What Christians Must Watch for in 'The Passion'

Gibson has embellished the Gospel text, using stereotypical religious imagery that may be harmful.

BY: Fr. John T. Pawlikowski and Rabbi David Sandmel

With all the praise being heaped on Mel Gibson's soon-to-be-released movie, The Passion of the Christ, many people may be wondering why many Christians and Jews are unhappy. Who can complain when a major movie star invests $25 million of his own money to make a historically accurate cinematic portrayal of Jesus' last hours? Here are some reasons.

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. 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 no less plausible that the guards were sympathetic, even reluctant, to carry out their duty, and escorted Jesus to the High Priest gently and with dignity.

Gibson has embellished the Gospel text in order to intensify Jesus' suffering. But in so doing, he draws on his own imagination and a variety of non-canonical sources, including the visions of a 19th century German nun who lived at a time when anti-Semitic homilies were a common tool for rallying mobs against the Jews.

The Holocaust compelled many Christians to examine the historic role of churches in fomenting anti-Semitism. 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).

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