Christ, The Passion, & The Bible

I'm not a big moviegoer, but I will probably go to see The Passion of the Christ when it comes out this week. When I was in college, I nearly minored in religious studies. And after my trip to Israel and Jerusalem, I have been extremely intrigued by the times and events surrounding the life of Christ (about 100 years before to 400 years after, in particular).

I've been seeing the rave reviews of the movie that have been coming out and that has been one of the catalysts for my decision to actually see this movie in a theater rather than waiting for it to come out on video. But then I also came across this review by Newsweek's David Ansen who expresses his concern with the level of brutality depicted in the film.

Now I can buy that part of the gore is due to the fact that it is Mel Gibson making the film. But the time leading to the cruxifiction was a brutal series of events. From the Garden of Gethsemene to the cross was not a gentle, peaceful journey. The Romans were very much into punishment as a deterrent. The sheer brutality of the cruxifiction was designed to serve as a powerful and public message to other would-be miscreants. It was not supposed to be a quick, painless exit.

"Those who live by the sword, die by the sword," Jesus says, putting a halt to the fighting in Gethsemene; much later we're given a snippet from the Sermon on the Mount, in which Jesus exhorts his followers to love their enemies as themselves. But these moments have little weight in the body of the film; they're the cinematic equivalent of footnotes and they're not what seizes Gibson's imagination. What you remember is the image of a crow plucking out the eyes of the thief on the cross next to Jesus, punished by God for mocking his son.

For some reason, I don't think that is what everyone is going to remember. You are going to take away from the movie that which is most important to you. Some people will take away the religous aspects; some will take away the violent aspects. It's all going to depend on your own personal beliefs.

In that regard, I think that this movie is going to be similar to the Bible itself. The Bible is a great book, not because it can speak to you on one level, but because it can speak to you on three distinct levels. It can be an article of faith. It can be a great literary work. Or it can be a great history of the early years of Judeo-Christian civilization. It can be any one of these or all three.

It is easiest to view the Bible as an article of faith. It not only lays out a set of guidelines for living an upstanding life (guidelines which are remarkably unchanged over the millenia), but it also gives the faithful hope that there will be a reward for their piety here in this life. For some, the Bible is the absolute word, it can never err. For others, it is an ideal to which they strive. But it is because of faith that people want to believe. It is faith that places the Bible in a unique category.

But how does the Bible divulge its lessons? It is most certainly not a list, although as the 10 Commandments demonstrates it does not shy away from simple, straightforward lists where they're appropriate. Rather the Bible is a collection of stories, stories with a moral. Forgetting the aspects of faith or historical accuracy, the Bible is as important a collection of stories in our history as Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. It provides the reader with the original oral traditions of the early Judeo-Christians. Stories like the Creation or the Exodus may not have happened verbatim as described in the Bible, but the stories are fascinating examples of how the ancients tried to explain the seemingly unexplainable.

But often times, the stories as told in the Bible are remarkably accurate historical records. I've seen articles (sorry, no links that I can find right away) that explain how the parting of the sea by Moses could have actually happened given the right combination of circumstances. There have been articles published that some archaeologists think that they may have found Noah's Ark on a mountain in Turkey (although there are also many reports that the Ark sightings are simply a hoax). There was an article in Biblical Archaeology a few years back that analyzed the top of Mount Moriah (inside the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount) and determined that there were in fact four 90° angles carved into the rock with their inside dimensions matching that of the Ark of the Covenant as described in the Bible. Further we have found evidence that the walls of Jericho did fall in a great battle at about the time that the Bible describes. The list of historical accuracies could go on and on.

What's the most important aspect of the Bible? Is it the faith, the literature, or the historical record? What's most important is what you, the reader, take away from it.

And I think that The Passion is going to be similar in that regard. It tells the story of faith in a manner that is true to the original work and the standards of the time. Some people will find the faith in the story overwhelming; others will be awed by the story itself.

And then some, like Mr. Ansen, will focus on the historical aspect of the movie. But if we're going to focus on the history, we need to bear in mind that executions in ancient times were not quite as antiseptic as they are now. They were brutal, sadistic events. They were designed to inflict torture as much as they were to end life.

If Mr. Ansen is appalled at the depicted brutality, then I'm inclined to believe that Gibson got it just about right.

I'll let you know my thoughts after I see the movie.