NT Gateway Weblog

Regular readers will know of my enthusiasm for Paula Fredriksen's scholarship, and also for her making available so much of her scholarship online. Her web page now boasts PDF reproductions of eighty of her articles and reviews. The newer additions are mainly reviews, all of them worth reading. Thanks too to the anonymous web presence who is supplying all these for us. A reminder of the URL:

Paula Fredriksen

Just imagine how much easier life would be if all scholars did this. This reminds me that I have a couple of articles of mine I should upload.

Labels: Paula Fredriksen

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I am gathering together some extra bibliography at the moment to lend a hand to students on my Historical Jesus class, some of whom are writing about particular Historical Jesus scholars, and I read a highly complimentary review of Sanders by Fredriksen, which begins with this quotable passage:

Americans and the British, the old joke goes, are divided by a common language. Jews and Christians —alas, no joke —are divided by a common history. I refer not to the history of contempt, coercion and abuse that has characterized prevailing Christian attitudes toward and treatment of Jews and Judaism from the second century through (at least) the twentieth. That shameful story is well known. I have in mind, rather, the history of late Second Temple Judaism in Roman Judea, and more specifically the history of the mission and message of Jesus of Nazareth. That is the history that continues to divide Christians and Jews. But, no less, it is a history that binds them, because they share it. And when it is better understood, I am convinced, it is a history that can also unite them.

Paula Fredriksen, Review of E. P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus in Review & Expositor 103/1 (Winter 2006): 234-236 (234).

Labels: E. P. Sanders, Historical Jesus, Paula Fredriksen

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Over on Xtalk, León Santiago draws attention to a series of lectures by Paula Fredriksen, available on streaming video:

Princeton University Web Media: Lectures

October 9, 10 and 11, 2007 - Public Lecture Series: "Sin: The Early History of an Idea"
October 9, 2007 - Paula Fredriksen, Boston University: "God, Blood, and the Temple"
October 10, 2007 - Paula Fredriksen, Boston University: "Flesh and the Devil"
October 11, 2007 - Paula Fredriksen, Boston University: "A Rivalry of Genius"

Labels: Paula Fredriksen

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Is the pope catholic? Do bears poo in the woods? I would have treated the above question like that until recently. I mentioned Paula Fredriksen's on-line articles surge last week and in spare moments I have been enjoying working through ones that are new to me. One theme of interest in her research over the last few years has been the question of how appropriate the term "monotheism" is for ancient Jews and Christians. Note first her Bible Review article (February 2003), Gods and the One God with the tag-line, "In antiquity, all monotheists were polytheists", and on Paul the following:

The world was filled with other gods, and ancient Jews knew this. Paul complains about their negative effect on his mission. Astral forces (stoicheia) previously enslaved his formerly pagan converts in Galatia (Galatians 4.8). "The god of this cosmos" blinded believers so that they cannot see "the glory of Christ, who is the likeness of God" (2 Corinthians 4.4). Paul writes, "For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth -- as indeed there are many 'gods' and many 'lords' -- yet for us there is one God, the Father . . . and one Lord, Jesus Christ" (1 Corinthians 8.5-6). Paul and his Gentile readers do not doubt the existence of many gods. They just do not worship them.

In her more recent (2006) article, "Mandatory Retirement: Ideas in the Study of Christian Origins whose Time Has Come to Go”, Fredriksen goes a step further and proposes to "retire" the term "monotheism". With respect to Paul, she mentions the same texts as above, but adds (242):

These lower cosmic powers whom the nations worship through cultic acts performed before idols will themselves acknowledge the superior authority of the god of Israel once Christ returns to defeat them and establish his father's kingdom (1 Cor. 15.24-27). They too will bend their knees to Jesus (Phil. 2.10).

Fredriksen goes on briefly to deal with 1 Thess. 1.9-10.

In the same vein, Fredriksen's review of Larry Hurtado's Lord Jesus Christ criticizes the latter's dependence on a concept of "scrupulous Jewish monotheism", which, she says, "did not exist in antiquity" (539).

I am intrigued by Fredriksen's developing views here, and will be watching eagerly to see if they are to be expounded in greater detail in forthcoming works. Of course to focus on Paul, as I am doing in this post, obscures Fredriksen's broader point about the inappropriateness of the term "monotheism" in antiquity, but the general point is ideally tested in the specifics of a character like Paul, a very well travelled diaspora Jew. One of the things I like about articles like these is that they make you rethink your assumptions and re-read the texts accordingly. The sticking points for me, at the moment, are the following:

(1) 2 Cor. 4.4, "the god of this world" (ὁ θεὸς τοῦ αἰῶνος, could be referring to Israel's god, as Frances Young and David Ford argue in their Meaning and Truth in 2 Corinthians. If this text is absented from the list of those where Paul may be referring to other theoi, we have a much narrower basis for contesting Paul's monotheism.

(2) A related point: the other texts Fredriksen mentions certainly witness to a rich cosmology, with angels, demons and powers, but it seems that Paul resists calling these theoi. It's worth bearing in mind that many contemporary Christians, who regard themselves as monotheists, have a similarly rich cosmology, with Satan, demons, principalities and powers.

(3) Fredriksen refers to 1 Thess. 1.9-10 but does not mention that here Paul uses the Deutero-Isaianic style language about a "true and living" god who is contrasted with those idols who are, by implication, false and dead. Is not Paul therefore modifying the language of polytheism to make the point that there is only one, true, living god?

On the other hand, though, I don't know what to make of 1 Cor. 8.5-6. Paul speaks of those who are called gods (λεγόμενοι θεοί). Does this qualify the connected ". . . many gods and many lords"? Or is the latter clear evidence of what Fredriksen is claiming?

Labels: Apostle Paul, Paula Fredriksen

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Regular readers will know of my enthusiasm for the scholarship of Paula Fredriksen, one of the most engaging scholars of Christian origins, who is always worth reading. Regular readers will also know of my enthusiasm for scholars making available reproductions of their articles on their own websites. Fredriksen has been setting the standard on this front for some time, but now there has been a remarkable surge, with over seventy articles now available online on her site:

Paula Fredriksen

And there is more good news. I have previously commented (e.g. Paula Fredriksen full-text articles online and Paula Fredriksen PDFs) on the frankly appalling quality of the scans of many of these articles. Well, it seems that a lot of those older scans have been redone in greatly improved versions. Note, though, that sometimes both the new version and the old are still online, so make sure that you are accessing the articles from the homepage link above, and not the old page, which links to the old versions.

Labels: Paula Fredriksen

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I have recently been following with interest the new column in the Washington Post / Newsweek headed On Faith, which asks a controversial question and gets an array of contrasting expert views. This week's question is What's more important from a faith perspective? Being saved, or doing good works?. Three NT scholars on the panel have responses:

N. T. Wright: Start by Understanding Salvation
John Dominic Crossan: Both/And not Either/Or
Paula Fredriksen: Now or Later?

Fredriksen's is rather terse, just two or three sentences. All are quite interesting, though none will hold any surprises to those familiar with their work. The column is set up like a blog, so you can add your own comments into the debate.

