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š are any of you going to see ‘the passion of the christ’? went to see it last night ,at a special screening for baptist group of all things, and although i am your basic pagan/atheist i found it well done…it was fairly consistent with what we were fed in sunday school, whether or not you believe the new testament, and not antisemitic so much as showing what lengths people will go to to protect the status quo…whether they be pharisees, romans, or militant vegetarians…anyway, was just curious how the rest of you felt about it…particularly liked the satan figure fading in and out of the background, gave it that bergman feel…. 8)
Only if I’m not paying for it, and I don’t have to leave my house to see it (greed and sloth — I’m killing two birds with one stone). So, basically, not until it’s on HBO, and even then I’m not guaranteeing anything.
I only pose one question to Mel Gibson:
If Christ were around today, is this the film he would want to spread his message?
I saw it. I was revolted.
Nuff said on my part.
FX wrote:š are any of you going to see ‘the passion of the christ’? went to see it last night ,at a special screening for baptist group of all things, and although i am your basic pagan/atheist i found it well done…it was fairly consistent with what we were fed in sunday school, whether or not you believe the new testament, and not antisemitic so much as showing what lengths people will go to to protect the status quo…whether they be pharisees, romans, or militant vegetarians…anyway, was just curious how the rest of you felt about it…particularly liked the satan figure fading in and out of the background, gave it that bergman feel…. 8)
Oh as for your post FX:
I totally agree: It’s not anti-semitism. For the most part is it totally 100% consistant with Christian Lore.
Devout Jews are going to whine about the film regardless of how they feel, and devout Christians are going to praise it regardless of how they feel. I watched the news last night and wanted to throw my controller at the screen their replies were so predictable. Make up your own opinion people!
If I personally want to nit-pick I’ve always had a problem with the portrayal of the Roman Empire as weak and overly catering.
Come’on. The Roman Empire has very detailed records of the time which pretty much tell us Pilot was a monster, and the Romans could care less about the everyday Prophets they killed. This is the main reason for lack of historical documentation surrounding Christ.
It’s not that it didn’t happen. Its that the Romans couldn’t care less.
I’m tired of the portrayal that Romans were cruel, and took great delight in the every-day torture of the foreign devils. I’m tired of hearing how heartbroken Pilot was at being forced to kill Christ. He never minded the raping, pillaging, or murder of anyone else in his career before or after the death of Christ.
But my main problem with the film as I hinted above was the blood and gore.
On one hand you have an almost total agreement that it’s unrealistic, but then comes the caveat:
But he’s God!
But the message of the New Testament is that he’s the Son of Man, and he came to Earth to provide the bridge between humanity and God. That everyone should love one another, turn the other cheek and all that good stuff.
Instead of recieving that message we got:
Pulp Fiction: Christ Style
As I said before, is this the film Christ would want made to share his message with the 21st century?
Of all the things he did, of all the things he can be praised for by Christians and non-Christians, his death and torture were the least of it.
Would his death had meant anything without the acts and words he spread before his gorey execution?
And meanwhile Mel Gibson stands to make millions off his death, while in the same breath tells us he was going to commit suicide before deciding to make this film?
I feel like I need to take a shower.
hmmm, i like the question about whether or not jc would want this film to be his calling card, but i guess having absorbed more catholicism than i care to admit, i took for granted that the ‘passion’ of christ would dwell upon the atrocities this person suffered…at least that is what the catholics dwell upon when they refer to the passion of christ; hence the stations of the cross in each catholic church…remember, as an oldtime catholic, you would walk the stations so that you could relive the ‘via dolorosa’ or ‘via crucis’ with christ, feel his agony as it were…also the bulk of catholic art of the middle ages and the renaissance dwells upon depictions of christ on the cross, often very graphically, or upon scenes of his broken body being taken off the cross and mourned over (the pieta for example; we all know michelangelo’s version but actually ‘pieta’ or the pity/sorrow, is a generic artistic term for depictions of the dead christ being mourned by his mother) so i guess as a lapsed catholic, who grew up at least partially in italy, the movie is very catholic, and hence, very medieval 8) the protestant religions, at least the majority, on the other hand, tend to focus more on christ’s message of love, hope, redemption, without all the trappings of virgin birth, horrible death and so forth…other than that, yeah, the grinning romans with bad teeth happily flogging people is a bit much…for the most part, in the early days of the empire, the romans were ruthless in their conquest, but then once settled in, allowed the colonized peoples to more or less follow their own laws and religions, and often took aspects of each colonized culture into their own amalgamation of cultures known as the roman empire…both herod and pilate seemed to be fairly horrible examples of their kind, but how much of what they did was expediency or not caring versus actual evil intent as in the case of nero?
anyway, to answer your question, yeah, i don’t think jc would particularly care for this spin on his message š
I watched a show tonight on BBC 4 called Before Booker about who might have won the Booker Prize in 1954 (yeah I know, the BBC are very clever at coming up with the stupidest shows! – and you know, it was riveting!).
