Christopher Hitchens on The Passion

[Waverley_Hills_Hiker]

While Hitchens has moved to the right on some issue, he is still capable of cultural critiques of the right,

Shlock, Yes,;Awe, No; Fascism, Probably.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2096323/

"And, long before he emerged as the spear-carrier for the sort of Catholicism once preached by Gen. Franco and the persecutors of Dreyfus, Mel Gibson attained a brief notoriety for his loud and crude attacks on gays. Now he's become the proud producer of a movie that relies for its effect almost entirely on sadomasochistic male narcissism. "

[Webster Green]

1. I won't see the movie.....

But I loved that review of it. Best I've seen!

[aquart]

2. Well, my goodness.

This is my favorite paragraph:

This may seem like an oblique way in which to approach Mel Gibson's ghastly movie The Passion. But it came back to me this week that an associate of his had once told me, in lacerating detail, that an evening with Mel was one long fiesta of boring but graphic jokes about anal sex. I've since had that confirmed by other sources. And, long before he emerged as the spear-carrier for the sort of Catholicism once preached by Gen. Franco and the persecutors of Dreyfus, Mel Gibson attained a brief notoriety for his loud and crude attacks on gays. Now he's become the proud producer of a movie that relies for its effect almost entirely on sadomasochistic male narcissism. The culture of blackshirt and brownshirt pseudomasculinity, as has often been pointed out, depended on some keen shared interests. Among them were massively repressed homoerotic fantasies, a camp interest in military uniforms, an obsession with flogging and a hatred of silky and effeminate Jews. Well, I mean to say, have you seen Mel's movie?

[still_one]

3. Interesting

Hitchens is a paradox

[lancdem]

5. Yes, he is

But I found this review an interesting read.

[displacedvermoter]

10. He sure is!

The passion and anger he displays when discussing Henry Kissinger's crimes against humanity can almost bring you to tears (in Trials Of Henry Kissinger, his anger fills each scene he's in). Then he gets all worked up on the war on terrorism, and he becomes part of the same shit that Kissinger so embodies.

Very sad, can still lay out beautiful writing, though.

[Sticky]

4. A Canadian critic

calls it "fundamentalist pornography'.


A dark and bloody spectacle by GEOFF PEVERE
As sex is to the body in hardcore porn, violence is to the ruin of the body of Christ in The Passion

http://tinyurl.com/24z37

It's a great read!

[gorrister]

36. and an Australian critic

calls it "Pulp Cruxifiction"

http://www.theage.com.au/ffxImage/urlpicture_id_1078117361146_2004/03/01/02OPINION_INSIDE,0.jpg

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/03/01/1078117361595.html

[smirkymonkey]

6. Wow. When Hitchens is on your

side, he actually makes some sense!

[StClone]

7. He was on with Noonan with Tweety Last eve

And he was slicing and dicing Peggy like a soft-boiled egg. Noonan is a dim bulb so that may not be saying a lot but it sure was interesting to listen to Hitch verbally illustrate OUR side.

[kskiska]

8. Franco Zeffirelli has had interesting encounters with Gibson, too

Zeffirelli Brands Mel Gibson's Passion Anti-Semitic; Calls Director “Bloodthirsty”

The veteran Italian director also recounts his own curious experiences of working with Gibson, recalling one scene in Hamlet where Gibson intervened on the set when British actor Ian Holm (news), playing Polonius, acted out his character's death with his eyes closed.

Zeffirelli recalls Gibson saying: "A wounded animal about to die does not stay with a fixed look, but rolls its eyes in the final spasms, first together, then in the opposite direction, like a cross eyed person. It's almost funny."

"And how would you know?" responded Holm, according to Zeffirelli.

"I've seen plenty die,” replied Gibson, Zeffirelli claims. “When I can, to relax, I go to my farm and kill a lot of calves on the days when they are slaughtered."

more…
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/fwd/20040226/en_fashion_fwd/zeffirelli_1

[UpInArms]

9. now that is perverse and twisted

"I've seen plenty die,” replied Gibson, Zeffirelli claims. “When I can, to relax, I go to my farm and kill a lot of calves on the days when they are slaughtered."

