Mel Gibson's Passion

By now everyone is surely aware of the controversy surrounding Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, which will be released to the public on Ash Wednesday. Jewish groups charge Gibson with fomenting antisemitism, which he naturally denies. This report from the Oakland Tribune tells the story: "'Christ' film stirs passion, debate." The following is especially noteworthy:

Of particular controversy is a Bible-based scene in which the Jewish high priest Caiaphas, following Christ's death, utters the curse, "His blood be on us and on our people." While one news report this month said Gibson had agreed to cut the scene, he has not confirmed its deletion.

This suggests that the controversy may actually be about the gospel accounts rather than Gibson's script, as the "curse" is found in Matthew 27:25, which is regarded by Christians as canonical scripture inspired by the Holy Spirit.

However, it ought to be recalled that the contest between Christianity and rabbinical Judaism in the first century AD was not one between two antagonistic religious or ethnic communities. It was, rather, an intramural dispute between two variants of biblical religion, each of which was as Jewish as the other. To be sure, the gospel of John speaks of the disciples barring the doors "for fear of the Jews" (John 20:19). But as the disciples themselves, including the author of the fourth gospel, were Jews, it would be ridiculous, not to mention anachronistic, to ascribe antisemitism to them. As has been pointed out by believers throughout the centuries, it was our own sins that sent Jesus to the cross. Christians confess that Jesus' blood is indeed on our heads and on our children. This is our only hope of salvation.

Later: Here is a glaring inaccuracy from the article, whose author describes Aramaic as "a Semitic language spoken from about the 7th century B.C. to the 7th century A.D." One of my current students grew up in Iraq, with Aramaic as her mother tongue. She was born well after the 7th century!