The Passion of the Christ

nkb,


As I said back on page 1, its not the issue of Bibles and how many differing translations there are. The point of what the cross did and does is the same. While I disagree with much of what you said you have to objectively look at the texts. Whatever Bible you would like to use, the main point from the new testimant is what Christ did on the cross and its the same in all.

Again, you have no argument from me if one translation says Pilate wore boxers or briefs:D .

FYI-If you find a Jewish or Samaritian bible let me know:p
 
ajnsx said:
griffin, that baby avatar freaks me out!
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I changed it a bit, just for you. :D
 
huckster said:
by the way, hasnt it been sorted out that crucification was through the wrists, not the hands? Unless the wrist was first tied to the cross in order to support the body's weight?
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Like I said, I noticed a heavy influence of Catholicism in the movie.

Yes, the nail should have been driven through the wrists. It makes much more sense to hold up an entire body when the nail is sitting in between the radius and ulna instead of the metarcarpals.

Crucifixion
 
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That was so funny I almost woke my whole house up laughing! Great one...
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Yeah, i actually laughed out loud too, nice read for the too serious!

:D
I changed it a bit, just for you.
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hee hee, now the androgynous one is much cuter, thanks!:D

Before there was a definite Chucky vibe happening!:)
 
Has this thread digressed completely offtopic into the very religious discussions which we're meant to avoid or "tread lightly"??? :confused:


<B>Back to the film...</B>

I have heard numerous amazing stories about the film; people who have cried the entire way through it. One couple were so sobered by the film it radically changed their lives -- the guy gave up a gambling problem he'd been unable to kick, and the wife has been transformed too.

I can't say i've heard stories of people's lives being radically transformed from seeing other films... i have still yet to see it.
 
Tom Larkins said:
Sorry, I wasn't aware that Jewish Bibles existed that had an account of the crusification. I stand corrected.
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Tom, I don't know if you're joking (if so, inappropriately IMO), or if you are just confused. To clarify - The Jewish religion believes in the Bible, and calls it "the Bible" - but the Jewish Bible consists only of the Old Testament, and not the New Testament. (The Jewish religion believes in a messiah, but that Jesus was not the messiah, and the messiah has not yet arrived.) The crucifixion of Jesus is in the New Testament, which AFAIK is considered part of the Bible only by the various denominations of Christianity.
 
nsxtasy said:
Tom, I don't know if you're joking (if so, inappropriately IMO), or if you are just confused. To clarify - The Jewish religion believes in the Bible, and calls it "the Bible" - but the Jewish Bible consists only of the Old Testament, and not the New Testament.
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No prob. I guess thats why its difficult to communicate over the internet. I was speaking in terms of a Jewish Bible w/the Cross as nkb had asked "which Bible to use" Was trying to stay on topic with Jesus account in the Bibles only and know its not included in their text" Jewish Bible". No disrespect intended Ken. nkb sited to other Bibles w/no accounts, which made it appear his argument/credibility/statements were flawed. IMO, if we as Christians and as a country abandon and don't stand up for the nation of Isreal now and in the future were in deep trouble but that another topic.:)
 
NeoNSX said:



<B>Back to the film...</B>

I have heard numerous amazing stories about the film; people who have cried the entire way through it. One couple were so sobered by the film it radically changed their lives -- the guy gave up a gambling problem he'd been unable to kick, and the wife has been transformed too.

I can't say i've heard stories of people's lives being radically transformed from seeing other films... i have still yet to see it.
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According to a Pastor that was w/his church at a screening Sat. nite in which over 600 people attended. 98 people asked christ as personal savior "saved" after the movie. Radical, I don't know but something happened to them.
 
Tom Larkins said:
No prob. I guess thats why its difficult to communicate over the internet. I was speaking in terms of a Jewish Bible w/the Cross as nkb had asked "which Bible to use" Was trying to stay on topic with Jesus account in the Bibles only and know its not included in their text" Jewish Bible". No disrespect intended Ken. nkb sited to other Bibles w/no accounts, which made it appear his argument/credibility/statements were flawed. IMO, if we as Christians and as a country abandon and don't stand up for the nation of Isreal now and in the future were in deep trouble but that another topic.:)
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I said I didn't want to continue on this topic, but I have to respond, since you did not and still do not understand my point, and are questioning my credibility.

