Pax Nortona – A Blog by Joel Sax
From the Land of the Lost Blunderbuss
The Bible, Passion, and Jewish-Christian Relations
Posted on February 26, 2004 in College Hatred Myths & Mysticism Silicon Valley
Forgive me as I ramble through a literature lesson, a personal grudge, and a fragmented history of my convictions.
When I was in college, a know-it-all Jew who lived across the hall from me (who must not be confused with other Jews — his faults, though flavored by his culture and sense of identity, were strictly his own) told me that the Bible had once been on the infamous Index Liborum Prohibitum. He insisted that this was because the Church wanted to be the sole channel and interpreter of the sacred text. The claim struck me as wrong, but I was young and ignorant: I didn’t collect dirt on other religions as this fellow did. I was raised Catholic and, though I will admit that the Bible wasn’t something I could quote as volubly as the Protestants around me, I never met a priest, a nun, or a lay teacher who discouraged me from reading it.
What actually happened was that the Church resisted the translation of the Bible from the Vulgate because they feared that it might be mistranslated and, consequently, misinterpreted. This was ironic because the Vulgate is itself a Latin translation from the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek sources. When reformers started to print the book in their own languages and Protestantism used it as a source for criticizing the Holy See, the Council of Trent declared:
- That dogma was to be transmitted through the church teaching the laity;
- That the Latin Vulgate translation of Saint Jerome was the sole canonical text to be used in the observance of the Mass; and
- That Catholics could not read any unapproved translation.
This doubletalk accounts for the confusion. It’s okay, the Church, said, to read the Bible and think upon it for yourself, but remember that we have the One True Version and even the translations that we have approved do not suffice for learning the Gospel message. So read them if you like, but don’t forget that you still need us. Just drop your coins over in the slot by the door or in the basket when the usher comes by to collect.
The Douay-Rheims Bible was the first text sanctioned for English-speaking Catholics. It was printed in France and smuggled to England where it was banned by the Crown who held the copyright on the King James Bible, the all time best-seller among Bibles. This occurred during that religious Cold War era when Catholics in England and Protestants in France were persecuted for their choice of religion. I have not found evidence that the Church explicitly banned the reading of the King James Bible, but it’s clear that the Douay-Rheims was the volume that was supposed to be found in every Catholic home. Otherwise, you had a lot of explaining to do when you went to Confession.
This fellow who lived across the hall from me that semester made me keenly aware of Jewish bigotry. Jews, I learned, had their own agendas against Christians. On a wall along Los Angeles’s Fairfax Boulevard in a district filled with Jewish bookstores, gift shops, and delis, there’s a large mural. A protestor walks across the left side of it with a sign that proclaims “OUR RELIGION IS ABOUT LIFE, NOT DEATH”. In James A. Michener’s The Source, a fabulous novel about the relics discovered in the course of an archaeological expedition that gives testament to the survival against many waves of occupation, diaspora, and resettlement, one Israeli scoffs at Christianity, calling it an inferior religion that is wholly incapable of telling people how to live.
I raise these three examples not as a pogrom against Judaism, but to say that in wars of words, everyone remains accountable for their distortions. Jews have been victims: only the American Indians have suffered more than this group. On the other hand, I do not grant them license to have their mischaracterizations of Christianity go unchallenged. Freedom of religion like freedom of speech bears the price that someone else might not like what you say and say so. Jews cannot hide behind claims of anti-Semitism when objective criticism is made of their attitudes towards Christians and other outsiders. Everyone pays that price. What we must unite together on is the agreement that conscience remains free and that we must never allow a government to endorse, assist to prosper, defame, or attempt to exterminate a people for their culture, their religion, or their genetic heritage. We must not tolerate violence or vandalism against any group. Advocates of these should be shunned and held accountable for those they inspire. Outside of these nonsectarian prohibitions, everyone’s religion is fair game for criticism.
Having exposed my personal irritations and the thinking I use to both affirm and corral them, I come to the issue of the day, which is Mel Gibson’s Passion. Is it anti-semitic? I don’t know. I haven’t seen the film. The acclaim of Fundamentalists does not ease my suspicion. Perhaps spurred by the film, a Denver pastor has raised a sign that screams “Jews Killed the Lord Jesus“. Bob of Politics in the Zeros found it tacky beyond belief (and I agree!) that Gibson is hawking crucifixion nail pendants as one of his officially licensed products for the film. Rob at Conniption reprinted a story which he — tongue-in-cheek — touted as God striking a woman dead during the film. Kris told us to go over to Newsmax and vote to label Gibson’s film as “anti-Semitic” even though she admitted that she left the question as to whether the film depicted the crucifixion accurately “as I had no idea whether he portrayed the death accurately or not. ” Is that saying she didn’t see it?
