More comments on a movie I haven't seen:
Charles Krauthammer's column today about "The Passion" is most unfortunate, mostly because he's wrong, but also because his analysis is one of the most penetrating.
So it is with sadness that I read him saying that "...Mel Gibson's 'The Passion of the Christ' such a singular act of interreligious aggression. He openly rejects the Vatican II teaching and, using every possible technique of cinematic exaggeration, gives us the pre-Vatican II story of the villainous Jews." Further, "these deviations [from the written Gospels] point overwhelmingly in a single direction -- to the villainy and culpability of the Jews."
Usually, Krauthammer's Friday column is worth reading because his analyses are better-written and original than most writers. This column is a tired rehash of points that have been made a thousand times elsewhere, and the writing itself is perfunctory. Saying that Jews "come off rather badly" is completely disingenuous -- does Jesus come off badly? How about his mother? Mary Magdalene? Simon of Cyrene? From what I've heard, they're all portrayed sympathetically, and from what I've read, they were all...Jews!
What people are really objecting to is not "The Passion" but the Christian understanding of the Crucifixion -- that it was an internal Jewish dispute that the Romans were dragged into. Preferring to keep the peace rather than do justice, the local imperial representative ordered Jesus of Nazareth to death.
The only way to call that an anti-Jewish interpretation is if you say that Christ and the members of his movement were not "really" Jews. Perversely, that's what anti-Semites have done throughout history, and that warped tradition continues to this day. Is he saying that some portion of the Judean population could not have possibly urged the death of Jesus Christ? Or that a Jewish mob, constituting a small percentage of the population, might have urged his death -- but we should never mention that fact, even if it is coupled with the teaching that whatever group was the proximate cause of Jesus' death, we are all ultimately responsible for crucifying Christ because of his sins?
It's extremely disappointing to see Charles Krauthammer lend his considerable prestige to a false and insulting charge against believing Christians.
Ironic that the same elite that will believe that Christian religious leaders are guilty of every evil (and some were guilty of many) cannot believe that Jewish religious leaders two-thousand years ago (from the strict, "fundamentalist" branch, no less) could have conspired to kill Jesus.
1. Was Charles Krauthammer this critical that "the Last Temptation of Christ" was not true to the Gospels?
2. Vatican II only reaffirmed the teaching at the Counsel of Trent--(1200 A.D.)This was NOT a new teaching of the Church as Krauthammer implies.
Sheila,
Just a small correction: The Council of Trent took place during the 16th century, not in 1200 AD.
You're right---I just looked that up again! Mea culpa
I don't know what Krauthammer said about "Last Temptation" but it wouldn't surprise me if he thought it was nonsense.
In Krauthammer's article he is upset because in his view, Mel Gibson added some things to the Gospels---well how much more did the "Last Temptation of Christ" change the Gospels and Krauthammer didn't fume.
The movie has been out for over a week and seen by mass numbers--and I have yet to see a single instance of Anti-semitism. Its not about "villainous Jews" it is about redemptive suffering.
Saw the movie last night.
I fail to see how Krauthammer sees an anti-Semitic message in the movie. In multiple points in the movie we see Jews both despising Jesus and Jews acting compassionately and out of reverence for his holiness and recognizing his innocence. Ditto with the scenes with Claudia, Pilate's wife, and the reaction we see to the centurion after Christ has surrendered his spirit into the hands of the Father.
And lest we forget the transformed and dumbfounded reaction of the temple guard whose ear Jesus healed in the Garden of Gethsemane?
I really think Krauthammer's negative reaction may be based on the haunting prospect that Christ really is the Messiah, fulfilling the prophecy in Isaiah 53 which rolled at the beginning of the movie.
The allegations of Passion being anti-semetic are simply people confirming preconceived notions. Anyone who has seen the movie has to admit that it does not portray some jews in a favorable light. However to exaggerate this into claims of radical anti-Semetism and that Mel Gibson hates Jews is just plain silly. The main problem with the critics is Mel Gibson's father and his claims that the Holocaust was greatly exaggerated. People watched the movie with this in their mind and automatically took the fact that it put Jews in an unfavorable light as Anti-Semetic and hateful. Another great example of this is political elections. Most notably the 2000 presidential election where any minor mistake by Bush was proof that he was an idiot and any minor accomplishment that Gore brought up from his past was proof that he was a pompous braggart.
If you are Jewish, you do not beleive in redemptive suffering, nor in Jesus. What is left? Emphatize with Christians? Krauth. and those who write the same way cannot rise to that level. Well, for one, looking out for one's ethnic group.
The defense of the movie as not anti-semitic by saying "Jesus was a Jew" is easily as disingenuous as Mr. Krauthammer was in some of his other insinuations. Really, it is as catastrophically idiotic as an Arab proclaiming with astonishment that he could not possibly be anti-semitic because he was himself a Semite.
The reason why The Passion is explicity not anti-semitic lies in other facts, more difficult or complicated to discern, perhaps... but inexorably more meaningful. Rather than exchaning trite and banal labels with those who attack "The Passion", it would be nicer to get a more calm, sedated but thorough response. Lest I see that appear soon, I may just have to write it myself.
regards,
jfl