Labels: John Dominic Crossan, N. T. Wright, On Faith, Paula Fredriksen

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The latest JSNT is now available, with abstracts available to all, and full content to subscribers and subscribing institutions. It features articles of local interest (Joel Marcus and Kavin Rowe are colleagues here at Duke) and of blogging community interest (we all know Michael Bird), but most importantly it looks like another cracking issue. David Horrell has done a great job with this journal.

Journal for the Study of the New Testament
1 June 2007; Vol. 29, No. 4

The Madness of King Jesus: Why was Jesus Put to Death, but his Followers were not?
Justin J. Meggitt
Journal for the Study of the New Testament 2007;29 379-413

Why was Jesus Crucified, but his Followers were not?
Paula Fredriksen
Journal for the Study of the New Testament 2007;29 415-419

Meggitt on the Madness and Kingship of Jesus
Joel Marcus
Journal for the Study of the New Testament 2007;29 421-424

The Unity of Luke--Acts in Recent Discussion
Michael F. Bird
Journal for the Study of the New Testament 2007;29 425-448

Literary Unity and Reception History: Reading Luke--Acts as Luke and Acts
C. Kavin Rowe
Journal for the Study of the New Testament 2007;29 449-457

The Reception of Luke and Acts and the Unity of Luke--Acts
Andrew Gregory
Journal for the Study of the New Testament 2007;29 459-472

Critiquing the Excess of Empire: A Synkrisis of John of Patmos and Dio of Prusa
Peter S. Perry
Journal for the Study of the New Testament 2007;29 473-496

Book Review: Bridget Gilfillan Upton, Hearing Mark's Endings: Listening to
Ancient Popular Texts through Speech Act Theory (Leiden/Boston: Brill,
2006). pp. xviii + 240. ISBN 90 04 14791 8
Alison Jack
Journal for the Study of the New Testament 2007;29 497-498

Labels: Journal for the Study of the New Testament, journals, Paula Fredriksen

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On Paleojudaica, Jim Davila draws attention to a great interview with Paula Fredriksen on Vision:

Interviews: Paula Fredriksen
Paul and Paula

You can read the full interview, or you can watch a clip. It's full of interesting remarks, and would be ideal for new students of Paul -- I am going to recommend it to my class. Some personal highlights:

The way most modern people get their idea of ancient history is through the movies. In the movies, Romans dress differently from everybody else. The Romans are the ones speaking with a British accent, and the good, liberty-loving slaves are speaking with American accents. It’s an oral coding for the different populations.

It is so encouraging that an American has spotted that too, an aspect of American films British people often laugh about. (It's not just true of the ancient world; baddies in American films set in the contemporary world often have English accents, even when they are supposed to be French or German).

In I, Claudius, when Herod Agrippa comes on stage after he’s been home in Palestine for a few years, he has prayer curls the way an 18th-century Polish Jew would, because the movie has only a few seconds to indicate visually who the character is. But the historical Herod, of course, would have looked just like any other Roman. And Paul, for that matter, would probably have been clean-shaven too. People dress like each other if they’re contemporary. This idea of clearly separate populations comes from trying to code these people—historically, when we try to distinguish between them, and also visually, with movies, to make it easier to tell the story. In real life, these populations all swim in the same sea. The Western Jewish population is speaking the great Western vernacular of Greek, and there’s a normal tendency to adopt local habits.

I must admit that I've never imagined Paul as clean shaven, but come to think of it, that description of his appeareance in The Acts of Paul and Thecla does not mention a beard (and it does mention his eyebrows). I was also intrigued by Prof. Fredriksen's answer to the following:

DH: We hear increasingly about the new perspective on Paul; what exactly is the “old” perspective?

PF: The old perspective on Paul is that he became a Christian, and that that meant something other than being Jewish. It’s captured very nicely in a children’s Christian cartoon I once saw, where Paul is on the road to Damascus, and he has the Jewish male head covering—the kippa—on his head. He gets knocked down, the shining light is on him, Jesus speaks to him, and for the rest of the cartoon he doesn’t have a kippa anymore. Finished. He’s “Christian.” Christianity is so easily imagined as somehow the opposite of Judaism, because that’s how Christianity has presented Judaism to itself in the centuries long after Paul. In Paul’s lifetime, Christianity is only understandable as an extreme form of Judaism. And Paul thinks of himself as a Jew. What’s his choice? The only other option would be to think of himself as a gentile.

But I would also have liked to have heard her answer to the question "What is the new perspective?" because the answer to that question is not entirely clear to me. It's a bit like "What is the third quest of the historical Jesus?" It is coming to mean some quite different things to different people. I hope to post a little more on my thoughts on that, as it happens, in due course.

Labels: Paula Fredriksen

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Over on Euangelion, Michael Bird has a post headed Jesus and Torah: I featuring a quotation from Martin Hengel and Roland Deines, ‘E.P. Sanders’ “Common Judaism”, Jesus, and the Pharisees’, JTS 46 (1995): 1-70 (15-16). It is not an article that Sanders himself was keen on:

Bill Farmer had urged me to read Josephus’ Jewish War while I was at Perkins (1959-62), and I had complied. What he saw in it, however, was (1) that lots of Jews were zealous for the law, which led to the view (2) that the Pharisees controlled Judaism and made people zealous, which was bad because (3) zeal for the law is the same as legalism, which is horrible. I eventually learned that none of this was true, but this experience made me miss most of the actual treasures in Josephus. Farmer’s views of Judaism were taken entirely from Joachim Jeremias. Approximately this same view of Josephus and Pharisaic control has now been argued by Martin Hengel and Roland Deines, “E.P. Sanders’ ‘Common Judaism,’ Jesus, and the Pharisees,” JTS n.s. 46, 1995, 1-70. The view is no better now than it was then. (E. P. Sanders, "Comparing Judaism and Christianity: An Academic Autobiography", April-May 2004: 36, n. 51).

One or two thoughts on the paragraph quoted by Michael:

Both Jesus and the Church fall outside the framework provided by the idea – valued so highly by Sanders – of a harmonious ‘common Judaism’.

The term "harmonious" added before 'common Judaism' illustrates one of the difficulties with Hengel and Deines's reading of Sanders. The point of Sanders' "common Judaism" is to find elements common to the majority of Jews in the Second Temple Judaism, not to imply that the Jews living then, or their views overall, were harmonious. That's why Sanders also uses terms like "common denominator Judaism". It is a simple point, but absolutely key if one is to interpret Sanders's views correctly.

After all, it is no accident that the movement initiated by Jesus opened itself step by step to an increasingly ‘law-free’ Gentile mission just a short time after his death. Nor is it an accident that the three ‘pillars’ at the Apostolic Council about eighteen years later, who were closely associated with Jesus, acknowledge uncircumcised Gentile Christians who were not under obligations to the Torah as full members of the Church, destined to experience eschatological salvation.

