News: Crucifying Jews

While many Christians are looking forward to the release of a well-produced film about the life of Jesus, many Jews are voicing concerns about the possibility of anti-Semitism in Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ.

But Gibson could have avoided much of the controversy stirred by the film if only he hadn’t claimed the movie historically reliable, according to Michael Cook, one of the Jewish scholars at the forefront of the debate over anti-Semitism in The Passion of the Christ. Cook spoke Feb. 17 to hundreds of people who packed Congregation Beth Adam in Loveland.

“If Mel Gibson had only not mentioned historical reliability, there might not have been a crisis,” he said.

‘Grotesquely and falsely’
The movie has caused controversy for a host of reasons. Gibson practices an ultra-conservative Catholicism that rejects the pope and Vatican II. Disputes also broke out about what Pope John Paul II said regarding the film.

Then there are the select pre-release screenings of the movie orchestrated by Gibson and his company, Icon Productions, during which only handpicked viewers could view the movie before its nationwide release Wednesday.

But more than anything else, the movie has raised concerns about the possibility that it contains anti-Semitic messages.

In April the Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops invited Cook, a professor of Judeo-Christian Relations at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, to evaluate the film’s script. He’s been voicing concerns ever since, bringing the controversy to Loveland despite an opportunity to appear on Good Morning America the next morning — an invitation that testifies to the widespread interest in the film.

Part of the controversy comes from the New Testament itself, because certain passages indicate that at least some Jews played a part in Jesus’ arrest and execution.

But based on the script he and six other scholars read, Cook said Gibson seemed to select passages from the four gospels that are the most anti-Jewish and relied on non-biblical sources that blew out of proportion the abuse Jesus suffered.

Gibson relied on the writings of 19th-century mystic Anne Catherine Emmerich, who on her deathbed described visions of Jesus’ suffering. Gibson read Emmerich’s The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ and it inspired him, according to Cook. Scenes of Jesus being tossed from a bridge and dragged down a set of stairs by his feet — with his head repeatedly cracking — ended up in the film’s script, though such scenes are not recorded in the New Testament.

“There was more violence in the text than anything warranted by the gospels,” Cook said.

He said the Movie Picture Association of America had considered giving the movie an NC-17 rating.

While Cook hasn’t seen the film, he said such violence inadvertently reinforces the concept of Jews as Christ killers and torturers, an idea that has fueled anti-Semitism for centuries.

“Christian viewers are going to be preoccupied with the extraordinary love that Jesus showed through the excruciating pain that he graciously underwent for the redemption of this otherwise helpless and hopeless world,” he said. “Jews are going to be preoccupied with how the Jews of Jesus’ day are grotesquely and falsely portrayed and they’re going to worry how their non-Jewish friends are going to react, process and possibly transform these horrific views on the screen into anti-Semitic attitudes and behaviors in modern day America and even more so in Europe and the Middle East.”

Drama that caused massacres
Cook showed other films about Jesus where Jews are depicted in negative, unbiblical fashion. One scene in Norman Jewison’s 1973 Jesus Christ Superstar features Jews dressed in cockroach-like headdresses singing about killing Jesus. There is no historical basis for such costumes.

Gibson’s film also depicts thousands of Jews at Christ’s crucifixion, a crowd for whose size there is no evidence, Cook said.

Despite Cook’s clear dislike for Gibson, he doesn’t think anti-Semitism motivated his decisions.

“I do not believe Mel Gibson is anti-Semitic,” he said.

Throughout the controversy, Gibson has said he isn’t anti-Semitic.

“Anti-Semitism is not only contrary to my personal beliefs, it is also contrary to the core message of my movie,” he told Daily Variety.

He restated that message in an interview with ABC-TV.

Relevant Magazine reported in January that Gibson has a short cameo in the movie. His fist enters the frame holding an eight-inch iron spike as a hammer comes crashing down — a subtle gesture that seems to affirm what Gibson said when asked on Primetime who killed Jesus.

“The big answer is, we all did,” he said. “I’ll be the first in the culpability stakes here.”

Cook also said that Gibson has recently been backing off claims of historical reliability, as he did during the Primetime interview.

“This is my version of what happened, according to the gospels and what I wanted to show — the aspects of it I wanted to show,” Gibson said.

“Suddenly, it has now become Mel Gibson’s interpretation of what happened,” Cook said. “That’s not the way the publicity started out. He started off … saying that he was producing the most historically reliable account that has ever been made of the last hours, if not days, of Jesus’ life.”

Cook said he still thinks Gibson underestimates his influence and lacks a historical understanding of how Passion plays have fueled anti-Semitism.

“Mel Gibson has never quite understood the interrelationship of Passion plays in Europe with the massacres of Jews,” Cook said.

Despite his objections to Gibson’s approach, Cook isn’t opposed to people seeing the film. He’s seeing it twice opening day, he said — to make up for the all the times he was previously banned from the screenings.

This article appears in Feb 25 – Mar 2, 2004.