Squeegiebo Posted July 9, 2006 Share Posted July 9, 2006 Question: I'm no biblical/religious scholar. Is the film accurate that the Roman powers that be had no desire to get rid of Jesus, and in fact tried to talk the Jewish powers-that-be into letting him live? Observations: The graphic depictions of torture were appaling and disgusting. I hope no one took young kids to see it. Jesus obviously didn't deserve the punishment he received. But I don't care who the criminal is or how awful his crimes - anyone who would wish that treatment on another living being and would take delight in seeing him get "what he deserves" is a seriously f*cked up individual. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Azazello1313 Posted July 9, 2006 Share Posted July 9, 2006 Question: I'm no biblical/religious scholar. Is the film accurate that the Roman powers that be had no desire to get rid of Jesus, and in fact tried to talk the Jewish powers-that-be into letting him live? short answer: not really. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ursa Majoris Posted July 9, 2006 Share Posted July 9, 2006 short answer: not really. Same question, different way of putting it: Were the Romans at all concerned that Jesus could become a catalyst for rebellion in the Middle East (Tiberius was emperor and by this time was completely dissolute) or was it mostly a Jewish "aristocracy" fear of Jesus? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Squeegiebo Posted July 9, 2006 Author Share Posted July 9, 2006 short answer: not really. How about the Cliff's Notes version of the long answer? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimmy Neutron Posted July 9, 2006 Share Posted July 9, 2006 (edited) short answer: not really. I disagree. When Jesus was brought before Pilate, Pilate found no fault with Him - asking, "What fault hath he done?" "But they cried out the more, saying, Let him be crucified." "When Pilate saw he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying I am innocent of the blood of this just person, see ye to it. Matthew 27:23-24 I think it's fair to say that Jesus would not have been killed at this time if not for the insistance of the Jews. Pilate certainly was not anxious to do it. Edit to add: Jesus was also taken before Herod and he had no interest in condemning Jesus to death. Jesus was not a threat to the Romans, but was a direct threat to the high priests and pharisees, as they were losing followers to Jesus. Edited July 9, 2006 by Jimmy Neutron Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PantherDave Posted July 9, 2006 Share Posted July 9, 2006 I disagree. When Jesus was brought before Pilate, Pilate found no fault with Him - asking, "What fault hath he done?" "But they cried out the more, saying, Let him be crucified." "When Pilate saw he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying I am innocent of the blood of this just person, see ye to it. Matthew 27:23-24 I think it's fair to say that Jesus would not have been killed at this time if not for the instance of the Jews. Pilate certainly was not anxious to do it. Bingo-It was essentially a Mob Rule decision. Was it a bit on the gory-yes, but he was afterall "crucified" which in it's right is very brutal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Avernus Posted July 9, 2006 Share Posted July 9, 2006 pilate's are horrible.... I've never seen the movie tho.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skippy Posted July 9, 2006 Share Posted July 9, 2006 I'm prolly going to go to hell for this but... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Squeegiebo Posted July 9, 2006 Author Share Posted July 9, 2006 I'm prolly going to go to hell for this but... I do have to say that I enjoed Life of Brian much more than the Passion of the Christ. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Randall Posted July 9, 2006 Share Posted July 9, 2006 I disagree. When Jesus was brought before Pilate, Pilate found no fault with Him - asking, I think it's fair to say that Jesus would not have been killed at this time if not for the insistance of the Jews. Pilate certainly was not anxious to do it. Edit to add: Jesus was also taken before Herod and he had no interest in condemning Jesus to death. Jesus was not a threat to the Romans, but was a direct threat to the high priests and pharisees, as they were losing followers to Jesus. The key words you used are "not at this time". He was a greater threat to the priests and business interests, but if had been left to leave would threaten the Romans too eventually. Anyone promoting the poor and advocating great social change would be a threat eventually. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimmy Neutron Posted July 9, 2006 Share Posted July 9, 2006 The key words you used are "not at this time". He was a greater threat to the priests and business interests, but if had been left to leave would threaten the Romans too eventually. Anyone promoting the poor and advocating great social change would be a threat eventually. Perhaps, but that wasn't the question. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperBalla Posted July 9, 2006 Share Posted July 9, 2006 So what is the long answer? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Azazello1313 Posted July 10, 2006 Share Posted July 10, 2006 Same question, different way of putting it: Were the Romans at all concerned that Jesus could become a catalyst for rebellion in the Middle East (Tiberius was emperor and by this time was completely dissolute) or was it mostly a Jewish "aristocracy" fear of Jesus? short answer: both. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Azazello1313 Posted July 10, 2006 Share Posted July 10, 2006 I disagree. When Jesus was brought before Pilate, Pilate found no fault with Him - asking, "What fault hath he done?" "But they cried out the more, saying, Let him be crucified." "When Pilate saw he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying I am innocent of the blood of this just person, see ye to it. Matthew 27:23-24 I think it's fair to say that Jesus would not have been killed at this time if not for the insistance of the Jews. Pilate certainly was not anxious to do it. Edit to add: Jesus was also taken before Herod and he had no interest in condemning Jesus to death. Jesus was not a threat to the Romans, but was a direct threat to the high priests and pharisees, as they were losing followers to Jesus. matthew was writing from a very anti-jewish (make that anti-pharisaic) point of view, because of the situation he was dealing with with respect to the late first-century jewish establishment. that definitely colors how he tells the story. the romans wanted jesus dead because they feared jewish revolt. people were waiting for a military "messiah" to lead a revolt and the roman authorities wanted to squash any hints of that with extreme prejudice. hence the very public, humiliating execution with "king of the jews" over his head. that certainly wasn't the jews' idea, you know? but jesus was a huge problem to the jewish authorites as well, obviously. but the scapegoating of the jews and the way pilate is essentially presented as almost blameless is all matthew trying to make the jewish authorities look as bad as possible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChuckB Posted July 10, 2006 Share Posted July 10, 2006 I'm prolly going to go to hell for this but... Four words.........electricity from the sky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Holy Roller Posted July 10, 2006 Share Posted July 10, 2006 I'm prolly going to go to hell for this but... As a Christian. I find that type of humor...disturbing. But couldn't help lmao. The death of Christ as in The Passion is but a depiction of a much more powerful spiritual event than the politics of Rome could ever fathom. It is still a spiritual battle and Christ's death and resurrection are triumphs in Christian dogma. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easy n Dirty Posted July 10, 2006 Share Posted July 10, 2006 We should have a Tailgate contest to see who can be the first Huddler to succesfully identify a subject where Az is something other than an absolute authority. :oldrolleyes: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skins Posted July 10, 2006 Share Posted July 10, 2006 (edited) Asz nails it. The Jewish leaders of the time were collaborators kept in power and wealth by the Romans. John the Baptist and Jesus were the two Messiahs (John Aaronic, the priest, and Jesis Davidic, the king) meant to usher in an age of Jewish freedom and rule of Israel. The Romans only crucified for treason or crimes against the state and they did not crucify people because their puppets--the Sanhedrin--begged them to. The two people crucified with Jesus are referred to as "thieves", but in reality they were revolutionaries ("lestai" or bandit was a word commonly used to refer to the Sicarri or Zealots). That also gives us another interesting insight into Judas, whose name Iscariot is a derivation of Sicarri. He was also a Zealot. This means that Jesus had political revolutionaries in his immediate following. Pilate was a bloodthirsty ruler who crucified rebels by the hundreds. The spin in the bible that he was full of doubt and remorse does not play historically (he was removed eventually for being too bloodthirsty). The bottom line is that Jesus was crucified by the secular rulers of Israel, the Romans, for crimes agaisnt the state or treason. That is political in nature and not religious. If the Jewish collaborators and the Herodian Sanhedrin wanted to kill him for blasphemy they had one way to do it under Jewish law: stoning. But he was too popular and they needed the cover of Roman power. One interesting recent scholarly development is the analysis of the decades long feud between the family of Annas, the high priest and Herodian Jewish Sanhedrin collaborotor, and the family of Jesus, or the Davidic heirs to the throne of Israel. It went on for decades and members of the