Originally, the reason this part of the discussion started was that jlindy had stated that this was a "realistic" depiction of the last 12 hours of Christ's life. I questioned that, based on the fact that there are so many translations and interpretations of the original (Christian) Bible (which was in ancient Greek, I believe), that it would be impossible to get the details correct.
That was my only point at the time.

Then you waded in with the statement to "Ask and seek truth from the Bible", which was when this turned from a discussion of historical records to a religious discussion.

Of course, you assumed your Bible (whatever version that may be) when you made that statement, and when questioned, you assumed a Christian Bible. Based on the fact that you didn't even realize that the Jewish faith also has a Bible, makes me think that you don't realize the sometimes big discrepancies between even the Bibles used by the different branches of the Christian faith, nevermind the other world religions. In my book, that makes you ill-equipped to preach to others.
In this case, my arguments were directed at your statement, not at the basis for the story of the movie.

In closing, I am not saying "stop believing in God" or "stop believing in your religion". How incredibly presumptuous that would be of me.
All I'm saying is this:
1. Realize that the Bible is not the most accurate historical document, based on the many edits and translations it has undergone in 2000 years
2. Don't push your beliefs on other people, as I'm sure you don't want it done to you.
 
nkb said:
Just because someone says it happened, doesn't mean it did. That logic works both ways.

I am a skeptical person by nature, so, anything I hear from other sources has to pass my BS meter first, before I even consider that it might be true (part of the reason I don't answer chain emails that promise you a fortune just for forwarding them).

You lost me on the last part: If I knew something wasn't exactly how it happened, then, no, I didn't believe it when I read it.
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I have the tendency to be the same way. A few years back I was having a conversation about something similar to the theory of Jesus and God. I said to the guy I was talking with. I don't believe in anything I can not touch with my hands. He stepped close to me breaths in my face and says, "do you believe in hot air".

I DO believe in God, Jesus, or some power in the universe. Organized religion I have a hard time believing in. The bible leaves so much open to interpretation and the nature of humans tend to interpret things for their own benefit.
 
I'm surprised no one's posted about this movie in two weeks!:eek:

I saw the movie last night and thought that, cinematically, it was a very good movie. I intentionally avoided reading this thread (and it took me a while to read all the posts, let me tell you!) or any reviews prior to seeing it (other than knowing about the gore) so I can enjoy it without being biased by you all!:D

I've seen many Jesus movies and this is my favorite so far, because it seemed more real and, for lack of a better word, gritty. I'm surprised it's still going strong at the box office and the studios must be kicking themselves by now; I'm betting more movies with religious topics will be out in the near future.

I admire Mel Gibson for not listening to the studios and making this movie anyway. Gibson is a devoted Catholic who chose not to go the p/c route and I find that refreshing. I think he knew the film would do pretty well financially (okay maybe not this well) but to imply he did it for money is unfair. To make a film like this one has to have a strong conviction and I think Gibson would've made it anyway even if he thought it would tank.

As Roger Ebert said (FYI--I'm not a fan of Ebert but he makes more sense than the other reviewers presented here), this movie is about The Passion, or suffering and pain, so if you want a "happier" version, you can always rent "Jesus Christ Superstar". The whole point of the graphic violence and the length of it is to make you see exactly how much Jesus suffered and endured pain for mankind, just as Steven Spielberg felt it was necessary for the very long intro in "Saving Private Ryan". I'm not saying Gibson is as good as Spielberg but my point is I don't think it's gratuitous. But I can see it can be too much for some, however. Not for kids, that's for sure.

I'm glad it was subtitled in languages I don't hear often which made it more believable to me. I liked the flashbacks that Jesus had along with others in the film; they show that Jesus was very mortal in many ways (other than the bleeding). Satan looked so normal it was even scarier than if he was made to look like a monster. Childrens' faces morphing was not as effective as the faces in "The Devil's Advocate", but that's being really picky. One particularly emotional scene for me was when Mother Mary has flashbacks of Jesus falling as a child while the present Jesus was falling with the crucifix, and how that memory triggered her to go help her son. Did you catch the very Robert Zemeckis-like view through the raindrop after Jesus succumbed? Overall, this movie kept my interest for two hours and I feel I got my money's worth.