Perhaps Mel needs to go to work for IBP? He can then "relax" for at $7.50 an hour (which is more than he should be earning - imho.

[rfkrocks]

11. Mel and ted nugent

mel must have played in the background on the immortal and subtle "cat scratch fever"

[Merlin]

16. Good CHRIST! Gibson really IS as sick as I thought he was!

What a freaking maniac.

As Kevin Phillips once said about Ross Perot:
Somewhere in his (Gibson's) brain, there is an 'A' wire connected to a 'B' terminal.

[hadrons]

12. Official 'Passion of Christ' merchandise on Mel's site

http://www.sharethepassionofthechrist.com/jewelry.asp#Nail

[Raster]

13. <grooooooooooooannnnnnnn!>

jeezus, titties, you've got to be kidding...

OK, so you're not, will that be a large nail or a small nail?

[Waverley_Hills_Hiker]

14. ROFTL!

>cue music<

Takin care of buiness/Evry Day"

Takin care of Buisness/Evry Way"

[emetzl]

34. what is that about?

sorry, didn't really get your message...
what are you referring to?!
Einat

[The Zanti Regent]

19. What??? No yellow stars or pink traingles????

Why, I'm shocked...

[lucky777]

15. As a Jew who saw the Movie -- Hitchens is Right

I was totally disgusted with the movie. I am a non-religious person (athiest) who identifies himself as a cultural Jew. The movie is pure nonsense, there is no plot, very little dialogue, just endless blood. Jews come off terribly! Ugh.

[JasonDeter]

17. What hitchens doesn't understand is

The sacrifice Christ made on our behalf was a violent act by sinful man. The closest hitchens will come to understanding that is when he's in hell as a result of his judgement.

self edited:

[The Zanti Regent]

18. Who is going where????

Most of the world's agony can be directly traced to Christians and Christianity.

Such as 2 million Arminians slaughtered in the FIrst World War and Six million of my people slaughtered in the Second.

Now your beloved Mel has re-ignited the fires of antisemitism.

I doubt Hitchens is going to hell, after all, Hell is the natural consistency for such an ignorant antisemite as Mel and his doofy daddy!

[JasonDeter]

20. Your saying Christians killed the 6 million Jews in the holocaust?

Give me a second while I fall off my chair LMAO! That sounds like history taught in a cult or something. And regarding Mel, if the fires are lit then the antisemitism was there to begin with, Mel had nothing to do with it. That rhetoric floats a lot of anti-Christ boats though. Your belief on that has as much validity as your claim of Christians killing those 8 million. Excuse me I'm falling off my chair again!

[Merlin]

21. Ahem... Hello... Read much history? Nazi Germany was Catholic / Lutheran.

The pograms carried out against the Jews begining with the Pope-ordered crusades against Jews in Europe after the 1st Middle East crusade, and extending through the great Russian pograms under Eastern Orthodox Catholicism during the 17th-20th centuries were all Catholic inspired.
Nazi Germany, which elected Adolf Hitler, was a country in which 90% of the citizens were either Catholic or Lutheran.
The Nazi holocaust was carried out throughout Roman and Byzantine Catholic central and eastern Europe.
Any questions? Or are you a subscriber to the Jews-Killed-Christ school and thus hopelessly beyond convincing?

[JasonDeter]

22. Your understanding of Christianity is telling. You might try reading

the Bible to see what true Christian's believe. Man made religion is what your looking for when you accuse Christians of atrocities. But of course deep down inside I'm sure you know that but something is driving you on isn't it? And I have no idea where you got that Jew hating stuff. Jewish people are my heros! I love Abraham and the Patriarchs and David and the Prophets. The Lord Jesus is my greatest hero. Soon He'll be setting all things straight.