Annas clan were responsible for pushing the Romans to crucify Jesus, and later for the stoning of his brother James in around 62 AD which probably led to the revolt and later Masada. At the time of the stoning of James, the High Priest was the son of Annas, Ananus, and he was only High Priest for a little while and then deposed by the Romans following the stoning of James, because the Roman ruler of the time viewed it as a destabilizing usurpation of Roman power in a very tense time in Israel. Certain biblical scholars see the stoning of Stephen account as a re-write of the stoning of James in order to edit the family of Jesus out of the gospels and history. Jewish collaborators pushed the Romans to crucify Jesus because he claimed to the Davidic heir to the throne of Israel and the Romans, recognizing his popularity and claim to the throne, crucified him as a rebel. Edited July 10, 2006 by skins Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TimC Posted July 10, 2006 Share Posted July 10, 2006 I liked it at the end where the Raptor nearly ripped the head off that guy in the lab. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skins Posted July 10, 2006 Share Posted July 10, 2006 (edited) And much of the Passion is taken not from the Bible, but from the writings of two nuns (one 16th or 17th century and one 19th century, I think) who claimed to have spiritual visions in great detail of what happened that day. Mel Gibson borrowed much of his account directly from their writings. The movie The Passion of the Christ is an extremely Catholic account taken from some hardcore Catholic charismatic writings. Edited July 10, 2006 by skins Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skins Posted July 10, 2006 Share Posted July 10, 2006 (edited) Jesus was not a threat to the Romans, but was a direct threat to the high priests and pharisees, as they were losing followers to Jesus. That is not accurate at all. The High Priests and Pharisees were not "losing followers" to Jesus because his followers were all still Jews. They were going to lose the power and wealth they had gathered as collaborators under Roman rule keeping the Jewish populace under control. Jesus, as the Davidic heir, would be above them politically. And Jesus and his followers viewed Annas and his family as Herodian collaborators, and thus, in league with Herod, the murderer of John the Baptist. They knew they would be driven from power if Jesus led a revolt against Roman rule. There was no competing religious message between Jesus and the Jewish collaborators. They asked him to publicly declare himself Messiah--or anointed king of Israel--so that the Romans would kill him as an heir to the throne and potential political threat. Edited July 10, 2006 by skins Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duchess Jack Posted July 10, 2006 Share Posted July 10, 2006 Bingo-It was essentially a Mob Rule decision. Was it a bit on the gory-yes, but he was afterall "crucified" which in it's right is very brutal. revy rell rerease Roderick Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rajncajn Posted July 10, 2006 Share Posted July 10, 2006 short answer: not really. matthew was writing from a very anti-jewish (make that anti-pharisaic) point of view, because of the situation he was dealing with with respect to the late first-century jewish establishment. that definitely colors how he tells the story. the romans wanted jesus dead because they feared jewish revolt. people were waiting for a military "messiah" to lead a revolt and the roman authorities wanted to squash any hints of that with extreme prejudice. hence the very public, humiliating execution with "king of the jews" over his head. that certainly wasn't the jews' idea, you know? but jesus was a huge problem to the jewish authorites as well, obviously. but the scapegoating of the jews and the way pilate is essentially presented as almost blameless is all matthew trying to make the jewish authorities look as bad as possible. Not saying you're wrong, but you shouldn't state your opinion as fact. The Bible can be at times contradictory and confusing, but not in this case. It clearly says that both Herod & Pilate wanted nothing to do with his death. How you interpret Matthew's writings is your own opinion. The truth probably lies somewhere in between. I think they both wanted him dead, but neither wanted his 'blood on their hands'. Therefore since it was the Romans job to crucify him they ultimately forced the decision to do it on the Jewish leaders making it sound as if they only did it to placate them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperBalla Posted July 10, 2006 Share Posted July 10, 2006 I am smarter now. Intelligence up +2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rajncajn Posted July 10, 2006 Share Posted July 10, 2006 I am smarter now. Intelligence up +2 Congratulations, you have reached Level 2. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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