"The Passion" by Mel Gibson.

Let's start some controversy here. But please, keep it civilised, kids!

I've finally managed to watch it and I was more than shocked.

What do you guys think of it? As a film. As a religious oriented piece of art. As a Catholic-propaganda mean. As anything you consider it.

Shoot!

 

Bang !

consider the fact that Mel kept his film pretty "bloody" tame...........Christ was not recognizable according to scripture

propaganda piece no way. Jew bashing.........no way. let the rocks be thrown

 

I saw it. I felt that it was well done, maybe a bit overboard on the beating but that is the way Mel "felt" it.

I did not see the anti-Semitism. Caiaphus(sp?) was a pretty miserable old codger from what I understand and that is how he was portrayed.

Anybody understand why Judas's demons were portrayed as children? That is still bugging me.

Later

BTW, welcome back Friedrich.

 

Thank you very much, J!

And certainly, anyone tortured that way would have looked that same way: without skin and with naked ribs...

I heard a couple of people say it: "damned Catholic propaganda". But if an devout Evangelist Christian —correct me if I'm wrong, Erich— sees it otherwise, then it's good for me. It isn't propaganda.

It is Jew bashing. But that's not Mel Gibson'a interpretation. That's what the Gospels say! But the film has so much power that a Jew can indeed feel a little against the wall by this film. However, that is how it happened and even if the ignorant people and the ambitious Pharisees did want him dead —and they had true, valid reasons for that—, Jesus himself forgave them later in the cross. So, it's not anti-Jewish (anti-semite is a popular but completely wrong term!)

This was an interpretation which, I think was incredibly well-conceived and performed. Just to see how guilty he felt and why he couldn't bear life anymore.

But I think the film was amazingly well-done. Mel Gibson has shown us that he is a genious as a director and as a screen-writer. How he portrays everything is very accurate, how he shows it is very dramatical and shocking —no one who watches that film can't prevent his or her chest from burning of emotions—, how he interpretates everything is not free, nor vain, nor unapropriate.

I just have a few things to object about the film:

Even if it's great that it's in Aramaic and Latin, all that takes a lot of textual accuracy away, because there is no original source in Aramaic or Latin which tells us the story, all was in Greek! And the Latin is wrongly pronounced as Italian...

But that's pedantic from me. I loved it!

I didn't like the deamon or the devil appearing all over. There's no mention of it anywhere and I don't think it was necessary. However, it's very well-portrayed and carried out.

Go watch it!

 

seeing it tonight, i'll post my comments on it tomorrow.
i hear from a friend of mine that it's the best movie he's ever seen, i'm not sure about that but I'm a huge fan of Mel Gibson and I'm proud of all the interviews (especially that one with Dianne Sawyer) and responses to the criticisms.

 

I saw it, and I can see why some might consider it to be anti-semetic. Personally, I don't see it that way, but that's just me.

Interesting tidbit...during the filming of "The Passion", The actor who plays Christ dislocated his shoulder while carrying the cross, was accidentally whipped during one of the tourture scenes (he now has a 14 inch scar on his back) and was struck by lightning. One of the body doubles for Christ was also struck by lightning, a few days after recovering from pnemonia.

DUCE

 

Anti- Jewish. There were no Arabs then!

If you are going to blame someone of being anti-Jewish, then blame Saint Matthew:

"Pilate said to them [the Jewish crowd], 'Then what shall I do with Jesus called Messiah?' They all said, 'Let him be crucified!'"

Matthew, XXVII, 22.

"And the whole people said in reply, 'His blood be upon us and upon our children'."

Matthew, XXVII, 25.



The film is not anti-Jewish. The whole story might be...

 

It is Jew bashing. But that's not Mel Gibson'a interpretation. That's what the Gospels say! But the film has so much power that a Jew can indeed feel a little against the wall by this film. However, that is how it happened and even if the ignorant people and the ambitious Pharisees did want him dead —and they had true, valid reasons for that—, Jesus himself forgave them later in the cross. So, it's not anti-Jewish (anti-semite is a popular but completely wrong term!)</font>[/QUOTE]Guess it's far more Roman-bashing than Jew-bashing.

