 1875

One element is worth mentioning in relation to discussion over The Passion of the Christ:

The manner of it was as follows:— The criminal, after sentence pronounced, carried his cross to the place of execution; a custom mentioned by Plutarch (De Tard. Dei Vind. ἓκαστος τῶν κακούργων ἐκφέρει τὸν αὐτοῦ σταυρόν), and Artemidorus (Oneir. ii.61), as well as in the Gospels. From Livy (xxxiii.36) and Valerius Maximus (i.7), scourging appears to have formed a part of this, as of other capital punishments among the Romans. The scourging of our Saviour, however, is not to be regarded in this light, for, as Grotius and Hammond have observed, it was inflicted before sentence was pronounced (St. Luke, xxiii.16; St. John, xix.1.6).

The scourging also appears, though, in Matt. 27.26 // Mark 15.15 just before crucifixion (καὶ παρέδωκεν τὸν Ἰησοῦν φραγελλώσας ἵνα σταυρωθῇ).

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I commented recently on the fact that The Passion of the Christ identifies Mary Magdalene with the woman taken in adultery (John 8.1-11) and so, for all the recent publicity attempting to rehabilitate Mary Magdalene, this film perpetrates an age-old identification. I have checked up The Gospel of John on this one and it is, indeed, two separate actresses who play these roles, Inga Cadranel the woman taken in adultery and Lynsey Baxter Mary Magdalene.

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Ben Witherington III has a review of The Gospel of John on the Christianity Today web site:

The Gospel of John
review by Dr. Ben Witherington, III

Although in some sections he prefers Zeffirelli's Jesus of Nazareth, he liked the film very much indeed:

. . . . It all adds up to what I think is the best portrayal of Jesus ever offered in a feature length film . . . . .

. . . . . But these are niggling complaints. On the whole, the portrayal is telling and sometimes compelling—thanks especially to the fine acting by Henry Ian Cusick, who plays Jesus. With a beguiling simple grace and style, Cusick convincingly presents us with a Jesus who is both human, and so very clearly more than human—no small task. There is a warmth and passion to Cusick's winsome portrayal. He tells his first followers "Come and see," and even as a viewer, you want to do so.

I agree with Witherington on this one. The Gospel of John is a tremendous achievement. Cusick's portrayal of Jesus has made me rethink the way I view the Johannine Christ.

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Lots of reviewers and others have drawn attention to one scene in The Passion of the Christ featuring Satan carrying an ugly baby with hair on its back. Christianity Today have taken the trouble to ask Mel Gibson about this:

What's Up With the Ugly Baby?
Everyone's asking about the Passion scene where Satan is carrying a hideous infant.
by Mark Moring

. . . . It's evil distorting what's good. What is more tender and beautiful than a mother and a child? So the Devil takes that and distorts it just a little bit. Instead of a normal mother and child you have an androgynous figure holding a 40-year-old 'baby' with hair on his back. It is weird, it is shocking, it's almost too much—just like turning Jesus over to continue scourging him on his chest is shocking and almost too much, which is the exact moment when this appearance of the Devil and the baby takes place."

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AKMA has posted his thoughts On the Passion, Before I See It. It's an excellent post and I agree with everything in it. Just one excerpt, but read it all:

. . . . . Now, the matter of context remains an interpretive choice — by opting out of a portrayal of Jesus’ teaching and healing ministry, by ignoring the closely-reasoned controversies with his theological rivals, Gibson chooses to represent Jesus as unaccountably persecuted; he contrasts obscene suffering with utter innocence. But that’s neither the gospels’ narrative version of Jesus’ life and significance nor even the passion narrative that, even in Mark, constitutes a heightened, concentrated narrative exposition of how Jesus ends up on the cross. Gibson chooses to film only the grimmest moments from a narrative that ranges from shared joys to confusion and dismay to transcendent ecstasy to brutal, dehumanizing torture. He has the artistic freedom and theological rationale for so choosing — but that’s a choice, not a simple restaging of historical events.

