Religion & Society

URL: http://www.bangitout.com/

The Jewish holiday of Purim is, among other things, a Bakhtinian carnival of social inversion and parody. Culturally, it's a cross between April Fool's Day and Halloween.

In honor of the holiday, The Daily Bang published two Passion-related parodies:

http://www.bangitout.com/tdb79.html -- "Mel Gibson to Release THE PURIM"

and

http://www.bangitout.com/tdb80.html -- "Hollywood Strikes Back at Mel"


(Warning: the latter definitely pushes the envelope of good taste....)

For a good laugh....

URL: http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/stories/the_passion_of_the_christ_blooper_reel.php

Bill Cork's Ecumenical Blug, "Ut Unum Sint," has a fascinating analysis of another Gibson source that has escaped attention.

URL: http://billcork.blogspot.com/2004_02_29_billcork_archive.html#107827749122709839

URL: http://www.bc.edu/research/cjl/meta-elements/texts/documents/interreligious/call_to_understanding.htm

A number of individuals and organizations are issuing a joint statement calling for mutual respect and understanding. More details are available at the URL above.

Please consider adding yourself as a signatory and please do forward this to anyone you know who might be interested in signing. The deadline is March 15. (Details can be found at the bottom of this email.)

Text:

Over the last four decades, there has been a revolution in relations between Christians and Jews. This change – dedicated to bringing an end to the teaching of contempt for Jews and Judaism – began with Protestant statements issued after the Holocaust, made giant strides at the Second Vatican Council in 1965, and has continued to develop until this day.

Notions that Jews were accursed by God because of their (alleged) guilt for the crucifixion of Jesus and that their covenant with God had been superseded by the Christian Church have been officially disavowed by many churches.  A new willingness by many Christians and Jews to be mutually enriched by each other’s traditions has replaced older habits of suspicion and avoidance. Those Jews and Christians who have entered into dialogue with one another have experienced deepened understandings of their own religious traditions as well as that of the other.

These historic changes are related to the growing Christian conviction that those Gospel passages which, in the past, have fueled misunderstanding and contempt for Jews and Judaism are best interpreted in the context of the times in which they were written. Contextualizing the Gospels has enabled a dramatically different view of what they say about the Jewish faith and about the relationship of Christianity to Judaism.  A renewed respect for Judaism has developed among many Christians, with the result that profound new insights into Christianity have been gained as well.

Another consequence has been that both the Catholic and many Protestant churches have advanced significant reforms in how the story of Jesus’ Passion is portrayed.  For example, the world renowned Passion Play that takes place every ten years in Oberammergau Germany has been steadily rewritten to remove the kind of characterizations, in the script and the staging, that have for centuries promoted contempt for Jews and Judaism.  Similarly, in 1988, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops published Criteria for the Evaluations of Dramatizations of the Passion, a document intended to encourage American Catholics to avoid distorted portrayals of Jesus’ Passion that are inconsistent with doctrine and demonize Jews and Judaism. And only last month the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America issued recommendations designed to end “the libels [against the Jews] of former ages” and better enable presenters of the Passion story to unleash  “…the power of the gospel … to bring life from death.”

With the approach of a season that is holy to both Christians and Jews and in light of current concerns that that Passion narratives could fan the flames of anti-Semitism, we the undersigned – Jews and Christians of faith – are joining together to affirm our  common commitment to:
• Advancing the spirit of understanding and respect between Christians and Jews that has been emerging over the last four decades;
• Respecting one another’s faith convictions both in the many beliefs we share in common and in those beliefs we do not share; and 
• Ending any stereotypes about each other.

The Jewish signatories urge all members of the Jewish community to join with our Christian friends in the ongoing work of building amity between our two traditions through dialogue and collaborative activities.  

The Christian signatories also urge that those who intend to celebrate this holy period through a presentation of the Passion be guided by the following considerations:
1. The Gospels tell the full truth about Jesus Christ, but they are not “histories” in the modern sense. 
2. The four Gospels present four different passion narratives. It is possible to select and combine elements from the different narratives to convey either a relatively benign or harsh view of Jews and Judaism. 
3. Often Passion plays and other portrayals of the Passion have embellished the New Testament narratives with scenes and language that come from non-Biblical sources and serve to promote contempt and even hatred for Jews. Such enlargements of the Gospel story distort the meaning of the Gospels and undermine efforts to promote understanding and respect between Christians and Jews.
4. There is extensive information now available with which to interpret, understand and contextualize a Passion narrative. Those who convey the Passion have a responsibility to do their best to avail themselves of these resources.
5.  An appreciation of the Jewishness of Jesus and his followers, the oppressive circumstances of Jews living under Roman imperial domination, and the rich diversity of Jewish life during Jesus’ time is essential to understand the historical circumstances of Jesus’ execution.

