You're such a nice fellow.

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: : I'm generally of the opinion of holding off any and all opinions on any given work until such a time as I see said work. All discussion, at this point, about how the film does or doesn't portray jews is kinda silly, and reminiscent of the hullabaloo of the people who boycotted LAST TEMPTATION, sight unseen. : Anyway, I still say any portrayal of Christ's death couldn't be wholly anti-Semitic since nearly everyone in the story, except the Roman soldiers, IS Jewish, including Jesus. : : (Tangential semi-funny side story: When I was a kid, I worked part time in a video store where the owner refused to carry LAST TEMPTATION. He did, however, find no moral problem with a fully stocked backroom of hardcore porn with titles like SPLENDOR IN THE ASS that provided him with a full 1/3 of his rental revenues. End tangent.) : SPLENDOR IN THE ASS just may have taken over CUCKOO FOR COCOA COCKS as my favorite porn title of all time. Ha! : I guess the message of that is, it's okay to get it on, but it's not okay to get it on with Jesus. : : As to the whole historical or not go-round, that point has been and continues to be hotly debated in all kinds of academic circles. I think it little to the point in THIS case, because Gibson claims to have tried to make the most BIBLICALLY accurate filmed version. : Ah, see, there's nothing wrong with that, but regardless, it's still his interpretation. Unless we're saying that the hand of God has chosen Mel Gibson and his guiding his work on this very important movie so that all truth may be preserved. : Which hey...what do I know...he could be the CHOSEN ONE. But you'd think if God had known this fifteen years ago, he'd have guided Chosen Mel away from the THUNDERDOME. And also that movie where his face is all deformed but Cher is nowhere to be seen. : : Personally, I am very interested to see this thing. : Me too. : : 1) I do think it is dirty pool that Pappa Gibson's wackiness is being brought up as any sort of issue. See, UNLIKE that "God" character, I don't think the inequity of the father should be visited upon the son. : Well, I agree in principle; but on the other hand, Gibson Sr. is a major leader of the church they both belong to. It would have been kinder to interview a different minister, but when is journalism kind? My sympathy for Holocaust deniers is pretty low. : Anyway, I thought they didn't recognize any popes AFTER Vatican II, not before. Because they didn't dig all the liberal reforms. I'm not really sure about that because I don't follow wacky people that closely. : Thanks for sticking this below, it was interesting. I don't get the argument that it sounds "too Christian" to be written by a Jewish guy, though, since all the original "Christians" per se were Jewish. : Anyway, catch you on the flip side, Evil Lord of the Sith. : : *** : : From the writings of Flavius Josephus : : -------------------------------------------- : : About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was one who performed surprising deeds and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Messiah. And when, upon the accusation of the principal men among us, Pilate had condemned him to a cross, those who had first come to love him did not cease. He appeared to them spending a third day restored to life, for the prophets of God had foretold these things and a thousand other marvels about him. And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared. : : - Jewish Antiquities, 18.3.3 §63 : : (Based on the translation of Louis H. Feldman, The Loeb Classical Library.) : : Yet this account has been embroiled in controversy since the 17th century. It could not have been written by a Jewish man, say the critics, because it sounds too Christian: it even claims that Jesus was the Messiah (ho christos, the Christ)! : : The critics say: this paragraph is not authentic. It was inserted into Josephus' book by a later Christian copyist, probably in the Third or Fourth Century. : : The opinion was controversial. A vast literature was produced over the centuries debating the authenticity of the "Testimonium Flavianum", the Testimony of Flavius Josephus. : : A view that has been prominent among American scholars was summarized in John Meier's 1991 book, A Marginal Jew. : : This opinion held that the paragraph was formed by a mixture of writers. It parsed the text into two categories: nything that seemed too Christian was added by a later Christian writer, while anything else was originally written by Josephus. : : By this view, the paragraph was taken as essentially authentic, and so supported the objective historicity of Jesus. : : Unfortunately, the evidence for this was meager and self-contradictory. But it was an attractive hypothesis.

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