In reality it's bashing mankind, we crucified and tortured God's son, not the Jews or the Romans...

Cheers,

 

i saw it last week, and I must say it was one of the most powerful things I have ever seen. anti-semetic? maybe a select few, such as pharisees. Roman bashing? A select few again. Pilot was presented as a "good man" but was his actions directed by his conscience, his wife, or his sense of duty...
why am i still rambling on?

slan agat

 

The Jews WERE THE DIRECT CAUSE OF THE DEATH OF CHRIST!!!!! I can not understand how this is even remotely anti-semitic. Why are so many trying to rewrite history on this issue? If Jews get their noses bent out of shape on this then hey, that's their problem, but it does not detract from the facts! Damn historical revisionists!

 

First of all, and this is directed to everyone in this forums:

The word antisemitism referrs to a race, not a religion. And most Arabs are of the semitic race. Therefore, endemic Middle-East Israelis and Arabs are both semites.

The only correct word for referring to hatred against Jews is anti-Jewish.

Now, wilconqr. You are once again showing you're just an intollerant racist bastard. You did once menyioning the 'Japs' should have been annihilated by more A-boms in '45.

I'm sick of your xenophobia and intollerance. You have already bashed Arabs, Japanese, left-wingers and now, Jews... who's next? American Indians? Hispanics? Gays? Chinese? You're a bloody fascist!

Are you concient that Jesuschrist was a Jew himself, a semite and that he followed Jewish religion?

You're also forgetting that as a historical fact Jesus was killed by three men:

- Caiaphás
- Pontius Pilatus
- Himself (he had accepted his fate and didn't do anything to change it, and with this, I don't mean he comitted suicide...)

But why? I can tell you why (as a fact) the first two wanted him dead, because of very valid and true reasons. But I won't bother to type, because your closed, fascist and intollerant mind won't accept anything except more prejudices.

[ 26. April 2004, 10:56 AM: Message edited by: General der Infanterie Friedrich H ]

 

friedrich- My posts still stand on bombing the japanese into oblivion. I never said anything against an Arab, but did speak against muslim radicalism and muslim bystanders who will not take a stance against terrorism. Left wingers- these are the partisian screw balls who are attempting to tear my country apart with lies and deciet, so I DO HATE them with a passion! I never said anything "against" a Jew, but was only stating the FACTS. Gays- yep, don't like em! I believe that their sick lifestyle is not only unnatural but is an abomination against the Almighty! Some of my views are predjudiced but certainly not racist- your own Giligan Pyle misconception! My reason for these views- I am a god fearing red-blooded American patriot, the kind our enemies hate and fear...bring it on baby! Something you probably can not understand being from "that" country. Lastly, the name calling is as uncooth and unprofessional as it is unnecessary! However, once I saw your ghastly pic in the profile, it appears you may be beneath these standards...

 

here's a question worth considering...if you were a Jew, not knowing what you know now, would you try to stop the crucifiction of Jesus, the son of a carpenter, a "wise man" who travelled around telling weird stories that only few understand?
I am ashamed to say, knowing my personal character, in that situation I would have been either in that crowd of people yelling "crucify him" or wouldn't have cared to do anything about it. wilconqr? freddy?

 

I know only one thing... Jesus Christ was crucified as a direct result of the Jews. Ciaphas, a Jew, brought him before the Sanhedran? and finally the Roman, Pontius Pilate. After Jesus was flogged, Pilate offered him up to his people, the Jews, to be judged. They chose Barabbas, a zealot, over christ, saying "give us Barabbas." Concerning Jesus they said, "let his blood be upon us." There it is, plain and simple from the highest source on the issue. Anyone who says otherwise is a fool.

 

What are you quoting from??

