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A review of The Passion
by Simon
I finally saw Mel Gibson’s ‘The Passion of the Christ.’ I was a bit conflicted over whether I should see it, since my $9.25 was going to Mel Gibson, who at best supports his antisemetic father. In the end though, I decided to see it so that I can be as ready as possible to discuss why Mel Gibson is an unsavory character. This review will not be about him, but about his beliefs with regard to Judaism and salvation, while occasionally taking issue with some ideas in Christianity. Don’t get me wrong, I still don’t like Mel Gibson. I paid to see this one, but just won’t go see his subsequent films. Speaking of which, I hear his next movie is going to be about a guy named Mel who’s been crazy about Jesus all his life, and who is suddenly blessed with the ability to read the subconscious of his savior. Mel sees that Jesus has a violent and vengeful streak simmering underneath the forgiving surface. Hilarity ensues when Jesus reaches true self-actualization upon seeing Mel’s film and wreaks havoc upon his flock in revenge for the fact that, in Mel’s words, ‘We’re all responsible for christ’s death.’ The working title is 'What Jesus Wants.'
On a more serious and hopefully less divisive note(I apologize if I offended any hardcore believers, that last bit was meant in jest and directed against Mel Gibson, not Christianity) I do have some serious observations to make about the film.
Antisemetism is not the focal point of Gibson’s belief system, but it is a part of it. The first evidence of this is in one of the earlier scenes, where Judas betrays Jesus’ location to the Sanhedrin(Jewish High Court) in exchange for something like 30 gold coins. The chief rabbi tosses a bag of coins at him, he misses the catch, the coins spill out all over the floor, and the camera then watches intently as he bends down to pick each of them up. I thought this was an interesting scene to include in light of the typical antisemetic epithet of ‘money grubbing Jew’ and such. The other major indication of his understanding of Judaism lies in how he portrays the Jews’ attitudes toward capital punishment. In the movie, the Sanhedrin convicts Jesus of blasphemy when he says he is the messiah, and they decide that they want him crucified. Since they cannot carry out crucifixion, they bring him to Pilate for his order to do so. It would be strange to think that the Jews would demand that Jesus be crucified, because although capital punishment is in the Old Testament, there are categories of execution methods, and crucifixion does not adhere to the guidelines of any of the categories.
Capital punishment is a penalty prescribed by Biblical law for the commission of offenses that violate ritual prohibitions (such as deliberate desecration of the Sabbath) as well as laws regarding interpersonal relationships (murder, kidnapping, incest). The Biblical text explicitly specifies two forms of execution: stoning (Exodus 17:4, 8:22; Numbers 14:10) and burning (Leviticus 20:14, 21:9). The oral tradition includes two additional means -- strangulation and decapitation. To be clear, any of these punishments sound cruel and unusual by today’s standards, and I certainly don't know anyone who advocates execution for something like “desecrating the Sabbath.” But scholars argued for years to try to minimize the suffering and disfigurement experienced in these punishments. For instance, stoning was actually essentially the act of being thrown from a cliff, to nearly ensure instantaneous death. This effort, driven by the commandment to treat one’s fellow man as one treats oneself, essentially would forbid the Sanhedrin from seeking crucifixion, a method outside of and crueler than the Jewish methods of capital punishment. For a more detailed analysis of capital punishment in Jewish law, see the article from www.jlaw.com referenced at the bottom of this page.
Also along these lines, the general Jewish populace in the movie was made to look bloodthirsty, while Pilate, the Roman governor, was made to look thoughtful. According to Gibson, Pilate at first rejected the idea of crucifying Jesus, even as the Jews begged him to do so. The film shows him first sending Jesus to be punished but not killed, and then sending him to be crucified only once he felt that a Jewish revolt would occur were he to let Jesus live(from all I’ve read about the era, the notion of the Romans fearing the Jews is preposterous). During the initial punishment, the Jews watch and jeer as Jesus is caned and then scourged.
The biggest issue that I have in the movie, bigger than the antisemetism, is that any character who didn’t believe in Jesus’ divinity was made to look like a bad person. There were good Jews in this movie. But they were only those who were horrified at Jesus’ death, who had fear and awe struck into them by looking at his disfigured body. This aspect of the movie completely ignores the fact that Judaism takes capital punishment very seriously, and that it was performed quite infrequently("The Sanhedrin that executes one person in seven years is called 'murderous.' Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah says that this extends to one execution in seventy years.") Jewish law states that calling oneself the messiah is blasphemy in itself, since Jews believe that the Messiah's coming would be irrefutable - belief would be unnecessary, since the facts of salvation would be truly, physically plain to see. The punishment of stoning is harsh, but at the time it served as protection to the populace from a false prophet wielding power. So there was a social context to consider. The religious authorities, right or wrong, could never accept Jesus. But “The Passion” forgoes the positive spin which could have said that the best of us stand up for what we believe even if it contradicts the laws of the status quo. It instead implies that skepticism is evil.
Source:
http://www.jlaw.com/Briefs/capital2.html from www.jlaw.com
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