The final three were Lord of the Flies, Lord of the Rings (Two Towers) and Lucky Jim. Lord of the Flies won in the end, but Two Towers came a close second surprisingly because a presenter passionately defended the book as being a modern day Moral Story – something that people in the twentieth centuary should relate to and be inspired by.
I wondered how such modern literature could possibly be seen to support religious ideals today in place of books like the Bible and the Koran which seem (at least to this religously ignorant geezer) to be less interesting and somewhat patronising.
Personally I would much prefer to look for moral guidance from a film like “Lord of the Rings” than from a film called “The Passion of Christ.”
Having said that, I’d prolly watch it on cable if/when it came on, but only because FX mentioned that it was fairly good and only if it was the uncut version (ie. they replaced the orgy scene and the bonking angels scene etc.).
PS. It turns out that in a recent survey, UK peeps are amoung the least religious in the world! USA and very poor countries ( š ) are the most religious š
For me, Dead Poets Society is the best movie that has taken a moral stance on life, as we know it.
Then again, the movie relied heavely on classic poets.
Religious movies don’t work for me. As far as my understanding is, the bible/koran/whatever is about a relationship between you and God. It is your own interpretation from reading the bible/koran/whatever that is important. Watching someone else’s interpretation on the screen isn’t exactly right.
I refuse to watch that movie as it would destroy the legend of MAD MAX!
I tend to stay away from religion as I know nothing about it. Talk to me about money and porn…..this I know something about…..
I see this as just another variant take on Christ. This is the one, apparently, where Christ does a lot of suffering. The proof of divinity and moral superiority is in Jesus ability to take double helpings of whatever the bad guys are dishing out. I’m sure all those who trade on victimhood will get a big kick out of it.
On the other hand, if you want Christ as a story of faith and resolution, try Jesus of Montreal.
If you want to get it as a story of triumphing over temptation, try The Last Temptation of Jesus.
If you want the fun Christ with a committment to doing what is right, try Jesus Christ Vampire Killer.
And Just for the record, the Jesus Christ of the gospels never really existed. He’s a mythical person.
”Valdron” wrote:I see this as just another variant take on Christ. This is the one, apparently, where Christ does a lot of suffering. The proof of divinity and moral superiority is in Jesus ability to take double helpings of whatever the bad guys are dishing out. I’m sure all those who trade on victimhood will get a big kick out of it.
On the other hand, if you want Christ as a story of faith and resolution, try Jesus of Montreal.
If you want to get it as a story of triumphing over temptation, try The Last Temptation of Jesus.
If you want the fun Christ with a committment to doing what is right, try Jesus Christ Vampire Killer.
And Just for the record, the Jesus Christ of the gospels never really existed. He’s a mythical person.
But the bottom line here is that Mel Gibson’s version is the correct one; after all…..he is a movie star…..Just ask his dad…..
A few of my co-workers (catholic and non) went to see it. One of them who is a major movie hound said she would not willing watch it again. It was too gory and depressing.
From listening to the reviews, I pretty much got that and had no intention of going to see it. I DO NOT pay money to depress myself. I can do that for free if I want to.
Aleck said he might watch it at home free on cable when it makes it there…. I most likely will only ever see snatches of it as I go to turn off the television when theSpouse falls asleep watching TV.
While I can understand that some film makers might want to do an epic kind of signature movie with gritty realism ect…. I totally, totally do not understand people paying money to upset themselves at the movies. Weird… š
Valdron – Your comment interests me.
Whether or not one believes that Jesus is the son of God is one thing, however, to say that he is/was a mythical person is a bit careless.
It’s a fantastic thing the Roman Empire kept records, as it allows historians to recount various important periods of that time. There most definitely was a man called Jesus who claimed to be the son of God and that he had a massive following.
This was recorded by many different religions and nationalities.
The Gospel of Mark was written approximately 70 AD, or at least 40 years after Jesus alleged death. Matthew and Luke appear to plagiarize Mark extensively, and are generally believed to date from about 80 to 85 AD. Paul is believed to have dated around 110 AD. Some parts of the bible, such as Revelations, were written as late as 190 AD. And around 200, a convocation of Church elders lead by Paulus, literally edited the new testament, reducing it to four gospels based on a superstitious formula, and adding their own bits.
What does all this mean? It means that no one who wrote the bible was an actual disciple or contemporary of Jesus. No part of the bible was written by anyone who actually had direct knowledge or expeience of Jesus himself.
