Much hoopla has been made over Mel Gibson’s cinematic account of the last twelve hours of Christ’s life. Some say that it is a brutal feast of gore; others call it a controversy-induced money-maker. But the most vitriolic of these labels is as old as the gospels themselves: anti-Semitic.
The Boston Globe, in an attempt at creative journalism, attaches a more potent tag to the same basic unease. The movie’s fidelity to the original texts gives liberal Catholic columnist James Carroll little comfort because in his eyes, the Gospels are permeated with “the virus of Jew hatred.” The Jews, critics say, are constantly and wrongfully in the crosshairs and even a faithful telling of Christ’s death “can do damage.”
Well, the heads will talk as they always do, but let the accused speak. In Acts 4:26-27, John and Peter (the pinnacle of Catholic ancestor-worship) clearly indicates the culpable parties: “The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against his Christ. For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together.”
I suppose then it makes sense that “there is not a scintilla of anti-Semitism to be found anywhere in this powerful film.” After all, the Jews did crucify Jesus…
