I have been telling myself over and over–in hopes that I’ll believe it, perhaps–that “The Passion” will not set off a wave of anti-Semitism. That although it will undoubtedly reinforce those who already hate Jews, it won’t take anyone who doesn’t hate Jews and turn them into anti-Semites. And that people will have the intelligence to realize that it’s just a movie with a singular point of view that is not automatically the truth just because Mel says so.
Then Marc Foxx sent me the following e-mail, forwarded from Robert Seltzer of the American Jewish Committee. It reads:
Subject: This is what we are concerned about….
My AJC Denver colleague reports that outside a church there stands a new, large sign which reads:
The Jews Killed Jesus. Settled.
Having seen the Gibson film, I am not surprised, tho it is shocking.
I have always believed, and still do, that the best response to free speech is more free speech. It is difficult to respond with more free speech, however, if people are coming at you with fists, knives and torches.
This has always been a country brimming with divisiveness, hatred and bigotry. But I don’t think it’s been this prevalent–or this sanctioned at the highest levels–in half a century.
God help you if you’re a marriage-minded Gay Jew.
PAD
• 
**You have been found guilty by the elders of the town of uttering the name of our Lord, and so, as a blasphemer,…
…you are to be stoned to death.
**
“Bring forth the Bong of Execution, and the Killer Weed!!”
(I’m sorry – once again, I couldn’t help myself…) 🙂
(I’m sorry – once again, I couldn’t help myself…) 🙂
me neither!
Please clarify for this unenlighted daughter of the chosen people:If the Jews/Romans/Whoever had not killed Jesus…then what would’ve happened?
I’m no expert here, but I’ve taken a shot at that question before while teaching 3rd grade at a Lutheran school, so here’s what I said then:
*If God sent His Son to be the Lamb, then it was His will that Christ be sacrificed in the manner fortold by the Prophets. It was predestined, and therefore HAD to happen. (This was then followed by urgent questions about free will from a bunch of 8 year-olds.)
*If God had not chosen to send His Son to be the Savior and the Messiah, or had not chosen to do so yet, then there’d be no Christianity.
The Religion curriculum that I had to teach back then was predominantly Old Testament; they got into New Testament much more in 4th grade. It was enjoyable watching the little guys realize that the difference between Jews and Christians is really pretty minor.
Why am I getting the feeling that just because I’m a White, Christian, Heterosexual, Republican, I have now become a member of the most Politcally Incorrect party to live in the US.
It could be worse,I guess. I could be a man too.
It makes me want to apoligize all the time for being who I am.
While I am not PAD, nor can I read his mind, I take this as one author’s droll commentary on current events. I’m pleased you’re at least admitting to the possibility that you might be taking this a bit too literally. Because frankly? You are. Add “too seriously” to that caveat while you’re at it. There’s an argument about cavemen vs. astronauts going on upthread, for God’s sake. Please relax before you start reading some sort of PAD-belief for/against Creationism or Nasa into that as well.
It’s odd that you would consider this to be a (and maybe this isn’t the most precise term) light-hearted discussion. To me, the tone of PAD’s post, devoid as it is of humor, and suffused with a ‘things are going to hëll in a handbasket’ sensibility, combined with the fact that the responses to his post haven’t exactly constituted a joke-fest would seem to indicate that this isn’t exactly comparable to the ‘astronauts vs. cavemen’ discussion. Which, by the way, wasn’t going on when I took issue with Peter’s original post, and at any rate, is quite obviously a continuation of a running gag from his week’s Angel. As a wise man named Homer Simpson once said, “I get jokes.” I just don’t see any in Peter’s post.
In light of that, I don’t see what is so problematic about closely scrutinizing his words for serious meaning. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do in a discussion: read carefully what one person has said and then reply to it in a civil manner?
Anyway, PAD just offered up a response, so let’s move on to that.
I was referring to both Bush’s anti-gay stance which endorses an overall spirit of bigotry and intolerance. I wasn’t saying that Bush was anti-Semitic. But the so-called compassionate conservative is unquestionably intolerant. And intolerance breeds more intolerance.
If anything, I think Bush is guilty of overreacting. He is, as I imagine a lot of conservatives are, concerned about the future of a marriage as a foundation for raising children, knowing that the one man, one woman, and x amount of children family unit leads to fewer problems down the road than the alternatives (which unfortunately, aren’t as socially unattractive as they once were, owing to the liberalization of our culture over the last 40 years or so.) I think he’s thinking that marriage has already been weakened so much that if we make any drastic change to it, the whole thing could very well disintegrate further.