[Merlin]

23. Some times it seems people are living in another world!

I am astounded at how blind true believers can be. They can see so clearly the speck in the eye of their neighbor, but are oblivious to the log in their own. It is incredible.

How can anybody who is even remotely educated in history fail to know that Hitler was, himself, a Christian, as was his entire high command; that the entire Nazi system was manned by Lutheran and Catholic Christians; that the residents of central and eastern Europe who were complicit in rounding up Jews and turning them over to the occupying Nazis for deportation to extermination camps were virtually all Catholics.

How can a man hear these facts and, without disputing them, deny that Christians are proven to be capable of the most grievous, sinful atrocities and rampant Jew hating?

It's enough to drive a born-and-raised Catholic like me to lose my Christian patience. Sweet Jesus, help such people.

[Chicago Democrat]

30. Luther was a famous anti-semite as was Germany.

For a long time; it was cultural and religious. Just like this terror war has become. It is truly scarey.

Passion plays in the middle ages in Germany often sparked anti-Jewish pogroms with Jews murdered or exiled. Jews throughout Europe lived in special ghettos apart from the Christian majority. There is a long, long cultural, historic and Christian connection to the systematic persecution of the Jews in Europe. The Nazis used this cultural and historic bias for their own purposes.

Whose using Cultural and Religious differences to institute new oppressions on discreet minorities nowadays??

Bush, Mel

[homelandpunk]

54. arrogant, childish, unintellectual BS

"soon he'll be stting all things straight" is infantile and vindictive bullshit.
The American Jesus is a sick parody. You are a part of a man made religion.

[JasonDeter]

25. Explaining what a Christian is to someone who is not

is like explaining a blue sky to a blind man. He doesn't even have the ability to understand the concept. Its like Spock talking to Bones about death. Bones was flabbergasted to hear Spock say that Bones would have to die himself for the conversation to be possible. That explains this conversation with you perfectly.

[Merlin]

32. It's difficult to converse when you fail to read my posts.

Most blind men I have met would have little difficulty comprehending the concept of a blue sky.

So a person has to die to converse about death? That means nobody alive is capable of the discussion.

You, of course, get special dispensation because you are such a special person; so wise; so knowing; so just; so Christian. You are the first of the holies! You are source and judger of truth! You alone understand the God of the Universe. For you are Christian. And lo unto those lowly who do not measure up to such lofty standards. For we sinners--unlike you--are doomed to eternal damnation. For God is a Loving God; a Righteous God; a Kind God; a Good God! God loves us all so much that he will consign us to endless suffering for failing to have faith in the truths which Righteous Men like yourself so ardently proclaim.

Amen, Amen, I say unto you: Judge not lest ye be judged. Let that man who is without sin cast the first stone. For the first shall be last; and the last first. And the meek shall inherit the earth.

[JasonDeter]

37. Well, the Bible says a man will be judged by the words of his own mouth!

You can't blame me. Whew!

As far as the part about me, I'm the biggest sinner I know. seleh

[damnyankee2601]

40. You skipped a big detail.

Hitler and his thugs were primarily influenced by Nietzche. You know, "God is dead." Der Ubermenchen, etc.

[Merlin]

41. So how do you explain the passive complicity of the public?

Do you think the public didn't participate in Jew hating, in stigmatizing Jews? Do you think they didn't know what was being done to the Jews?

Do you think the Catholic and Lutheran conditioning in the anti-Jewish gospels read at Sunday masses for hundreds of years didn't have any impact?

Do you really think that Christians are incapable of evil?

[workenstiff]

48. Nazi's christian? No. or pagan? Yes.

Hitler's Search for the Holy Grail

I saw this on pbs Monday. I couldn't find anything on PBS site but I found this article

http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/sep1999/nazi-s23_prn.shtml

Nazism and the myth of the "master-race"
Britain's Channel Four Secret History documentary on "Hitler's search for the Holy Grail"
By Peter Reydt
23 September 1999
Back to screen version

Britain's Channel Four television recently broadcast the documentary “Hitler's search for the Holy Grail” as part of its Secret History series . Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, was the chief driving force in developing the nationalist and racist myths advanced by the Nazis. The documentary showed how he was able to recruit broad layers of leading academics in pursuance of this aim.

