The gospels need to be understood as records of the fight between different sects of Judaism and Jewish Christianity (in the first few hundred years AD that wasn't an oxymoron) and the new comer Christianity for dominance. The stories have to be read, literally, as the record of the winner and an effort to discredit the losers. No mob stands there and yells 'Let his blood be on our hands an our childrens', but the writers of the gospels saw that as a powerful metaphor for their denial of Christs' divinity. What better way to condemn a group of people for generations than having them call for the blood of the son of God? Even if that's not what they really did. So that's what they wrote, and relying on that as a record of Jewish behavior in 33 AD is absolutely ridiculous.
I suspect the unsaid (as yet) second half of the Gibson et. al. statement about the film not 'fuelling hatred, bigotry and anti-Semitism' is 'How could anyone be offended by the record of history as manifest in the Gospel? The truth is not bigotry'.
Anyway, that's my WAG (Wild Assed Guess) at the concern.
PC
At 8/12/2003,, you wrote:
>Subject: [lbo-talk] Are there more Aramaic and Latin speakers out there
>than I thought?
>Reply-To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
>
>
>Can someone please explain to me how these people who saw the film (all in
>Latin and Aramaic with no English subtitles) can make judgements on the
>film?
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