I like the idea of posting thoughts before going to see it; I may try to do the same.

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Several years ago it was often reported that Paul Verhoeven, director of Total Recall, Basic Instinct, Robocop and Starship Troopers, was working on or planning a Jesus film. At one stage it was even hoped that he would be able to release it for the millennium. He was apparently a regular attender at meetings of the Jesus Seminar and appeared to be taking this project very seriously. I have heard very little about this recently, however. Has he given up the idea? Perhaps he could cash in on some of the hype surrounding The Passion of the Christ and at the same time make a very different film. He is apparently pretty interested in consulting Biblical scholars and clearly would want to focus much more on Jesus' life. The working title was Christ the Man. I thought it would be interesting to see if there is any more up to date news on the web concerning Verhoeven's project but googling only brings up older material. Perhaps the best round up of material on this is at PaulVerhoeven.net dating to October 1998:

Jesus and Verhoeven

But there is nothing more recent that I have heard. Anyone out there know anything?

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On Paleojudaica, Jim Davila has a very sensible post on the topic of Mel Gibson as a holocaust denier and criticizes those who are perpetrating this for (at best) selective quotation and not checking their sources properly. I spotted yesterday another egregious example of this but did not get a moment to comment on it. Christopher Hitchens writes the following in his polemical article in Slate, Schlock, Yes; Awe, No; Fascism, Probably:

It's important to scan the Reader's Digest interview with Mel Gibson. He was questioned by Peggy Noonan, who was almost as simperingly lenient in print as Diane Sawyer was on the small screen. Noonan asked him a question that he must have known was coming, and which he must have prepared for, and she asked him in effect to "make nice" and agree that the Holocaust actually had occurred. His answer was, to all effects and purposes, a cold and flat "no." A lot of people, he agreed, had died in the last war. No doubt many Jews were among the casualties. It's one of the most frigid and shrugging things I have ever read. You would not know from this response that the war was begun by a fascist ruling party that believed in a Jewish world conspiracy, and thus that all of those killed were in part victims of anti-Semitism.

His answer in this interview was not "to all effects and purposes, a cold and flat 'no'"; he actually answered "Yes, of course" and attempted to add to this some personal context (viz. that he personally knew holocaust survivors). See my blog entry on this. It really comes to something when a reporter can manage to turn "Yes, of course" into "to all effects and purposes, a cold and flat 'no'". This is irresponsible. And it is as bad that Hitchens apparently knows of the Diane Sawyer interview too (note his reference to this interview in the paragraph quoted above) in which, as I have commented before, his affirmation that the holocaust happened is even clearer, if you can get clearer than "Yes, of course".

I have not yet seen The Passion of the Christ, which has not been released yet in the UK, and so I cannot yet comment on the charges of alleged anti-semitism. But it seems to me a shame that the proper discussion about how the film depicts the passion narrative should continue to get clouded by what is clearly an irresponsible charge of holocaust denial.

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On the Johannine Literature list, Jeffrey Staley suggests that subscribers draw attention to Passion of the Christ articles in which they (scholars) have been interviewed. Herewith two of Staley's, the first from the Seattle Times

'Passion': The Gospel according to Mel Gibson
By Janet I. Tu

. . . . . SU's Staley says while the Gospels provide "historical nuggets of truth and accuracy," it's important to remember they were written by believers.

"This would be like someone in George Bush's Cabinet writing for posterity the significance of George Bush. It doesn't mean everything in there is wrong. It just means if you're a historian, you're going to have to weigh it carefully." . . . .

The second is from Tribnet.com:

A challenging figure for moviemakers to depict Jesus
SOREN ANDERSEN; The News Tribune

"Most are too reverential," says Jeffrey L. Staley, a professor of theology at Seattle University who teaches a course on Jesus in movies. "The Jesuses portrayed on film appear more godlike than human. This makes it difficult for anyone other than a devout Christian to connect with the Jesus characters."