When Himmler joined the Nazi Party in 1925, he was already a member of the Thule society, which believed in the greatness of German history, reaching back to the year 9AD, when the Teutonic tribes defeated the Roman army. It promoted the superiority of the Aryan race, an ancient northern European people.

These ideas formed the basis of Nazi racial philosophy that was to have such an impact on history. The programme's commentator—British historian Michael Wood—explained that, when the Nazi Party took power, Himmler sought to create an Aryan knighthood in the shape of the SS. Originally founded as Hitler's bodyguards, the SS had grown rapidly. By 1939, it was 300,000 strong. Its members would run the concentration camps and take charge of the deportations of Jews. It became the standard bearer of “racial purity” within Germany and in the campaign directed especially against the peoples in the East.

The centre of this new order of knights, an "aristocracy of soul and blood", was the Wewelsburg castle. This was Himmler's “Camelot”, with SS commanders cast as the Knights of the Round Table. Rooms were dedicated to figures of Nordic history and mythology like King Arthur. Himmler's room was dedicated to King Heinrich I, founder of the first German Reich (empire). Himmler believed himself to be the reincarnation of Heinrich. Another room was set aside to house the Holy Grail, which was to be searched for all over the world.

The director of the Wewelsburg museum, Wulff Brebeck, explained that Himmler's goal was to "create a focus point of all the aspirations he had towards religion, towards science, forming a new policy”.

To this end, Himmler set out to re-establish an ancient Aryan religion within Germany in opposition to Christianity, as a basis for Nazi ideology. Himmler maintained that many sacred symbols had been stolen from a more ancient Aryan religion and set out to restore them. One such symbol was the Holy Grail. One leading academic recruited to the Nazi cause was Otto Rahn, the leading German authority on the Holy Grail. He was brought into the SS to lead the search for it the world over.

Dr. Henning Hassmann of the Archaeological Institute in Dresden explained: “Himmler saw the potential of archaeology as a political tool. He needed archaeology to provide an identity for his SS. But Himmler also believed that archaeology had a certain pseudo-religious content. There were excavations; there were myths and legends, a feeling of superiority. They believed by drawing on the power of prehistory they would achieve success in the present day.”

In 1935, Himmler established a new arm of the SS, Das Ahnenerbe (the Ancestral Heritage Society). It was staffed by high-profile academics and headed by the Nazi Wolfram Sievers. Of the 46 heads of departments, 19 were professors and another 19 held doctorates. Amongst them were such eminent figures as Walter Wust, a leading expert on India; Ernst Schaefer, a veteran explorer; and Walter Jankuhn, an archaeologist.

Through these academics the Nazis sought to lend their propaganda the status of objective truth. The Ahnenerbe organised expeditions into many parts of the world—to Iceland in search of the Grail, to Iran to find evidence of ancient kings of pure Aryan blood, to the Canary Islands to seek proof of Atlantis.

[Merlin]

52. Christians, Yes. Including Hitler, himself, a Catholic.

Sorry, but Christians are sinners too. Time to wake up and smell the truth:

http://www.germanculture.com.ua/library/facts/bl_religion.htm

Prior to World War II, about two-thirds of the German population was Protestant (mostly Lutheran) and the remainder Roman Catholic....

During the Hitler regime, except for individual acts of resistance, the established churches were unable or unwilling to mount a serious challenge to the supremacy of the state. A Nazi, Ludwig Müller, was installed as the Lutheran bishop in Berlin. Although raised a Roman Catholic, Hitler respected only the power and organization of the Roman Catholic Church, not its tenets. In July 1933, shortly after coming to power, the Nazis scored their first diplomatic success by concluding a concordat with the Vatican, regulating church-state relations. In return for keeping the right to maintain denominational schools nationwide, the Vatican assured the Nazis that Roman Catholic clergy would refrain from political activity, that the government would have a say in the choice of bishops, and that changes in diocesan boundaries would be subject to government approval.