As far as what people are saying out there, true, Pilate looked like the "good cop" compared to the "bad cop" Caiaphas in this movie, but I think huckster put it best:
huckster said:
I definately didnt get the anti-Jewish thing, although Pilate was portrayed as sympathetic and unwilling to persecute Jesus. This seemed like a fairly plausible account. If you wanted to see anti-semitism, you could. But if you wanted to see satan as a saviour, you could see that too. I think youd have to be pretty twisted to come out seeing either.
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Basically I don't think anyone will feel any different toward Jews--good or bad--after seeing this film. I can understand the Jewish community's concern, but I don't think there's anything more to worry about now than before because of this movie.

I see now why there's a "tread lightly" sign at the door of Off-Topic!:)
 
NSXmadness said:
I see now why there's a "tread lightly" sign at the door of Off-Topic!:)
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Too bad this couple didn't read the sign... :rolleyes:

The following article from the New York Times seems to put some perspective around the reaction to the movie:

FRANK RICH
Mel Gibson Forgives Us for His Sins
Published: March 7, 2004

Thank God — I think. Mel Gibson has granted me absolution for my sins. As "The Passion of the Christ" approached the $100 million mark, the star appeared on "The Tonight Show," where Jay Leno asked if he would forgive me. "Absolutely," he responded, adding that his dispute with me was "not personal." Then he waxed philosophical: "You try to perform an act of love even for those who persecute you, and I think that's the message of the film."

Thus we see the gospel according to Mel. If you criticize his film and the Jew-baiting by which he promoted it, you are persecuting him — all the way to the bank. If he says that he wants you killed, he wants your intestines "on a stick" and he wants to kill your dog — such was his fatwa against me in September — not only is there nothing personal about it but it's an act of love. And that is indeed the message of his film. "The Passion" is far more in love with putting Jesus' intestines on a stick than with dramatizing his godly teachings, which are relegated to a few brief, cryptic flashbacks.

With its laborious build-up to its orgasmic spurtings of blood and other bodily fluids, Mr. Gibson's film is constructed like nothing so much as a porn movie, replete with slo-mo climaxes and pounding music for the money shots. Of all the "Passion" critics, no one has nailed its artistic vision more precisely than Christopher Hitchens, who on "Hardball" called it a homoerotic "exercise in lurid sadomasochism" for those who "like seeing handsome young men stripped and flayed alive over a long period of time."

If "The Passion" is a joy ride for sadomasochists, conveniently cloaked in the plain-brown wrapping of religiosity, does that make it bad for the Jews? Not necessarily. As a director, Mr. Gibson is no Leni Riefenstahl. His movie is just too ponderous to spark a pogrom on its own — in America anyway. The one ugly incident reported on Ash Wednesday, in which the Lovingway United Pentecostal Church posted a marquee reading "Jews Killed the Lord Jesus," occurred in Denver, where the local archbishop, Charles Chaput, had thrown kindling on the fire by promoting the movie for months. Whether "The Passion" will prove quite as benign in Europe and the Arab world is a story yet to be told. It can't be coincidence that France, where Jacques Chirac has of late called for "zero tolerance" of anti-Semitism, was the only country where the film lacked a distributor until this week, when a Tunisian producer declared it was his "duty as a Muslim who believes in Jesus" to remedy that terrible lapse.

But speaking as someone who has never experienced serious bigotry, I must confess that, whatever happens abroad, the fracas over "The Passion" has made me feel less secure as a Jew in America than ever before.

My quarrel is not with most of the millions of Christian believers who are moved to tears by "The Passion." They bring their own deep feelings to the theater with them, and when Mr. Gibson pushes their buttons, however crudely, they generously do his work for him, supplying from their hearts the authentic spirituality that is missing in his jamboree of bloody beefcake. Jews, after all, can overcompensate for mediocre filmmaking in exactly the same way; even the schlockiest movies about the Holocaust (Robin Williams as "Jakob the Liar," anyone?) will move some audiences to tears by simply evoking the story's bare bones in Hollywood kitsch.