If the Bible, you take as a valid historical document, a collection of myths cobbled together around 500-800 years later by those with a religious bias??

If I wrote a history of WW1, in 2718, without much in the way of documents but pleanty of "old wives tales" would it have credibility??

PS, After hearing all of the Hype about the movie, why would anybody be shocked about it.

 

Not just a fascist, but a completely ignorant person... (not to mention that for someone to be a fascist, he has to be very ignorant first)

Jesus was killed by three people as stated previously: Caiaphás, Pontius Pilate and Himself. The Jewish people had nothing at all to do with it.

First, Caiaphás was not only the religious authority of the Jews, but also a very influential political one. And the reasons he had to kill Jesus were very valid and strong. Any other High priest with enough sense of reality would have done the same. Why?

First of all, Jesus was an heretic to the eyes of Caiaphás and to the eyes of the conservative part of the Pharisee party. By hanging around with publicans and prostitutes, by haeling during the Shabbat, etc. Jesus was a Jew who meant to reform Judaism, but by doing this he seemed directly opposed to some of the most strict Jewish religious traditions, thus making him an heretic.

Second, Jesus also directly challenged the stablish religious and political hierarchy of the time. Jesus directly attacked the Temple's taxes and business. As you know, there were salesmen trading outside the Temple and the Temple taxed the people and they had to pay when washing themselves before entering the Temple. All this money went directly to the High priest's pocket. Archaelogical evidences clearly show that High priests lived in fancy and luxurious palaces. Then, if Jesus attacks the Temple's financial policies and puts them in evidence, he is threatening the economical prosperity of the priests.

The third and most important af all. The Jews of the time who were waiting for the Messiah, didn't think of Him as the son of God who would come to Earth and redeem mankind of its sins... The Messiah was the direct descendant of King David, a warrior, demi-God monarch who would kick the Romans out of Judea and who would restore Israel to its old splendour. Jews thought of the Messiah to be a new, but invencible Judhas Maccabeaus, the rebell who kicked the Seleucid Empire of Antioch IV out of Palestine in the II century b.C. Caiaphás was aware of this. But unlike the rest of Jews, he was perfectly aware that Rome was not the Seleucid Empire and that Augustus was not Antioch IV. Jesus seemed peaceful at the time, but that could change at any moment and the large crowd behind him already believed he was the Messiah. Caiaphás realised that at any moment, a rebellion could erupt and Roman reprisals would be incredibly harsh (which was exactly what hapened 40 years after Jesus' death!) Then, the High priest proclaimed a Messiah and the rebellion of Judea started, being bloodily finished by Vespasianus and Titus. The Temple in Jerusalem was profained, Jerusalem itself destroyed and thousands of Jews massacred. Just remember the Massada incident. So, Caiaphás' fears were all but unfounded. Jesus was a heretic who was threatening the stablished hierarchy and who might bring complete destuction to the Jewish people.

Pontuis Pilate, the Roman governor, thought exactly in this way. He didn't care at all if Jesus was an heretic or not or if he complained about the priests' corruption or not. But he was powerful popular leader who might start an armed rebellion anytime soon. And of course, if the crowd or himself proccliamed himself king, it meant direct tresons to Rome, because only the Roman Emperor could procclaim kings. Then, Jesus was a traitor to Rome and a possible rebell.

Jesus himself didn't do absolutely anything to prevent his fate, so he is to be blamed of his death too. But he accepted his fate for personal convictions, which is then a theological matter which I won't mention.

You are the fool. Matthew is the one who states: 'His blood be upon us and upon our children'. As everything in that Gospel, it's all manipulated and forced. And even if that was true, some pages later Jesus himself, already nailed on the cros forgave them, Jews and Romans. The statement of Jews being the assassins of Christ has been used by men who just ignored the rest of the Gospel and Jesus' general ideas. Jesus died because he was a direct threat to the most powerful persons of Jerusalem at the time and he died because of it, not because of a ignorant and manipulated crowd who supossedly chose a bandit instead of their Messiah.