I have some trouble with this perspective. What is the evidence for a "step by step" movement "to an increasingly 'law-free' Gentile mission"? If anything, the evidence suggests the opposite -- Paul's Gentile converts are not compelled to be circumcised, and Gentiles eat food in fellowship with Jews in Antioch. But then some groups, the people from James in Antioch, the agitators in Galatia, push for some observance of works of the law among Gentile Christians. The natural assumption is that this kind of "Judaizing" (as Paul calls it) was an innovation and was not part of the earliest scene. As Paula Fredriksen points out in an article that should be compulsory reading for all NT students, Judaism, the Circumcision of Gentiles, and Apocalyptic Hope: Another Look at Galatians 1 and 2, JTS 42 (1991): 532-64, the early Christian inclusion of Gentiles into the people of God coheres with apocalyptic hope of the period, and it is a mistake to confuse inclusion with conversion. The key in the quotation above is "destined to experience eschatological salvation". The (male) Gentile who thinks himself to be included in the people of God, now that the Messiah has come, indeed experiences the hope of eschatological salvation, and does not contemplate circumcision. This is the earliest phase of the Jesus movement; it is later that people began to take the unprecedented step of suggesting circumcision and law-observance for Gentiles, and it is that new crisis -- in the 50s -- that Paul first meets in Antioch, and shortly afterwards finds himself reacting to in Galatians.

Update (Sunday, 22.52): thanks to Mark Nanos for these useful comments:

I would like to bring to your attention that the view you express [above], while widely shared, is precisely what my work on both Galatians in Irony of Galatians and my essay on the Antioch Incident in the edited vol. Galatians Debate and essay in Porter's vol. Paul and his opponents on the Jer. meeting seek to challenge. I like Fredriksen's essay too, and recommend it, but I do disagree on some points, one to discuss here.

I don't believe these texts support that there was (at Jer. meeting or Antioch from Galatians data, or in Galatia) this kind of judaizing from forces with the Christ-believing Judaism at work, arising later or not, but rather normal Jewish communal forces for conformity. These forces would likely have been at work from the start, although no doubt the case in Antioch is a later example of capitulating to this pressure that Paul can use to teach the Galatians. I offer several reasons for my views in these works; you might want esp. to see the Antioch essay in Debate.

I don't think the Gentiles were compelled to be circ. from before Paul; it was what made these Jewish groups suspect from the beginning. Otherwise they conformed to the common Judaism denominators (here I am supportive of the basic category Sanders seeks to establish; actually, it is an important element in my logic for identifying what makes the Christ-groups different but still falling within common Judaism, at least for Paul's groups, albeit at the boundaries, where controversy is stirred, and punishment exercised). In this policy alteration they argued that they still conformed, but made the change because of the force of God's hand which made clear that the end of the ages had dawned, when those from outside of Israel would join Israel in worship of the One God. Other Jewish (not-Christ-believing) groups, they contended, remained hitched to this-age terms for identifying these Gentiles turning to the One God when they demanded that they become members of Israel (the only place for righteous ones in the present age).

I do not deny that there were likely some Christ-believing Jewish groups who upheld proselyte conversion for non-Jews (as in Jervell's mighty-minority of early Acts 15), but I do not believe that Galatians is evidence of that case, or its example from Antioch.

The major difference I want to bring to your attention here is that your view (the common one, in this case) posits a difference between James and others of the so-called Jewish Christianity and Pauline Christianity that I do not see that the text of Galatians supports. I recognize that this was not what you were discussing, but thought you might like to know where an important element of your construction is under challenge. I hope eventually to do so in a more clearly defined big-project way.

I hope to comment on this in due course.

Labels: Paula Fredriksen

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I've often praised the way that Paula Fredriksen has PDFs of lots of her key articles on her homepage and I sometimes set them as reading for my classes. I set one for my class later today "From Jesus to Christ: The Contribution of the Apostle Paul" but when I sat down to re-read it I was struck by how bad the quality of the scan was, at times almost unreadable. The same is true of several others on the page. It's a shame since it's a great contribution to on-line scholarship for those to be present; but people need to be able to read them if they are to take advantage of such a great contribution.

Labels: Paula Fredriksen

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I was just looking at Paula Fredriksen's web page -- I am putting together teaching materials for a course on the Historical Jesus and she has so much useful on-line material. She has a new book advertised there, On The Passion of the Christ : Exploring the Issues Raised by the Controversial Movie. It turns out that the book is in fact a re-issue with a much more interesting front cover (a picture from the film, see left) of the book previously published by Miramax and entitled Perspectives on the Passion of the Christ (see Another Passion of the Christ Book and A Short Review of Perspectives on the Passion of the Christ). It seems that Paula Fredriksen has added a new preface too. My guess is (with no disrespect) that if you already have the Miramax edition, there is not enough new in this re-issue to make it worth buying. But if you don't have it, now would obviously be a good time to buy it. I found the book pretty frustrating myself, and the overwhelmingly polemical tone of the vast majority of essays made it depressing reading. I once meant to write a review of it, but instead I have written notes with a view to writing a paper on what scholars' perceptions of the film tell us about contemporary NT scholarship. More on that anon, I hope.

There are three scholarly collections, to my knowledge, on The Passion of the Christ:

(1) The first out was the Miramax collection Perspectives on the Passion of the Christ just mentioned, and now re-issued by the University of California Press under the title On The Passion of the Christ.

(2) Next out was Kathleen Corley and Robert L. Webb (eds.), Jesus and Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, in my opinion a stronger volume, not least because it was more strongly edited, with specific essays commmissioned on specific topics. Did I mention that I have an essay in this one?

(3) Most recently S. Brent Plate (ed.), Re-viewing the Passion: Mel Gibson's Film and Its Critics, one of the highlights of which is Peter Chattaway's essay.

Just one author, I think I am right in saying, found his/her way into two out of the three books. Quiz question: who is it?

Labels: Paula Fredriksen

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Helenann Hartley and Michael Pahl (and I think Jim West too but I can't find the link) comment on this article about a lecture given by Paula Fredriksen touching on The Passion of the Christ:

New Testament scholar compares the ‘Jesus of Hollywood’ to the historical one
By Kendall Madden

There's nothing new in the piece, especially if you have read others of Fredriksen's pieces on The Passion, e.g. The Gospel According to Gibson: Mad Mel, New Republic Online, July 25, 2003, and History, Hollywood, and the Bible: Some Thoughts on Gibson’s Passion, SBL Forum, and Pain Principle, in New Republic Online, February 27, 2004. There's one element I'd like to comment on again, though:

"Gibson may genuinely believe that what he has presented in his film is the same as history, but the claim itself is demonstrably false," she said. "Gibson, in his script, picked and chose from among all four Gospels—an element here, an instance there—creating from his montage a fifth 'gospel' that has never existed."