What concerns me much more are those with leadership positions in the secular world — including those in the media — who have given Mr. Gibson, "The Passion" and its most incendiary hucksters a free pass for behavior that is unambiguously contrived to vilify Jews.

Start with the movie itself. There is no question that it rewrites history by making Caiaphas and the other high priests the prime instigators of Jesus' death while softening Pontius Pilate, an infamous Roman thug, into a reluctant and somewhat conscience-stricken executioner. "The more benign Pilate appears in the movie, the more malignant the Jews are," is how Elaine Pagels describes Mr. Gibson's modus operandi in The New Yorker this week. As if that weren't enough, the Jewish high priests are also depicted as grim sadists with bad noses and teeth — Shylocks and Fagins from 19th-century stock. (The only Jew with a pretty nose in this Judea is Jesus.) Yet in those early screenings that Mr. Gibson famously threw for conservative politicos in Washington last summer and fall, not a person in attendance, from Robert Novak to Peggy Noonan, seems to have recognized these obvious stereotypes, let alone spoken up about them in their profuse encomiums to the film.

Nor do some of these pundits seem to recognize Holocaust denial when it is staring them in the face. In an interview in the current Reader's Digest, Ms. Noonan asks Mr. Gibson: "The Holocaust happened, right?" After saying that some of his best friends "have numbers on their arms," he responds: "Yes, of course. Atrocities happened. War is horrible. The Second World War killed tens of millions of people. Some of them were Jews in concentration camps." Yes, mistakes happened, atrocities happened, war happened, some of the victims were Jews. This is the classic language of contemporary Holocaust deniers, from David Irving to Mr. Gibson's own father, Hutton Gibson, a prominent anti-Semitic author and activist. Their rhetorical strategy is to diminish Hitler's extermination of Jews by folding those deaths into the war's overall casualty figures, as if the Holocaust were an idle byproduct of battle instead of a Third Reich master plan for genocide. Rather than challenge Mel Gibson on this, Ms. Noonan merely reinforces his junk history. "So the point is that life is tragic and it is full of fighting and violence, mischief and malice," she replies.

No, that is not the point of the history of the Holocaust.

Of course, if a Jew points out such callousness, or reports on how Mr. Gibson exploited a gravely ill Pope as a shill for his movie, he is not practicing journalism or trying to clarify the historical record. He is instead "rabidly anti-Christian," as James Dobson of Focus on the Family is fond of describing Jews who raise questions about Mr. Gibson. The message is clear: Jews who criticize a poor, defenseless multimillionaire movie star and his film are behaving much as Caiaphas and his cronies do in "The Passion" itself. There's a consistency of animus here.

There is also a mighty strange inversion of reality. America is 82 percent Christian, and 60 percent of the population believes the Bible is historical fact. (The Jewish population is 2 percent.) The president of the United States has endorsed Jesus as his favorite philosopher, and Mr. Gibson's movie had almost as large an opening week as "The Lord of the Rings." The star has won his battle. He's hotter than ever in Hollywood, a town whose first commandment is that you never argue with a hit. ("If Hitler did a movie with these numbers, we'd give him his next deal," one Jewish mogul told me in a phone conversation this week.) So by what stretch of the imagination is Mr. Gibson so aggrieved that he can go on "The Tonight Show," purport to be a victim and not be laughed at by Mr. Leno or anyone else? For all his talk of "suffering" for his art, it's hard to see exactly how Mr. Gibson has suffered. His production company is even licensing necklaces ($12.99 or $16.99, take your pick) that feature replicas of the nails used in the film's Crucifixion.