[muriel_volestrangler]

24. On a technical point

do you mean Arminians? Who massacred them? Or do you mean the (Christian) Armenians, who were massacred by the (Muslim) Ottoman Turks?

Please note I am not disputing the Holocaust in any way, nor that the Armenians suffered genocide. This is purely to get the facts (and spelling?) right.

[salin]

26. to some christians

the sacrifice at the end is the main importance of Christ's life.

To others his life, his teachings and introduction to the concept of a loving rather than wrathful God, are as important as his death.

To some of us who fall into the latter camp - a movie that only emphasizes the death, and when in doing so seems to go beyond gratuitous violence (if the descriptions are correct) - rather misses a big part of the story. From some Christian, religious perspectives, it seems profane.

Please do not speak on behalf of all Christians, as clearly you do not speak for me. In return I will not attempt to portray my views as universal either.

Per the acts of atrocities carried out in religions' names (as listed below), these events have happened... no question. But it seems that they all occured at the hands of individual acting in their own will - using faith as a means for 'whipping up' the support (and often egregious violence) to accomplish their means. Hitler often used the language of Christianity to justify his actions. But they were Hitler's actions. It just shows how dangerous the abuse of religious fervor can be. Though I would contend that the acts themselves are done by and the responsibility of - rogue, evil people. Yes, the Catholic officials involved in the Inquisition... were evil. The religious puritans who purged/burnt women at the stake for being "witches" ... were evil. Just as the communist Pol Pot - killing one third of the population in Cambodia ... was evil. And in that light - the whipping up the frenzy of the religious right by men who use violence targeting others as their language (Pat Robertson calling for the State Dept to be Nuked, for example) - and then granting some kind of infallibility to GWBush - it all has the potential to become a very, very dangerous mix, not unlike some of the historic tragedies that have happened before.

[JasonDeter]

27. Its not the death thats important to Christians but the Resurrection.

Jesus is NOT on the Cross. He was taken down and buried and after 3 days rose from the dead. That is the power of the Christian life NOT the death. The Bible plainly says that in Romans;

Romans 10:8 But what does it say ? "THE WORD IS NEAR YOU, in your mouth and in your heart "--that is, the word of faith which we are preaching, 10:9 that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; 10:10 for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.

Regarding your last paragraph I heartily agree. And I can't stand to even look at Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell or Ralph Reed. I consider them apostates.

[salin]

28. Yes you are correct

yet for some of us - the life and teachings of Christ are as key to the importance of his being as is the resurrection. To us - the "power of the Christian life" is more about attempting to live according to the teachings - about the gifts of love and lessons about what that means and how we can embody it for ourselves and thus carry out work that is an extension of those teachings. With a major world religion, with many, many offshoots (different denominations, different whole theologies such as Catholocism vs. Protestantism) there is a great variation of emphasis some focus more on salvation. Others recognize salvation as important - but the life of Jesus himself and his teachings among us - as what is most important. Just please leave room for those of us whose emphasis is different than yours, but who are just as Christian as you, in your overarching explanations to others. Thanks. :D

[Merlin]

35. What pious nonsense.

The "power of Christian life" is that by following the teachings of Jesus, you make of yourself a force for a better world; you light a candle; you are a comforter, a teacher and a healer--not a judger, an agrandizer, or a punisher.

Paul has the temerity to say how you live doesn't matter--just what you believe: "if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved..." But Paul is wrong.

Paul never even met Jesus. He was a bounty hunting huckster who took the memory of the good and humble Jesus and turned him into a Christ--something Jesus never intended. How the hell did Paul have any idea whatsoever that simply believing in Paul's concocted mythology will cause a person to be saved? The answer is perfectly clear. He didn't He had no special link to the Almighty. Paul was a man just like you and me. Nobody claims otherwise. He was simply selling snake oil. If he were alive today, he would be appearing on those late night infomercials hawking something like spray-on hair.

