I actually wonder
whether we make too much of the violence associated with Jesus' death.
Jesus lived in a culture of violence par excellence. Our preacher
in Armidale on Good Friday was Emeritus Prof Graham Maddox, a historian who has
studied Roman culture on and off for all his academic life. He reminded us
that the Romans of Roman Empire fame were a particularly violent and inhumane
administration. At one stage they had 7,000
people crucified at once, hanging along both sides of the Via
Appia for several kilometres. We are sickened by the way Jesus died, and
it was a particularly unpleasant way to die, but it was the way the Romans
killed everyone that they didn't like who wasn't
killed in battle. The Roman soldiers were certainly inured to the violence
and the dicing for Jesus' clothes at the foot of the cross was normal rather
than special behaviour.
When I was at
theological hall, I was taught that the place to start with good biblical
exegesis was by asking the question "what was the author of the passage saying
to the audience for whom it was written?" I think that in the case of the
crucifixion, the key points were that Jesus was handed over to the Romans by the
Jewish leaders because they didn't like the fact that he was wresting control of
the general Jewish people from them by exposing their flawed teaching for what
it was, and that Jesus knew this was going to happen, but wasn't prepared to
compromise his integrity by backing down and running away. Once this
happened, Jesus was killed in the same way that the Romans killed
everyone. His was not a special case - there were two thieves crucified
with him. So it seems to me that dwelling on the cruelty of his death
is eisegesis - reading back into the text meaning that we want to be
there.
But ultra-violence
continues to sell films, just as it did in the days of Roddy McDowell and "A
Clockwork Orange".
Not, mind you, that I've
seen the movie. It hasn't made it to Armidale yet, as far as I am
aware.
Judy
--
"Politics is the work we do to keep the world safe for our
spirituality" - Judith Plaskow
Rev Judy Redman
Uniting Church
Chaplain
University of New England
Armidale 2351
ph: +61 2 6773
3739
fax: +61 2 6773 3749
web: http://www.une.edu.au/campus/chaplaincy/uniting/
action for
peace: http://www.une.edu.au/campus/chaplaincy/uniting/links/peace.html
email:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
-----Original Message-----Curses on you Tom Stuart! Not only have you again mentioned the name of the Prohibited One, but also you have enticed me to read one of her columns all the way through. Egads!
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]On Behalf Of Stephen Webb
Sent: Thursday, 15 April 2004 2:02 PM
To: Tom Stuart
Cc: 'insights'
Subject: Re: What's happened to Miranda Devine
I gather she either is a fan of Mel and/or his film, or she just likes having a go at the types who have some problems with the film.
And now having seen it (after having read a lot about it http://nsw.uca.org.au/news/2004/passion-of-christ-links_16-02-04.htm) having been dragged along with the family of the Executive Director of our Board of Mission on Good Friday (she's the executive director most of the time, not just on Good Friday) I think I'm in the Prohibited One's line of fire: I thought it was boring, pointless and poorly made.
She says: the "anti-Semitic line became difficult to sustain, unless one were to damn all Christianity". And her point is?
She says: "Then it was too violent (from critics who appreciate the violence of a Tarantino film)." The thing with Kill Bill, just for instance, is that, like The Passion, it's pretty much a blood-fest from whoa to go. But there's so much (unrealistic) splatter it's meant to be funny (in a recognition of other ridiculous films kind of way). But the monotony of the Passion's violence isn't intended to be amusing. At least humorously. There probably are people who would be amused/entertained by it. But The Passion verged so close to the ridiculous it was Pythonesque (if you see the film again look at the loonies dishing out the flogging and try no to think of Terry Gilliam) in a Tarantino kind of way.
My mother (a professed agnostic) saw it with a friend and they both thought it was ridiculous because no-one would have retained consciousness under that onslaught. My suggestion that Jesus was God so he could retain whatever he wanted didn't wash with her (and nor should it).
I hadn't wanted to see the film because I thought it would be so realistic that I (a renowned loser of consciousness at the glimpse of real blood) would pass out. As it was my only lapse into unconsciousness was a wee nap near the beginning. I only winced when the nail went into his ankles. The nail into the robot hand did nowt for me. Especially when I could see a real nail driven through a real hand on the news later that night. And what about the blood running from the pierced hand (how much blood can you get out of a hand anyway?) down through the six-inch nail-filled hole in the cross and out the other side! Seriously! And explain the physics of the body nailed down at both ends but not slumping out at the middle when the cross is turned over (just to rub Yeshua's face in the dirt one more time)? Velcro? Super glue? Robot?
I suspect a good director would have cut from the flogging scene when the metal hooks ripped the wood from the leader's table. Imagination could well and truly have had play and the film could have gone somewhere more interesting. For instance, a better attempt to give us more understanding and make us more sympathetic toward the poor bastard covered in congealed blood..
I reckon the film would make one question one's faith as much as reaffirm it. If you bothered you could go back to the Bible and pick out all the inconsistencies/inventions in the film. But then you'd notice some of the inconsistencies in the Bible.
What I want to know is why the risen Jesus offered the holes in hands as proof of his identity when, if the wounds remained, he could have proferred his lacerated, one-eyed face, and fleshless back.
It's all your fault Tom Stuart.
Stephen
Tom Stuart wrote:
Sorry Steve, this is the second time I have mentioned that prohibited name! ;-)
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/04/14/1081838789913.html?from=storyrhs
Tom
Ph: 6862 5502 Mobile: 0427 625 502
14 Bushman St
Parkes NSW 2870
'Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable'.
I prefer to die living than to live dying!
"War is a poor chisel with which to carve out the future." - Martin Luther King, Jr