Of late, however, the star has racheted up the volume of his complaints, floating insinuations out of the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion." Speaking of his critics to Diane Sawyer of ABC, Mr. Gibson said: "It's only logical to assume that conspiracies are everywhere, because that's what people do. They conspire. If you can't get the message, get the man." So who is in this dark, fearful conspiracy? The only conspirator mentioned by name in that interview was me. But Ms. Sawyer never identified me as Jewish, thereby sanitizing Mr. Gibson's rant of its truculent meaning. (She did show a picture of me, though, perhaps assuming that my nose might give me away.)

Bill O'Reilly was not so circumspect when he returned to this same theme last week, asking an editor from Variety why Mr. Gibson has taken so much heat for his film. After beating around the burning bush for a while, Mr. O'Reilly said: "I'm asking this question respectfully. Is it because that the major media in Hollywood and a lot of the secular press is controlled by Jewish people?" With respect like this, Jews hardly need any disrespect. Besides, the idea that Jews control the media is disproved by Mr. Gibson's own media campaign. Just as he kept most Jewish journalists out of early screenings of "The Passion," so he cherrypicks his interviewers now. No Jewish journalist on network television (and there are some) has been permitted to question him thus far — a press manipulation by Mr. Gibson's flacks that is worthy of further investigation.

The vilification of Jews by Mr. Gibson, his film and some of his allies, unchallenged by his media enablers, is not happening in a vacuum. We are in the midst of an escalating election-year culture war in which those of "faith" are demonizing so-called "secularists" (for which read any Jews critical of Mr. Gibson and their fellow travelers, liberals). Politicians, we are learning, seem increasingly eager to wrap themselves in "The Passion of the Christ" as a handy signal to indicate they are opposed to all those "secularists" whose conspiracy is undermining all that right-thinking Americans hold near and dear. Predictably enough, both the president and Mrs. Bush have publicly indicated their desire to see Mr. Gibson's film. But when even Connecticut's John Rowland, a scandal-ridden governor facing impeachment, starts to rave about "The Passion" in public ("Unbelievable!" "Breathtaking!"), as he did last weekend, it's clear that we're witnessing the birth of a phenomenon. You come away from this whole sorry story feeling that Jesus died in "The Passion of the Christ" so cynics, whether seeking bucks or votes, could inherit the earth.
 
It's fascinating that Mr. Rich has been slamming The Passion Of The Christ as anti-semitic for over a year. Has he even seen the film yet? I know he hadn't seen it when he started criticizing it. Nobody with such strong views about a film they have never even seen is worth listening to -- they are always pushing their own agenda, whatever it may be.

Almost nobody who has seen the film considers it anti-semitic. I believe Mr. Rich is letting his personal issues with Mr. Gibson and possibly his own insecurities get in the way of any real journalism. He does not seem to recognize that you can (and should be able to) have Jewish characters with negative qualities in a film without it being an indictment of the entire Jewish people, just like you can (and should be able to) make a movie about Pope Lucius III's decree against heretics, the Inquisition's treatment of Galileo or burning at the stake of Bruno hundreds of years ago without indicting all of Catholicism or being anti-Catholic. Or a movie about WWII showing the Germans or Japanese in an unfavorable light without causing us to go out and hate them today.

If anything I think Gibson sought to minimize any way Jews as a whole could be singled out for blame. There are many positive Jewish references throughout the film, the most blatant being the sympathetic Jewish man pulled out of the crowd and ordered to help Jesus carry the cross. Oh, and Jesus was Jewish too, for anyone too slow to catch that fact.

The point of The Passion Of The Christ, which Mr. Rich might get if he put aside his puffed up indigation and actually viewed the film, is that ALL OF MANKIND is to blame for Jesus's death and the way he was treated along the way. From Judas's betrayal to Peter's "hat trick" of denials to the unrelentingly sadistic Roman soldiers torturing him to the Jewish priests to the commoners who spit at him and tripped him as he dragged the cross to his crucification. That is the point of the movie, and it's a shame Mr. Rich is too self-involved to understand.

In any event, I saw the The Passion Of The Christ last week. I thought it was OK. It is primarily intended as both an act and depiction of faith, not entertainment. However, it is still a film and as a film it I'd give it about 3 stars.

