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  1. #1
    Phero Pharaoh
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    Default Jewish and Catholic Biblical Scholars\' Report on P

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    The Center for Christian-Jewish Learning has now posted the up-to-now confidential report that the

    scholars convened by the ADL and the US Catholic Bishops committee last April submitted to Mel Gibson in response

    to the script that they had received. The group evaluated the degree to which this script cohered to Catholic

    teachings on dramatizations of the Passion and interpretation of the New Testament. Except for some added and

    dropped scenes, the finished film is in most places close, or even identical, to the script the scholars

    read.

    The specific URL of the report is:

    http://tinyurl.com/223yq


  2. #2
    Banned User Elana's Avatar
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    Default Re: Jewish and Catholic Biblical Scholars\' Report on P

    [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif[/img] That was some read. Wow! Let me understand

    this correctly.....he actually read this review before he released the film?

  3. #3
    Phero Pharaoh
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    Default Re: Jewish and Catholic Biblical Scholars\' Report on P

    </font><blockquote><font class=\"small\">Quote:</font><hr />


    [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif[/img] That was some read. Wow! Let me understand this correctly.....he

    actually read this review before he released the film?

    <hr /></blockquote><font class=\"post\">

    He was

    supposed to have done. That was the purpose of submitting the script to a panel of biblical scholars.

    Protocol,

    in these parts is this: when a movie plot or characterization is anticipated to impact a particular culture,

    religion, or ethnic group, a copy of the script is sumbmitted to authorities (on said culture, religion, or ethnic

    group) for accuracy. Representatives are also usually invited to a pre-screening for last minute corrections.

    A

    friend of mine, and anthropologist, is often consulted for script reviews and prescreenings. I know that the movie

    \"The Siege\" was heavily edited after a prescreening. So was \"Prince of Egypt.\"

  4. #4
    Phero Pharaoh
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    Default Re: Jewish and Catholic Biblical Scholars\' Report on P

    </font><blockquote><font class=\"small\">Quote:</font><hr />
    </font><blockquote><font

    class=\"small\">Quote:</font><hr />
    [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif[/img] That was some read. Wow!

    Let me understand this correctly.....he actually read this review before he released the film?

    <hr

    /></blockquote><font class=\"post\">

    He was supposed to have done. That was the purpose of submitting the

    script to a panel of biblical scholars.

    Protocol, in these parts is this: when a movie plot or characterization

    is anticipated to impact a particular culture, religion, or ethnic group, a copy of the script is sumbmitted to

    authorities (on said culture, religion, or ethnic group) for accuracy. Representatives are also usually invited to a

    pre-screening for last minute corrections.

    A friend of mine, and anthropologist, is often consulted for script

    reviews and prescreenings. I know that the movie \"The Siege\" was heavily edited after a prescreening. So was

    \"Prince of Egypt.\"

    <hr /></blockquote><font class=\"post\">

    BTW-- In this case, there was apparently

    no prescreening.

  5. #5
    Banned User Elana's Avatar
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    Default Re: Jewish and Catholic Biblical Scholars\' Report on P

    These are some of the discrepancies pointed out by Rabbi Wolpe.

    </font><blockquote><font

    class=\"small\">Quote:</font><hr />
    On opening day, I went to see the movie. The violence is mind

    numbing,
    and, in a certain way, purposeless. For if Jesus\' suffering was greater
    than any human being has ever

    endured, since he took upon himself the sins
    of the world, that cannot be represented on screen. Have others, in

    life,
    suffered as much and more as the scourged, battered and crucified man on
    the screen? Absolutely. No

    Hollywood representation, alas, can outdo what
    human beings have done to one another in the world. If so, why

    the
    horrific violence?
    While the violence itself may be a basis for finding the film distasteful,
    that does not

    make it anti-Semitic. Several particulars combine to make
    Jews uneasy:
    \" THE DEVIL
    The devil moved almost

    exclusively among the Jews (once behind the Roman
    soldiers). Considering that the devil is not mentioned in the

    passion
    narratives at all, that is enough to give one pause. Indeed the priests
    are witnesses at Jesus\'

    scourging, a detail not recounted in the New
    Testament, and the devil hovers among them, so Gibson created a

    special
    scene to enable the devil to be identified with the Jewish priests.
    \" THE HIGH PRIEST
    The High Priest

    throws stones at Mary Magdalene, not recounted in the New
    Testament, and is also shown at Golgotha in the last

    minutes, which is not
    in the New Testament. Nor could it be, since the High Priest is not
    permitted in a place

    where there are dead bodies. Some clearly sympathetic
    scenes including religious Jewish characters, such as the