Mike over at The Gutless Pacifist kept a cool head. He admitted that he had not seen Passion and asked for people who had seen it to comment. Jennifer, writing to the racial nature of the term anti-Semitic, declared: “couldn’t we, just once, have a Jesus movie where the actors looked like they were from the Middle East?” In this sense, racism does dominate Gibson’s drama which is calculated to appeal to white Euro-Americans who don’t think that Jesus could have been anything but white. There’s a strike against the film that can be made just by looking at the production stills.
Many American Jews — being Ashkenazis — would look out of place in an authentic Biblical epic, too. Which brings me to a minor though important point: anti-Semitism refers to prejudice against Semitic peoples. Sephardim and Arabs are Semites. Ashkenazis are not.
The nail that Passion rams is that of the “blood libel”, a scene in the Gospel of Matthew (27:25) when the mob assembled outside the Roman Governor’s Mansion cry “His blood [be] on us, and on our children.”
Gibson comes from a traditionalist Catholic sect which got all bent out of shape when the ecclesiastes who convened for Vatican II proclaimed that the Jews were not cursed by God as mediocre medieval theologians believed. He reneged on a promise to cut the infamous cry from the film’s dialogue, removing the English subtitle as the crowd shouts it in Aramaic. Few Christians understand it, but many know the story so well that they can guess what is being declaimed.
An anonymous commentator who signed himself only as “Theologian Guy” declared: “Artistically and theologically, this film is impressive and beautiful, but also horrifying, emotionally draining, and mentally exhausting. Do not go to this film if you have other things to do afterward.” He did not mention if he stoppd to buy a souvenir nail at the theater’s gift shop.
I cannot declare if Passion defames Jews or promotes the blood libel. I have not seen it. Gibson might honestly claim that he is only following the script laid out in the Gospel of Matthew.
Matthew held a grudge against the Jews, perhaps because as a Roman tax collector he’d been universally maltreated by them. Mark, who recorded Peter’s recollections and John, who was on the scene don’t pump the ethnicity of the crowd as does Matthew’s iron-spiked, lead zeppelin. Luke, the dear and glorious physician who accompanied Paul — the reputed author of the second letter to the Thessalonians which the Denver pastor invokes in defense of his signboard claim — treats the unnamed participants benignly, as a Christian should.
We must ask “Why this Gospel? Why not one of the other three, none of which include the divisive line?”
Only Mel Gibson can answer that question and I don’t entirely trust him to be honest about it.
When Jews protest a film they can sound irritable, nitpicking, and petty. I have personally known young college-aged Jews who arrogantly disrespected Christians as a group and took pleasure from destroying their faith. I will not use the word “The” when referring to these post-adolescent boors. They happened to be Jews. They were disrespectful. I do not and will not continue to the false conclusion that “The Jews hate Christianity and want to tear it down.”
I grew up in San Bernardino, California, where Bill Bright’s Campus Crusade for Christ crouched grimly overlooking the city from the tower of the Arrowhead Springs Hotel and spewed anti-evolution, anti-intellectual, anti-whatever-modernism-that-takes-the-joy-out-of-the-twisted-apple-that-we-call-Christianity tracts for all the local children to read — in English and in Spanish. I didn’t care for the promoters of that form of Christianity any more than I cared for the loud mouth Jew who lived across the hall. They aren’t Christianity: they take what they like out of the mythology and use it to keep from living the life of Christ.
I have found these faux Christians irritable, nitpicking, and petty. Given that their type loves Passion by all accounts, I am extremely suspicious of the film. They want to be martyrs without shedding any of their own blood for the path of peace that Christ preached. Often I heard them say “Christ died so we don’t have to suffer.” Into which you can read the message “And we can libel, defame, torture, execute, war upon and bomb people who don’t believe because we have the Truth.”
I’d like to propose standards for deciding whether or not Passion acts as a vehicle for expressing the redemptive power of Christ’s sacrifice or as a vehicle for nullifying that power by promoting hatred against the Jewish religion. I am not going to see the film because I am not inclined to attend a de facto revival that adds little to my understanding of the story that I have heard from childhood. If you decide to go see Passion, please keep these ideas in mind:
- If Gibson believes and if Passion conveys the idea that The Jews killed Christ, it is unequivocably and hatefully anti-Jewish.
- There’s a second line that I’ve often detected in the spirit of films like Ben Hur which superficially affirm diversity among the Jews yet covers a different style of anti-Jewish line. In these versions of the Passion story, you have the good Jews who didn’t like what was going on; and the bad Jews who rode the wave of mob fury, shook the dirty fists which only a week before had clutched palm branches, and shouted “Give us Barrabas!” Think about it: the good Jews became Christians. The bad Jews stayed Jews. If Gibson’s film follows this masterplot, then you can lump it with the first kind of prejudicial treatment that I have described.
