The Passion of the Christ

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The topic for all manner of discussion on the controversial new film (hence, the Alley and not Whatnots). What are your thoughts, whether you've seen it or not? From what I've heard so far, it's one of the goriest movies ever made, and very disturbing. I've also heard from more than one source that it's not totally factually accurate (such as Jesus' appearance, etc.).

It's my feeling that this movie is getting so much hype more becuase of it's graphic nature rather than the story it tells. I mean let's be honest - the screenplay's been available for 2000 years, so I can't imagine there are too many surprises involved. So graphic in fact that an old woman died (collapsed) last night watching it in the theater.

Any thoughts welcome.

Sidenote - This movie opened to a huge box-office debut. HUGE. Mark my words: within the next 5 years we will see a remake of the 10 Commandments, possibly Noah's Arc, and at least a few other Bible-based stories. Hollywood can smell the dollars pouring out of Gibson's "Passion," and I guarantee you there are already a few screenplays in production as we speak. Er, I mean as we type.

 

The level of publicity surrounding this film has been astonishing (as has the resultant box office). I don't want to join the throngs of people criticising the film without actually seeing it at all (it doesn't come out here until 25 March) but I would agree that if any other studios can harness the power of this free publicity they will be onto a winner. The publicity hype : advertising budget ratio is the biggest since "The Blair Witch Project".

 

Well, I’m anticipating I’ll get to see it some time next week. As a Christian, I have mixed thoughts on it. But what I will be looking for most when I see it, is does it explain *why* Christ’s death was necessary. Showing the blood and brutality is only part of the equation. The Resurrection better not be glossed over. My biggest fear is that in an attempt to show how bad Christ was treated, the issue of why Christ was treated so will be pushed aside. I hear there are flashbacks to His ministry, and I hope they are enough.

Then again, the ultimate part of Christ’s ministry was His death and Resurrection. Well, I just hope it’s balanced.

But, by focusing on what all Christ went through, it provides a very good answer to an oft asked question/objection to Christianity...

In most polls where Christians are asked if they could ask God one question, what would it be, the majority is often “Why allow pain and suffering?”

I've seen the question on these boards before.

Why indeed. People who don’t want to believe often use this as one of their arguments, how can a loving God and evil/suffering co-exist? How is it rational to have faith in this? When a woman and her child starve and die in a third world country because all they needed was a little more rain? Where is the justice? This is a very interesting topic for me.

I read an awesome book on this, among other topics. The book is called The Case for Faith. Well, here are some of my favorite high-points from that topic. OK, I love analogies. So, would you agree that the difference between us and God is greater than the difference between us, and a bear? Here’s the scenario: a bear gets trapped and a hunter comes along and sympathizes with the bear, and helps the bear get free. He tries to get the bear’s confidence, but to no avail. So he shoots the bear with tranquilizer. The bear thinks this is some kind of attack and that the hunter is trying to kill him, not realizing the hunter’s true motivation: compassion. Then, the hunter has to push him further into the trap to release the tension on the spring. Now the bear really thinks the hunter is out to cause him suffering and pain. But the bear would be wrong. He reaches this incorrect conclusion because he is not a human being.

OK, but that’s just a cheesy analogy. What about real life examples? A father tells a time of when his five year old daughter was in the Brownies and was learning to thread a needle. She was unaware he was watching her as she tried to thread the needle but only succeeded in poking her fingers until she bled. The father wanted to go in the room and help her, but kept watching instead. The daughter kept trying and finally did it. The father came in the room and the little girl was proud of her accomplishment and excitedly told her father. She was so proud, she had forgotten the pain. Now if the father was wise enough to let the girl do it on her own, how much wiser is God? Is it not possible enough that God is wise to foresee that we need pain for some reasons which we may not understand but which he foresees as being necessary to some future good? I mean, I may regret the trials and tribulations of my past, but I would not be the person I am today and the person I am working to be, were it not for them, that’s for certain.

