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A short piece that may be of interest from this week's Church Times:

Aramaic gets boost from Hollywood
By Bill Bowder

THE USE of Aramaic in Mel Gibson’s film The Passion of the Christ has led to a surge of interest in the language, which was spoken by Jesus and his disciples.

The Metropolitan of the Chaldean Syrian Church of the East (the Syriac Church) in India, Dr Mar Aprem, has offered a beginners’ course in his diocese of Trichur in response to the sudden enthusiasm for the ancient language . . .

. . . . Mar Aprem’s enthusiasm for Mel Gibson’s film developed when he went with some of his clergy to see the film in Easter Week, the first time he had been to a cinema in 50 years, he said on Monday.

"The film has done good. They see how much Jesus suffered," he said. "After the film, people wanted to know more. I have asked two of my clergy to conduct a beginners’ course in Aramaic at the ecumenical research institute in Trichur. When I get back, I will also offer a master-class in Aramaic for those who have already been studying it."

And have a look at the cartoon.

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Some thoughts on the forthcoming Passion of the Christ DVD release, which must be selling at an extraordinary rate since it's already at number 2 in Amazon.com's list. This review at DVD Answers is by Richard Schuchardt and it includes some very favourable comments on the technical side, though it also wonders about the release having no extra features:

The Passion of the Christ

The Passion of the Christ is presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen and there is very little more to say on the subject. Simply put, this transfer is outstanding and had no flaws that I noticed. The image is full of detail and brings the haunting death of Christ to the screen with amazing accuracy. Colours are true and vivid while the blacks were solid. I did notice a little bit of grain during some of the darker scenes but the grain levels never proved to be distracting. Due to the lack of extras this transfer doesn't suffer from compression artefacts, and edge enhancements were nowhere to be seen. Overall this is a top class transfer which no doubt benefits from the decision to keep this release free of extras. In some ways this transfer is what you would expect from a Superbits title . . . .

. . . . It is becoming a rarity these days for high profile DVD releases to be barebones releases. More often than not most titles are released as two disc packages, so it was a big surprise when MGM announced that The Passion of the Christ was being released with no extras. The reason for this is still not clear, but it has been suggested that Mel wanted this release to focus on the movie only. As can be seen below the transfer and soundtracks benefit from the additional space. The more cynical among you will say that this release is a money making exercise in preparation for the expected special edition release next year. Either way, this release comes with no extras and only time will tell if we are to see a special edition release.

An article in USA Today looks at the attempts to cash-in on the release:

A 'Passion' for title tie-ins
By Thomas K. Arnold

I am a bit puzzled by this article's announcement of a DVD release for The Greatest Story Ever Told, though, since there was a major DVD release for this back in 2001 in a restored version with special features. I had a look to see if I could find anything on this new release on the web and I cannot, though I did come across an interesting piece on the release of that restored version over three years ago:

Restoring The Greatest Story Ever Told
Millimeter, March 1, 2001

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On b-greek, Maurice A. O'Sullivan notes the following review in Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2004.08.13:

Dennis R. MacDonald, Does the New Testament Imitate Homer? Four Cases from the Acts of the Apostles (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003)
Review by Manfred Lang

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These are the latest additions to the SBL Review of Biblical Literature under the New Testament heading:

Balch, David L. and Carolyn Osiek, eds.
Early Christian Families in Context: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue
Reviewed by Timothy Gombis

Balch, David L. and Carolyn Osiek, eds.
Early Christian Families in Context: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue
Reviewed by Tobias Nicklas

Barrett, C. K.
On Paul: Essays on His Life, Work and Influence in the Early Church
Reviewed by Eckhard J Schnabel

Best, Ernest
Ephesians: A Shorter Commentary
Reviewed by Timothy Gombis

Gillman, Florence Morgan
Herodias: At Home in That Fox's Den
Reviewed by Eric Noffke

Matthews, Shelly, Melanie Johnson-DeBaufre, and Cynthia Briggs Kittredge,
eds.
Walk in the Ways of Wisdom: Essays in Honor of Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza
Reviewed by Donna Wallace

Roetzel, Calvin J.
Paul: A Jew on the Margins
Reviewed by Fred Rich

van Aarde, Andries
Fatherless in Galilee: Jesus as Child of God
Reviewed by Alicia Batten

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In her Ancient / Classical History blog, N. S. Gill flags up this useful entry of hers on Herod the Great:

Herod the Great (73-4 B.C.)