Observance of these guidelines will encourage the spirit of respect and understanding that we Jews and Christians are committed to perpetuating.   

Signed By:

Philip A. Cunningham, PhD.
Executive Director
Center for Christian Jewish Learning at Boston College

Robert Leikind, Regional Director
Ginny MacDowell, Chair
New England Anti-Defamation League

Rabbi Michael Menitoff
President
Massachusetts Board of Rabbis

Reverend Dr. Diane C. Kessler
Executive Director
Massachusetts Council of Churches

Reverend Dr. Robert B. Wallace
Interim Executive Minister
American Baptist Churches

Nancy Kaufman, Executive Director
Susan Calechman, Chair
Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston

Larry Lowenthal, Executive Director
Jim Kaufman, Chair
American Jewish Committee

Bishop Margaret Payne
Evangelical Lutheran Church of America
New England Synod

Bishop Thomas Shaw
Bishop of Massachusetts
Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts

Reverend Nancy Taylor
Conference Minister and President
United Church of Christ, Massachusetts Conference
  

AN INVITATION TO SIGN THIS APPEAL AND COMMITMENT

February 25, 2004

On February 24, 2004, the leaders of 10 religious and community groups, including the Center for Christian-Jewish Learning at Boston College, signed A Call to Understanding. It is not a statement about Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. It is a statement about the discussion around the film. It seeks to ensure that the spirit of mutual understanding and respect among Christians and Jews that has developed over the last four decades will not be lost in the heated discussion that has emerged over Gibson’s movie.

A Call to Understanding presents considerations and guidelines for both Christians and Jews to observe during the upcoming holy season and in light of the concern and controversy stemming from Mel Gibson’s portrayal of Jesus’ Passion. It emphasizes the willingness by many Christians and Jews to be mutually enriched by each other’s traditions, resulting in an openness that has replaced older habits of suspicion and avoidance. Those Jews and Christians who have entered into dialogue with one another have experienced deepened understandings of their own religious traditions as well as that of the other.

As a signatory to A Call to Understanding, you will join a group of leaders who are committed to perpetuating this work. We only ask that you share this document with your community and take active steps to implement its purpose. Our group will be adding the names of religious and community leaders who sign the declaration through March 15th. Shortly thereafter, we will issue a public statement listing all the names and institutions that have joined with us in this message of understanding and respect. We invite people from everywhere to join in this commitment to interfaith amity.


In order to be added to the list of signatories, please send the following information to boston@adl.org  by March 15:

• name and title of the person signing
• name of the church, synagogue or organization you represent
• address, telephone number and email address.

Anyone without email access may send the above information to NE ADL, 40 Court Street, Boston, MA 02108.

Your consideration and support will be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Gibson was on Jay Leno tonight.

He called his critics "unAmerican" and he said that the criticisms came from "somewhere not wholesome."

Hmmm.

URL: http://www.bc.edu/research/cjl/meta-elements/texts/reviews/gibson_cunningham.htm

Phillip Cunningham's helpful review of what about The Passion is biblical, and what is not, observes that Gibson has Pilate "sum[ming] up the Jewish abuse of Jesus by asking the priests, “Do you always punish your prisoners before they are judged?”

In fact, it is Rabbi Nicodemus who criticizes his own rabbinic and priestly leadership, according to John 7:51, asking, "Does our law condemn a man without first hearing him to find out what he has been doing?"

To transfer this idea from the Jewish Nicodemus to the Roman Pilate is inexcusable.

