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"The point, of course, is that the Gospels themselves are no more 'anti-Semitic' than are the Dead Sea Scrolls — or Isaiah or Jeremiah or the writer(s) of Deuteronomy, once they are in full voice. They are read as indicting 'the Jews' because they are read through the contra Iudaeos tradition. This reading, enshrined in centuries of church teachings and Christian interpretation, makes the Gospels seem anti-Semitic, because they are read as a blanket condemnation of the Judaism of Jesus' contemporaries. This reading forgets that the historical Jesus was a first-century Jew engaged in disputes with other first-century Jews over issues important in first-century Judaism. Later Gentile Christian retrospect turned the theological Jesus into the founder of the Gentile Christian church. His native Judaism thus shifted from being his historical context to being his
theological contrast (...) Gibson, in his script, picked and chose from among all four gospels — an element here, an instance there — creating from his montage a fifth
'gospel' that has never existed. The contra Iudaeos tradition informed his interpretation of gospel materials and his selections from them. This misreading of the gospels is of a piece with his historical misrepresentations of Roman Judea. Goofs of this latter kind are typical of the celluloid Biblical genre: no Hollywood Bible story known to me is faultless in this regard. But Gibson's errors, all of which tend in a particular direction, are compounded by several factors. The first is that he has insisted, loudly and often, that his film is the most historically accurate of any Jesus-film ever made. In our culture, to claim that something is 'historically accurate' is to claim, 'This is what really happened.' Viewers watching his movie are invited to see its (erroneous) ancient languages, its idiosyncratic selection of gospel themes, and its simulacra of pain and blood as attesting to its 'realism.' They are thereby encouraged to think that the story they are watching is, somehow, also 'what really happened'",
says Paula Fredriksen, History, Hollywood, and the
Bible: Some Thoughts on Gibson's Passion, SBL Forum,
March 2004.
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