The worst screen Jesus, in Staley's opinion? Max von Sydow, star of "The Greatest Story Ever Told." The picture, Staley said via e-mail, "is so awful because its Jesus is too 'awe-ful.' The Swedish blue-eyed von Sydow's Jesus seems to float through the film without ever really touching the Earth."

I quite agree -- well said Jeffrey. The whole article is worth reading, with comments from Douglas Oakman and others. One more excerpt:

. . . . Staley sees "The Life of Brian," the Monty Python troupe's rowdy 1979 parable about a bumbling Christlike savior, as belonging to a group of films that depart significantly from the more traditional Jesus pictures yet are truer to the spirit and message of Christ. Also on this list are "Jesus Christ Superstar," "The Last Temptation of Christ" and "Jesus of Montreal."

"Once the devout Christian gets past the jokes and scandalous scenes, these films are much more thought-provoking and challenging than the reverential ones, and in this way they reflect a key element of the Gospels' Jesus. Anyone who goes into the Jerusalem temple and overturns moneychangers' tables is anything but reverential," Staley said . . . . .

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The March edition of the SBL Forum is now available and the special theme is The Passion of the Christ with this blurb:

Mel Gibson's controversial film, The Passion of The Christ, stirs emotion, reflection, and debate. This month, SBL Forum focuses on biblical studies and film, and the cinematic representation of Jesus and biblical accounts.

There are several very interesting looking essays:

Biblical Allusions, Biblical Illusions: Hollywood Blockbuster and Scripture
by Nicola Denzey
"Despite the claim of the majority of Americans that religion (by which most mean Christianity) is important, despite their claims to attend church services regularly, knowledge of the Bible is often confined to sound-bytes or pseudo-scripture. In this environment, Gibson must see The Passion of the Christ as vitally corrective."

Filming Jesus: Between Authority and Heresy
by Paul V. M. Flesher
and Robert Torry
"Jesus films are about the meaning of Jesus, not about the reality of Jesus. While the depiction of Scripture, as well as the appeal to history, tradition, and theology, help authorize the scenes added into the film, it is the additions that impose their meaning upon Scripture and not vice-versa."

History, Hollywood, and the Bible: Some Thoughts on Gibson's Passion
by Paula Fredriksen

Judas the Film: Storytellers Then and Now
by John Dart
"Starkly different from Gibson's experiment with Aramaic and Latin dialogue, Judas has Jesus conversing in contemporary English."

The Problem of the Cinematic Jesus
by W. Barnes Tatum
"In academic circles and within the SBL itself, there has been a surge of interest in cinema generally and in the Jesus-genre specifically. Not only are commercially produced Jesus-films used in classroom settings but entire semester courses are dedicated to them."

Barnes Tatum's article features a link to the NT Gateway and a little blurb -- nice to see.

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I post the following announcement for Dr Andrei Orlov of the Theology dept, Marquette University. It concerns a series of lectures by Professor Jarl Fossum that will take place this April on the campus of Marquette University.

The Seminar on the Jewish Roots of Eastern Christian Mysticism

The Department of Theology of Marquette University

are pleased to invite you to a series of lectures by

JARL FOSSUM

Friday, April 23, 2004 3 pm, Olin Hall (EN 120)

MEDIATOR NOMEN DEI: Assumptionist and Pre-Existent Christology: The Exalted Servant of the Christ Hymn in Philippians 2 and the Eternal Son of the Logos Hymn in the Johannine Prologue


Saturday, April 24, 2004 10 am, Olin Hall (EN 120)

WOMAN IN THE GOSPEL OF THOMAS (LOGIA 22 AND 114)


Saturday, April 24, 2004 3 pm, Olin Hall (EN 120)

PAYING TAXES TO CAESAR (MARK 12:13-17) AND JEWISH MYSTICISM


Professor Fossum is a major representative of what is sometimes referred to as "the new History of Religions School." He is the author of a classic study on The Name of God and the Angel of the Lord: Samaritan and Jewish Mediation Concepts and the Origin of Gnosticism. Other contributions to the study of traditions that shaped Second Temple Judaism and early Christianity are collected in the volume The Image of the Invisible God: Essays on the Influence of Jewish Mysticism on Early Christology.