There are two questionable elements (to me) in this line of criticism. The first is the idea that Gibson has claimed historical accuracy for the film. As I have commented before (e.g. in my article in the Corley and Webb (ed.) book), it is possible that this is the case, but if so, I've not been able to find a single documented example. (See further my post Historical Accuracy of the Passion of the Christ). The second is the surprising way in which Fredriksen, along with other NT scholars have criticized the film's harmonizing approach, something that is entirely to be expected in the Jesus film tradition. Again, for more detail, see my article previously mentioned, or an old blog post, The harmonizing tradition in Jesus films.

Labels: Paula Fredriksen

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It's great to see an announcement on AKMA's Random Thoughts this morning that he has started a blog on NT Resources:

New Testament Resources Page

The point of this blog is not to displace the good work others do in this regard, but to serve as a durable answer to the question students, alums, clergy, and geneeral visitors always ask me: “Do you know of any good books or articles on that?” These pages will serve as my answer —with space for feedback from conversation partners.

Does this mean we can now officially co-opt AKMA, who was into blogging long before the rest of us, as a biblioblogger?

One comment on the Galatians reading list [Note: AKMA's permalinks don't seem to be working at present] -- the following article is available on-line, albeit in a hideously bad scan:

Fredriksen , Paula. “Judaism, the Circumcision of Gentiles, and Apocalyptic Hope: Another Look at Galatians 1 and 2,” JTS 42 (1991), 532-64

This is one that comes top of my list for students on Galatians too. It's a brilliant piece.

I enjoyed AKMA's general comments on his new venture, including the following:

There’s definitely a way in which one could read this gesture as my bowing to the value of the gateway; if it were important for me to differentiate these pages from (say) Mark’s, I suppose that I’d say that mine aims less toward comprehensiveness, more toward critical evaluation. Of course, if one stops browsing at my page and treats it as a last word on biblical scholarship, then mine would certainly constitute a throttle to knowledge; I prefer to think of it as Google- (or Technorati-)fodder. . . .

Thanks for the link and the mention. Let me add that I don't aim for "comprehensiveness" myself. I think I probably did once upon a time but I have long since abandoned that attempt in the face of the ever expanding internet and the number of useful specialist gateways, and the growing number of useful specialist blogs. In my Throttle to Knowledge post, which AKMA mentions here, I wrote:

But of course the gateway resources select some sites and reject others. In this sense they do engage in the business of restricting the flow of certain information, and all strength to their arm for doing so. All academics are necessarily engaged in the process of distinguishing between materials on the basis of their quality. On the whole, the bibliographies at the end of our books are our selections of books and articles that we regard as worthy of attention, and on the whole we restrict ourselves to listing those and not others. It does not mean that we are not well aware that there are likely to be many others that we have not had the time or the good luck to come across. The point is that our bibliographies are restrictive but not prescriptive. They are not saying that this is all you should read, but that these are some resources that I have read and found worth engaging. So too the internet gateway. It is not prescriptive. The intention is not to limit the number of resources that anyone might want to look at, but to provide some helps to the user about good places to start, possible ways to navigate through a difficult topic, a range of different resources on a given theme.

I suspect that most users of gateway resources appreciate that while their authors are attempting to be as comprehensive as possible, the sites are never going to be exhaustive. And with this realisation comes appreciation of a key function of the gateway, that far from discouraging students to distinguish for themselves between good and bad internet resources, they actually help to educate them in how to do this. The student writing an essay on the Historical Jesus is not simply let loose to google in the dark until they have come up with a few scrag ends of dubious worth. The gateway gives them some starter resources, some hints, some pointers, a way to feel their way into the topic. It is just the same discipline as the age-old teaching tool, the Reading List . . . .

etc. I like the idea of "Google- (or Technorati-)fodder. . . ." in AKMA's post too.

Labels: Paula Fredriksen

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So far my narrative has reached Sunday late afternoon. After the Mark session, I went to the first of two sessions I had marked with asterisks on my programme, the Bible in Ancient and Modern Media, combined with the Johannine Literature unit. The theme was The Gospel of John film and The Passion of the Christ. It was a really mixed bag, some of it brilliant, some of it infuriating, all of it engaging. Bernard Brandon Scott gave a so-so general review of The Gospel of John, then Jo-Ann Brant gave a superb paper on the camera as character in The Gospel of John, illustrated with stills from the film. The paper looked at the way in which the camera's perspective often subverts the narrator's perspective to which the film is bound because of its mandate to feature the entire text of John.

Then the transition was made to The Passion of the Christ with an interesting paper about the languages in the film by a character whose name I have forgotten. His essential thesis, if I understood it correctly, was that the Aramaic / Hebrew mix made good sense historically in that first century Jews in Galilee and Judea might well have spoken in Aramaic laced with Hebrew. Unfortunately, the speaker -- who talked rather like Reverend Lovejoy in The Simpsons -- did not speak into the microphone and was difficult to hear. This is one of my pet peeves. If there is a microphone on the podium, then use it. Don't speak 2 feet away from it in a quiet voice. Session chairs too need to be aware of this. Check to see if your audience can actually hear the paper. Look for clues, like people cupping their hands to
their ears, straining to hear or coming forward and standing next to the loud speaker to try to pick it up -- all of these things should have provided clues. Happily, though, Elizabeth Struthers Malbon, in the session in question, asked from the audience that the speakers speak into the microphone -- and the rest of the session was much better.

William Sanger Campbell was next up and he offered a disappointing review of The Passion of the Christ, which largely repeated the now familiar polemic and caricature of the film, including standard misrepresentations (e.g. Satan is seen moving with the Jewish leaders -- he is not) and oversimplifications. The use of Emmerich in this paper was particularly disappointing. Campbell spent 5-10 minutes summarizing the contents of Emmerich's Dolorous Passion, noted how much of the book appears in the film, and made the illegitimate inference that this makes the film anti-Semitic. There was little actual analysis about the way in which elements from the book were adapted in the film and I am left wondering once again whether such an approach would be tolerated in Gospel criticism (A paper on Matthew's use of Isaiah, say, would be thought naive in the extreme if all it did was to explicate the contents of Isaiah, to note that Matthew used Isaiah, and infer that Matthew's views were identical to Isaiah's).

After those four papers, there was then what was called a "panel discussion" but which was in fact several more people giving their reactions to either of the films in turn. Charles Hedrick, Alan Segal and Caroline Osiek were all very interesting on their roles as consultants on The Gospel of John film. I was particularly pleased to hear from Segal that the initial screenplay for The Gospel of Mark is ready and that they are hopeful that it will go into production. Another interesting comment related to the costuming of Mary Magdalene, depicted as a prostitute in spite of the fact that the Woman Taken in Adultery was not identified with her. Apparently the costuming for Mary Magdalene was done after the scholars' work on the screenplay had been done, and they were disappointed to discover that that was how she had been costumed. The scholars also discussed how they had been persuaded to use the Good News translation by having scenes mocked up in both the NIV and the Good News translation, and seeing that the Good News worked better. They expressed disappointment over some elements that that choice constrained, e.g. "miracle" for "sign". And they spoke of their success in getting Jesus' address to Mary in the Wedding at Cana changed.