    Rabbi Nicodemus,
    are omitted from the movie.
    JESUS\' CONVERSATION WITH PILATE
    Jesus tells Pilate that the

    greater guilt goes to the one who handed him
    over (John 19:11). The Oxford New English Bible glosses the statement

    as
    referring to \"either the High Priest, or perhaps Judas.\" Since Judas
    represents tortured guilt that comes

    to believe in Jesus and the High
    Priest represents the Jews, which choice do you suppose Gibson made? To
    whom will

    his camera, by flashing right back to the culprit, assign \"the
    greater guilt?\"
    PHYSICAL ASSAULTS BY

    JEWS
    There are choices that are made for the sake of suffering, but do nothing
    to mitigate the concern: the Jewish

    guards beat Jesus (not in the original
    story), and he is physically assaulted by Jews in prayer shawls

    when
    encountering the council of priests.
    MATTHEW 27:25
    More powerful is the line that Gibson said he had cut,

    because his brother
    told him that the Jews would \"kill him,\" a story, by the way, which Gibson
    recounted, and

    a story of which decency would demand that he be ashamed.
    It is the line from Matthew 27:25: \"His blood be upon

    us and upon our
    children.\" We must be clear about the implications. The charges of
    \"Christ-killer\" that have

    followed the Jews through centuries, that caused
    Popes to warn Jews to stay in their homes on Good Friday because

    bands of
    Christians would seek them out to injure and/or kill them, all the savage
    accusations, the slaughter, the

    degradation--these things have many and
    complex causes, but if we sought one above all, it would be that line.

    \"It
    was said\" Gibson has commented. Such a blithe declaration--as though
    history has leapt from 31 AD to 2004

    with nothing in between. No blood
    libel, no crusade, no inquisition, no pogroms. He assures us \"It

    was
    said.\"
    But of course history cannot be wished away. So we must be grateful that
    the line was removed.

    Except it wasn\'t. It merely was not subtitled. I,
    and others with whom I attended the screening, all understood

    it quite
    clearly in Aramaic. Even if it will not be understood by the vast majority
    of those who attend the film,

    as the lawyers on TV are wont to say, \"it
    goes to state of mind, your Honor.\" It does indeed. I hope the

    director\'s
    cut will not restore subtitles to that line. Who will control the
    subtitles in foreign languages?

    Will the French read it? Russians? Poles?
    Austrians? Italians? Ukrainians? In the Middle East, where the

    favored
    reading these days is \"The Protocols of the Elders of Zion?\"
    THE WEAKNESS OF PILATE
    The most

    commented on and most obvious choices in this film are the
    weakness of Pilate (known historically to be

    extraordinarily cruel) and
    the powerful, evil and manipulative High Priest of the Jews. Would that
    the film had

    taken seriously the earliest two extra Gospel sources,
    Josephus and Tacitus, both of whom say Jesus was killed by

    Pilate. Or the
    Nicene Creed, which mentions only Pilate as causing Jesus\' death. Or of
    Father Pawlikowski of

    Catholic Theological Union in Chicago: \"But from
    biblical and historical scholarship we know that Pilate was a

    powerful
    tyrant who fully controlled the political situation. No way could the Jews
    of Palestine have blackmailed

    him.\"
    There are tender moments in the movie, and powerful moments. When Jesus
    teaches, in the regrettably brief

    instances of teaching between savage
    torments, the movie lifts itself and its audience. But it will not be

    long
    before the gleeful Roman sadists and the leering, vengeful Jews will
    return to wield the whip and pull the

    strings, respectively.
    THE DECIL WITH JEWISH CHILDREN
    Judas, who goes mad, sees small, sweet Jewish children turn

    into devils,
    an image that I wish would not be so close to an anti-Semites deepest
    conviction. As the devil hovers

    behind the Jewish children, I cannot help
    but wonder, why those children? The only source for placing children

    in
    the scene I can find is in the visions of Sister Anne Emmerich, whose
    writings were a source for the film. She

    helpfully comments that Judas
    hung himself in the valley where \"Jews used to sacrifice their children.\"
    The

    most tragic part of this entire debacle is that it has become a
    Jewish-Christian contretemps. It should not be.

