THE PASSION OF CHRIST
Last night I watched Mel Gibson's film for the first time. On television, here in Baja, with Spanish sub-titles. What struck me most forcibly was:
The actor playing Jesus had a good face. The violence began too early on, went too far, and I did not believe that the Jesus character could have kept going the way he did. And then there was the Roman counsul (?) who was uncertain of the morality of executing Jesus, and the priests who were certain that he should be executed. I didn't believe in the Roman character, he was too "sensitive." I did believe the Priests, who were adamant that Jesus was dangerous to their own beliefs, their own position and should be killed by the State. The priests were true believers, the Roman was not.
That is the way it is now with regard to intellectual freedom and the Holocaust story. Those who want to destroy revisionists and revisionist arguments are absolutely certain of what they want. They are true believers. The great majority of us who believe in intellecual freedom are uncertain of the morality of "offending" the victims of the Holocaust and those who identify with the victims, for whatever reasons. We are paragons of sensitivity. The search for truth and the ideal of intellectual freedom take a back seat to our felt need to respect the sensitivity of those who demand it, even when it is for themselves alone.
The actor playing Jesus had a good face. The violence began too early on, went too far, and I did not believe that the Jesus character could have kept going the way he did. And then there was the Roman counsul (?) who was uncertain of the morality of executing Jesus, and the priests who were certain that he should be executed. I didn't believe in the Roman character, he was too "sensitive." I did believe the Priests, who were adamant that Jesus was dangerous to their own beliefs, their own position and should be killed by the State. The priests were true believers, the Roman was not.
That is the way it is now with regard to intellectual freedom and the Holocaust story. Those who want to destroy revisionists and revisionist arguments are absolutely certain of what they want. They are true believers. The great majority of us who believe in intellecual freedom are uncertain of the morality of "offending" the victims of the Holocaust and those who identify with the victims, for whatever reasons. We are paragons of sensitivity. The search for truth and the ideal of intellectual freedom take a back seat to our felt need to respect the sensitivity of those who demand it, even when it is for themselves alone.
posted by Bradley R. Smith | 1:06 PM
17 Comments:
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As can be seen, all the posts refering to perceived issues at the CODOH Forum, pro and con, have been deleted. This is a personal blog for my own indyosyncratic posts, usually in the form of journal entries, oftentimes on matters that have nothing to do with revisionism. Those who want to comment on what I post here are invited to do so, so far as the posts are reasonably relevant to what I am doing.
If your post is about something I am not doing and I am not directly involved with, please find another place to talk it out.
Thanks for your condiseration. I will do the same for you.
I did not feel that the violence sustained by Christ in the film was overdone - in fact - what Christ suffered was probably much worse. However, I feel that Mel Gibson was wrong to take artistic liberty with Scripture. Some examples - the Agony in the Garden, according to Scripture says that Angels came to Christ, not Satan also, Scripture reports that there were other women at the foot of the Cross than His mother and Mary Magdalene. These are omitted.
Regarding Pilate, we have Scripture and historical accounts that he did not want to execute Christ. Tertullian and Justin Martyr both speak of a report on the Crucifixion (not extant) sent in by Pilate to Tiberius, from which idea a large amount of apocryphal literature originated. Some of these were Christian in origin (Gospel of Nicodemus), others came from the heathen, but these have all perished.
Overall - i think that Gibson did a fairly good job in his film portrait of the Passion of the Christ, but certainly not perfect.
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Interesting. I have not read either of the Testaments closely. I think it odd that Gibson would replace "angels" with the Devil. Don't understand the point to it either as film or in any other way.
Regarding Pilate, I was refering to how the character was directed. It could be a truthful representation, but I doubted him on screen. With regard to the violence, I did not stay around to watch the crucifixion. I was already in a state of disbelief. I'm in the minority about all this.
First time here B I will keep reading you goog blog
Let me state here that my posts to your blog were deleted at my request. Thanks.
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