so THAT's what's pissing them off (more on Gibson & Matt 27:25)

[acroyear]

Mel Gibson has agreed to remove at least one scene from his movie The Passion of the Christ that has been the subject of protests by Jewish leaders and religious scholars who have seen it, the New York Times reported today (Wednesday). The scene reportedly features Jewish high priest Caiaphas declaring of the Crucifixion, "His blood be on us and on our children." The Times, which said that it had been permitted to see the film, reported that the film depicts Pilate as being reluctant to treat Jesus severely but that in the end, he agrees to crucify him in order to mollify a Jewish mob.

-- IMDB News

If that's the case, then I understand what's pissing them off. The Gospel reading had "The People" saying that phrase, where it becomes the final piece of Christ shedding his blood for our sins. In the interpretation above, if accurately described, it DOES become a "Jew thing" when coming specifically from a Pharasee. In the Gospels, the Pharasees hem and haw and basically pass the buck out of their own fears; they are gutless turds, as it were, refusing to finish the task they started. Now that may remain accurate in the film, but they at no point ever took the blame, either directly or for thier people, for what happened.

Now the Gospel readings DO have, in all 4 of them, the debate before the people where Pilate tries to take his case to the people, who as I described had already been persuaded to ask for Barabas instead. That sequence seems to be biblically accurate in the film, and thus shouldn't be constantly mentioned as a "potentially bad thing" by the press.

Comments

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

As with LOTR, changing who speaks a line from the origina source material changes the story. Period.

This particular passage has no parallel in any of the other three Gospels, if I recall correctly, so Matthew's the only source, and Matthew says it came from "The People".

Sometimes moving a line between characters can keep the line alive, but changes the characters; when Treebeard spoke Tom Bombadills line, or when Wormtongue speaks a line that Gandalf spoke, both the line and the characters were changed from the original.

Similarly, moving this line changes the Pharasees, and the Jews, and the line itself, from the version Matthew originally wrote. The line does seem to have a particular bit of venom, rather than what it was in the original work that led to Christ's "Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do..."