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Don't miss Stephen Carlson's comments on the latest updates on the James Ossuary in Biblical Archaeological Review, in particular his drawing attention to the report of a lecture by Oded Golan:

There is one interesting fact that came out of Golan's remarks: I learned that Golan's mother was "a professor of microbiology in Rehovot." This fact, however, makes his story somewhat more difficult to believe that his mother was responsible for accidentally depositing the fake patina when cleaning the ossuary. What scientist goes around a son's antiquities collection destroying evidence?

Good point. It is perhaps worth adding that the Updates on the James Ossuary (and other controversial finds) is the one section of BAR that is still available on-line:

Update -- Finds or Fakes?

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Thanks to David Mackinder for a link to the following story in today's New York Times today:

Pitching 'The Passion' DVD to Faithful Flocks
By LAURA M. HOLSON

Orders for DVD's and videos are 20 percent ahead of projections, Fox executives said. Other Hollywood executives said that Fox might be shipping more than 15 million copies to retailers, a volume indicating that the studio believes the film could become one of the few R-rated movies to join the ranks of the 10 top-selling DVD's.

"It's kind of an eclectic piece people will want in their collections," said Judith McCourt, director of research at Video Store Magazine, which tracks home-video sales. "This is going to be, in some vein, as popular a movie as 'Finding Nemo,' which had long sales legs. We are going to see that kind of selling power."

It has reminded me to order my own copy. I've gone for Amazon.co.uk since the NT Gateway can take a small percentage of the order (to pay for the domain name and server).

On a related topic, I received my copy of Perspectives on the Passion of the Christ yesterday (see blog entry on). I'll post comments in due course, once I've caught up with correspondence, but so far I'm pretty disappointed -- there are repeated generalized surveys on the Gospel Passion narratives and the history of Christian anti-Semitism and so far, at least, no in depth critical engagement with the film at all.

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The full seminar programme for this year's British New Testament Conference in Edinburgh is now available on-line:

British New Testament Conference 2004 Seminar Programme

Update (16.20): Several papers are available on-line temporarily for delegates to download, currently in the Acts and Hermeneutics seminars, and in Jesus one of particular interest to me, Michael Goulder's Response to N. T. Wright on the Resurrection.

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On Biblical Theology Jim West refers to a piece on The Passion of the Christ by Walter Schmithals. It is from Die Zeit and dates back to March, but I missed it at the time:

Gewaltverherrlichung ist der Bibel fremd
Den Evangelisten ging es nicht um Jesu Qualen, sondern darum, dass er für die Sünden der Menschen gestorben ist. Davon weiß Mel Gibsons Film „Die Passion Christi“ nichts
Von Walter Schmithals

The article consists primarily of working through the Gospel Passion Narratives and contrasting their approach with Gibson's. His essential complaint is that Gibson's film dwells so much on the blood and the agony of Jesus' crucifixion that it does not have time to invest in the theological, christological and soteriological meaning of Jesus' death that is the key concern of the New Testament writers:

Aber bei allen diesen unterschiedlichen Erzählstrategien der Evangelisten spielt die besondere Qual des Leidens und Sterbens Jesu am Kreuz ersichtlich keine Rolle. Da die Kreuzesstrafe häufig verhängt und immer öffentlich vollzogen wurde, setzen die Evangelisten bei ihren Lesern mit Recht eine Kenntnis des Strafvollzuges voraus und sehen davon ab, diesem Umstand besondere Aufmerksamkeit zu widmen.

Diese Dezenz geht dem Film von Mel Gibson ab. Er folgt zwar der biblischen Darstellung, aber er ist nicht biblisch.

But I think Schmithals is missing a couple of important points. First, it is arguable that the evangelists do not need to dwell on the blood and the gore in the way that the contemporary does because the very words "they crucified Jesus" conjur up a wealth of appalling images to the ancient mind in the way that they do not for us. Our problem is that we have no acquaintance with the horror of crucifixion. Read in this light, I cannot help be struck by the horrible, eery silence of Jesus during most of Mark's crucifixion narrative (a theme I hope to develop a bit further in a paper I am preparing for the Mark Group at this year's SBL Annual Meeting).

Second, as I have often commented in the past, the idea that The Passion of the Christ falls short on the atonement is a fallacy. The film strives hard to set Jesus' death as a triumphant eschatological, salvation event in which sin is defeated and Satan is cast into hell (on more of which, see my article in the forthcoming Corley / Webb volume, on which I will be commenting in due course).

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The British New Testament Conference 2004 Programme is also now available on the web:

BNTC 2004 Conference Programme

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