All sessions are open to the public and will take place on the campus of Marquette University. For the directions to the campus see: http://www.marquette.edu/pages/home/about/visit/directions.

For further information contact Dr. Andrei Orlov, Marquette University Theology Department, P.O. Box 1881 Milwaukee, WI USA 52201-1881, andrei.orlov@mu.edu.

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Thanks to David Mackinder for this link from Slate:

Schlock, Yes; Awe, No; Fascism, Probably
The flogging Mel Gibson demands.
By Christopher Hitchens

The article is pure polemic; Hitchens does not have a good thing to say about Gibson or the film. Also in Slate, this article compares Jim Caviezel's portrayal of Jesus with Ted Neely (Jesus Christ Superstar) and Willem Dafoe (Last Temptation of Christ), longing for their more human Jesuses, and suggesting that this film, like those, reflects the period of the film's production:

Ecce Homo?
The new celluloid Jesus doesn't seem real.
By Sian Gibby

. . . . Ted Neely's Jesus in Jesus Christ Superstar is the angry rebel—the charismatic activist hippie. This Christ hit the screens during the Vietnam era, and thus his Jesus is preoccupied with fighting the powers-that-be, the government. He is quick to anger, bright, sharp, and in control. He answers with alacrity the questions the disciples put to him; he knows what he is doing; he's the empowered, self-aware dissident. Even in Gethsemane, he doesn't evince doubt. When he asks if the cup could pass him by, he already knows it can't and he is pissed off about it. And when he acquiesces to God's will, the anger is still there, just translated into intensity of purpose . . . . .

. . . . . This Jesus [Dafoe's] is befuddled and maybe only incidentally "right" about his mission. He is not sure of anything about himself, as Judas and Peter complain to him. "First it was love then it was the ax, and now you have to die!?" They worry privately to each other, "What if he changes his mind again?" Mary Magdalene sneers at his masculinity—mirroring the kinds of insecurity animating a time in which the men's movement in the '80s and early '90s was striving to reconnect with its manhood, after the "castrating" women's movement had done its work.

The '80s were also a hyper-realist decade, when spiritual identity was regrouping for the big booms of the '90s (the heyday of the New Age and the revival of Big Churches), and Nikos Kazantzakis' mentally-ill Jesus made sense. When this Jesus does miracles, they either don't smack of the supernatural (when Peter thinks they've run out of wine at the party and Jesus insists that there is still plenty, this could easily be Peter's boozy miscalculation); or else they seem to surprise even him. Ultimately, these miracle scenes don't mesh with the rest of the film, which largely consists of Jesus angsting. This Jesus doesn't seem divine. He is an uptight insecure mess, powerless, like the rest of us, in the crack-smoking, money-crazed "Me" era.

And now we find ourselves in a hyper-violent period, in which even little children are inured to celluloid viciousness. Enter Jim Caviezel's Jesus, who is absolutely conventional, conservative; the Jesus of a kiddie Bible, come to life. He says all the things we expect him to say (I was waiting for all the famous lines, mouthing them in the darkness like a Rocky Horror devotee: "My God, my God; why have you forsaken me?" "Forgive them, Father, they know not what they do," etc.) and nothing else. We crave Neely's or Dafoe's humanness here, if only as a means of accessing, or at least understanding, this man . . . . .

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Here's another article quoting John Dominic Crossan's views on The Passion of the Christ:

Biblical scholar criticizes 'Passion'
Noted theologian to visit Lawrence for workshops
By Jim Baker, Journal-World

"There's not much more that I can say other than this is the most savage movie I have ever seen. I've never seen anything like this. It is two hours of unrelenting brutality," said Crossan, who saw "The Passion" Wednesday at a theater near the Orlando, Fla., suburb where he lives.

"That has actually raised for me the issue of whether it's actually pornographic to watch this for two hours."