But it’s not so much the change as it is the nature of the change. If gays, within the context of marriage, want to adopt kids or use outside help to conceive their own, that’s fine with me because they’re using the foundation of marriage in starting their family. And if they don’t, that makes them no different than heterosexual couples who get married and choose not to have children. Which is fine. The problem has more to do with factors like teen pregnancy, out-of-wedlock births, single parenting and overuse of the two working parent model (too often used as a cover for the parents’ inability to distinguish between wants and needs, which leads to an overreliance on day care centers and schools to raise one’s children and an increase in the sort of problems that arise from inattentive parenting.) But I don’t see gay marriage intrinsically contributing to any of those problems.
Is it bigotry for Bush (or any ‘compassionate conservative’) to support a ‘defense of marriage’ amendment? No, because I see a reasoning, however flawed, behind the idea, and a justification for some sort of action, even if I think their action is not the action to take. Is it comparable to hanging anti-Semitic signs or expressing one’s anti-Semitism by attacking Jews with “fists, knives and torches”? Again, no. There is a distinction between disagreement expressed through free speech conducted in a civil manner (in this case, a proposed amendment free of slurs and insults) and disagreement expressed in a violent manner.
However, it’s not one that Peter is willing to make. It’s too much of a stretch for me to accept that a mild sort of intolerance (a statment by Bush supporting an amendment that would not actually deny them anything they already have) breeds a very extreme sort of intolerance (the stabbing of a Jew by an anti-Semite, which would deny that Jew the right to live in a blessedly stabwound-free state.) To do that would require me to equate two things that are very much unalike, and that’s why, even though I’m basically on Peter’s side, I think his post was a little too grounded in liberal hysteria. I know Peter doesn’t like President Bush (I am only moderately supportive of him), but it really is unfair to drag him into a post about anti-Semitic hooligans.
-Dave O’Connell
It had to turn out some way, and happened to turn out the way it did because (this is a simplified argument) the elements in play, and their proportions, interacted in such a manner to come out that way.
I understand this, I just happen to see design behind that. It’s like wanting to bake a chocolate german cake and suddenly (or over a length of extreme time) my cupboards were filled with exactly what I needed for that specific cake, AND then the ingredients suddenly just came together. Can’t see that just happening, sorry.
If that makes me silly, and naive then so be it.
Look, I see how ordered this world is. I see (though I confess to not understanding)the exact mathmatics behind everything. I gotta go with Einstein on this one. “God does not play dice with the Universe.”
I also KNOW we will discover the link between the seemingly chaotic Quantum world and Grand order of Einstein’s theroy, and thus find that even the Quantum world has order. (Be it “String Theory” or otherwise.)
“In the beginning there was chaos…”
To the Christians saying “The Jews killed Jesus”: the Jews in question are no longer alive. If Jesus was supposed to be a sacrifice to eliminate the sins of the father from the son (i.e. Adam & Eve’s original sin), then you cannot hold Jews today responsible (let’s not forget the Romans, too). Of course, my biggest problem with Christianity is the concept of original sin, but that’s a different discussion.
To the Jews complaining of anti-Semitism: if we are not supposed to forget the Holocaust and the way Jews were tortured/killed by the Germans, should we also not forget the way Jews were tortured/killed by the Romans?
I don’t buy either side of the debate: it’s just a movie, folks.
I certainly am not asking anybody to discuss NASA, for/against Creationism, Big Bang, or whatever if they don’t want too. And really it just started out as a comment, sorry if it got off on a rabbit trail.
You can just skip past my posts if it bugs you so much. I do that all the time in this forum.
Lighten up baby I’m in love with you.
Einstein’s famous comment was part of his last-ditch defense against quantum theory. The problem there is, quantum mechanics as a field is/are (never sure of which verb form to apply) a better, more accurate way to describe the universe than Einstein’s classic neo-Newtonian physics.
I kind of like the variant Stephen Hawking used, when describing quantum black hole theory: “It turns out that not only does God play dice with the Universe, sometimes He throws the dice where they can’t be seen.”
You know, I hate to say this, but I’m starting to get the feeling that *some* Jews think they are the center of the universe or something.
Its the only reason I can think of that they are the only ones saying The Passion of Christ is anti-Semitic.
But then, those Christians saying “the Jews did it” probably think they are the center of the universe as well.
Either way, it’s sad.
“It turns out that not only does God play dice with the Universe, sometimes He throws the dice where they can’t be seen.”
I think it’s true He does throw the dice where they can’t be seen. It’s His joy to see if His children will find where He hid them! Hide and Seek everyone!!!
“[It is] the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings [is] to search out a matter.”
What the article referred to is saying is that there have been accusations of a cover-up, but they are completely absurd. Plus, just because priests worked on the team doesn’t mean the Vatican was in control of what was shown or not. Most of the problems with the slow speed of translation were from the fact that the members of the scroll team would not allow anyone outside of their group to even look at the scrolls. This was because they enjoyed the statue and prestige of their position. Also, the most of the scrolls are in terrible condition consisting of a patchwork of fragments. However, it could be that the Israel Antiquities Authority is in a vast conspiracy with the Vatican, the Free Masons, the Teamsters, the CIA, the FBI, the Tri-Lateral Commission, and Microsoft. Sorry to get insulting, but if the priests refused to release documents, why would the Israeli government go along with them? Why wouldn’t they kick them out and put a new team in? Finally, photographs that were taken when the scrolls were first found are in the possession of several libraries, so copies exist in other locations.
