A Protestant View
By Rev. Paul H.
Rutgers
Mel Gibson's still to be released
movie, "The Passion of the Christ," will soon be in local theaters.
Few if any films in recent memory have been preceded by such
interest, praise and controversy.
Many of the carefully selected few who
have seen the movie have reacted with passionate intensity, lauding
the film as a faithful presentation of the biblical accounts of
Christ's arrest and crucifixion, and as a powerful tool for deepening
the faith of believers, as well as for confronting unbelievers with
Christ's challenge, "Come, follow me."
At the same time, some who have seen
the film are more critical and skeptical, and concerned about its
effect on the millions of movie goers who may well flock to the
theaters to see it for themselves, all of which would seem to suggest
if nothing else that more than beauty is in the eye of the
beholder.
What are both groups seeing?
They are seeing the re-enactment of a
world-shaping event in human history, an emotional and painful series
of events, skillfully filmed in dark and brooding mists and colors.
They are seeing a familiar story made painfully and in some ways
brilliantly "more real" through the powerful art form of cinema. They
are seeing innocence and goodness suffer and die at the hands of evil
and corruption, and they may well touch something of the enormity of
evil in this world and, perhaps, move closer to confronting the
mystery of good and evil, of human sin and the grace of God.
There is, however, more to the film,
and this is where honest questions and concerns arise.
The film is being promoted as a fully
accurate rendering on film of the biblical texts, a claim that is
hard to sustain on close comparison of the scriptures and the film's
script. It is arguably more closely aligned with the various accounts
in the four Gospels than any previous video attempt to portray the
life of Christ, but still not without its extra-canonical insertions
and purely conjectural description of events. The fact is that we
have no way of knowing to what degree what is shown in the film "is
as it was," and we never will.
More critical is the matter of the
extreme violence in the film. Few if any films have portrayed the
terrible destruction of an individual, piece-by-piece, bone by bone,
tissue-by-tissue. The depravity, the blood and gore, the
inch-by-inch, hour-by-hour scourging and abuse of Jesus extends over
at least half the entire film. Addressed to a contemporary culture
obsessed and addicted to violence, is such a thing necessary,
healing, persuasive, helpful? One suspects Jesus of Nazareth would
have his doubts. In many ways "The Passion" represents an extension
of its producer-director's past use of violence as the heart of his
cinema-graphic language.
Equally critical are the ways in which
the film places the blame for Jesus' crucifixion. Granted, one might
well come away from the film with more than one conclusion. Was it
Pilate and the Romans? Was it the high priest Caiaphas and the cohort
of chief priests around him? Was it the somewhat obscure (in the
film, at least) Scribes and Pharisees? Was it the massed,
bloodthirsty crowd shouting "Crucify him!"? The film, like the four
Gospels, may intend to leave the question in mid-air, but the film is
filled with "bad guys," and apart from the several Roman soldiers
(most of whom were inhuman brutes) the vast majority of those who did
it are clearly Jews.
No surprise here, perhaps, to those
who know the story, but when the cry sounds out, "His blood be upon
us and upon our children," the terrible specter of anti-Semitism and
Christ killer tumbles out. The re-insertion of this dubious and
offensive line in what appears to be the final version of the film is
troubling, to say the least. Is the film anti-Semitic? Almost
certainly, not by intention. But by inference and implication? It
could be so perceived. And herein lies the challenge to Christians of
every persuasion.
The curse and sin of anti-Semitism
haunt the Church and corrupts its message. Modern scholarship and
ancient grace are both clear and persuasive: for Christians in any
way to hold the Jewish people liable for the death of Jesus, or fail
to embrace them as among the faithful children of God, is to distort
Scripture and add to the shame of prejudice and violence perpetrated
on "God's own people," often, it is sad to say, by the followers of
Jesus, a faithful Jew from Nazareth.
The film, "The Passion of the Christ," becomes then
for better or worse an opportunity for serious study and
reflection. This is particularly so for Christians, who shortly
during Holy Week will be hearing again the narratives of the passion
in their Gospel readings. How they are heard and interpreted will be
far more important then what anyone thinks about Mel Gibson's movie.
An uncritical embrace of the movie by Christian leaders may well come
back to haunt them, and so will the failure to vigorously challenge
and correct the anti-Semitism that still haunts the past and lurks in
the shadows of the present.
NOTE: The Rev. Paul
Rutgers is the Executive Presbyter Emeritus of Chicago.
A Roman Catholic View
By Fr. John T. Pawlikowski
The
continuing controversy over the script of Mel Gibson's
yet-uncompleted film, "The Passion of the Christ," has raised
important questions about how Christians are to understand the
differing Gospel narratives about the circumstances of Jesus' death.
Church authorities, including Pope John Paul II, have
clearly acknowledged the sufferings that misinterpretations of the
passion narratives have caused the Jewish people over the centuries.