Among the things I've come to know for certain in life is this: that the word of Paul is NOT The Word of God.

[megatherium]

38. really?

Paul wrote to established Christian churches and was in contact with the other Apostles (read Acts for Paul's role in critical disputes in the early church, such as the argument as to whether non-Jews would need to be circumcised). Paul's letters date to the late 40s to the early 60s of the common era, not very long after the ministry of Jesus.

Now Paul constructs an elaborate theology to explain (to himself perhaps) what the death and resurrection of Jesus meant, a theology I have real problems with myself. Paul is also famous for stating that women should remain quiet in church, etc. Paul wasn't infallible by any means. It is also true he did not know Jesus personally. (Paul however is the only source of the quote of Jesus, "it is better to give than to receive".)

But I think it is wrong to picture Paul as some kind of huckster. He was a student of Gameliel, one of the founders of modern rabbinic Judaism. His teachings might have been wrong, but they did reflect what the early church believed, including the resurrection of Jesus (e.g. 1 Corinthians 15, which Paul wrote in the early 50s).

[Merlin]

42. Yes, really!

I don't find anything inaccurate in what you say (except that (1) Paul himself established most of the Greek churches, and (2) I have really serious doubts that Paul was a Jew; I think that was a claim he made to make himself acceptable to the Jewish community; there is substantial evidence to the contrary).

But it doesn't really address my point, which is that Paul essentially invented Christianity, and took enormous license with the memory of Jesus.

True, Peter and James, then leaders of the "Jesus Movement" sect of Jews did believe that Jesus "resurrected" from the dead. It's unclear what the basis of that belief was, and it could have been little more than a moved stone, or a missing body. Yet they believed it nonetheless.

However they did not believe Jesus was a deity; they did not believe in any notion of redemption; they did not believe Jesus ever intended to start a new religion. There was, in fact, a significant dispute between Paul and Peter over precisely these issues, and several others as well.

Peter and James--who actually knew Jesus--did not practice any form of ritual "communion", as in the drinking the blood and eating the body of Jesus. They found such an idea redolent of cannibalism, and therefore literally nauseating--as did nearly all practicing Jews at the time (and most non-Christians in the world today). The fact that Paul came up with this is one serious indicator that he had never been, in fact, a Jew. There is much more, but that's enough for now.

[megatherium]

43. I would be grateful for more info

about Paul not really being Jewish. I have never ever heard anyone suggest that before. I am under the impression that modern scholarship (secular as well as Christian) understands Paul to be a student of Gamaliel (one of the main founders of rabbinical Judaism).

It is clear to me that the doctrine of the Trinity wasn't there at the beginning (there's no clear statement of it in the New Testament). I'm fuzzy when communion became standard in the church. I don't know if it was a Pauline invention; all the Gospels (representing different traditions) include the Last Supper, but these were written after Paul's lifetime. If you could refer me to scholarship on this matter, I would also be grateful.

I should mention I don't like to take communion so literally as to think of it as some sort of ritual cannibalism. I take it as something similar to what happens in a Passover seder, when bitter herbs and unleavened bread are eaten to remember what God did for the Jewish people. The bitter herbs symbolize the suffering of the Jewish people, but no one believes the herbs are literally that suffering. Likewise, when Jesus said, "take eat, this is my body, which is given up for you" I very much doubt he meant for generations of Christians to take this literally! (I consider myself to be on the border of Christianity, a liberal Christian. Just lately, I've started to go back to the Episcopal church.)

I am inclined to agree with you that Jesus probably did not intend on starting a new religion (especially to supercede Judaism), he was more of a reformer. Jesus certainly didn't think of himself as God. Possibly the messiah, but if so, a radically different messiah than the rebel leaders of his era who claimed to be the messiah. I won't have anything to do with a Christianity that teaches that it supercedes Judaism. (In so far as I am a believer at all, I tend to be a universalist.)