The two negatives were that most characters were very one-dimensional since it was such a short time period and they're mostly following the "script" of the bible, and that a lot of it was over-the-top to say the least. But that was obviously Mel Gibson's vision and there is nothing inherently wrong with it -- the beginning of Saving Private Ryan is pretty over-the-top as well. The cinematograhy was interesting at times but did not always seem in character with the content. There was some very well done symbology. The portrayal of Satan was quite interesting as well.

The media loves controversy and is quick to give a voice to those who come out of the theater crying and saying it changed their lives, as well as those who villify it for any reason. Most of the people walking out of the theater seemed to feel about the same as me judging by their conversations, though a few were worked up.

If the TV news crew was there when I left the theater, who do you suppose they would have intereviewed? Me or the other 90% of the audience who, like me, felt it was just another movie and would have said "Ehh, it was OK?"

No, the news wants something interesting. They feature people who have a strong reaction to an event or issue. That is why the media portrayal of this type of thing is always so distorted. That's why the few claiming the movie is anti-semitic get in the media, the same way (and for the same reasons) Al Sharpton pops up in the media any time there is a high-profile claim of discrimination against one or more black people. Al's top priority is getting himself on TV.
 
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It's easy to tell who is REALLY doing the "slamming"

xsn said:
It's fascinating that Mr. Rich has been slamming The Passion Of The Christ as anti-semetic for over a year.
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Apparently you didn't read his article. Because this article is NOT about the movie; it's about the world's reaction to it.

It appears that you are guilty of exactly what you falsely charge Mr. Rich with - pre-judging and slamming someone without bothering to find out what he is really saying.
 
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Re: It's easy to tell who is REALLY doing the "slamming"

nsxtasy said:
Apparently you didn't read his article. Because this article is NOT about the movie; it's about the world's reaction to it.

It appears that you are guilty of exactly what you falsely charge Mr. Rich with - pre-judging and slamming someone without bothering to find out what he is really saying.
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I read every word of this and his previous diatribes. Where you see "perspective" I see him distorting both the film and public reaction to his own self-serving ends.
 
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It's easy to tell who is REALLY doing the "slamming"

xsn said:
I read every word of this and his previous diatribes. Where you see "perspective" I see him distorting both the film and public reaction to his own self-serving ends.
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Then I guess we will simply need to agree to disagree, because I see no distortion of public reaction in this article. The only distortion I see is yours, because it is my opinion that you have slammed him with absolutely no basis or justification, and without even a single reference to what he says in his article. To me, that is the very definition of "slamming", and of prejudice.
 
Re: It's easy to tell who is REALLY doing the "slamming"

nsxtasy said:
Then I guess we will simply need to agree to disagree, because I see no distortion of public reaction in this article. The only distortion I see is yours, because it is my opinion that you have slammed him with absolutely no basis or justification, and without even a single reference to what he says in his article. To me, that is the very definition of "slamming", and of prejudice.
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My basis and justification is that I believe his articles related to the film are simply alarmist posturing, as is typically the case with people who slam any controversial film without even viewing it.

I do not intend to justify his individual comments such as "The vilification of Jews by Mr. Gibson..." with specific remarks because they are just meant to inflame a hundred times more than anything anyone could take from the movie. In any event Mr. Rich does not participate here so the best we would have is me arguing against him and then you arguing his points for him which would be pretty silly.

But I would be happy to discuss or debate the film with you as long as you have actually seen it.
 
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I heard on the radio recently that James Caviezel, who plays Christ, had to hire bodyguards because of the threats he's been getting lately. :rolleyes: :mad:

This movie just passed the $250 million mark on its 3rd week and still remains on top despite Johnny Depp's new movie debuting last weekend. That, to me, says a lot about the people out there.

Here's the standings thus far:
1 The Passion of The Christ = $264,041,000
2 Secret Window = $19,000,000
3 Starsky & Hutch = $51,494,000
4 Hidalgo = $35,483,000
5 Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London = $8,000,000
6 50 First Dates = $106,576,000
7 Twisted = $21,128,000
8 Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen = $24,874,000
9 The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King = $371,176,000
10 Spartan = $2,030,000


Anyway, I can't bring myself to watch it a second time. It's not exactly an enjoyable film, per se.
 
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