You hear CS Lewis say that pain is God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world, and certainly repentance can be a good result from suffering. But you know my motto: Don’t dish out what you can’t take back, or in this case don’t allow something to be dished out without being able to handle it yourself. That leads to the ultimate example-- Jesus. The fact that he went beyond justice and took all the suffering in the world and put it on his shoulders during the cross is not just meeting what is dished out, but exceeding it! Now that’s awesome. It was the ultimate tragedy, the ultimate suffering and ultimate good came out of it. So can good come out of our suffering. I mean the above father/daughter example and analogy are good, but try telling that to a young couple who just lost their infant to an obscure disease. That’s why Jesus had to die on the cross. God took on the pain Himself. That is the ultimate example, no analogy needed.

So is it actually possible to thank God for our pain? Here is what one guy said, and I like how he said it. “Yes, in heaven we will do exactly that. We will say to God ‘Thank you so much for this little pain that I didn’t understand at the time. I now understand that it was one of the most precious moments of my life.’ And even if I’m not emotionally capable of doing that right now, I can say ‘Deliver me from evil’ because that is perfectly honest, but it’s not the last word. The last word of the Lord’s prayer is ‘Thine is the glory and the honor.’”

It all goes back to the Cross.

Like this kind of stuff? There’s some really good reading...

I recommend The Case for Faith and The Case for Christ by once atheist journalist, Lee Strobel.

Case for faith tackles questions and objections like...

Since Evil and Suffering Exist, a Loving God Cannot
Since Miracles Contradict Science, They Cannot Be True
Evolution Explains Life, So God Isn’t Needed
God Isn’t Worthy of Worship If He Kills Innocent Children
It’s Offensive to Claim Jesus Is the Only Way to God
A Loving God Would Never Torture People In Hell
Church History Is Littered with Oppression and Violence
I Still Have Doubts, So I Can’t Be a Christian

Case for Christ tackles the evidence of Christ with chapters such as...
The Eyewitness Evidence - Can the Biographies of Jesus Be Trusted
Testing the Eyewitness Evidence - Do the Biographies of Jesus Stand Up to Scrutiny?
The Documentary Evidence - Were Jesus’s Biographies Reliably Preserved for Us?
The Corroborating Evidence - Is Their Credible Evidence For Jesus Outside His Biographies?
The Scientific Evidence - Does Archaeology Confirm or Contradict Jesus’ Biographies?
The Rebuttal Evidence - Is the Jesus of History the Same As the Jesus of Faith?

The Identity Evidence -Was Jesus Really Convinced That He Was the Son of God?
The Psychological Evidence - Was Jesus Crazy when He Claimed to Be the Son of God?
The Profile Evidence - Did Jesus Fulfill the Attributes of God?
The Fingerprint Evidence - Did Jesus - And Jesus Alone - Match the Identity of the Messiah?
The Medical Evidence - Was Jesus’ Death a Sham and His Resurrection a Hoax?
The Evidence of the Missing Body - Was Jesus’ Body Really Absent From His Tomb?
The Evidence of Appearances - Was Jesus Seen Alive After His Death on the Cross?
The Circumstantial Evidence - Are There Any Supporting Facts That Point to the Resurrection?
Conclusion: The Verdict of History.

In these two books, Lee Strobel goes through rigorous interviews with top scholars who have credentials that would blow this little alley of dangerous angles right off the planet He vigorously sticks the toughest questions and objections to them and they come back with solid answers and truths.

Other good books are The Historical Reliability of the Gospels by Craig Blomberg and Jesus Under Fire (Modern Scholarship Reinvents the Historical Jesus) by Michael Wilkins and J.P. Moreland.

So, I’m glad The Passion is stirring up people. But I hope it takes them to the one place, the one truth, that no man can deny...the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. The most beautiful solution to the biggest problem of all time.

 

*standing ovation for Big B!*

Great Post! Dittos.

 

@ Big B: Did Mat pay you for that j/k

A friend of mine went to see this film last night, I'll get her report later. DR, I have to ask: his appearance? We are not basing this off of Micaelangelo's painting of his uncle are we? I've yet to meet anyone who's ever actually seen him outside of a drug induced semi-coma a friend once had. What did he look like? I'm very curious.