[ Unrelated accuracy alert: the storyline with Pilate's wife most likely comes from Matthew 27:19 - she does tell her husband to "have nothing to do with that just man" because she had "suffered many things this day in a dream because of him" - but in the Gospel accounts she does not bring Mary towels or indeed interact with anyone other than her husband. ]

Here are the main elements of the sermon I'd love to hear in synagogue this weekend:

1. This movie suffers from absence of vision and poverty of meaning. As Jews, we believe, with the popular song, "ani v'atah n'shaneh et ha-olam." And many Christians of good will, from the Grimke sisters to Martin Luther King, Jr., have done just that, often arm in arm with Jewish social activists who shared their progressive goals. Nowhere in the movie is a role given to ordinary people to do anything but watch an innocent man die--and do nothing about it. This is as unacceptable to many Christians as it is theologically anathema to Jews.

2. This movie wrongly defines authenticity as textual inerrancy (and then breaks its own rules for the director's personal and cinematographic convenience). We Jews reject the notion that he is most religious who is most slavish in his devotion to the literal meaning of the text. For Christians, the power of the gospels lies in the meaning of the totality of Jesus's birth, life, suffering & death, and purported resurrection. This movie focuses only on 12 hours of 33 years: that is, less than 1 thousandth of 1 percent of his life. Not only does this movie include images and scenes that are nowhere to be found in the gospels, but the additions purposefully slant the film against Jews, women, and the Roman Catholic church.

3. As to the charge of antisemitism, we must distinguish among three sets of issues. (1) What is historically plausible? (2) What is in the gospels themselves? and (3) What is in the movie?

(1) Historically, it is clear that the high priests, who had only limited political/judicial authority over the Jewish population, were terrified of uprisings. With a sizeable following, and with the kinds of actions that are reported in the gospels, like overturning the money-changers' tables and riding into Jerusalem dressed up as the promised Messiah, Jesus posed a credible threat. The high priests were equally terrified of Pilate's well-documented blood lust. It's quite likely that they scooped him up and turned him over to the Roman authorities. But they were in no position to determine Jesus's fate, let alone the methods of punishment or execution. Pilate, on the other hand, was known for his ruthlessness and indeed only 5 years later was recalled by Rome for responding to a Samaritan prophet-teacher by crucifying him and 5,000 of his followers.

(2) The gospels, at least three of them written by authors who considered themselves to be Jewish believers in Jesus, are full of invective and frustration. All four gospels were written after the destruction of the Temple but before the expulsion of the Jews from Judea, in a time of socioeconomic, political, and spiritual upheaval. Of the two gospels considered to be the most antisemitic, the Gospel of Matthew was probably written shortly after the Sanhedrin expelled Matthew's group from membership. The other, the Gospel of John, has mystical elements reminiscent of the Essenes, themselves no friends of the mainstream Jerusalem Jewish world. One line from Matthew-which we can still hear in the Aramaic in the film-is the famous blood curse. Another line, from the Gospel of John and used in the movie, suggests that Pilate is less responsible than the Jewish leadership for Jesus's death. At the time the words were written, though, it's important to recognize that this were anti-establishment expressions of religious anger. Over the next few centuries, as Christianity became its own independent religion, the language of the New Testament hardened into a religiously anti-Jewish stance. It wasn't until the middle ages, with the Crusades, the Lateran Council and the Spanish Inquisition, that the notion of a Jewish "race" responsible for the death of Jesus came into popular usage.
To be fair, there are also anti-Christian Jewish texts. The Talmud (Sanhedrin 43a, among other places) refers to Jesus as a sorcerer - and of course there is the 6th-century Toledot Yeshu. Clearly there was anti-Christian invective on our part as well, though we didn't have the means to act on it.

(3) Apparently history and gospel text were insufficient for Mr. Gibson to make his points in his movie. Temple guards throw Jesus over a bridge en route to his first trial. The devil--a woman and a Gibson invention with respect to this part of Jesus's story--spends most of her on-screen time standing with the Jewish leadership. The High Priest, in violation of every rule incumbent upon him as a kohen, goes out to Golgotha, the place of execution and death, to watch Jesus die--and then rushes back to the Temple without much as a dip in the mikvah. And in the Gospel of Mel Gibson, the Temple wasn't destroyed in 70 CE. It collapses in an earthquake at the moment of Jesus's final breath. Mr. Gibson may not hold the Jews solely responsible for Jesus's death, but he sure doesn't like us much.