In 1997, the pope said that "erroneous and unjust interpretations of
the New Testament regarding the Jewish people and their alleged
culpability (for the crucifixion) have circulated for too long,
engendering feelings of hostility towards this people."
The pope underscored the importance of this on the
First Sunday of Lent, 2000, when he asked forgiveness from the Jews
for the hatred and death they have experienced as a result of those
teachings. A few months later, he placed these words of apology in
the Western Wall during his historic trip to Jerusalem: "God of our
Fathers, you chose Abraham and his descendants to bring your name to
the nations; we are deeply saddened by the behavior of those who in
the course of history have caused these (Jewish) children of yours to
suffer. Asking your forgiveness we wish to commit ourselves to
genuine brotherhood with the people of the covenant."
It is in this spirit and with Pope John Paul II's
historical perspective on anti-Semitism, which he has termed sinful
in his book, Crossing the Threshold of Hope, that we must
approach any personal reading of the Gospels passion narratives or
dramatizations of these sacred texts.
The first point we need to understand is that the
Gospel writers were not historians in the modern sense of the term.
Rather, they were interpreting Jesus' ministry, death and
resurrection from varying religious perspectives. Hence they felt
free to utilize details about Jesus' life and death in ways that
would enhance their primary theological perspectives. They were not
especially concerned about what we would regard as chronological or
historical accuracy.
Second, while Christians consider the Gospels to be
divinely inspired, they also reflect the social and political
circumstances of their day. We must try to determine these
circumstances if we are to attain an authentically "literal" meaning
of a text. Often, people who claim to be giving the "literal" meaning
of a New Testament text are simply imposing their own uninformed
interpretation on that text. That's why Catholic tradition has always
been hesitant about reading the Bible without commentaries.
It was Pope Pius XII in 1943 who first affirmed the
importance of scientific biblical interpretation for illuminating the
original meaning of biblical texts. The Pontifical Biblical
Commission has continued to underscore the importance of biblical
interpretation several times since.
The late Vincentian Father Bruce Vawter, who taught
for many years at DePaul University, once wrote that "the trial and
death of Jesus have to be reconstructed rather than read from the
Gospels." Scriptural scholars such as Vawter and official church
documents make the point that the details of Jesus' death cannot be
understood simply by reading the texts in isolation from their social
context. Only with such background information can a person arrive at
the "literal" meaning of these narratives.
It is in this context that the Catholic and Jewish
scholars who examined the original script of Mel Gibson's projected
film "The Passion of Christ" myself included have found it
seriously wanting.
The working script we reviewed, as well as the rough
cuts now being shown to select audiences, have as their major
storyline a depiction of a cruel and vengeful high priest Caiphas
leading a cabal of hateful Jews to force a weak-kneed Pontius Pilate
to put Jesus to death. In the end, they blackmail him into doing
their dirty deed. But from biblical and historical scholarship we
know that Pilate was a powerful tyrant who fully controlled the
political situation. No way could the Jews of Palestine have
blackmailed him.
He, not the Jewish leaders, was primarily responsible
for Jesus' death. That is where the film is not in keeping with
Vatican II and Catholic teaching. Gibson also relies on
extra-biblical materials from the mystic Venerable Catherine Emmerich
which are tinged with anti-Semitism. Certainly films can present
Jesus' suffering and death in a powerful way. But they must remain
faithful to the church's current understanding.
"The Passion of the Christ" does not. Gibson, in fact,
rejects those teachings as well as modern biblical scholarship and
thus stands outside of official Catholicism today.
NOTE: Father John T. Pawlikowski, a Servite priest,
is director of the Catholic-Jewish Studies Program of the Cardinal
Joseph Bernardin Center at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. A
leading champion of Catholic-Jewish relations, he was one of nine
Jewish and Catholic scholars who reviewed an early script of the
movie. Most of the revisions they urged have not been implemented.
This article originally appeared in the Catholic New World.
A Jewish View
By Rabbi David Fox
Sandmel
Mel Gibson's soon to be released
movie, "The Passion of the Christ," is best understood in the
tradition of the Passion Play, dramatic adaptations of the Jesus'
death which have long been a source of distress to the Jewish
community. By portraying Jews as the evil, bloodthirsty killers of
Jesus, and thus enemies of God and all Christians, Passion Plays have
contributed to the presence of anti-Semitism in Western culture.
Indeed, Hitler praised the Passion
Play at Omerammergau, which dates back to 1633, saying that it was
"vital that it be continued ... for never has the menace of Jewry
been so convincingly portrayed as in this presentation of what
happened in the times of the Romans."