That's several times now that the word pornographic has been used in reviews of this film. Crossan also comments on the film's theology:

As disturbing as he found the violence in "The Passion," Crossan said he was more shocked by the vivid display of director Gibson's personal theology and the Christian thought upon which it draws: displaced punishment, the idea Jesus had to accept divine judgment due all the world for its sin.

"Vicarious atonement, when it's laid out theologically, sounds rather nice. But actually what Gibson has done is made us face what it looks like. And I think he may have laid bare the savage heart of that theology," Crossan said.

"He forces us, I think, to look at that and ask: Do we believe in this God? And secondly, Should we? And what are the alternatives?" . . . .

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Thanks to David Mackinder for the link to this interesting article from Beliefnet:

Mel Gibson's 'Passion'
What makes this film different?
Jack Miles

The author dwells on some now familiar themes, e.g. the spectre of Bible-belt evangelicals enthusiastically endorsing a film that is "flamboyantly, counter-Reformationally Roman". Like Kermode he sees it as something of a horror movie. His main focus, though, is on the subtitles, both in general and in relation to one specific line:

As a cinematic matter, the boldest innovation in Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ," is its use of language and subtitles to create, in a religious film, the illusion of documentary. Dialogue in a number of recent English-language feature films has fostered this kind of illusion by shifting into a second language plus subtitles for a few minutes at a time. “Dances With Wolves,” for example, shifted at several points into the Amerindian language Lakota. But no film that I know of unfolds in its entirety in subtitles beneath a language other than that of its primary audience.

Aramaic and Latin, the two languages in which the dialogue of “The Passion” is spoken, are not just foreign but dead. Aramaic survives only in a few remote corners of the Middle East. Latin is no longer spoken anywhere. The documentary illusion created by subtitles under ancient languages thus simulates a voyage not so much to a distant land as to a distant era. To the extent that any work of art derived from a classic must make it new by making it strange, this is a brilliant stroke. Yet the brilliance has a deeply regrettable secondary effect . . . .

. . . . . Rejecting the offer, a priest shouts a phrase in Aramaic that might or might not be intelligible in Tel Aviv. But then the Jewish crowd takes up the same cry in a slightly different grammatical form. They scream in unison a single, terrible word that happens to be identical in Israeli Hebrew and in Aramaic, and they scream it again and again as if it were a football cheer: Yitstalev! Yitstalev! Yitstalev! “Let him be crucified!” . . . .

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On Paula Fredriksen's criticism of Gibson's emphasis on suffering as
anachronistic, Jeff Peterson writes the following:

It seems to me this is qualified by the use of πασχεῖν in the NT (Mark 8:31, 9:12, et parr.; Acts 3:18 and 17:3; Heb 13:12 et al.; and several times in 1 Peter). Some of these might be taken as synonymous with ἀποθανεῖν, but not all: especially in 1 Pet 2:23, Jesus suffers and refrains from reviling but entrusts his case to God; it's not coincidental that the clearest NT allusion to Gibson's epigraph (Isa 53:5) comes in 1 Pet 2:24. There's doubtless a complex evolution from Mark and 1 Peter et al. to Catholic devotion to Gibson's interpretation, and I'm not denying some troubling elements in that development, but it's against the evidence to say that no early Christians found salvific value in Jesus' suffering; presumably this was strongest among those groups with some experience or prospect of martyrdom, as I would argue is already true of Mark's audience in the few years following Nero's action, when for the first time organized general hostility seemed like a possible future for adherents to Jesus (cf. Mark 4:17; 13:13).

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On Saturday I mentioned Newsnight Review on The Passion of the Christ, which featured film critic Mark Kermode. Yesterday's Observer features his review:

Drenched in the blood of Christ
Mel Gibson's Passion is the ultimate horror movie, steeped in guts and gore. Our reviewer, a regular churchgoer, found it shocking... but utterly compelling
Mark Kermode

The article reveals that Kermode is working on a Channel 4 documentary on Gibson. A couple of excerpts from this very interesting take on the film, one of the most positive I have seen, and in its own way quite funny:

. . . . . Ultimately, for all the theological bluster and intense inter-faith arguments which it has provoked, The Passion seems to me a quintessential horror film, a visceral cinematic assault which is no more or less 'Christian' than Ken Russell's The Devils or Abel Ferrara's Bad Lieutenant. All are examples of extreme movie-making from flamboyant film-makers who are passionately obsessed with the mysteries of Catholicism. But all are also rooted in the saleable aesthetic of the carnival sideshow; promising the audience an eye-opening spectacle of grotesque proportions.