The last two speakers were Amy-Jill Levine and Paula Fredriksen, each of whom did not so much argue that The Passion of the Christ was appalling, anti-Jewish and so on, as take it for granted and then discuss what could be done about this kind of thing in the future. Paula Fredriksen's contribution was in fact a mini-paper and went through the Contra Judaeos tradition in art.

I thought the session as a whole was too ambitious and should really have been split up into at least two sessions. There were too many speakers and there was no room for the "panel discussion" advertised, i.e. none of the participants got the chance to interact with one another. And there was certainly no time left for contributions from the floor. That was particularly disappointing given the controversial nature of several of the contributions, and the single view (a very disparaging one) expressed by almsot all the participants on The Passion of the Christ.

I felt that one issue of substance was ignored and that was the question of the relative artistic merits of the two films. For all the merits of The Gospel of John (e.g. Cusick's depiction of the Johannine Jesus), there is a gulf between this film and The Passion of Christ if one is asking about artistic quality. One is just not comparing like with like.

I will turn next to the evening session on The Passion of the Christ, billed as an interview with the writers of the film, and a real treat.

Labels: Paula Fredriksen

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Open Access note this useful resource from Research Buzz:

Isolating Google's Printed Material in a Google Search Form

This is a nice little form that isolates the material that is part of Print.Google.com so that you can run searches on that material alone. (See Print.Google.com here for a comment on this). Having used this form on some NT topics (cf. earlier entry, New Testament on Google Print), it seems that there is still not a great deal of information there, and on the whole Amazon.com still provides a far better service when it comes to searchable full-text. Here some tidbits that I found using the form, all relatively short excerpts:

Jesus and the Politics of Interpretation (excerpt on the Quest for the Historical Jesus)
by Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza

Jesus & the Rise of Early Christianity: A History of New Testament Times
by Paul Barnett

Unearthing the Lost Words of Jesus: The Discovery and Text of the Gospel of Thomas
by John Dart, Ray Riegert

Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence
by Robert E. Van Voorst

Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews: A Jewish Life and the Emergence of Christianity
by Paula Fredriksen

Jesus, Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium
Bart Ehrman

Labels: Paula Fredriksen

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I have mentioned Robert Webb and Kathleen Corley (eds.), Jesus and Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ, due out at the end of this month, on several occasions. I am familiar with it because I wrote one of the essays in it. Quite by chance, I noticed a kind of rival book on Amazon the other day, and the book cover, with a link to Amazon, appears to the left. So the cover's less interesting than ours, but what else does it have to offer? No editors are listed; the publisher is Miramax and the full title is Perspectives on the Passion of the Christ: Religious Thinkers and Writers Explore the Issues Raised by the Controversial Movie.

Well, I ordered my copy several days ago but it has not arrived yet, but I'm impressed that they've beaten us to publication given that our book is the result of intensive, concentrated hard work in a very short period of time. I'm less impressed with their publicity machine. This book has been out for over a month and I, who have more than a passing interest in the subject, had not even heard of this until I chanced upon it by accident. There have been no press releases that I've seen, no media coverage, no attempts to publicise through the internet -- at least as far as I am aware. It's pretty low in Amazon's rankings too, which suggests that it has not been successful yet in reaching a wider audience.

Here is the blurb:

Since its release on Ash Wednesday 2004, The Passion of the Christ has become a commercial success of astonishing proportions, already ranking as one of the highest grossing films of all time. At the same time, it has created a torrent of controversy and debate, provoking passionate responses — both negative and positive—from people of widely divergent backgrounds and beliefs. It has exposed fundamental differences of opinion and belief about everything from the historical truth of the Bible to the political power of Hollywood.

Perspectives on the Passion of the Christ gathers together contributions from theologians, journalists, academics, and philosophers representing a wide spectrum of views and backgrounds. From the film's theological and historical underpinnings, to its cinematic and cultural implications, here is a balanced and thought-provoking exploration of the vital questions raised by The Passion of the Christ. Jews and Christians, evangelicals and agnostics, filmmakers and scholars—the film elicits fascinating responses from all. Among others, Jon Meacham of Newsweek looks hard at the historical record and asks, "Who Really Killed Jesus?" Rev. Susan Thistlethwaite asks why such an exceptionally violent movie has been embraced by so many conservative Christians and argues that The Passion of the Christ presents Jesus as a hero in a war movie; Rabbi Eugene Korn considers the movie's potential impact on interfaith relations; and Steve Martin offers an oblique comic view, from the perspective of a Hollywood insider.

Full of insight into a phenomenon that has raised so many burning and complex issues, this collection is the indispensable guide to understanding the cultural lightning rod that is The Passion of the Christ.

Perhaps the major difference from our volume (and I hope the editors will allow me the use of "our" here, though I need to add that I am only a contributor to the volume; I have not even read the other essays, except for one) is that it features contributions from several of those who were involved with the controversy surrounding the film from the beginning, including several members of the "ad hoc committee". The list of contributors is:

Contributors include: Mary C. Boys, Deborah Caldwell, Philip A. Cunningham, Paula Fredriksen, Lawrence A. Frizzell, Eugene Korn, Linda Kulman, Amy-Jill Levine, James Martin, Steve Martin, Jon Meacham, John T. Pawlikowski, Stephen Prothero, Adele Reinhartz, Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, Jay Tolson, Jim Wallis, Leon Wieseltier, Ben Witherington III

Of those, Boys, Cunningham, Fredriksen, Korn and Levine were all members of the ad hoc committee. So the book will clearly have something of a view from the inside of the controversy. The down side of that may be that that the views of all of those authors are all pretty well publicised now; Fredriksen alone has written several articles on the film and the controversy, and Boys recently published an article in Cross Currents on which I still have a half-written response for this blog. Witherington's views are known from the Beliefnet "Scholarly Smackdown", now no longer available for free on the net; his dialogue partner, John Dominic Crossan, on the other hand, contributes to our volume.

More anon when I have received my copy.

Labels: Paula Fredriksen

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Michael Pahl alerted me to the fact that once again Paula Fredriksen's homepage had moved and that my link was dead (See Scholars: F. An all too frequent remark: why do administrators of university web sites never set up forwards?). In looking for its new location, I discovered the good news that now there are many full-text articles available in PDFs. Here's the new link:

Paula Fredriksen

And here is the link to the PDFs:

Paula Fredriksen Articles

My delight at seeing this, yet another example of a scholar making available their scholarship to the wider public at no cost, is only slightly mitigated by the appalling quality of the PDFs. Let me draw attention to one brilliant piece in particular, in my humble opinion a really key article, frequently overlooked:

"Judaism, the Circumcision of Gentiles, and Apocalyptic Hope: Another Look at Galatians 1 and 2"
Journal of Theological Studies 42 (1991): 532-64

Labels: Paula Fredriksen

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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.

