I disagree with you, the Gospels are historical evidence; just as Josephus and Tactitcus were presumely trying to write accurate accounts of events so were the authors of the gospels, all the authirs also suffer from some form of bias and other problems with accuracy. You can’t dismiss documents as ahistroical because they’re of a religious nature any more than you can except them as the gospel (excuse the pun) truth.
As for whther the films antisemitic, no-one can really say until they’ve seen it, and I certainly won’t be wasting my money in that way!
Josephus didn’t say anything about Jesus. It’s been common knowledge in classical rounds over at least the last fifty years that the portions of Josephus’ works which deal with Jesus are later forgeries. I seriously question your qualifications if you would post such a statement here.
The gospels are liturgical and mythological in nature, not historical. The fact that (unlike Tacitus and Josephus) they contain assertions of supernatural events renders them unreliable as pure historical documents.
The likihood that Jesus would know Greek depends largely on periods of his life we aren’t told much about. Certainly a carpenter wouldn’t need to know Greek, but if he was as studied as he appears to be, it’s certainly possible that he learned it.
However, it isn’t Jesus that they are concened about, but the Israelite leadership and the occupation force Pilate oversaw (which was largely NOT composed of Romans proper). Greek something of the “English” of those multicultural times in diplomacy.
We know very little about the motives of the Gospel writers, certainly not that accuracy was their main intent. In the case of the historians, however, we do have people that were trying to focus solely on accuracy. That doesn’t make one more trustworthy than the other, but it is something of a different ballgame. A religious and political tract is not the same kind of source as the work of historian, even if the historian’s work is more flawed.
No, Apos accuracy was there main intent, after all they were trying to write about the life of Christ and his teachings, etc. which is something they would of considered very imporant and not something to embellish (I’m not saying they didn’t embellish, but they were writing what they believed to be the truth). The fact that someone is a historian means very little as some of the worst sources come from historians and quite often contain myths.
You’re only partially correct. It is generally believed that the passages from Josephus contain interpolations by Christian forgers (such as the claim that Jesus was the Messiah), but not that the entire passage is an invention. It’s more like Josephus made a passing reference to Jesus and Christian forgers embellished it. It’s not widely believed that the entire thing is a forgery, only the embellishments.
As far as I can tell, the movie’s defenders are making a far bigger stink about the criticisms than the critics themselves were. The original criticisms were part of a private report that didn’t even focus solely on potential anti-semitism and was requested by the films producers. It was the films defenders that first broke the news that there were critics in the first place, pre-emptively to attack and discredit the report.
Certainly people should wait until they see it. But it is also possible for rational people to be very concerned about script, which by all accounts is very very close to what was, at the least, filmed.
Can you point out the stereotype for me? Is it not true that there is a lot of anto-semitism in Palestine? In certain parts of Europe?
And can you seriously not imagine it inciting people in the Mid-east, or raising old wounds?
Personally, I doubt this film is going to be intentionally anti-semitic, and I don’t think anything should be done even if it was. But critics have a right to worry about its potential effects. It’s still an exciting project, whether or not it’s very historical, and even because it’s controversial.
I should also add that there exists a copy of ntiquities which contains an uninterpolated version of the passage in question which is entirely consistent with Josephus’ vocabulary and worldview.
Further more, the other reference in Antiquities (which refers to the stoning of “James, the brother of Jesus”) shows no evidence of interpolation or tampering and is present and identical in all copies.
You show remarkable insight into the hearts and minds of the Gospel authors. Perhaps you should consider a career as the next John Edwards?
There are several elements in the Gospel stories that make sense not as actual events, but as symbolic ones meant to convey a theological message. The cursing of the fig tree is a common example: taken literally, it makes Jesus look like a vindictive, irrational loony (he expects figs when the text clearly states that it is not the season for figs). But read with the idea that the tree is a metaphor for the fruit of David, it fits in perfectly with the rest of Mark’s narrative, which itself seems very concerned with making a case as to why the Temple was destroyed and Judiasm had failed to live out God’s promise.
There are also several events and statements that seem to involve the authors “fulfilling” what they thought were the requisite auxilliary prophecies for a messiah (since Jesus didn’t fulfill the main ones in the eyes of most Jews). This includes the text, but no actual people, calling Jesus Emmanuel (a phrophecy that was likely not to have anything to do with Jesus), as well as having him having ride on two asses at once, which is an idea that appears to be from an error in the inferior translation Scripture the Gospel writers were likely to have used that rendered a poetic couplet about a single ass into two.
There’s anti-Semitism in America, too, you know. I felt the implication that “sophisticated Christians” who can be unbiased exist only in America (or not in places like Poland or the Middle East) was stereotyping.
No, I can’t imagine that. There are enough fresh wounds over there that I’m not concerned about the old ones in the slightest. Israel and Palestine are pretty much at war, a movie isn’t going to make a damn bit of difference. Also, the Palestinians are mostly Muslims, so I don’t think they really have a horse in the “did the Jews kill Jesus?” race.
