We watched Passion of the Christ last night. Largely because we wanted to see what all the fuss was about. I’m still formulating an opinion, I think. It hasn’t completely sunk in yet. I can make a few comments now though.
The very first impression that struck me was that regardless of the religious tones of the movie, that was a brutal and horrible time and place to live. The manner in which we, as humans, treated one another was just atrocious. Or maybe we still do that, but we’re less open about it. I think the most cruel characters in the movie were Christ’s punishers, or torturers. Between the original caning and flogging, to the very end where they finally had him up on the cross, several of them were just constantly laughing and merrymaking in the pleasure of the torture. Just brutal.
I guess I’m not sure I want to comment on the religious aspects of it. It was certainly a pretty stark deviation from what I remember reading of the Bible. The lack of compassion of the Jews who wanted him crucified doesn’t map well with me. The conflict in the Roman leader and his wife struck me as more honest than anything reflecting back to the more controversial aspects of the movie(book). The flashbacks to his teachings was fairly well done. Again, some creative license taken, but not overly much.
I suppose when you consider that by the time the work in question reached some sort of rigidity in its translation and publication, it had already passed through dozens of (mis)translations of varying degrees, quibbling over a word here and a phrase there is pretty meaningless. As an example of what I mean, you’ll recall the phrase “Peace on earth, good will toward men”. Well, according to some sources, that was a pretty silly mistranslation. The proper translation was “Peace on earth toward men of good will”. Hmm, interesting twist of a couple words, and the entire meaning changes.
So who really is to say what went on during that turbulent time. Who really is to say who is ultimately responsible for his crucifixion. Who really is to say precisely what portion (if any) of Christ’s teachings made it through unfettered by the mistakes of monks. Certainly not I. Sometime, I’ll get back on a rant about religion in general, and maybe this will come up again. For now, I’ll let it lie.