Labels: Paula Fredriksen

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Paula Fredriksen has been involved with the controversy over this film from the beginning -- I have mentioned her article Mad Mel here before. Now, after having seen the film, Fredriksen has gathered her thoughts, again in New Republic Online:

Pain Principle
by Paula Fredriksen

I think the article is subscription-only, but you can get a free trial subscription. Some of the article goes over the controversy over the "ad hoc committee" and the script. Although I have commented recently that the allegations of theft should not be made in the absence of a sustained case or an answer to Fredriksen's post, there is still one grey area here. I hadn't noticed it so clearly in the previous article, but there is a question here. How did Fisher get his copy of the script? Fredriksen only talks about his having "received" it and does not explain where it came from:

Later that spring, Gene Fisher, interfaith officer for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) contacted Icon, Gibson's production company, about having the movie's script reviewed by an ad hoc committee of scholars. Gibson was trumpeting the fidelity, historical and scriptural, of his film, and Fisher was offering him some free--and confidential--feedback. Fisher and Eugene Korn of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) assembled an ecumenical group of professors, which I was invited to join. Fisher informed William Fulco (the person who had translated the script into Aramaic and Latin and our main contact on the Icon side) on April 17 that he had received a copy of the script; on April 24, Fisher and Gibson spoke. Icon received our report in early May.

Perhaps we will never know. The rest of Fredriksen's review deals with Gibson's amazing achievement in marketing (what she sees as) a medieval Catholic vision of Christianity to many Protestants; and there is some reflection on the relationship of the film to the Gospels:

. . . . . The Christ that Gibson is selling is not the Christ of the first-century scriptures, though elements of his story are drawn from them. The first-century Christ, presented primarily in the four gospels, redeemed not through his suffering, but through his death and resurrection, which promised his return. The evangelists mediated historical traditions about Jesus' life and teachings, interpreting these through their own understanding of Jewish scriptures. Their meditations on ancient sacred texts especially shaped their presentations of the edges of Jesus' life--his birth and his death. The many narrative details of the gospels' passion stories deliberately echo various verses from the prophets and the psalms. Their point: that Jesus died, and was raised, according to the Scriptures. The matching of event to ancient prophecy established, for the evangelists and for their communities, the authority of their stories.

Gibson missed the evangelists' point. His opening screen flashes a verse from Isaiah 53: "He was wounded for our transgressions; by his stripes we are healed." What served as prophetic authorization for the gospels' proclamation, Gibson takes as an invitation to explore, in lurid and lingering detail, how a human body would look if pulped, pummeled, and flayed. Part of this orientation comes from the Catholicism of his childhood. Part of it, as he has repeatedly claimed, comes from the visions of an early nineteenth-century stigmatic nun, Anne Catherine Emmerich. (Knowing what my catechism classes were like in twentieth-century Rhode Island, I can only imagine what hers were like in eighteenth-century Westphalia.) Part of it, of course, is just Gibson's favorite visual vernacular, on display from Mad Max through Braveheart and beyond.

Thus Gibson's Christ, a theological figure whose origins lie in late medieval Europe, saves not through dying so much as through endless, unspeakable, unbearable suffering. That's the core of Gibson's movie. The rest is window-dressing. The costuming, like the music, is lushly theatrical. The bad guys wear black, their Jewishness coded by prayer shawls, big noses, and bad teeth. The Jewish soldiers who form the arresting party look like visiting Romulan dignitaries, or extras from the chorus of Nabucco. The faces of the two Marys are framed by nun-like veils. (I half expected Monica Belucci to whip out a rosary along the Stations of the Cross.) And Gibson's much-touted use of ancient languages, like the high quality of his celluloid gore, was a nod to verisimilitude, not real history. Pilate chatted in Aramaic; Jesus (at this point in the movie, I confess, I groaned aloud) in perfect Church Latin . . . . .

Labels: Paula Fredriksen

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The next few articles in Christianity Today's March issue, in which The Passion of the Christ is the cover story, have now been posted on-line. The first is an interesting piece by Michael Medved, a Jewish writer and broadcaster who has spoken out vociferously against the Anti-Defamatiion League's stance on the film over the last year or so:

The Passion and Prejudice
Why I asked the Anti-Defamation League to give Mel Gibson a break.
by Michael Medved

Medved mentions the Paula Fredriksen article just mentioned, commenting:

The rumors about the movie reached such intensity that The New Republic published "Mad Mel," an attack by Paula Fredriksen, a professor at Boston University who had not seen the picture.

Though Fredriksen's polemical language is clearly a bar to any possibility of reconciliation between the two sides, Medved's implication that Fredriksen's attack was unprovoked may be incorrect. The article mentioned was written some time after the events Medved goes on to describe (the ad hoc committe's report on the script) and not before (see previous blog entry).

The next piece is the second instalment of Holly McLure's "Behind the Scenes" series. This is less interesting than the previous one; its main purpose is to tell us what a great chap Mel Gibson is. He wears a red nose and clowns about, apparently:

Behind the Scenes of The Passion
On the set with Holly McClure

Labels: Paula Fredriksen

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I commented earlier that since the question of stolen script comes up repeatedly in news stories and now even in an academic review, I would like to comment on this. The gist of the accusation is this. In March-April last year, a committee assembled to look at a script of (what was then being called) The Passion. This "ad hoc" group was made up of Eugene Fisher from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), Eugene Corn from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and seven New Testament scholars, four Catholics and three Jews. The group issued a fairly critical report on the script, in particular drawing attention to alleged anti-Semitism. It was this report, just under a year ago, that began the controversy that has surrounded the film ever since. Now, was the script which the "ad hoc committee" obtained stolen? This appears to have been alleged by Icon Productions after the group had published their report but to my knowledge the accusation was not investigated or followed up in any way. Two members of the ad hoc committee, on the other hand, have commented on the accusation in print. The first is Paula Fredriksen, who in an article published in The New Republic On-line on 25 July 2003, explained the situation from her perspective at some length. Unfortunately, she uses some rather polemical language at points, but the article is at least detailed and specific and leaves little doubt that as far as she is concerned, the script was not stolen:

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO GIBSON.
Mad Mel
by Paula Fredriksen

Here are the relevant parts excerpted:

. . . . . On March 25, the day before they invited me on board, Fisher and Korn exchanged communications with one William Fulco, S.J., who teaches in the department of classics and archaeology at Loyola Marymount University, a Jesuit institution in Los Angeles. He had served as Gibson's librettist, translating the script from English into Aramaic and Latin. His intimacy with the script was perhaps the reason that he assumed, or was assigned, his role; for as long as the dialogue lasted, Fulco was the main contact on the Icon side.

Fisher and Korn had faxed Fulco two documents on criteria for evaluating dramatizations of Jesus's Passion, one issued by the USCCB in 1988, the second produced jointly by the USCCB and the ADL in 2001. In response, Fulco thanked them, and assured both men that the script was devoid of any hint of antiJewishness. In fact, he claimed, it was "totally in accord with the [USCCB/ADL] documents." Fulco's struggles with the translation, he says in this e-mail, had engraved the script in his memory. ("I know [it] almost backwards.") Shooting had concluded, Fulco said, only the prior week. Fulco then added two points of information relevant to future events--that he was "preparing accurate subtitles" (what had happened to Gibson's "point of honor"?) and that "the film follows the script quite faithfully." (Since the reporter from The Wall Street Journal had mentioned seeing "a first look at a rough cut of the film," it must have been substantially assembled before March 7.)

