hmm... well yeah I agree with her that the film is shocking and sadistic. I've no seen it, but from what everybody has said, I don't think you could disagree. Her argument that it is sadistic pornography is certainly interesting, but her other arguments are a bit poo.
Firstly though, I've gotta say I am not a christian and have no agenda of proving/disproving the historicity of the gospels. I personally disagree with all religion, be it Christianity, Judaism, Islam or whatever.
Judith Hayes wrote:A tragic irony in the whole crucifix issue is unknown to most if not all Christians. For the first five centuries of the Christian religion, the cross was bare. (Constantine did not wear the cross on his banners - only the first two letters of Jesus’ Greek name, fused together.) It was considered blasphemous to show Jesus suffering the humiliating death of a slave. By the way, the Romans used crucifixion only on slaves and criminals - never on their own citizens. Christians have that one wrong too. By the sixth century the body of Jesus was depicted on crosses, but even at that he was shown wearing a long tunic, with no pain or humiliation. It wasn’t until the tenth century that he was portrayed in agony, and his garments shrank to show his suffering more clearly. Then it stopped at a loin-cloth. That never disappeared. And the history of the world might have altered dramatically if only someone had removed that cloth and shown honestly how people were crucified.
I don't disagree that the cross was bare, just the reasons. This type of thing is always out for interpretation.
She does say that they used the cross as a symbol; but why would they do that? she doesn't say. The main reason i can think of is for the shock value - why would you hang a miniature Hangman's Noose or Electric Chair around
your neck?
I see no difference between watching the Passion and watching the games at the Circus Maximus in ancient Rome, where wild animals ripped limbs off gladiators, and gladiators massacred restrained animals. Blood, blood, blood. The crowds loved it.
Exactly; the Romans weren't exactly squemish when it came to blood and guts, they just had no need to show it on a crucifix, because, like i said on above post, they knew exactly what it was for. And they did use many symbols, the cross and the XP symbol like she says.
Also, she says that if only someone had shown honestly how people were crucified then the world would be a different place. So she's arguing for more blood and guts now?
And Jesus was never a Roman citizen. He was from Galilee, which wasn't a Roman province until 6AD, upon the death of King Antipas. The Romans did grant citizenship to people for various reasons, eg service as a Legionary, being freed from slavery by your Roman master, and the Emperors did grant it as a gift, usually to the rich local aristocracy of somewhere they'd just invaded. Full citizenship wasn't granted until 212AD under Emperor Caracalla. These bits are in any history book about the Roman Empire. So, if he did exist, he could very easily have been crucified. I did have a quick google to look online, but when you try to search for this type of thing it usually just finds stuff thats out to convert you.
What makes the Passion and all it represents even more insane, is that according to Christian doctrine, it was all for nothing anyway! Every person in every one of those theaters stands a good chance of going to hell anyway if they don’t walk the straight and narrow. All the talk about "washing away sins" is baloney. And so is the misleading phrase "sacrificial death." What death? When you "wake up" three days later, you ain’t never been dead! Death has an actual meaning, understood by all, and this stunt supposedly performed by a man named Jesus bore no relationship to the word death. Death means the termination of life. If three days after an event you are hanging out with your friends, walking and talking, that event was not death.
this paragraph is total balls. 'Every person in every one of those theatres is going to hell unless they walk the straight and narrow' - well der. of course - Pray to God or you're going to Hell. thats the whole point. And that stuff about death, geesh. All human beings die, yes, but when he resurrected, he was a God. And also its a supreme miracle which shows his power.
Yes, there is lip service paid to the fact that Jesus was a Jew, but that loin-cloth turned him in effect into an honorary Gentile. So much of the artwork you see today, and the statuary, feature a more and more Aryan Jesus. Many paintings and drawings give him blue eyes, a thin, straight nose and very light brown hair. There is a discernable distancing of Christianity from Jesus’ Jewishness. And we can only speculate as to what might have happened if honesty in art had prevailed. But just think: it took one thousand years, half the life of Christianity itself, to finally put Jesus up on the cross, suffering.
I think you'll find images of Jesus are different in different countries, reflecting what the people in those countries look like. e.g. an image of Jesus in Greece will look very different to an image of Jesus in Norway.
The reason Christians maintained the pagan name of Easter, which was originally Eastre, the name of a Goddess of spring, was to try to incorporate as many familiar rituals and names as possible to attract converts. Example: December 25 was the birthday of the Persian God Mithra. But another funny friend of mine suggested it should be called "Yeaster" because, after all, he had "risen" hadn’t he?
yep, they did want to convert as many people as possible. But December 25th is only a celebration of Christmas in the UK and US, in other european countries xmas falls on wildly different dates from november to january, none of whom ever worshipped Mithra. just check a calendar. In fact, the countries which did worship Mithra, eg modern Iraq, are now muslim. And thats a really rubbish joke about Yeaster.
And that bit about refusing to carry the cross - its remarkable what people do to survive. Somebody has a big sword pointed at you, you do what they say, even if you know you're probably gonna die, like people who are forced at gunpoint to dig their own graves - it did happen during WWII.
I'm sorry I can't give you any bibliography, I'm not in the same city as my books. But as her source she quotes only 1 book, from 1988. Any historian will tell you that you cannot rely on any one book to give you a full picture.
(I will probably never see Clockwork Orange for the same reason, though I have heard its a great piece of film making).
As far as violence, I don't think it's anywhere near as bad as, say, Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus or John Webster's stuff.
