Good post. I love The Passion of the Christ because it depicts two very important facts of the Crucifixion: the Jewish scholarly class’ insistence that Jesus is specifically dead, and Pilate’s hesitation to sentence Him to death.
A lot of the drama of the moment is lost in other versions of the crucifixion, but TPOTC shows the viewer how Pilate attempts to let Jesus off the hook several times: he has Christ whipped and beaten and asks the crowd if that’s good enough- it’s not. Then he mocks them by offering to release the rapist and murderer Barabbas, and is stunned when they accept him over Christ.
There’s a reason TPOTC was labeled “anti semetic”, because it paints the Jews as they really were. I’ve always seen Pontious Pilate as a tragic figure partly bc of this movie
Nov 20, 2023·edited Nov 20, 2023Liked by James Knox
It’s extremely shocking to see how many people today promote this idea that the Romans killed Jesus. Have they never read the Bible? I mean, yeah, the physical killing of Jesus was enacted by Roman soldiers, but under Jewish demand. Romans did not view Jesus as a threat to their power, if anything they viewed the conversion of the Jews to a less rebellious religion as preferable to Jewish revolts. Not that Romans (probably including ones stationed in Judea) really understood anything about Jesus other than that he was some sort of Jewish magician
I think it is a product of the philosemitism promoted in the wake of WWII and the establishment of Israel. It's just another entry in the long list of mental gymnastics that people do to qualify Israel and Jewish people in general.
Regardless, I also really do not understand how you can think this. Even from a secular perspective it is still obvious that the Jews orchestrated the death of Jesus.
Fantastic post, I'm glad you made the point about God choosing the Israelites because they were terrible. We often say God chooses the weak to knock down the strong, but for some reason that idea never gets applied to His choice of the Israelites.
I’ve just heard an argument that “the earlier versions of the Bible blamed the Romans more”. I’ve also heard the opposite argument, which is “much of the Bible was written during and just after the Bar Kokhba revolt, when Christians were trying to distance themselves from Jews”. While I think both of these arguments are relatively tacklable for a layman such as myself, I think that a dedicated section/stack on the context of early Christianity and the potential differences or lack thereof between early and modern Christianity would be quite useful.
The Jews. Next!
This guy gets it
Good post. I love The Passion of the Christ because it depicts two very important facts of the Crucifixion: the Jewish scholarly class’ insistence that Jesus is specifically dead, and Pilate’s hesitation to sentence Him to death.
A lot of the drama of the moment is lost in other versions of the crucifixion, but TPOTC shows the viewer how Pilate attempts to let Jesus off the hook several times: he has Christ whipped and beaten and asks the crowd if that’s good enough- it’s not. Then he mocks them by offering to release the rapist and murderer Barabbas, and is stunned when they accept him over Christ.
There’s a reason TPOTC was labeled “anti semetic”, because it paints the Jews as they really were. I’ve always seen Pontious Pilate as a tragic figure partly bc of this movie
Agreed, it's such a good movie for those reasons. Mel Gibson did a great job.
It’s extremely shocking to see how many people today promote this idea that the Romans killed Jesus. Have they never read the Bible? I mean, yeah, the physical killing of Jesus was enacted by Roman soldiers, but under Jewish demand. Romans did not view Jesus as a threat to their power, if anything they viewed the conversion of the Jews to a less rebellious religion as preferable to Jewish revolts. Not that Romans (probably including ones stationed in Judea) really understood anything about Jesus other than that he was some sort of Jewish magician
I think it is a product of the philosemitism promoted in the wake of WWII and the establishment of Israel. It's just another entry in the long list of mental gymnastics that people do to qualify Israel and Jewish people in general.
Regardless, I also really do not understand how you can think this. Even from a secular perspective it is still obvious that the Jews orchestrated the death of Jesus.
Fantastic post, I'm glad you made the point about God choosing the Israelites because they were terrible. We often say God chooses the weak to knock down the strong, but for some reason that idea never gets applied to His choice of the Israelites.
I’ve just heard an argument that “the earlier versions of the Bible blamed the Romans more”. I’ve also heard the opposite argument, which is “much of the Bible was written during and just after the Bar Kokhba revolt, when Christians were trying to distance themselves from Jews”. While I think both of these arguments are relatively tacklable for a layman such as myself, I think that a dedicated section/stack on the context of early Christianity and the potential differences or lack thereof between early and modern Christianity would be quite useful.
You can't deny compatibility with God and free will without denying free will itself