Instead, it all appears to have been written well after the life of Jesus and based on third and fourth hand information. Clearly whoever wrote Matthew and Luke never knew or had any direct knowledge of Jesus, or they wouldn’t be cribbing from Mark. It’s all but impossible that whoever wrote Paul would have even been alive during Jesus’ lifetime.
Even if we take Mark as possibly authentic, a long shot, given that whoever wrote it would have to be in his sixties or seventies, and writing about stuff from forty years before, he doesn’t mention most of the miracles, and he’s quite brief. Which suggests that a lot of stuff was invented after the fact.
If you go back and check the historical records from around Jesus time, you will be amazed to discover that despite the dedicated record keeping of the Romans, there is no record of or reference to him. The Romans and local scholars wrote of other uprisings and self appointed prophets and messiahs. But they seem to have missed Jesus altogether. Isn’t that funny.
The earliest Roman report of Jesus is from a historian named Josephus, who wrote in 70 AD, around the time of Mark’s author, but about 40 years after the time of the alleged crucifixion. One of his histories mentions Jesus Christ twice. But oddly, those passages appear to be in a different style than the rest of his history, and did not appear in some copies. It is the consensus of most historians that those references are fraudulent and were inserted into Josephus by others, some time after 70 AD.
There is a Roman historian, Cincinnatus, who mentions Christians in 90 AD. But that’s all he does, he refers to the Christian sect, but doesn’t actually give us anything to confirm Christ existed. This would be some 60 years after the alleged crucifixion, so we can take it for granted that all the eyewitnesses are gone, and Cincinnatus is relying on secondhand information, even for the little he says.
Other references to Jesus in ancient manuscripts have turned out to be references to a couple of different men. There was a Jesus, a historian who lived in what is now Turkey. And there was another Jesus, who was a politician in the Italian peninsula, who lived two generations after Christ was allegedly crucified.
Most interestingly, one would think that the Jews would have some record of Jesus Christ, after all, he was upsetting the locals, tossing money changers around, and being controversial. But the earliest references to Jesus in the Talmud, apparently date back to 330 AD, and appear to be derived from the Christians themselves. They had no independent reference.
Overall, there’s no actual direct evidence to show that he existed.
There are, however, a number of parallels between Jesus, and other half gods, including Egypts Osiris, Greece’s Hercules and Dionysius, the Assyrian Mithra and Attis, and even India’s Krishna, including divine/human parentage, redemption, miracles, baptism, martyrdom and resurrection, and even holy days which tended to fall on December 25.
Early Church fathers were extremely troubled by these coincidences and theorized that the Devil was ‘plagiarizing by anticipation.’ That is, that the Devil was copying Jesus life, but was doing it first, to make it look like Jesus was actually taking after these previous half gods.
Even if he did exist, the consensus of modern scholarship through groups like the Jesus seminar, is that:
a) He probably only said about 18% of the things attributed to him. (interestingly, at least one saying attributed to Jesus has been discovered to have been stolen from Aesop’s fables.)
b) He probably didn’t perform the miracles attributed to him.
c) He certainly wasn’t born on December 25, but more probably August.
d) All that stuff about Herod, the census, the massacre of the first born? Hooey.
e) He probably wasn’t crucified.
f) Nazareth wasn’t actually founded until about 200 years later, so he definitely wasn’t from there.
g) The resurrection is also pretty dubious.
h) Overall, there are some pretty big problems making the Gospel’s history and geography match up with the real thing.But don’t take my word for it. Do some research yourself.
A passion for sado-masochism…
Sounds bloody awful! If I want to viddy something that bloody awful Iāll fire up Texas Chainsaw Massacre ā at least thatās bloody funā¦ erm, if youāre into that sort of thing (I generally donāt like excessively excessive violence. Note: if The Passion hadnāt been about Christ it would have no doubt received a stricter rating ā in the US anyway).
Now Mad Max as Jesusā¦ No more Mr. Nice Guy, this time itās personal (your personal salvation that is) — Mad Jesus! Oh wait, thatās Revelationsā¦ āThis time He shall wear no flowers in his hair; no love beads about his neck. In place of his peace pipe, he shall wield a swordā (paraphrased, but the right idea).
From what Iāve heard, sounds like you canāt even call it gratuitous violence since itās so integral, but did it really have to be so explicit to get the message across? The suffered for our sins, and he suffered, and suffered some more, and then just when you thought the suffering was overā¦ Man, I donāt need a blow-by-blow accountā¦ leraned about the Stations of the Cross and that stuff in Sunday school. Visceral filmmaking is fine, but it shouldnāt supersede all thoughtful analysis (as many good āhistoricalā movies do).
