Gibson's "Passion": Some Need-to-Know Background

by Carol Schersten LaHurd, New Rochelle, NY

Dr. Carol Schersten LaHurd, a member of St. John's Lutheran Church, Mamaroneck, NY, teaches at Fairfield University in Connecticut. She has published numerous scholarly articles on biblical and interfaith topics and is the author of Luke's Vision: The People of God, the 1998 study of the Women of the ELCA. Dr. LaHurd has been a leader in ecumenical and interfaith relations and has served on the ELCA Peace Task Force and the Board of the Division for Global Mission.

If coverage in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the New Yorker, and major news magazines is any clue, Mel Gibson's feature-length treatment of the final twelve hours of Jesus' earthly life is either ground-breaking or controversial or both.

Some biblical scholars and some American Jewish leaders worry that the film will stir antisemitism, based on what they read in an early version of the screen-play. Some Jewish rabbis and Christian clergy, including Billy Graham, have seen the finished product and have praised its artistic merit and faithfulness to the gospel accounts. And for months critiques and counter-critiques have been flooding the mass media. (Putting "gibson passion" into Google yielded 20,100 hits!)

The film's official release date is February 25, the day on which most of the world's Christians will celebrate Ash Wednesday and begin the Lenten contemplation of Christ's arrest, crucifixion, and resurrectionincluding contemplation of the Christian conviction that the sinfulness of all human beings made this death necessary. The film's opening is also significant timing for Mel Gibson, an active Roman Catholic, who has made a point of saying he wanted to be true to the gospels and has reportedly used only spoken Aramaic, Hebrew, and Latin (with English subtitles) to help achieve that goal (although including Greek would be more historically correct).

Considering the early controversy surrounding this film and Gibson's expressed goal of accurately representing the story of Jesus' death, we need to prepare ourselves not only to be affected by the experience of the film but also to evaluate whether it portrays what scholars and theologians know about that death without increasing anti-Jewish sentiments.

Here are some questions to help us think about these issues:

Are the four gospels history or theology or both?

The stories of Jesus in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were put in written form 40 to 80 years after the crucifixion and reflect each writer's theological understanding of the meaning of Jesus' life and death for Christian salvation. Mainstream Roman Catholic and Protestant Bible scholars consider the gospels a unique form that combines Jesus' biography and Christian theology.

Why do the gospels in some places portray the Jews as the "bad guys"?

All four gospels were likely completed after the Roman destruction of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem in 70 C.E. (A.D.) and after various forces, including Roman persecution, heightened antagonism between followers of Jesus (both Jews and Gentiles) and the majority of Jews who rejected Jesus as Messiah and Son of God. Despite this, it should be remembered that Jesus, the twelve disciples, and nearly all of the New Testament writers were themselves Jews. So the gospels reflect the writers' struggle to integrate their Jewish background and beliefs with their new Christ-centered identity and beliefs. This can help us understand why there are so many stories of Jesus debating issues of Jewish law, as well as the excessively negative portrayals of some Jewish leaders, such as Pharisees and high priests. They saw it as important to clarify how they could share so much with Jews but were not the same as Jews, so they highlighted the points of difference.

What do the gospels say about responsibility for Jesus' death?

All four evangelists present God, not any human force, as the prime mover of the events that culminate in Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection. The many references to fulfillment of Hebrew prophecy and the use of passive verbs in the original Greek manuscripts (such as Jesus' prediction in Mark 8:31 and elsewhere that he would "be killed") play down the role of human agents. Both these aspects of the narratives emphasize that no matter how tragic were Jesus' suffering and death, they served the will and purposes of God.

In illustrating how Jesus' suffering and death were part of God's work to bring about human redemption, each gospel writer emphasizes varying aspects of the Passion story. These emphases lead to differing portrayals of both Jewish and Roman figures, differences shaped in part also by the historical setting in which each writer was working. For example, John dramatizes collaboration between the Roman Pontius Pilate and certain Jewish leaders (18:28-19:16.) Luke stresses the anguish of many among the Jewish people (23:27) watching Jesus being led to "the place that is called the Skull." Matthew alone pictures Pilate making a display of washing his hands of any guilt for Jesus' death and then has the entire "people" (a Greek term often referring to the Jewish people) call out, "His blood be on us and on our children" (27:25).

These details add to the effectiveness of each Passion account in its own gospel. Despite the fact that the broad outlines of the four Passion narratives do mostly coincide, we should not combine their details in an effort to create one composite story. Doing so violates the coherence of each. Nor can we simply choose from the individual portrayals those parts that fit our own purposes. Each gospel's narrative holds together and makes its witness as a whole.

Why does it matter how modern writers and film-makers portray responsibility for Jesus' death?

Historically, many Christian religious and political leaders have taken out of context and misused gospel passages like Matthew 27:25 to justify persecution and even execution of Jews in their own eras as "Christ-killers." Sadly, it was not until the second half of the 20th century that the Vatican and major Protestant denominations officially condemned such anti-Semitic exploitation of biblical materials.

How can we prepare to see the film?

Read, prayerfully, all four gospel versions of Jesus' arrest, trial, and crucifixion.

Note especially how each treats responsibility for Jesus' arrest and death, the role of the Jewish leaders, the role of Pontius Pilate, and the description of the crowds gathered in Jerusalem (who were not necessarily all Jewish nor all in favor of Jesus' execution).

Last updated: 2004-01-31