“I understand this, I just happen to see design behind that. It’s like wanting to bake a chocolate german cake and suddenly (or over a length of extreme time) my cupboards were filled with exactly what I needed for that specific cake, AND then the ingredients suddenly just came together. Can’t see that just happening, sorry.”-Zeek.
Just out of curiosity, would that be made with real germans?
Sorry, had to.
Seriously, you make a good case, not that I agree with you, but you made a good point. I’m trying to come up with a good counterpoint, but I’m not sure I can as yet come up with a good example/analogy that you, personally, couldn’t turn around and see design in it. Because, quite frankly, if you’re looking for it and want to see it, you will. Kind of like starring at the grain in a wooden board. If you want to, you can see faces. Or clouds, too perhaps. Doesn’t necessarily mean the grain or the clouds actually are those things, or are even trying to appear to be those things. Well, let’s try to go back to the cooking analogy. If you had an almost infinite number of kitchens (metaphor for all the stars and planets and everything that makes up the vastness of space/universe), isn’t it plausible that in at least one of those kitchens, the correct ingrediants would happen to be there? Of course, you could still say that someone must have put them there. Hmm. I’ll work on this when I’m less tired (being a stay at home dad with my five month old is tiring me out).
Thanks for something to think about.
Monkeys
p.s. sorry to everyone else for slightly hijacking the thread.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/gibson.asp for a bit more on Mel Gibson, his dad, and their favorite Imaginary Friend.
• Gibson claims that this movie was based solely on the New Testament. Some have more recently claimed that it is informed by the writings of a 19th-century nun, Anne Catherine Emmerich, whose writings were accused of promoting anti-semitism. This claim has not been substantiated, and Gibson personally refutes it, claiming he has indeed tried to base his movie on the Gospels. The free Wiki Encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Catherine_Emmerich has an entry on her — “… In 1833 appeared the first-fruits of Brentano’s toil, “The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ according to the Meditations of Anne Catherine Emmerich” (Sulzbach). These visions include grotesque anti-Semitic characterizations of Jews. …”
• Bush made May 10th State “Jesus” Day in Texas. Bush doesn’t think Gay people should have the same rights Straights do. Bush worries me more than those Gibsons or a dead hate-filled nun.
I have to say I share the concerns Peter voices. He has a valuable POV that needs to be heard.
– Alan
PS Let’s get some sun on those hate-filled SOBs and make them squirm. The blood curse is marginally less offensive than the standard blood libel bs I’ve dealt with.
Toby-
Ah ha! Gotchya!
No just kidding.
Because, quite frankly, if you’re looking for it and want to see it, you will.
Actually I was waiting for this one and I suppose it is true! But then I can say the same for you and the others who see it your way!
Deh well! I await your response and I totaly understand about the tired thing! (Although I have no kids, a fulltime job and an active lifestyle makes me fried by the end of the day too!!)
Just out of curiosity, would that be made with real germans?
Why not, since the ingredients just happened to appear anyway! KIDDING! I KID! 😉
(dang, I mean’t German Chocolate Cake, Entschuldigung!)
The below is quoted from the letters page of The Incredible Hulk #414.
Dear Ms. Chase,
On behalf of the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL), this nation’s largest Asian American civil rights organization, we are writing to express our serious concern about your July issues of the INCREDIBLE HULK.
Specifically, we are deeply disturbed by the Japanese tourists on page 3.We find the stereotypical depictions in your story both inappropriate and insensative. We are particularly offended by the Japanese tourists having cameras slung around their necks and “nerdy” appearances.
While Asian American characters are highly underrepresented in comics, these images are very damaging to Asian American. Comic books such as the INCREDIBLE HULK have the power to influence both Asian and non-Asian people’s perceptions and attitudes. Thusit should be your responsibilty as a publisher to be aware and sensitive, and provide accurate portrayals of Asians and Asian Americans.
The JACL continues to see a disturbing increase in Anti-Asian violence incidents around the nation. Negative stereotypical characters of Asians serve only to exacerbate this nation’s existing problem of anti-Asian sentiment and violence committed against Asian Americans.
We hope that THE INCREDIBLE HULK will in the future demonstrate sensitivity and awareness of our multi-racial and multi-cultural society.