When you read the Bible properly, and don't take it literaly, study Biblic times, Jewish history andf traditions then you can come and discuss.

 

And you still stand as this forum's fascist bastard.

No, you tried to prove with a wrong sylogism that one billion Muslims are terrorists...

Your country? It'a also their country and that same country gives them and yourself the freedom to criticise whatever they want and do something about it. And I won't even bother to speak about those 'liberals' (you damned fascist fools don't even know what terms really mean!)Because I don't want to hear the crap you will surely say about that 'communist conspiracy' to destroy your WASP way of life! It is because fools like you who don't realise that the USA is taring apart from within, because of bad health care, drugs, violence, family disintegration and bad education; but they try to blame it all in 'those liberal bastards'...

Your facts ain't. They're crap, as pretty much all you state.

Now, let's see these two to-gether:

Buy some other arguements, you bloody nazi. Unnatural and sinful... Abomination! Yes, Michellangelo, Da Vinci, Plato, Tchaikovski, Wilde, Mann, all them, Sodomitic poor bastards that are burning in hell! Abominations of mankind! Yeah...

In some years, when I die I'll ask the Lord if my faith, charity, fairness and love are useless because I loved and lived with a man and not a woman all my life...

You're admitting your own intollerance and some lines above you said that you still wished that the Japanese would have been banned by more A-boms... and you say you're not racist?! Let's see who buys it...

I'm sorry, but how can I be tollerant with this kind of intollerant sob?

No, it is because of aberrations and abominations of Americans like you that everyone hates the USA. It is because of you, filthy people, that a great country with a great culture which has contrubuted to so much good to the Human race
is now hated and attacked. 300 million people's values, reputations and safety are screwed because of red-blooded 'patriots'... Red-blooded 'patriots' like those who wear masks and thre Ks...

Oh, yeah... You mean that country with the smelly and lazy bastards who don't do anything but drink wine, eat stinky cheese, spread syphyllis and complaint?

'That' country, for your information has contributed in a huge extent to Western civilisation and culture, that country made possible your country's independence, that country has been the most powerful and wisest of the world in more than one occasion.

I am proudly French. Vive la France! But before that, I'm a European and before that, I'm a citizen of the Western world. A Western world which France, along Germany, Spain, Great Britain, Greece, Italy, the United States, etc., etc. has helped to build and which now provides us with all that we have and the freedom to be what we are. But all that is based in tollerance. But if things like WWII and the Holocaust happen is because of ignorant and stupid extremists who don't understand anything, like yourself and all the idiot extremists from that came out from the toilet of the ultra-right of the Republican party.

And now, the intollerant pedantic is bashing Friedrich because of how he looks in a silly picture taken three years ago...

[ 28. April 2004, 08:04 PM: Message edited by: General der Infanterie Friedrich H ]

 

ah me problems again in the FFZ............

thought this thread was about Mel Gibson's "Passion of Christ" ?? seems not to be. do I need to use the Delete button again GENTELEMEN ???............... ?

get back on topic and forget the personal attacks...

E ~

 

Well if we're really talking about who killed Jesus Christ what about all of us. The Bible states the reason for Christ's death was because of our sins, thus making us the ones who really put him on the cross. John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that He sent His one and only Son so that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."
This isn't about history, it's about, as the movie says, a passion. Jesus Christ was killed because of the sins we commit today, the very reason He was sent to the earth, and He was risen to forgive those sins and give us freedom, trust me, there is freedom in the forgiveness Jesus gives.
The movie portrays only the beginning from that point on the disciples and all those who accepted Jesus' teachings spread the gospel around the world and died for that message. The Bible is history but it is so much more than that being the inspired Word of God.
I would encourage all you guys to really seek the truth behind the movie and the reality of the man!!

 

Very good post, OTF!

Erich, delete the whole thread if you want, but you definately must delete all racist posts. It is in the forum's etiquette that such things are not to be tolerated under any circumstance.