A few weeks later, on April 14, Fisher wrote to the group of scholars and to another USCCB officer: "I have just received the good news that we will receive the script for our analysis and comment within the next couple of days." The scholars had to promise confidentiality: we could not circulate the script outside of our group, "though of course your comments can be public." On April 17, Fisher informed Fulco that he had received the script and had sent copies out to the scholars. We received them and read them over Easter weekend.

The whole group heard again from Fisher on April 25. "Gibson called me last night," Fisher began. "He had with him McEveety [another Icon producer] and Fulco." Gibson said that he wanted Fisher to convey to the scholars that he does not share his father's views, that some of his best friends are Jewish, that he is sensitive to anti-Semitism and opposed to it. "As an Irish Catholic Australian," wrote Fisher in his e-mail, Gibson "knows more than a bit about religious and social prejudice and [he] relates to Jews as fellow sufferers from it.... He's open to what we have to say, but still a bit cautious." At this point Fisher still thought that we could work with Gibson to try to improve his film . . . . .

. . . . . The script, when we got it, shocked us. Nothing of Gibson's published remarks, or of Fulco's and Gibson's private assurances, had prepared us for what we saw. Each scholar, independent of the others, wrote his or her own comments on the document. We then boiled them down, bulleted our points, and made the whole discussion easy to digest. The first section of our report explained the historical connection between passion plays and the slaughter of European Jews, the dress rehearsals for the Shoah. Then we summarized our responses to the script. We pinpointed its historical errors and--again, since Gibson has so trumpeted his own Catholicism--its deviations from magisterial principles of biblical interpretation. We concluded with general recommendations for certain changes in the script. Four short appendices--two historical, two directly script-related--traversed this same terrain from different directions. A final appendix provided excerpts from official Catholic teaching.Receiving criticism is never easy. As teachers and as scholars, who regularly give and get criticism, we knew this. We also knew that we were asking Gibson to revise his script substantially. We knew that we were working against his enthusiasm, his utter lack of knowledge, and his investment of time and money. We pinned our hopes on his avowed interest in historicity, on his evident willingness to hear what we had to say, and on his decency. In retrospect, we also functioned with a naïveté that is peculiar to educators: the belief that, once an error is made plain, a person will prefer the truth.

Fulco knew by April 27 what the substance of our response had been: Fisher had already communicated privately with him. By May 2, we had our eighteen-page report assembled. Fisher and Korn co-wrote the cover letter on USCCB stationery, and sent the report to Icon by May 5. On May 9, members of the group received our copies. We waited. Icon was silent. When Korn phoned Fulco on May 12 to get his sense of the report, Fulco declined to share his views. He did mention that he, Gibson, and other Icon executives were scheduled to meet the following day. More silence.

Meanwhile, disturbances began to accrue. After a story about Gibson's movie ran in the Los Angeles Times, one of the group's members, Mary Boys, S.N.J.M., received "three vicious letters filled with personal attacks and anti-Semitic drivel." (Boys is a chaired professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York, an adviser on ecumenical affairs to the USCCB, a member of the Catholic Biblical Association, and a tireless worker in the area of Catholic-Jewish relations. She knows anti-Semitic drivel when she sees it.) At the same time, another member of the scholars group, Father John Pawlikowski, O.S.M., professor of social ethics at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, mentioned an unhappy encounter that a friend of his--like Fulco, a professor at Loyola Marymount--had had with other Jesuits following Loyola's commencement ceremonies on May 11. On that day, Gibson had received an honorary doctorate. These Jesuits informed Pawlikowski's colleague that "Father Fulco has written a beautiful script; how could we possibly attack him? How could anyone criticize the story of the Passion? They were all aware of our report, so Fulco is obviously spreading the word."

We were surprised: we had understood that, for the time being, our report, like Gibson's script, was meant to be kept between us and Icon. "They"--Fulco, Gibson, and company--"are simply going to discredit us," Pawlikowski concluded. On May 16, the truth of his words, and the reasons for Icon's silence, became clear. On that date, Fisher, Korn, the ADL, and the USCCB received a letter from Gibson's attorney. Dated May 9, written within days of Icon's receipt of our report, the letter had sat for a week while we waited for their response, and Gibson collected his degree, and Fulco avoided Korn, and the Icon executives and Fulco conferred.

"As you are fully aware, you are in possession of property stolen from Icon, namely a draft of the screenplay for the Picture," the letter began. "At no time did Mr. Gibson authorize the release of this material to you or to any other third party for dissemination to you." The lawyering went on for another page: "You have admitted that you came into possession of this stolen property by means that are illegal." "You are now attempting to force my clients to alter the screenplay to the Picture to suit your own religious views." Our side was threatening to discredit the film, and to intimidate Gibson. ("This act is itself illegal--it is called extortion.") All scripts were to be returned by 5:00 p.m. on May 13. (Poor organization, since this letter was faxed three days after its own deadline.) Court orders, lawsuits, reserved rights and remedies, and all sorts of terrible consequences might and could and would follow. Very truly yours, et cetera.

"Gibson, Fulco and McEveety were all on the phone with me well before," Fisher wrote to me on May 20. "They knew we had the script, as they had known for some time, and did not ask for it back." Icon's new claim also made nonsense of the earlier condition of confidentiality to which we had assented before seeing the screenplay: who else would have required that? No matter. Lawyers were in the saddle; reason was dying . . . . ."

If Fredriksen's perceptions are right, there is little doubt -- the script was not stolen. Her report is backed up by a second member of the ad hoc committee, Amy-Jill Levine:

The Real Problem with "Passion"

This was published on Beliefnet also last summer, but it is not dated. Levine writes:

After questioning our panel's motives, Mr. Medved referred to the Gibson camp's charge that we used a "stolen" script. Indeed, Mr. Gibson's backers have consistently accused this committee of being underhanded and immoral: first, they claim, we obtained the script illegally. This is wrong: Gibson's company, Icon Productions, knew we had it, and Mr. Gibson personally expressed interest in hearing our views.

As far as I know, there have been no published attempts to refute Levine's and Fredriksen's explanations of the matter. They remain the only accounts, and Fredriksen's is the only rigorous, blow-by-blow account available. Until any published refutations of these accounts appear, I would suggest that the accusation of theft is dropped by those who comment on the film.