BTW: Mat, DR I hope you guys are well. Serious changes happening on this end still . Fear not, the conquering lion shall break every chain.

 

I think that movie will make history as one of the best marketed movies ever. Their campaign consisted out of making it as controversial as it gets and put as much fuel into the fire as possible. I think they had a pre-screening strategy to let selected people see the movie, mostly with some specific religous background, while not allowing the movie-people in, created this way an innuendo and succeded in antogonizing a lot of professional movie-critics, and finally managing to cash in on the self-created controversy. Making it an ideological thingie, let the tempers rise and people will flock like sheeps into a film in ... ahm ... armenic. Madonna would be proud.

 

Another must-miss.

 

I will see the movie tommorow I think. I have to because I am part of the Belief.net panel discussion on the film(helping to represent the atheist pov I suppose).

One thing that disturbs me though is not the gore(some are calling it "The Jesus Chainsaw Massacre") or this anti-semetic hoopla but the fact that so many are giving the film a pass on the historicity.

1)The Romans NEVER crucified anyone by driving nails through their palms. It would not support the weight of the body.

2) We have no ,more evidence of a historical Jesus than we do of a historical King Arthur and yet I am seeing alleged historians on various talkshows arguing about "who killed Jesus" when we have no reason to thing any Jesus was actually killed!

I think Hollywood tends to give Mel a free pass anyway. Braveheart was a terrible movie IMO but in any case I will go see the movie and make up my own mind.

 

@ Greenie

I've heard people say that it's highly inlikely that Jesus had the long hair and beard, or was so light skinned, as we've all been presented with. Men in that particular region and time period kept short-cropped hair, and tried to keep their beards trimmed as well. Whether for aesthetic, cultural or health reasons (lyce, etc), the common depiction of Jesus is innacurate, or so I've heard.

ps - We miss ya buddy!

 

@Runequester

Sounds like you've made up your mind already.

Only "art" depicts nail holes in the palms. I think you will see that the spikes (nails are too gentle a term) are driven between the carpal and metacarpal bones of the wrist which could (quite painfully) bear the weight of a human body. Further, there is history in Roman Crucifixion, especially where adapted to local
practices, to use spikes to secure the accused.

You really should check out some of the references mentioned by Big B above before you make or try to defend that claim.

 

AFAIK the bloodline of David had some peculiar looks. Lighter skin and lighter hair would even fit. That long hair was uncommon at the time doesn't mean Jesus couldn't have it. There's an example of Samson and the Essenians (or Essen-whatever-you-call-it).

Flavius, Tacite, Plinius, Suetonius and several others mention Jesus as a historical person with sometimes hints towards His teachings and wisdom.

When it comes to King Arhur, one only gets vague mentions of some Romans or Roman Celts called Ambrosius and Aurelius, possibly one and same person. Some leader called Aurelius Augustinus who organised defence against Saxon invaders is mentionned once. Some hints in the direction of the Roman title dux bellorum/dux Britanniae. That would be it.

Therefore, the claim that "we have no more evidence of a historical Jesus than we do of a historical King Arthur" gets a zero. Sorry.

 

Haven't seen the movie yet, (hoping to check it out this weekend) - but here is an interesting piece that I read on the internet. It's a bit by Orson Scott Card (who you may know as the author of Ender's Game and various other series). A nice article.

http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2004-02-29-1.html

I'll put in my two bits AFTER i've seen the film.

 

<-- watched the movie just now.

i don't think the inaccuracies are really subjects of matter as this movie was not intended to accurately depict what happened. i don't think anyone in this world can do that anyway. As much as i remember, every historical epic has been crucified for that. i am not surprise that someone come out with things like "Peter is a lefty, he would use his left hand to hold a dagger, this movie is not accurate!". Sinking yourself into the manner of accuracy just make you deviate from the essence of the movie.

