Gawen

Well...obviously, Mel and Newsweek need to be brought up to date on Josephus and Tacitus, for starters. But all the rest seems to be the normal scriptural gobble-de-gook.
says Gibson. Culpable, if memory serves, means something like, deserving to be blamed or to take the blame? All I can fault Gibson for is believing in and retelling a fairy tale.

And think of all the Xtians that will just go see a movie that Jews are upset about. I wonder how many will come out all teary eyed. And I really wonder what Pastor Bush and his Elders will say about it.

*laffin*...

Somana badgin corksucker Roman on da grassy knoll....(this was for Ameleq13... )...Dis means fargin war!: Roman Maroni

"It's a thought": Johnny Dangerously

Malachi151

I figured as much, its an attempt to whitewash Christian anti-Semitism is what it is. Its an attempt to downplay the "role of the Jews" in the "killing" of Jesus, so has to bring about Jewish Christian harmony to form a stronger block against secularism and make the religious seem more cohesive.

hedonist ogre

I never understood why Christians would be so pissed off at the Jews for killing Jesus. I mean, getting killed is what he supposedly came here to do, right? Is this article going to start a new wave of anti-Romanism?

dado

i got as far as seeing the picture of the elongated cross and didn't even bother reading the article. historical accuracy, my ass.

but that grassy knoll comment was a major funny.

Vorkosigan

This is, all things considered, an extremely balanced and useful review:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4212782/

After noting numerous places where Gibson ... um .... re-interprets the Bible,

The article is extremely balanced, informative, interesting, and useful. It's unusually good for a mass-market mag. The editorial selection of the caption for the opening pic was extremely off-putting:

'The Holy Ghost was working through me on this film,' Gibson has said of his work on 'The Passion.' 'I was just direct_ing traffic'.

Vorkosigan

Bede

Ahh... politics.

It's all about acceptable or unacceptable demonology.

Mel demonised the English in Braveheart and got multiple Oscars for fiction he claimed was fact. Now the same American establishment attacks him for attacking Jews because that is just not allowed.

If only he had got Tim Roth (baddie from Rob Roy) or Alan Rickman (Robin Hood) to play Caiaphas and all would have been well.

Moral of the story: its OK to make a film that attacks some racial groups but not others. And to hell with history.

Actually, I enjoyed the Newsweek article too and felt it was not unreasonable given where the author was coming from. The London Telegraph reviewer almost ignores the Jewish issue and pans the film as being just too violent, although he doesn't think Americans will mind this(!)

Yours

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

Doctor X

Well . . . of course the British are responsible. . . .

--J.D.

Vorkosigan

It was OK to create 4 Gospels that do that, so what's your beef?

Also, perhaps you can give us a rundown of those many moments in history where crowds, maddened by performances of plays and stories, formed mobs that attacked and killed harmless Englishmen, over and over again.

Vorkosigan