In recent years, Christians who
acknowledge the historic role of churches in fomenting anti-Semitism,
have turned a critical eye on the way Jews and Judaism are depicted
in their liturgical and educational materials. Christian sensitivity
in these areas has fostered significant changes in traditional church
doctrine and practice on the part of both Roman Catholics and
Protestants, such as those stemming from the Second Vatican Council's
landmark Nostra Aetate (1965), and the Declaration of the
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America to the Jewish Community
(1994). Indeed, the producers of the Oberammergau Passion Play,
working with Jewish advisers, unveiled a revised version several
years ago.
Since the Gospel accounts themselves
portray the Jews in negative terms (a subject on which there is a
lengthy bibliography), it is worth considering whether one can
present a play or movie that is faithful to the sacred scriptures and
message of Christianity without denigrating Jews and Judaism. Is the
role of the Jews as portrayed in the New Testament central to the
foundational Christian message that Christ suffered and died to atone
for the sins of humanity?
The challenge to anyone staging the
Passion today is how to treat the anti-Jewish aspects of the biblical
texts. Do they constitute a major theme? Are they exaggerated or
embellished to make them even more prominent and negative?
In this regard, the Gibson film is
problematic. Gospel accounts are used selectively, and are both
embellished and exaggerated. For example, Matthew 27:24-25 states:
"So when Pilate saw that he could do nothing, but rather that a riot
was beginning, he took some water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, 'I am innocent of
this man's blood; see to it yourselves.' Then the people as a whole
answered, 'His blood be on us and on our children!'" (NRSV)
In the history of Christian
anti-Semitism, this verse serves as biblical warrant for holding all
Jews at all times responsible for the death of Jesus. Augustine, John
Chrysostom, Thomas Aquinas, and Martin Luther all use it in this way.
Yet the verse occurs only in Matthew. It is not found in Mark, Luke
or John, and is thus not essential in depicting Jesus' death. The
decision to include it is a conscious choice made by Mr. Gibson.
The film contains numerous scenes that
are not found in the New Testament. According to all four Gospels,
after Jesus is arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane, he is taken by
the (Jewish) guards to the High Priest. In the movie, the guards
escorting Jesus brutally beat him, and, at one point, throw him over
a bridge. The only reason he does not crash into the earth below is
that his chains excruciatingly wrench him to a halt inches from the
ground.
This episode appears nowhere in the
New Testament. It is drawn from the visions of a 19th century mystic
nun. None of the Gospels provides any information about what, if
anything, occurs on the way from Gethsemane to the High Priest. It is conceivable that those who arrested Jesus
might have abused him, but it is not the only option. It is equally
plausible that the guards were sympathetic, even reluctant, to carry
out their duty, and escorted Jesus to the High Priest gently and with
dignity.
The point is that the Gospels do not
report this one way or the other. It has been added by the filmmaker.
While it certainly heightens the suffering of Jesus, which likely is
why Gibson added it, it is, at the same time, an unnecessary
embellishment and exaggeration of Jewish mistreatment of Jesus.
These are but two examples of many in
the film. They highlight the central problems of any attempt to
dramatize the Passion. First, most viewers, even those who are
familiar with the Gospels, will find it difficult to discern which
parts of the biblical text have been retained, and which have been
omitted. There likely will be even greater confusion over what is
biblical and what has been added by the filmmaker, either from his
own imagination or from extra-biblical sources. This latter point is
particularly damaging to Gibson's claim to having made a historically
accurate film.
Second, by not contextualizing the
event, and the circumstances under which the Gospels that report it
were written, the film poses a real danger that the legacy of Christian anti-Jewish prejudice will
be passed on to another generation. Christians need to understand and
acknowledge that this story, which lies at the heart of their faith,
has contributed to centuries of pain for Jews. Recognizing that fact
need not diminish the power and meaning of the suffering of Jesus for
Christians. Indeed, separating the Passion from its anti-Jewish
history is a way of modeling the love for humanity that both Judaism
and Christianity affirm.
Conversely, Jews need to understand
why Christians find the Passion to be a moving and religiously
significant story.
The release of "The Passion of the
Christ" occasions a "teachable moment." We are fortunate to live in
an era in which Jews and Christians agree about the importance of
fostering mutual respect and understanding. There are rich resources
available to both scholar and layperson that deal directly with these
complex historical and theological issues. We should make use of
these in fostering interfaith dialogue.
The excitement engendered by the
release of Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" invites Jews and
Christians to address these matters frankly from the pulpit, in the
classroom, and in meetings of clergy associations. Christians,
especially, must honestly confront the history of anti-Judaism that
is tied to the Passion. We should not miss this opportunity.
NOTE: Rabbi David Fox Sandmel is spiritual leader
of Chicago's KAM-lsaiah Israel Congregation and occupant of the newly
established Crown-Ryan chair in Jewish Studies at the Catholic
Theological Union.
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Mel Gibson's