[Merlin]

44. Good questions.

I have two separate sources for the assertion about Paul not being born Jewish. The first is The History of the Christian Religion to the Year 200 AD by Charles Waite, written in 1900, and recently republished because, according to the publisher, it remains the best source for its subject. Waite says the Ebionites, successors to the Nazarenes, contemporaries of Paul and followers of the Jerusalem Church of Jesus led by Peter, claimed Paul was an adult convert to Judaism because he had fallen in love with a Jewish lady. She then rejected him, and Paul turned against the Jews and their customs.

The second is a recent book by Hyam Maccoby called, The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity. It is an excellent presentation, relying almost entirely on Paul's own epistles, as well as the book of Acts, and other accepted writings. Maccoby concludes:
Paul was never a Pharisee rabbi, but was an adventurer of undistinguished background. He was attached to the Sadducees, as a police officer under the authority of the High Priest, before his conversion to belief in Jesus. His mastery of the kind of learning associated with the Pharisees was not great. He deliberately misrepresented his own biography in order to increase the effectiveness of missionary activities.

He gives strong evidence that Paul was not born Jewish, could not have studied at the Pharisee academy of Rabbi Gamaliel, the leading sage of the day, and came from Tarsus to Jerusalem only as an adult.

One must admit that it's a stretch to think Paul would have been born in Tarsus, yet be a Roman citizen by birth as he claimed, yet also be a Jew by birth as he also claimed. He worked for the High Priest, who would have been a Saduccee--bitterly opposed by the Pharisees as Roman sympathizers--yet claimed to be a Pharisee. He chose to preach not to the Jews but to the Greeks.

I agree completely (as does Maccoby) with your view that any connection Jesus would have made to drinking wine and eating bread would have been associated with standard Jewish blessings before and after each meal. The fact that the "Jesus Movement" in Jerusalem, led by Peter and James, did not practice anything resembling a communion ceremony is overwhelming evidence against the idea that Jesus ever prescribed one.

Yet the Catholic Church continues to this day in the assertion that during Communion one is partaking in the actual, physical body and blook of Jesus Christ. It is enough to make a former Catholic like me cringe when I wonder how this must be received by non-Christians.

I do acknowledge that Paul was probably not the originator of the Communion myth. As I recall it is in only two of the gospels.

You're right that the Trinity doctrine did not come about until nearly the fourth century, as I recall.

One very interesting thing It is generally accepted by nearly everybody that his epistles--at least 4 of them (1&2 Romans, Galatians & (thankfully) Corinthians) are genuine, were written by Paul between 48 and 60 AD, and as such are the very earliest preserved writings by any followers of Jesus. Yet nowhere in any of the epistles does Paul mention any miracles or a virgin birth.

Much of the Maccoby book is online at:
http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/maccoby2.htm

[megatherium]

46. Thanks -- I appreciate the different perspective.

I read a little bit about Maccoby. Very interesting. He definitely seems to have a minority view (although I could only find detailed rebuttals by traditional-minded Christian apologists). Perhaps a bit too speculative for my tastes.

Paul also doesn't mention the empty tomb. (But 1 Corinthians 15 has an emphatic statement of the resurrection.) I didn't realize he also doesn't mention miracles. One quarter of Mark is devoted to healing miracles (Mark is believed to be the earliest Gospel). But John (the last Gospel) has very few miracles in it and the miracles that are present are very symbolic (e.g., turning water into wine, which is clearly a theological statement concerning the Eucharist). A traditional explanation for this (found I believe in Eusebius, who wrote in fourth century) is that John contented himself to write about miracles not already written in the synoptic Gospels, which were already in circulation when he wrote.

[Merlin]

47. Turns out Paul did originate the Eucharist.

From I Corinthians 11:23
"...the Lord Jesus in the night in which he was betrayed took bread; 24and when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, This is my body, which is for you: this do in remembrance of me. 25In like manner also the cup, after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood: this do, as often as ye drink , in remembrance of me."