Labels: Paula Fredriksen

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On Synoptic-L, Wieland Willker asks "why this botch" (The Passion of the Christ) "gets so much attention in scholarly circles". While not knowing whether it is a "botch" or not -- I haven't seen it yet -- I think that there are several reasons:

(1) Some scholars are interested in the way in which the Gospels are adapted in film and fiction, partly because of the renewed interest in Wirkungsgeschichte and partly because the creative process of adaptation might shed light on the interpretative process. For investigations of Jesus (and other) films along such lines, I would recommend the books by Larry Kreitzer on the OT, the NT and Paul in fiction and film; and this book by Barnes Tatum:

W. Barnes Tatum, Jesus at the Movies (Sonoma: Polebridge, 1998)

I would also recommend these two articles by William Telford:

Telford, W. R., "The New Testament in Fiction and Film: A Biblical Scholar's Perspective" in J. G. Davies, G. Harvey and W. Watson (eds.), Words Remembered, Texts Renewed. Essays in Honour of J. F. A. Sawyer (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995): 360-94

Telford, W. R., "Jesus Christ Movie-Star: The Depiction of Jesus in the Cinema" in C. Marsh and G. Ortiz (eds.), Movies and Meaning. Explorations in Theology and Film (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997): 115-39.

(2) Interest in this particular Jesus film is accentuated among some scholars because of their involvement with the question of the depiction of Jews in the Passion Narrative. Paula Fredriksen in particular is worth mentioning here since she was on the so-called "ad hoc committee" that strongly criticized an early script of the film for its alleged anti-Semitism (See blog entries here and here). So too is Amy-Jill Levine who was on the committee that composed that report (See blog entry on). Both Levine and Fredriksen have been involved with discussion about the film as a result of that early and robust encounter with the script. And whatever one thinks about the way that that debate has developed, there is no question that the issue of the depiction of Jews in the Passion Narrative has been a hot topic in Gospel studies over the last generation. What this film has done is to push that debate back into centre stage.

I would add, in relation to this point, that much of the controversy over the film could have been avoided if only Gibson had done what Garth Dabrinsky did on the recent Gospel of John (Visual Bible) film and employ a panel of expert consultants. Gibson claims that he has consulted hundreds of Biblical scholars, but what the film lacks is a panel of accountable, named historical consultants from a variety of scholarly and religious perspectives. The Gospel of John has managed to adapt that Gospel word-for-word without a whiff of controversy and I think that this is in no small part due to the likes of Peter Richardson, Adele Reinhartz, Alan Segal and co on its Advisory Committee.

(3) I suspect the film also excites attention among scholars because of its use of Latin and Aramaic. Of course Gibson had to use a scholar to do the translation -- William Fulco of Loyola Marymount University.

(4) If Biblical scholars had nothing to say about major cultural events like this, then that might be further evidence of a retreat into the ivory tower. Interest is generated much of the time simply because the media asks them for their opinion, and they rightly respond.

Labels: Paula Fredriksen

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A day does not go by without more on The Passion of the Christ; Icon productions must be delighted by the publicity it continues to get. Some of the latest stories to break include this one from the BBC (with thanks to Helenann Hartley for sending over):

Campaign against Gibson's Passion
Jewish and Christian groups have announced a lecture campaign after fearing Mel Gibson's upcoming film on Jesus could incite anti-Semitism

The Anti-Defamation League and American Jewish Committee saw The Passion of the Christ, due out shortly, last week.

"It undermines the progress that we've made in this country toward mutual respect and religious pluralism," said Rabbi David Elcott.

Lectures, interfaith talks and other programmes will be held . . . .

The story reminded me to take a look at the ADL (Anti-Defamation League) web site which usually has up-to-date press releases. See the following:

ADL Screens Mel Gibson's "The Passion of The Christ" ; Says Film's Portrayal of Jews "Painful to Watch"

ADL Letter to Mel Gibson

The latter is actually pretty well written and on the whole avoids the temptation to use inflammatory language. It asks Gibson to add "a movie postscript with you coming on screen at the end to implore your viewers to not let the movie turn some toward a passion of hatred". The interesting thing is that it seems that Gibson has decided to add a postscript of a kind. Thanks to Jim West on Xtalk last Thursday for pointing this one out on WorldNetDaily:

Gibson adding pro-Jewish ending to 'Passion'?
Evangelical leader describes dramatic anti-Semitism discussion after screening

And see here, also in WorldNetDaily, which gives the full story from the horse's own mouth:

Mel Gibson agrees to change 'Passion' film to combat anti-Semitism
Mike Evans

I was recently invited to a special screening of "The Passion of the Christ" in Dallas to make recommendations regarding the film . . . . At the end of the screening, Mr. Gibson humbly asked if we felt the film could incite anti-Semitism and, if so, what could be done to avoid it.

I explained to Mr. Gibson that the Crucifixion story has been used by anti-Semites to feed and fuel Jew-hatred throughout history, and that anti-Semitism has risen throughout the world to levels not seen since the days of Hitler. I further stated that the film, in its present form, could incite violence against Jews in the former USSR, Muslim countries and Europe, and could even result in Jews being killed . . . .

. . . . . Mr. Gibson listened intently, hung his head, and was deeply moved. "What can I do," he asked? I responded, "When the last scene ends go to black, scroll these words across the screen: "During the Roman occupation, 250,000 Jews were crucified by the Romans, but only One rose from the dead."

"By doing this," I said, "instead of feeding Jew-hatred, you will be fighting it. You will be communicating the suffering of all Jews under Roman occupation. By simply inserting this statement, those who desire to use the film to incite hatred toward Jews will be deterred.

"Those who might use the movie to incite Jew-hatred would know that they would be doing just the opposite – challenging the evil myths (that Jews are cursed for crucifying Christ and are Christ-killers) taught throughout history, and still today. In addition, 'The Passion of the Christ' would be the first Jesus film produced to fight anti-Semitism by telling the true story of Jewish suffering during the time of Christ."

Mel Gibson became very excited, and said, "Perfect! I will do it. Yes, I will do it. I needed something for that spot anyway. This is it. I will do it. Thank you." . . . . .

I've not yet seen any comment on this very interesting development, official or otherwise, from the ADL or others.

Meanwhile, Paula Fredriksen, one of those who offered her opinion of an early script of the film last April in the incident that got the whole controversy underway, offers some fresh reflections though she has not yet seen the film. This is in the Christian Science Monitor but reproduced from The Responsive Community:

Controversial 'Passion' presents priceless opportunity for education
A toxic film delivers a dangerous, but teachable, moment
By Paula Fredriksen

And finally, IMDb now has a list of release dates for the film across the world:

Release Dates for The Passion of the Christ

Labels: Paula Fredriksen

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On Point radio, which is based in Boston, MA, USA, broadcast an interesting discussion of The Passion of the Christ on Friday. It features several of those who have been at the centre of the controversy over the film , Peter Boyer, Michael Medved and Paula Fredriksen. It is an interesting listen of about 35 minutes or so:

The Gospel According to Mel

Labels: Paula Fredriksen

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There's a report here on Amy-Jill Levine's reservations about The Passion of the Christ based on a speech given on Sunday. The report is by William Kelly of Palm Beach Daily News:

Scholar airs reservations about early 'Passion' script

Amy-Jill Levine was one of those scholars who saw the early script of the film; usually they are described as an "ad hoc" group, but not here. This report perpetuates the claim that the script was "stolen", something Paula Fredriksen and others on the committee have denied.

Labels: Paula Fredriksen

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