4. There is one sign of hope -- a still, small voice, if you will. Over the past weeks and more intensively in the past few days, on websites and in newspapers, on televsion and radio, in synagogues, churches, and university centers, Christians on their own and Christians and Jews together have stood up to resist the Gospel of Mel Gibson. Critics of the film - on the left and on the right - rightly excoriate the film for its clear anti-Jewish and indeed un-Christian imagery. Just as we are not the ultra-chareidi Jews who throw rocks and excrement at Conservative and Reform Jews who seek to worship at the Western Wall, just as we are not the heirs of Baruch Goldstein nor Yigal Amir, just as we are not the students of Moshe Feinstein and Ovaadia Yosef, so, too, most Christians do not hold by the Gospel of Mel.

Over the past sixty years, even as American Christianity has become more individualistic and less "ethnic," we in the Jewish community here and around the world have sought and in large part recognition from the highest levels of the Roman Catholic Church, the Lutheran Churches, the Anglican Communion, and elsewhere that Am Yisrael Chai, that we the people Israel live, that we deserve respect and recognition, and that we truly are a light unto the nations. As we work with our Christian colleagues and friends to reject the Gospel of Mel Gibson, let us not permit that light to go out.

It's important to me to "get it right" and that means admitting when I get it wrong. Last night I wrote:

8. When the tomb is opened, Jesus is shown with a big hole in his right hand. (I may be wrong, but I thought that Christians claim that Jesus was resurrected whole.)

In my pre-radio interview scramble through the Bible section in the nearby Wal-Mart, I missed the following, which Pastor Daphne Burt (U. of Chicago) has brought to my attention:

the Gospel of John (chapter 20) does record the following interchange with Jesus and Thomas: 

"But he [Thomas]  to them, "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.26 A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you". Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe." Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God! "

Professor Kay Smith (Azusa Pacific University) made a similar comment:

3. Regarding your point 8 below, the gospel of John 20:25-27 indicates that the marks from Jesus' wounds were still in the resurrected body.  Now whether those marks were healed over or were still raw is not told us.  Certainly we can assume that they would have been healed over.

I've had some other interesting reactions from people, asking (a) about my concern for accuracy; (b) whether I myself was moved by the film; (c) whether it has the potential to cause violence; and (d) whether it portrays Jews in a bad light. Herewith:

A. A senior colleague questioned the benefit of my concern for "accuracy." In general, he is right: I think I (and others) have fallen into this (Protestant) trap that defines biblical inerrancy as the standard of authenticity. And that is a general problem in contemporary public discourse about religion - the imputation of orthodoxy to the most literal reading of the text.

In this instance, my issue with accuracy is based on Gibson's initial claim that his movie was (a) historically accurate and (b) true to the four Gospels. Neither is the case. If Gibson claimed his film were art or at least "True" in the grand poetic sense, then talk about accuracy would be unhelpful. But until only very recently, Gibson was claiming that his film is a "historically accurate" depiction of "actual events" as they took place.   So he loses the option of having his work assessed as art.  Put another way, he is claiming that Passion depicts not only the truth, but also the facts.  And that demands a response.

To be fair, leaving in Matthew 27:25 would have been "accurate" (and btw, I could hear it in the Aramaic -- actually I was rather amazed at how much of the Latin and Aramaic I actually understood), but it would have been problematic as well. So in this case I define accuracy de minime as not including dialogue, images or concepts that do not appear in the four Gospels.

B. Yes, I was moved - mostly by the love of Mary for her son. Bizarrely, the movie really clarified for me that I am not a Christian: not in any cultural sense, but in the strictly religious logic. Sure, I watched a guy getting tortured to death for two hours last night, but what really got to me was how my heart went out to Mary, this poor woman watching the slow physical destruction of her son.

C. All violent movies inherently have the potential to incite further violence. Will there be mass pogroms? No. Will some stupid high school kids find a Jew (or someone who looks Jewish) and take him out behind the gym and beat the !#@$% out of him? Probably.

D. Yes, the film portrayed the Jews in a bad light. As I said on the radio last night in an interview, the film makes it clear that the Romans -- and only the Romans -- carried out the physical torture and killing of Jesus (with the exception of a painful but non-life-threatening beating from the Jewish Temple guards). HOWEVER, the movie made it equally clear that the Romans would not have done so but for the unyielding -- irritating, even -- insistence of the Jewish leadership. And although he took out the English subtitle for Matthew 27:25, Gibson did leave in the line from John 19:11 in which Jesus tells Pilate that the greater sin was not on he who would kill him, but on he who delivered him to death--and although that passage could be read to refer to Jesus himself, who delivered himself to death, as it were, Gibson's cinematography aims the blame squarely at Caiphas and the Jews [sic].