As this is one of the most genuine, earliest writings, aside from those of the Gnostics, who thoroughly opposed the Eucharistic rite, and as it was at odds also with Peter and James and their Jesus Movement in Jerusalem, I think it's fair to say that Paul pretty much invented this mythology.

On Maccoby, you really should try reading him, not about him. His arguments ring true. And his evidence nearly all comes from the words of Paul himself. For example, it is incontrovertible that there was a grievous split between Paul and the Jesus Movement in Jerusalem, led by THE Peter and THE James (Jesus' brother). Paul himself relates how he was attacked by an angry mob of Christians when he visited Jerusalem. He had to avail himself of the protection of the Roman soldiers by claiming Roman citizenship--which of course made the crowd even angrier. He was considered a usurper and a heretic.

The mere fact that he never met Jesus, yet wrote extensively about minute details of what Jesus said--based upon, what, "Divine Inspiration"?--is enough to make one question his character. Of course, the gospel writers did the same, and they wrote much later than Paul.

Maccoby is clearly on to something. His thesis that Paul essentially invented Christianity, turning it into something well beyond what Jesus intended during his lifetime, is already very widely accepted as fact--as indeed, imo, it should be.

Paul, in my mind, was a very bright, articulate promoter; the Don King of his age.

[homelandpunk]

55. amen to THAT, my friend

Paul was the first republican. I am sure of that.
He fucked with what Jesus did and stood for, using his name to cover for the shit he pulled. What I never figured out, is how Peter got suckered by Paul, cause Peter said Paul "wrote things hard to understand" but basically, we should not question it.
Hey Pete, WTF????

[damnyankee2601]

39. You're in the wrong place my freind. You'd better leave.

The Kristian Kook Korporation is down the street at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

[DieboldMustDie]

50. Hutchens is going to hell..

for panning a movie? :eyes:

[Avalon Sparks]

29. Maybe this movie...

Maybe this movie will challenge some people to ask the question would you really want a father that would let that happen to his son?
For any reason?

Hell no!

Any father that loves his son would never allow him one minute of the torture depicted in this film.

[gorrister]

31. Glad to see...

someone rip Gibson a new one. I'm so tired of all the Mel ass-kissing going on, and all the Passion-hype.

And Zeffirelli is 10x the director Gibson is, and Ian Holm is 100x the actor he is, (though that's not saying much, I admit).

[LeahMira]

45. I second that!

I'm so tired of all the Mel ass-kissing going on, and all the Passion-hype.

I'm tired of being told that an attack on the film is an attack on Christianity also, particularly by those people who refuse to see the anti-Semitism or to take into account the role of the Passion Plays in Europe (which took place right around the same time of the year as this film has been released, BTW).

Let's get real. Who is Mel Gibson, exactly? Is he Lethal Weapon or Braveheart? Whichever you pick, he's barely an actor and incapable of much else beyond acting tough. And this is the person who is supposed to be so insightful about the passion? Really. I wouldn't think much of a religious film produced and directed by Mr. T and I don't think much of a religious film produced and directed by Mel Gibson. Neither could act their way out of a paper bag, but both are pretty slick about using promotion and publicity.

The Passion of the Christ? Yeah... consider the source and judge accordingly!

[emetzl]

33. funny

I liked your review...
I did not see the movie, but I have a feeling I'd enjoy criticism of it much more

Einat

[MikeG]

49. Hitchens. Ugh. I can smell the alcohol fumes from here.

Although I agree with him on this.

[DemoTex]

51. Weird Hitch.

Don't forget the most excellent book, The Trial of Henry Kissinger, and the documentary film The Trials of Henry Kissinger. I never quite understood the slight change in title from book to film. I'd settle for one trial. Please. World Court.

[Classical_Liberal]

53. So the neocons are attacking the traditionalists

It doesn't mean Hitch is still a lefty!

Nuff said!