- A third view of the Passion holds that there were Jews who were in on the plot — quislings who didn’t want to disturb the Roman rule. These packed the crowd. There were Jews who just stayed out of it. There were Jews who objected on grounds of humanity — Pharisees who didn’t necessarily follow Jesus but abhorred the crucifixion. And we have the Jews who like Peter, John, and James who became Christians. Doubtless, given its status as the capital of the province, the crowd assembled outside the Prefecture would have included Greeks, Latins, Pathians, and many others. We have a mob scene. People start shouting along with everyone else, not fully comprehending what is going on. Not everyone is shouting. Some weep. Some watch in stunned silence at the hatred. Some walk away in disgust. (Cf. this.)
Crowd psychology is complicated and writers of history — any history — tend to simplify the scenes. Others who read this history take what was described too far. Consider the moment of passion when members of the crowd — according to Matthew — cried “Let His blood [be] on us, and on our children”. We must approach this critically, considering Matthew’s personal prejudices, and what we know about the behavior of people in crowds. Have not at least some of us had the experience of going to a rock concert where we didn’t like the band but were so caught up in the emotion of those around us that we stood, waved our arms, and chanted whatever stupid slogan sputtered off the lips of our neighbors? Keep that in mind. Keep in mind, also, that we do not hold the children responsible for the sins of their parents. Jews participated in the Crucifixion. The Jews did not kill Christ. Even if I ask you to include my nieces and nephews in any punishment you mete out for me, you cannot justly do so if they did not participate.
No one can pass the guilt for his crimes on to his children, his siblings, his cousins, or any other friend or relation who was not actually participating in the act. To hold them accountable denies the Spirit of Christ and of secular, nonsectarian Justice.
Ruth Gledhill told a Times interviewer that while she found Passion offensive and blatantly anti-Jewish, that
everyone should see this film. Crucifixions and scourgings still go on in various parts of the world. Never mind the Bible and the past. It is surely about time that we cleaned up the present, and this shocking and graphic representation of the brutal reality of these physical punishments might contribute something towards a change in that area.
I agree with her insofar as you cannot honestly tell the story of the Crucifixion without depicting torture and execution. I feel we need to step beyond the gospels, especially that of Matthew, and see them for the human documents that they are. In my film of the crucifixion story, I would portray the confusion of the moment, the people being carried off by emotion and then walking away wondering “Huh, why did I do that?” For all its artistic merits, given what Gledhill says, I would not counsel everyone to see it. If it fuels new violence against Jews and weaker counter-violence by Jews, then Gledhill does us a disservice because its artistry has provoked a hatefulness contrary to the witness of Christ and the great agreement of religious toleration based on truthfulness.
If it is hateful and anti-Jewish, leave it for film history students to examine in the years to come. It belongs on the same shelf as Birth of a Nation, examined for how it is put together, rejected for the message it preaches.
Personally, I am more intrigued and moved by Martin Scorcese’s The Last Temptation of Christ, based on the novel by Nikos Katanzakis. I find the second film superior because it amplifies the importance of Christ’s sacrifice without pointing fingers. The Romans, the cronies of Caiaphas, and all the rest become incidental to the central story: in Katanzakis’s view, this thing had to happen. And he asks “What if it hadn’t?”
I went to see this film in San Francisco. The line for the theater wrapped around the block, filled with Berkeley intellectuals who were eager to see Christ get it on with Mary Magdalene. They were, in spirit, a lot like the loudmouth across the hall from my Claremont Men’s College days, eager to see belief undermined by the sexual act and sellout of Christ to his passions. They left the theater realizing that they’d been had. As I walked out into the lobby, I said to a tearful usher “That — that was a profoundly Christian film.” She nodded tearfully as Lynn and I slipped onto the sidewalk where Fundamentalist demonstrators called us spawn of the Devil for having watched it. Some of the Berkeley crowd might well have found Christ: those on the sidewalk stood half a world away and a universe apart from the man who stilled and walked upon the waters.
Because of that film, this agnostic retains a healthy respect for the courage it took for Christ to allow himself to be put to death and that, if he was the son of God, he was also a true son of Man, replete with doubts and temptations.
That film makes Christ a thinker whose word is worth living here and now. No big mouth, Jew or Christian or other, can wrestle me away from my conviction that the words of the Sermon on the Mount can be lived, that that sacrifice depicted in The Last Temptation — whether mythically or factually true — was worth making.
You can write your own Mel Gibson Movie here.
Maybe I should make a “Religion Thursday”?