Fainthearted viewers of The Passion who have so far avoided the fleshy shocks of gore cinema may find themselves mentally reciting that old monster movie mantra: 'It's only a movie, it's only a movie...' If there is a lesson I would wish such viewers to take away from Gibson's bloody epic it is that, contrary to the hollerings of the Daily Mail, the pleasures of horror cinema are not primarily sadistic but masochistic. One woman in Wichita has already reportedly expired during a screening of The Passion, inspiring breathless Exorcist-style press stories of the life-threatening powers of the film. All of which will doubtless add to its crowd-pulling clout . . . . .

Like me and about seven other people in the UK, Kermode is a credit-watcher. (Note to everyone else: you often miss interesting little post-credit sequences in your rush to the car park). He is the first person to have spotted this:

Elsewhere in the credits we find make-up effects stalwarts Keith VanderLaan and Greg Cannom, horror graduates who honed their skills on shockers such as the vampiric epic Bram Stoker's Dracula and the grisly modern-gothic chiller Hannibal.

And one more excerpt from the conclusion to the review:

To someone who believes in the invigorating power of extreme cinema, it seems entirely fitting that Gibson has leaned so heavily upon the horror genre to express his clearly tortured Christian faith. When the evangelist Billy Graham (who famously condemned The Exorcist as 'evil') likens The Passion of the Christ to 'a lifetime of sermons', I hear a man experiencing a Damascene (if probably temporary) conversion to the transcendent power of shocking cinema. As an unrepentant gore-geek, I have no problem with the unremitting physicality of The Passion, and admire the dexterity with which it ruthlessly terrorises its audience. Yet any sense that Christianity has less to do with enduring sublime suffering than with helping the poor and needy seems lost in the anguished howl of the film. Personally I have found more of religious substance in the 'secular' prison drama of The Shawshank Redemption, or the strangely comedic ramblings of the cult psychological thriller The Ninth Configuration.

In the end, Gibson has created an exploitation movie par excellence, fittingly shot in Italy whose national cinema has produced both Pasolini's The Gospel According to Saint Matthew and Ruggero Deodato's Cannibal Holocaust, those twin visions of heaven and hell between which The Passion of the Christ ultimately falls.

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Thanks to Helenann Hartley for this one from BBC News:

Gibson's Passion tops box office
The Passion of the Christ has gone straight to the top of the North American box office chart.

It took an estimated $76.2m (£40.7m) from Friday to Sunday and these takings are the seventh highest in US cinema history.

On Paleojudaica, Jim Davila draws attention to a nice piece from today's Guardian:

What's popcorn in Aramaic?
Its alleged anti-semitism isn't the only problem with Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. There's also the small matter of it being in Aramaic. To help enrich your enjoyment, here is a handy glossary of useful terms
Tim Dowling

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After the mammoth week for postings last week, the NTGateway weblog felt it needed a sabbath rest yesterday, but now it's back. In the Philo of Alexandria blog, Torrey Seland notes that his Resource Pages for Biblical Studies have been updated -- now the March edition. It's mainly Philo links; full list here. (Note: one of the new links is to an article by Gregory Sterling in Harvard Theological Review at Find Articles and this seems now to be a dead link. Alas, it looks like all the links to the 2001 edition of Harvard Theological Review are dead now on Find Articles. The list of contents is still available, but none of the links are active. This follows on from all the other 1998-2003 issues of HTR disappearing from Find Articles.)

And if you haven't looked at it yet, the latest Explorator was posted by David Meadows yesterday and as always, there is plenty of interest:

Explorator 6.44

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