    Many have spoken out in
    tones of kindness and concern. Here in Los Angeles Cardinal Mahoney has
    vividly expressed

    his concern and his feelings for the Church and for
    Jews. He is one of many voices for whom all, Jew and Christian

    alike,
    should be grateful. Jewish Christian relations have made strides
    unthinkable in earlier ages. In each

    community we have to struggle not to
    lose a single step of progress. This is not about our faith; it is about
    Mel

    Gibson\'s movie.
    What were Mr. Gibson\'s intentions? One cannot see inside another\'s heart.
    The evidence of

    the movie is predominantly that he sought to make a movie
    that showed the suffering of Jesus to the world, and that

    it was
    sufficiently important to him to make it no matter the institutional
    obstacles.

    But a movie about the

    death of Jesus is not a stone dropped into a clear
    pool. There are thousands of years of history, of anguish, and

    of hate.
    The answer is not to boycott the movie or to anathematize Mel Gibson.
    There is a better way.
    When I

    returned from the screening my wife said to me that if he really
    wanted to combat hate, Mel Gibson should establish

    a fund, the Passion
    Fund, to aid all those who might come to be the Jewish victims of
    violence surrounding the

    showing of this film. If the fund is untouched,
    so much the better. But when I see a Denver Church proudly parading

    a sign
    that says \"\'Jews Killed the Lord Jesus\' 1 Thess. 2:14, 15 Settled!\" I
    begin to wonder if the

    children of Denver, and other cities, might not be
    in need of Passion fund. Or better, she suggested, perhaps the

    Passion
    fund might serve to educate people who might be moved to hate.

    Mr. Gibson, use the proceeds from this

    movie to heal and teach. Would that
    not be what Jesus would have you do? Do you, along with millions and
    millions

    of Christians throughout the world, believe not only in his
    death, but in the message of his life?
    Following the

    movie my friends and I spoke to a Christian woman who
    solicited our reactions (which varied) as we solicited hers.

    She said
    \"well, it was clear. It was the Romans and the Jews.\" But, I pointed out,
    there are no more Romans,

    so doesn\'t that leave only the Jews? \"Oh, I read
    that in a review,\" she said, as if trumping its truth by

    its lack of
    originality. Still I stood before her, a Jew, and wondered if her
    conclusions touched her feelings

    about me.

    I believe that the intent of this movie is not to stir up hatred against
    the Jewish people. But will

    it give aid and comfort to anti-Semites? Will
    it be something that those who hate the Jewish people can show

    their
    children with an easy conscience? I\'m afraid so. And we do not live in an
    age when hatred should be given

    nourishment.
    When Heinrich Heine, the great German-Jewish lyric poet, sat down to write
    his poem \"To Edom\"

    (Edom being an old Rabbinic metaphor for Christianity)
    he began with these lines:
    A thousand years and more we

    suffer
    Each other for so long an age.
    You--you tolerate my breathing
    And I tolerate your rage.

    For almost two

    millennia that was the experience of the Jew. In recent
    times, however, Jews and Christians have begun speaking to

    each other,
    reaching out, seeking to understand the other. Along with many other
    Jewish Rabbis, scholars and

    teachers, I was a signer of Dabru Emeth, a
    statement of Jewish understanding and some shared aspirations with

    the
    Christian tradition. I have been invited to lecture and teach at Christian
    colleges, and invited my Christian

    colleagues to do the same. The
    statements of the Church and of many Protestant leaders reflect a
    tremendous change

    from the terrors of earlier times.

    Christianity is a great world tradition whose cradle is my faith.

    The
    greatest sin of this movie would be if the vision of a single Hollywood
    star overrode, even for an instant,

    the efforts of so many Rabbis,
    Pastors, churchmen, Ministers and countless laypeople to understand each
    other,

    embrace each other, seek each other\'s heart. I hope that a movie
    which, with a spurious literalism, veils the

    remarkable message of love at
    the heart of the Christian tradition, will paradoxically enhance that
    love, and so

    bring closer the time for which all pray, a time of peace.
    Kein Y\'hi Ratzon. So may it be God\'s

    will.

    Rabbi Wolpe gave this sermon to his congregation February 28, 2004.


    <hr /></blockquote><font

    class=\"post\">


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