Butā¦ What really bothers about this ultra-violent flick is the media hype — the Christian Right have been working overtime to draw peopleās attention to it (including and using the media). Funny, Gibsonās Catholic, but heās got the evangelicals, the Born Agains really backing this flick (spreading salvation, love, tolerance, and compassion).
Also in the press as controversialā¦ For excessive disgusting violence and anti-Semitism. I read one review where the author thought it was as anti-Semitic as the old Nazi films. Strange, Christ was an active Jew, as were his followers, so surely it couldnāt have portrayed all Jews as bad (every society has good people, bad people, and those in between — the ones who like to attend executions tend to be the ghoulish type and the film concentrated on that)ā¦ I havenāt seen it so donāt really know, but read they strangely cut some Biblical lines from one of the key Jewish players who was pushing for his execution ā something about sacrificing just one man to save a whole nation, or something, wasnāt quite so grandiose, and yet Pontius Pilate was shown to have some doubts, regrets, and moral qualities. Historically Pontius Pilate was absolutely brutal āeven the Roman Empire became totally disgusted by his cruelty and imprisoned him (he was sent to the Jewish homeland as punishment).
Anyway, Iām not religious, but I do consider myself to be spiritual, this film doesnāt sound spiritual to me (in Christian contect, Iād rather rewatch Arcandās Jesus of Montreal (he won an Oscar last night), Scorseseās The Last Temptation Of Christ or Pasoliniās Gospel According to St. Matthew)
Valdron – Interesting. It’s definatley something I’ll look into. One or two things you’ve said are not correct ie: He was crucified. That was recorded by the Roman courts.
Still, a lot of what you said is very interesting if true. Guess I’ll have something to do in my spare time over the next week or two. š
You’ll find no such record surviving from Roman Courts, unfortunately. Even in the New Testament, it’s not actually clear that he was crucified. Some of the passages indicate that he was hung from or on a tree, or perhaps, at best, tied to or nailed to a tree.
Acts 5:30: “The God of our fathers raised up Jesus…hanging him on a tree.
Acts 10:39: “…hanging him on a tree.”
Acts 13:29: “…they took him down from the tree…”
Galatians 3:13: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us; for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.”
1 Peter 2:24: “…who his own self bare our sins in his body upon the tree…” (All ASV)And by the way, I spent a few minutes looking around, and I found this link which describes similarities between Jesus and previous Gods/Demigods/Prophets, including Mithra, Attis, Osirus, Horus, Dionysius, Krishna and Zoroaster… all of whom would have been accessible to the middle east.
Zoroaster for instance, was a Persian prophet, so its only a hop, skip and jump from Iran to Palestine. Krishna is from India, but there was some trade and communication with India through Persia. Osirus and Horus from Egypt, Mithra from Syria and Attis from Turkey are right next door. Dionysius was greek, but had a temple in Jerusalem.
Also fascinating is that each of Krishna, Dionysius and Osiris/Horus were known by names or titles or symbols which were similar to Jesus or Christ. So not even the name Jesus Christ may be authentic.
There may be at least 25 other Gods (including Hercules) with correspondences to Jesus, and whose legends or folk tales may have been accessible to the middle east.
http://www.geocities.com/inquisitive79/godmen.html
And here is a link to a list of web sites discussing the historical
evidence or lack thereof, of Jesus.http://www.angelfire.com/on2/strike/
Finally, let me offer a thought. South Park recently had an episode about Mormons, which made the point that the Mormon revelations were obviously fraudulent bull. But at the end, a young Mormon says “My religion isn’t about whether Joseph Smith made up some wild stories a hundred years ago, my religion is about respecting myself and others, doing good, loving and being a good human being.”
Whether Jesus ever actually existed as a real person is open to question, and in fact, he may never have been real. But that should not prevent us from attempting to follow his teachings and attempting to live just and moral lives.
There have been plenty of utter sh*ts, who genuinely believed in the reality of Jesus Christ, but stole, lied, cheated and lived very unchristian lives. I think that it is equally valid to not believe or not know for sure whether Christ actually existed, but to live a moral and Christian life. It seems to me that the true test is to follow Jesus spirit, or the spirit of the teachings, rather than just to mouth the words.
”Valdron” wrote:And by the way, I spent a few minutes looking around, and I found this link which describes similarities between Jesus and previous Gods/Demigods/Prophets, including Mithra, Attis, Osirus, Horus, Dionysius, Krishna and Zoroaster… all of whom would have been accessible to the middle east.
Not just goods, but ideas passed along the silk road. Jesus would have been very well aware of other philosophies… (and prophets were a dime a dozen then). I have Zoroastrian friends and there are strong similarities between their philosophy and what Jesus espoused.
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