Less devout Catholics like me recognise
A devout Catholic - the three scariest words any Jew is ever likely to hear - Gibson has based his film on the accounts of Christ's demise supplied by the Gospels. In his mind, this apparently provides the film with a sort of historical pedigree. Less devout Catholics like me recognise that the four Gospels are documents of dubious accuracy whose message falls directly into the yawning chasm between myth and propaganda. We do not know who wrote them, we do not know when they were written, they are certainly not eyewitness accounts, but we can be fairly certain that they are the work of harried Christians who were less concerned about offending powerless Jews than powerful Romans.
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Seemingly, Gibson wished to convey the sense that Christ's execution was no day at the beach, perhaps objecting to the demure depictions of his torment in the 14 Stations of the Cross that adorn virtually every Catholic church on the planet. It was, of course, the inhuman treatment of this one Jew that led to the even more inhuman treatment of six million Jews by a Christian people during the Holocaust. The Holocaust was no day at the beach either.
Devout Christians may object to the flippant tone I have adopted here, but anti-semitism as spectacular as Gibson's does not deserve to be treated with anything but contempt. Though a few Jews in the film seem to object to Christ's martyrdom, the high priests and most of the spectators lining the road to Calvary seem to thoroughly enjoy the spectacle, and a good time is had by all.
Joe Queenan/Guardian UK Mar.27.04
Well that's that for Gibson.
What are people really afraid of here?
Because it's a fundamental characteristic now, scorn is the weapon of choice when modern men and women are scared. They get vicious and scornful. The tones of noble outrage are nowhere evident. The idea of noble outrage, itself deeply threatening, is treated with scorn as well.
Well I don't know. But one thing Queenan said that seems parseable is that bit about "powerless Jews and powerful Romans".
That seems sort of on the money, though I'm not sure how powerless the Jews were at that time in Jerusalem; still it could be a workable idea, and the Romans were, at that time, infinitely superior to the Jewish aristocracy in terms of raw social power. So the somewhat less than brave authors of the gospels - the stenographers for the Word of God according to the faith Queenan purports to follow, though "less than devoutly" - shaded the truth for expediency's sake.
These guys are worried that making the Romans look bad will create a negative climate for their fellow disciples and the early "Christians" in the still-thriving Roman Empire. So they downplay Roman guilt and play up the Jewish angle.
OK. So who do you have to be afraid of today?
Who are the Romans of this historical moment? Who's got so much power that even the followers of Almighty God would have to fudge the truth to survive, today? Anybody?
Well yeah. You can't say, it's too dangerous.
Just like Queenan says about the Romans. Too damn powerful. Only a madman would piss them off.
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"...dubious accuracy...myth and propaganda..."
The Gospels. From a man who takes the stage as a Catholic. In order to argue with strength and not be accused of Semitic bias. But without the Gospels what's there? The Old Testament? Revelations? Chronicles?
If Queenan thinks the Gospels are dubious propaganda he probably thinks Revelations is a bad drug trip or some tacked-on schizoid rant.
Without the New Testament the Bible is purely a Jewish document. Even with it.
And wasn't Mary a Jew? Weren't the apostles Jews?
When did they stop being Jews?
Or is that part of that magic trick where in one court you have to be religious to be a Jew, in the next you have to have a parent who's a Jew, and in the next it's both.
Wasn't Jesus himself a Jew? Did he become not a Jew somehow? How?
I don't have a problem with Jesus being a Jew. And I can't see how his mother ever stopped.
This semantic confusion is masking a much deeper and more urgent problem.
The Holocaust is probably not directly attributable to the Crucifixion; even to delusionally-cast blame for it, unfairly targeting Jews as a people.
In truth the real culprits are hiding behind the innocent. As usual.
The Jews are a human shield for the real villains here, whose name no one can say.
And Queenan's working for the bad guys. Straight up.