PAD responded in part:
While I respect your feelings, I must disagree with your interpretation of Hiro and Larry. There was nothing in their depictions intended to give insult of defamation. There is, to my mind, a world of difference between two “typical” tourists and two “STereotypical tourists…
You are focusing on one aspect, the visual, and reading a world of hostillity into it. Equating tow camera-toting comic book tourists with violence committed against Asian Americans is trivializing the seriousness of the latter. END QUOTE
What is my point in posting all this? Only that it is easy to disregard negative stereotypes unless it is YOUR group that is being negatively portrayed. It is also possible to upset a segment of society without consciously intending to. This is a comment meant for everyone, not just Mr. David. We should all attempt to portray all people fairly and accurately.
And as far as Mel’s “Imaginary Friend,” I am reminded of a line from a song by Michael Card called God’s own Fool:
So come lose your life for a capenter’s son/ for a madman who died for a dream/ and you’ll have the faith the first followers had/ and you’ll feel the weight of the beam.
So surrender the hunger to say you must know/have the courage to say “I believe”/ for the power of paradox opens your eyes/ and blinds those who say they can see.
Sorry for the long post.
Ben
Zeek–
I understand your point, and your perception, but posit that you see order because that is what you have been conditioned to see.
The chocolate cake analogy is putting the cart before the horse a bit — you start with the outcome and then rely on the pre-existence of specific ingredients to construct that outcome, rather than a choclate cake being the result because it is one of tthe likeliest possible outcomes from the ingredients available.
Another outlook would be that, in such a case, with the cabinet of ingredients, the outcome of a chocolate cake is more likely, but not pre-ordained.
Suppose the cabinet contained all the ingredients for a chocolate cake, PLUS a tin of anchovies. A chocolate cake could still be created, but the ‘order’ or ‘intelligence’ of the ingredients would be in question, but the cake would still be precisely the same.
Anyway, don’t want to clutter up PAD’s board with snippets of cosmology — will leave it here with, one hopes, food for thought.
The movie was not intended to be an attack on the jews nor to express an attitude about them.
As David Niewert has shown on his blog, the movie is more of a statement by Mel Gibons, about his own devote pre-vatican2 Catholic church dedication.
The movie was meant to bring to the forefront what Mel thinks Christ endured for mankind, and that it is our quest as ‘christians’ to live up to that crime. So it’s not that he is badmouthing the jews of the period, he’s simply trying hard to hammer home the point that Jesus went through some serious šhìŧ back them and in the church I perscribe to we make for dámņëd sure we try to live up to that sacrifice. Which is not the compassionate, and merciful jesus that we try to promote, but a kickass jesus, and harsh love. Sort of a ‘spare the rod and spoil the child’ kind of tough love.
This is what the movie is trying to promote. Not anti-semitism, but more so of anti-modern-day-vatican-catholic-church type of hatred.
MYOB’
.
I haven’t seen the movie, either. But I plan to. I’m looking forward to it very much so.
However, I would just like to add something. Somewhere up here, someone mentionned there was no historical proof Jesus existed. I was told and taught that there was indeed a Jesus of Nazareth that was crucified. Now, that doesn’t force anyone to beleive this was God’s only begotten Son. But I do.
Can someone clear this up? Does anyone have Roman Scrolls handy, perhaps dating somewhere between 2015 and 1995 years ago. Because that it where it was transcribed.
Alright Zeek, here it is at the end of the day, and I’m still without a good response. Between raising the kiddo (but not having a full time job-my wife is cool for doing the earning in our family), trying to stay active and trying to get into my studio (I got in about 8 hours today, woohoo!), my brain is fried long before this time of night. But, I do have to say “ditto” to what skring said (I know that’s pretty much a copout on my part).
Hey, maybe at some point PAD will actually start a thread that would actually cover this topic so the few of us discussing it wouldn’t be hijacking this thread.
Monkeys.
Ben? Jay Gee Kay?
I’m the one who posted there is no historic proof for Mel Gibson’s imaginary friend. I also explained why it shouldn’t affect your faith.
Cool? I believe that the whole shebang was a whisper campaign to rid Judea of the Romans which failed in a rather spectacular way. One key to the story is the subject is called the word of GOD.
And if it wasn’t for Paul — we humans would have some other mortal god stand-in so we could be inhumane to people we don’t like.
I expect PBS to rerun Frontline: From Jesus to Christ this Easter. Watch it – as nowhere in the program is any proof of the historicity of “Jesus” offered.
S’okay? For the record — I’m intolerant of evangelists.
– Alan
PS Tammuz, Dionysus, and Hercules had a good chance of being in JC’s shoes …
Well, since Evangelists are accused of being the worst of intolerants, then I suppose you could have some common ground to build a bridge of communication on…See there’s a bright side to every situation.
Quick question; have you ever encountered any explanation why, if the Biblical Paul states that Jesus had to die for the salvation of believers, the crucifxion stands as such a hated event?
According to Pauline theology, if the perpetrators had refused to kill him, no person could achieve salvation.