So, as for the movie
i have to say, Gibson's "Passion of the Christ" is just skin deep. He attempted to bombard the viewers with brutal images, which he did, very well. My friend wasn't able to withstand the punishment and left half way in the movie. As the title already told you, "Passion of the Christ", this is a movie made by a believer. Don't expect any philosophical nor debatable issues like existence of God and evil, resurrection of Jesus. It is, i repeat, skin deep. Jesus went through these torments, and this is what you will see.

One particular scene though, i think is absolutely unnecessary. After Jesus was brought to the hall where the public and the rabbis ask his questions, we have several close ups on Peter. One close up, after Peter came from the other side of the column to another side, we can see a clear Peter and a vague woman’s face in front. This laughing woman had a hideous face, the kind of hunchback of the N.D. plus witch face. Why suddenly throw in such face is beyond me. Does Gibson want us to hate those who were responsible for Jesus’ death? We get several scenes in the movie that tells us to love our enemy. Jesus even prayed for the “evil” rabbi. Why all these and why that hideous witch face?

 

As for Jesus appearance, wasn't he a person who followed the Law? = kept a beard. It would be impossible to know exactly what he looked like, but being from Palestine, means he would probably look like the average Palestinian man...

As for there is no historical evidence mumbo jumbo, there was no historical evidence for anyone who had no birth certificate or a biographer, so that means billions of people never existed...?

Why do people say that the Passion and or Catholic version of Christianity is anti-semitic? According to the Law, Jesus was not what it is claimed and deserved death, the Rabbis and others who knew the law simply asked for it to be carried out. How is a presentation of that anti-semitism?

How do we discuss Jesus bloodline when he had no father? The only like he had was through a mother who was from the descendants of Aaron.

Latin or Greek? What?! If we read the gospels carefully we see that Jesus was a people's man and he even is quoted as speaking Aramaic. I personally doubt that he would have spoken Greek, since a person who so devoutly followed the Law would have felt that it would be almost a sin to speak Greek. He called Peter "cephas" which is a hellenised version of the Aramaic name, and he also says, "ephphthah" to the blind man, meaning "open (your eyes)" as well as when he revived the young girl he said "cumi talitha", "get up lass". Greek no. Latin no. But then the Catholic church is based in a Latin culture....

As for anyone who wants to flame me, no I'm not a Christian so don't bother....

 

@teeck (this is just my thought! Nothing else.):
Peter promissed Jesus that he would never leave him but would rather die for Him. Jesus answered (in the bible at least, I have not seen the movie) that before the cock crows, Peter would have denied to know Jesus, 3 times. Satan loves to make that happen, taking people away from Christ. Perhaps the 'evil witchface' reprazented that? Peter told a woman that he didn't know Jesus. Jesus was all alone at the world, even his 'best friends' abbandomed Him.

It's just an idea. But again, I haven't seen the movie.

 

Came across this article by Ken Woodward in the Trib the other day. This was the first time I'd read anyone who didn't stick to the "PoC is anti-semitic" script. The article says, more or less, that the film takes Christians to task far more than it does anyone else. The story of Christ has been sanitized, Christ has been removed from the cross in most Christian denominations, etc...whereas this film is saying, "When we talk about the suffering of Christ, *this* is what we mean." Anyhoo. I found it to be a really compelling read.

Edit: Damnit, my link gives you the subscriber page to the NYT. Google "Kenneth Woodward Passion of Christ" and it should be your first entry.

 

The whole Latin versus Greek language thing is troubling. If true, that would be a major inaccuracy. I myself do not know if the Greeks or Romans had more influence in the area at that time. However, given that we are talking about the last few years of BCE (Jesus' birth date has been put as far back as 12 BCE) to around 35 CE, my guess is the Romans. Heck, Augustus Caesar was the Emporor for the first 20-something years of Jesus' life. So I'm guessing that Latin was a more dominant language at that time, since we are talking about the height of the Roman Empire.

 

Greek was the english of this era and considering that this area was part of the hellenistic kingdoms, which followed Alexander's empire, it's possible that many people there could speak greek. Although, I think that it is very unlikely that the average jew of this time, who was Jesus' audience, would speak greek.