Jews’ Passion Perspectives
www.jewsweek.com has its coverage of the hot topic of the week, about The Movie — their complete Passion coverage is billed this way: “Tired of Passion coverage? Well, sorry. This area is reserved for people who just can’t get enough of Mel and his movie.” While some critics are outraged about The Movie being anti-semitic, will there be a comparable Christian outrage over comments being made about the Gospel narratives of the sacred text as being inspired propaganda and fiction??
Pull quotes from that Jewsweek article:
“That the Gospels as originally written, decades after Jesus’ death, were designed specifically as “inspired propaganda” is accepted by most scholars as a given. “
“Crossan felt that the passion narrative should not only be modified, its very use and exploitation should well be questioned: “In light of later Christian anti-Judaism and eventually of genocidal anti-Semitism,” he wrote, “it is no longer possible in retrospect to think of that passion fiction as relatively benign propaganda.”
I love the paradox that Christians are promoting a film that in the UK will be an 18! I am a bit sad that I cannot really wade into these discussions as in the UK we still await our opportunity to view it. But view it I will, and once all my blogging friends are bored of it I will no doubt decide which side of the fence I am on!