I’m sorry, but any criticism about the movie, sight unseen, is absurd. And they didn’t just start criticizing it with this report, this controversy has existed for months. I’m responding not just to the report, but to the ADL’s pattern of behavior with films like this. I’m not a “defender of the film” by any stretch, and based on what I know about it, I think it may well end up anti-Semitic in some ways. But to decide what it is without even seeing it is a joke.
**MC, the fact that they believed it to be the truth doesn’t mean what they wrote was accurate. At a bare minimum (assuming Jesus lived when he was supposed to have lived), the books were written decades after his death.
The Straight Dope report about Biblical authorship places the earliest of the Gospels at about 65 AD, which would be at least 30 years post-J. That would raise reliability questions for me. Likewise, we don’t even know who really wrote the things, and they’ve been translated and changed over hundreds of years. Even if your interpretation is correct, the feelings of the authors are far from the sole issue.
Yes, but hardly the same thing. You obviously having been keeping up with december’s accounts of disturbing anti-semitism. in Europe. I’m not trying to speak about all Christians or all peoples, but rather regions in which this is still a serious social issue.
You can’t know much about Islam if you think that Jesus has nothing to do with their religion.
Criticism of the script. The SCRIPT. And it was NOT sight unseen.
Apos,
There are many Jews and Christians who hate Muslims. By your logic any film or book critical of some aspect of Muslim history is worrying because it will potentially incite hatred of Muslims. In fact almost everything incites one group of bigots or another. Inter-racial marriage incites some bigots. Darwinism incites some bigots. Etc. That is not a good reason to argue against these things.
As for the controversy I think it’s rather ridiculous for critics to demand advance screenings of a controversial film and attack a filmmaker who doesn’t oblige. The ADL can wait in the line like the rest of us when the movie is released. Is this supposed to apply to all potentially controversial films from now on?
About historical accuracy there is very little reliable information about the life and death of Jesus. So any film will depend largely on scripture. If scripture says that some Jewish leaders at the time wanted to see Jesus dead it seems reasonable to include that in the film. I don’t see how it’s bigoted against all Jews any more than , say, criticism of Sharon’s government is bigoted against Jews.
By my logic, there is nothing inherently wrong about people being concerned about the potential impact of a film that tells a story with a long difficult history. I don’t think the ADL has any right to see the film, but I do think you are simply being naive about the “logic” here.
I think for the most part that is wholly untrue. The ‘good guys’ I believe you are refferring to were the diciples, who while they rejected the then-current stranglehold the Pharasees and Saducees had on the religion/culture did not reject judaism. At worse they were heretics, in that they believed that the Moshiach was a living god, which can be debated how severe that herecy is, but that does not entale a rejection of judaism on the whole.n That didn’t really start happening until Peter and Paul later started taking the religion to the Romans and Greeks.
Damn, I was hoping to get to see the movie in the theatre alone and get some use out of all those theology courses I took.
Um naive in what way? Your argument appears to be we ought to be worried that the film might incite bigots. Like I said that there are a lot of things that incite bigots all over the world.
As for "long difficult history" that applies to all kind of religious propoganda down the centuries. It's like arguing that because anti-Muslim or anti-Catholic propoganda has incited bigots for centuries we should be "worried" about any criticism of Muslims or Catholics.
BTW I would like evidence that , say, “people in Poland” today “hate the Jews”. When you trash entire nationalities who is being the bigot?
My argument is that people have a right to be worried, nor is it necessary irrational to be worried, not that you should be worried.
I didn’t mean to imply that all people in Poland hate the jews. Not all Palestinians do either. But both areas have ongoing problems that, unlike in the U.S., are real social issues.
What strangehold are you talking about, exactly? It’s not like the Pharisees and Saducees were good buddies working together to enslave the Jews. The latter group was in with the Romans, the former were in favor of revolution. Jesus himself represents the supposed collapse of what had been the project of Judiasm for thousands of years (fulfilled in the destruction of the Temple) and rejection of their very concept of a revolutionary messiah for something very different.
“My argument is that people have a right to be worried, nor is it necessary irrational to be worried, not that you should be worried.”
I find this rather vague and again you could apply similar logic to a lot of things but let’s drop it.
“But both areas have ongoing problems that, unlike in the U.S., are real social issues.”
In what way does Poland have “ongoing problems” with Jews compared to the US?
BTW I agree with Sam Stone that this controversy will only serve to increase interest in the film. I wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out to be a surprise hit. I expect that evanglecal leaders will praise it heavily (they are already doing this) and many devout Christians will want to go see the film. Other people will want to see the film to see what the fuss is about. A film with this much publicity before even the release date has been decided is rare. There must be half a dozen threads in the SDMB about the film already.
If he was keeping it secret, and not showing it to anyone, fine. But, for this controversial movie, he’s showing it all over to those who would support it. Now that’s fine, but it is hypocritical to object to those criticizing it without seeing it when he won’t let them see it.
Perhaps he has something to hide. Perhaps he’s just trying to build up controversy to sell tickets. But it smells as far as I can see.