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Al Barger and MoreThings - getting people's goats since 1998.
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February 27, 2004
Mel Gibson takes it easy on the Jews
Let's have one more bite at the apple with this Mel Gibson and the Jews thing. In the run-up to the release of The Passion of the Christ, I wrote about the general issue of anti-Semitism in the New Testament of the Bible. Now that the movie is out, we can look see what Gibson actually did with the source material.
In fact, based on what is actually on the screen, Mel Gibson clearly went out of his way to minimize the culpability of Jews in general- within the context of remaining true to scripture. As a Bible believing Christian, Gibson could not just change the plot points of the Book when making the movie. In the book, the characters- good, bad and mixed- were mostly Jews. He couldn't very well just pretend that the Jews had left the room when all this was happening.
However, he went out of his way to show different reactions among the Jews. Besides the obvious fact that Jesus himself, his mother, and the disciples were Jews, he emphasized dissent among the Sanhedrin.
Caiaphus, the high priest, was the principle bad Jew here, but even he left some doubt. You could watch this and think that he was deluded, and thought he really was taking out a bad guy. What exactly was he thinking?
Yes, Caiaphus whipped up a lot of the Jews into a mob frenzy as per the book. You couldn't very well tell this story without that. Again, however, as per the book Jesus judged that they merited forgiveness because they didn't understand what they were doing.
Gibson played up one somewhat marginal character in particular from the Book which emphasized that not all Jews were behind this action: Simon of Cyrene. Simon was the guy drafted on the road to help Jesus carry the cross.
Gibson depicts him as a mere bystander reluctantly drafted for duty. Soon, however, Simon is actively defending Jesus. He stands up to the extremely sadistic Romans, bravely insisting that they lay off the scourging of Jesus or he will not carry the cross one more step. "I don't care what you do to me." One of the Romans mocks him with the word "Jew" as an epitaph, and orders him to move on. How do you get anti-Semitic from Gibson out of all that?
In the movie- as per the book- the ROMANS killed Jesus, not the Jews. Gibson made a point of it being his own hands shown driving the nails into Jesus' hands- not those of a Jew.
Not only that, but the Romans were shown as being sadistic well above and beyond the call of duty. The Jews slapped Jesus around a bit in the process of initially taking him in, but it was Romans who were shown doing 99% of the violence. Caiaphus whipped up a mob to demand Jesus' execution, but they were not at Golgotha cheering the torture. The sadism was shown coming pretty much all from the Romans.
In short, Gibson could not have made an honest presentation of the source material that showed the Jews more favorably than what he did. I appreciate the fears of Jews about this material. However, the problem is the Bible, not Gibson.
I object to the dishonesty of the attacks on Gibson. For example, Tom Friedman, movie reviewer for the Fox News website, was on FNC denouncing the movie as horribly anti-Semitic, promoting Jewish stereotypes. Specifically, he objected to Gibson showing Judas betraying Jesus for money, taking 30 pieces of silver- as if Gibson had somehow made this up to smear the Jews.
Was Friedman somehow unaware that this was in the Book? How was Gibson supposed to tell this story without that part?
People need to quit pretending that Gibson just made stuff up to smear the Jews. Look, if you want to argue that the New Testament is "anti-Semitic," go ahead. But don't be trying to blame Mel Gibson.
posted by Al at 2/27/2004 12:04:00 PM
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