Too Much To Dream

What does she think is going to happen? Look, the wackos who get all het up about Jews killing Christ are not going to sit through a three hour film in Aramaic.

Folks need to re-freaking-lax. It's a movie. Remember the hullabaloo over "The Last Temptation?" Yeah, obviously the country was destroyed and there was blood in the streets. Oh wait, that didn't happen. Because no one actually went to SEE THE MOVIE, which was a bloated, pretentious piece of crap (I rented it out of curiosity--there's a couple hours of my life I'll never get back. Thanks, Willem DeFoe! Ass.) I'm thinking the same thing will happen here.

Geez.

My goodness...these pogrom fears are, well, elitist insulting crap. It's part of that continuing fear that most of America is the unwashed who are just that one step short of lynchin' away if someone would only someone could provide them with movin' pikturs to set them off.

Yeah, I hope when the thing's release everyone's as relaxed about it as y'all. Personally, I'm looking forward to when it's out on DVD because I'm gonna have a film festival for the neighborhood: "The Jesus Trilogy"

WASP Jesus - the Jeffrey Hunter Jesus movie
Tarantino Jesus - "Passion"
Singing Jesus - "Jesus Christ Superstar"

Won't that be fun?

(Back when I worked in a video store, we put on "Jesus Christ Superstar" as we always had movies running, and EVERYONE above a certain age either sang along or mouthed the words the whole time they were in the store. I had no idea it was such a popular show with a certain generation.)

Remember the stink about the 'Life of Brian'? It wasn't even about Jesus!

I don't think anyone fears pogroms here. But the movie will go on to international release and video and will float around endlessly in the dark soup of entertainment media.

Another testimony by one of the group which reviewed the script, plus links to other articles on the issues surrounding the movie.
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/130/story_13051.html

People take their relationship with Christ way too seriously. Some Christians co-opt him to their culture, race and particular flavor of Christianity.

I remember watching a Donahue way back when. They were discussing Christ in some fashion and more specifically his ethnicity.

Whoa Boy! This Italian lady just lost it when someone decided Christ was not Italian.

You can not make a movie about Christ without ruffling someone's feathers.

Robert Conquest wrote that a Scot visiting Texas was quizzed by some Texas students about Braveheart. They apparently expected some diatribe against the evil Sassanach from him, but what he told them was "Tairrible. It's nothing but a haggis western."

One example of the kind of fertile ground for pogroms outside the US, which could be inflamed by Gibson's movie:
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=7983#comments

I'm not saying it's gonna happen, but it isn't fantastical to imagine it could. After all, most people thought the idea of Nazi death camps was fantastical right up until 1945 when the photos starting coming out - there was a "frog in slowly boiling water" kind of progression there. At what point do you say: "Hey better keep an eye on this stuff?" When are you crying wolf? Hindsight is wonderful.

Personally, I think Diana Moon has gone hysterical lately. Bush is an evil Christian, Gibson is an evil Christian, Christians are Nazis, blah blah blah.

Movies like The Passion won't stir up Anti-Semitism. What will stir up anti-semitism is Jewish anti-christianism, which unfortunately, we're starting to see a lot of now...

Uh, Jeremy? You can stick a sock in that blaming-the-victim stuff. Right now. It's not welcome on my blog.

I have more to say about the Mel thing later, when I am less busy.

There's no "Jewish victim" in the United States to blame. Thus, you can't dismiss anti-Christian attitudes held by Jews as "blaming the victim."

It's a bad faith argument designed to pre-empt being placed in the same position as Christians when Jews sling "anti-Semitic" accusations around. Nice try.

And Andrea, I mean this sincerely. I'm not trying to piss you off. Consider what I said.

Mensch, if you want to continue to be allowed to comment on my blog, you will not lecture me. Kindly don't leave patronizing little niblets like "consider what I have said" here. And you know that stuff about not meaning to piss me off? Congratulations, you did anyway.

Sorry. So how do I un-piss you off?

I do think that the criticisms of the Passion reduce the "standard" for anti-Semitism. I yawn when I hear the charge of "racism", because it's deployed so frequently and unhesitatingly that it's become almost entirely devalued (kinda like Communist lost its sting b/c of overuse - call it "racial McCarthyism).

But until this Passion brouhaha, for the most part my ears pricked up when I heard the charge of anti-Semitism, b/c the signal:noise ratio for anti-Semitism was a heck of a lot stronger. Racism (at least in the US, at least on campus) can be demonstrated by simply supporting welfare reform, or opposing affirmative action. But cries of anti-Semitism were usually accompanied by actual anti-Semites: Nazis, Sharon=Hitler leftists, and of course radical Islamists.

Usually, that is, till this incident. This is really pretty trivial in the grand scheme of things, and crying wolf increases the noise level and makes it more likely that others will disregard the signal in times of real emergency.

Hey, thanks for the gratitious swipe at Christianity. Way to shit on someone's faith, jerk.

Hey, "JoJo," way to be a shitty Christian -- not to mention a moron. Go fuck yourself.

One thing you can safely say about Gibson's film is that it will probably not be worse than previous films, at least as far as this issue of blaming Jews for Jesus' death is concerned. People forget how almost every film ever made about Jesus lays pretty heavy blame on Jewish leaders for Jesus' death. Gibson's film is just the new kid on the block.

I will give a very specific definition of racism: To tell derogatory lies about another people's culture and history is racism. To depict Jewish leaders as capable of conspiring with Rome in the execution of Jesus is racist. Everything we know from the ancient historian Josephus tells us this was not possible. Also, to read more anti-Jewishness into the Gospels than is actually there is a racist thing to do.

Here is one example: How many people know that the Gospels do not say that Judas betrayed Jesus? "Betray" is a mistranslation of a neutral word which has no connotation of betrayal, as most scholars now admit. Check out William Klassen's book "Judas". Or see my blogspot where I discuss all this and more. Also, my Web site: www.historicaljesusghost.com