COMMENTARY: New Book Ponders The Passion for Christians and Jews

c. 2004 Religion News Service (UNDATED) “The Passion of the Christ,” Mel Gibson’s cinematic version of the death of Jesus attracted great controversy and large audiences when the film was released last February. Critics, including both Christians and Jews, charged the movie transmitted anti-Semitic images that unfairly demonstrated Jewish responsibility and culpability for Jesus’ execution. […]

c. 2004 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) “The Passion of the Christ,” Mel Gibson’s cinematic version of the death of Jesus attracted great controversy and large audiences when the film was released last February. Critics, including both Christians and Jews, charged the movie transmitted anti-Semitic images that unfairly demonstrated Jewish responsibility and culpability for Jesus’ execution. Critics further charged “The Passion” was a serious setback to building positive Christian-Jewish relations.

Because of the movie’s negative potential for influencing the attitudes and beliefs of many people, Dr. Philip A. Cunningham, the executive director of the Center for Christian-Jewish Learning and adjunct professor of Theology at Boston College, has edited an excellent book that sorts out the many aspects of Jesus’ death.


“Pondering the Passion: What’s at Stake for Christians and Jews” (Rowman & Littlefield) is a 209- page collection of 15 articles that systematically analyzes first century Jewish history, the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, theology and how the Passion story has been depicted in music, films, art and stage. Special attention is given to the Gibson film that created so much divisiveness between and among Christians and Jews.

Supporters of Gibson’s personally financed and directed epic asserted the movie was faithful to the New Testament and provided a profound spiritual experience. The DVD version of “The Passion of the Christ,” released in August, guaranteed it will be used in churches for years to come.

The movie raised troubling questions about how the Passion story, the death of a young Jewish man in Roman-occupied ancient Israel, has been treated in history, Scripture, theology and the arts. Equally troubling was the bitter residue left behind by the film.

Interestingly, reactions to the film did not conveniently break down into the expected division that Christians liked the movie while Jews did not. Human behavior in general and interreligious relations in particular are never that simple or predictable.

Among the harshest critics of “The Passion” were deeply religious Christians, while some religiously observant Jews praised the film.

In the interests of full disclosure, it should be noted that I contributed to Cunningham’s book, particularly the chapter on the Oberammergau Passion Play that is performed in Germany every 10 years.

Cunningham explained why such a book is needed now: “The public debate over the Gibson film made it clear that many people have little understanding of the diversity of Christian understandings of both the New Testament and the religious significance of Jesus’ crucifixion (and resurrection!). It also demonstrated that Christians are by-and-large unaware of how the story of the crucifixion has been used for centuries to demonize and marginalize the Jewish people.”


He has especially harsh words for “The Passion of the Christ”: “ … the trauma of seeing someone graphically tortured to death is difficult to assess. Grief, guilt and shock do not automatically produce or deepen faith.”

Cunningham believes the film is a rejection of Catholic teaching about Jews and Judaism and a repudiation of Pope John Paul II’s March 2000 prayer at Jerusalem’s Western Wall, which called for “genuine fellowship with (Jews) the people of the covenant.”

Cunningham dryly notes: “Such fellowship cannot possibly rest upon the endorsement of a film that perpetuates hoary anti-Jewish images.”

“Pondering the Passion” fills a void revealed during the movie furor. Many Christians and Jews know little about the history of first century Israel, the milieu into which Jesus was born, moved, taught and died.

One of the most telling criticisms of the Gibson movie is its lack of historical accuracy and its dependence on the horrid anti-Jewish visions of a German nun who lived 18 centuries after the Roman Empire’s execution of Jesus.

Dr. John Clabeaux, associate professor of biblical studies at Creighton University, wrote a chapter explaining why historical facts are vital for Christians as they seek to understand the life and death of Jesus.


He believes the “execution of Jesus must be placed within the political and social context of first century” Jewish life in ancient Israel. “These are matters of which we know relatively little from the Gospels, but a great deal from the writings of the first and second centuries.”

Clabeaux declares: “A Christianity that is contemptuous of history is a Christianity turned in on itself, that has retreated to a mythical world of individual salvation … As Christ lived in the real world, so must the Church.”

MO/JL END RNS

(Rabbi Rudin, the American Jewish Committee’s Senior Interreligious Adviser, is Distinguished Visiting Professor at Saint Leo University.)

Donate to Support Independent Journalism!

Donate Now!