P.S. Two great lines I've heard today:

1. "Christians should give up The Passion for Lent."

2. Spoken by one elderly lady to another upon leaving the screening tonight: "It was just like King Kong - so many bad things happened to him and then he died!"

:-)

Unexpectedly, I saw the movie tonight at an advance screening.

This is a very powerful movie. For Jews to take it apart piece by piece would be doing the equivalent of, say, denying the Exodus. Since faith is so important to Christians, I think that whatever the Jewish reaction is, we need to leave some room to allow for believing Christians to have a truly transformative experience. If Christians want to foreground the problematic treatment of Jews and other serious biblical and historical flaws, in my view that's fine for Christians to do within their own theological discourse. My sense is that if we as Jews demand respect for our faith tradition and our understanding of religious experience, then we ought to do the same for others.

That said, this is an indiosyncratic fifth "Gospel of Mel" that overstates the blood-and-guts of Jesus's death and rips the last day of Jesus's life totally out of the context of his life and teachings. The few references to his ethical precepts appear in flashbacks, almost as afterthoughts. And even during his trials and torture, the camera treats Jesus as something other than those around him--fine up to a point, but even orthodox Christians believe that he was fully a man of his times (as well as fully divine).

10 things to watch out for, most of which so far haven't been mentioned in the press:

2 good Jewish moments:

1. Mary is the Best Jewish Mother in the History of the World - it's actually quite touching. Maia Morgenstern is as much the lead as Jim Caviezel, and many of the flashbacks are seen through her eyes. In many respects Passion really is the heartbreaking story of a mother watching her son condemned and tortured to death.

2. Having tried to return his 30 pieces of Temple silver to the priests (the amount corresponding to the cost of an atonement sacrifice of pigeons @ the Temple), Judas runs into the desert and finds himself beside the corpse of a goat (the Yom Kippur scapegoat?). He uses the rope that muzzled the goat to hang himself. I found this actually quite a sensitive scene that made good cinematic use of the question of whether his sin of betrayal was forgivable (buy a couple of turtledoves?) or not (lead the goat to Gehenna and leave it there to die).


8 problems for Jews and Christians alike (one or two really just Christian problems):

1. The Temple guards who arrest Jesus really rough him up (not in the Gospels at al, but apparently in Anne Catherine Emmerich's 19th-century visions).

2. The "court proceeding" with the High Priest is only partially accurate with respect to the Gospels. The Gospel-accurate blasphemy charge is embellished with one line about "the bread of life" and whether Jesus is the "son of the living God." (The Gospels have Caiphas [sic] asking whether Jesus claims to be the "son of God" - not an unusual claim in those days.)

3. In an interesting cut to the Roman Catholic Church, Peter tells Mary he's unworthy after he realizes that he has betrayed Jesus 3 times. In all four Gospels, Peter feels badly, but he doesn't call himself "unworthy," and certainly not to Mary.

4. The Devil (a Gibson invention with respect to this part of the Gospel narratives) spends all her time with the Jews and none with the Romans....

5. In another Gibson invention, Pontius Pilate's wife brings towels to Mary & Mary Magdalene to wipe up Jesus's blood after he is scourged. Caiphas's wife does not make an appearance at all, neither in the Gospels nor the film.

5. In a flashback, the High Priest is one of the stone-throwers from whom Jesus rescues Mary Magdalene.

6. The High Priest (and his coterie) actually go to Golgotha to watch the Crucifixion (never mind that as Cohanim they are forbidden to enter such a place of death). Then they race back to the Temple with not so much as a dip in the mikvah.

7. At the moment of Jesus's death, an earthquake cracks the Temple foundation. In the Gospels, "only" the "Temple curtain" is torn asunder.

8. When the tomb is opened, Jesus is shown with a big hole in his right hand. (I may be wrong, but I thought that Christians claim that Jesus was resurrected whole.)

I look forward to reading/hearing the thoughts and experiences of others.