I saw The Passion of Christ on Thursday, but wanted to think about the film for a few days before posting about it. I had many conflicting impulses about the movie. It is an intensely graphic movie about Christ's last weekend on Earth before His resurrection. Even several days after viewing it, my feelings are still mixed. However, one fact is abundantly clear. Any person who believes this movie is anti-Semitic is either very ignorant, very biased, or both.

By doctrine (the Bible) and practice, most Christians respect the Jewish faith. Sure, they believe those who still practice the Jewish faith failed to recognize the coming of the Messiah, but they believe this is true for all non-Christians, not just Jews. Further, Jesus was a Jew, his apostles were Jews and many of the early Church were Jews (Just like today, except Jews were a much greater percentage of the early Church than they are of today's Church). Christians believe Jesus suffered for each Christian and that their sins placed him on the cross. As a culture or doctrine, they certainly do not blame Jews for Christ's sacrifice.

That said, there have been some times throughout history where rabble-rousers blamed Jews for the death of Christ in attempts to increase anti-Semitic feelings. Given how anti-Semitism continues to grow in Europe and the Middle East, I can understand why some Jews might be concerned. So I entered the movie theater wondering if the controversy impacted Gibson's film. I would say yes.

There were several bits in the film where Gibson went out of his way to show as many Jews as possible in a favorable light. For example, multiple Jewish leaders protested the illegal late night trial of Jesus by Temple leaders. A young Jewish woman braved Roman fury to wipe Christ's brow. However, the most obvious example of Gibson's sensitivity to Jewish feelings was in his treatment of Simon of Cyrene.

After Jesus had been brutally beaten, He was forced to carry His cross to Golgotha to be crucified. Due to being beaten, He was unable to carry it the entire way and the Roman soldiers conscripted a man named Simon, whom the Bible describes as a Cyrenian, the father of Alexander and Rufus, who was coming out of the country into Jerusalem (Mark 15:21; Luke 23:26), and made him carry the cross the rest of the way. Christian tradition holds that Jesus fell three times before Simon was conscripted, but the Bible does not tell us this minor detail.

Gibson's film holds to this tradition, but uses much poetic license in their treatment of Simon. The Bible never discusses Simon's race or religion, so we do not know if Simon was Jewish or not. He could have been, there was a substantial Jewish population in Cyrene at the time. The city of Cyrene was located in what is now Eastern Libya, so Simon had to travel through Egypt to get to Jerusalem. If he were Jewish, he would probably have been going toward the Temple, perhaps running a day late for the Passover ceremony. Gibson's Simon was clearly a Jew, garbed in traditional Jewish clothing. To ensure the audience clearly understood that Gibson's Simon was Jewish, a Roman solider specifically calls him a Jew.

Simon's Jewishness was important to Gibson, because he makes him a hero in the film. When the Roman soldiers conscript him, he reluctantly agrees as if he had a choice. Simon has about 5 minutes of screen time and acts heroically throughout. At one point he physically challenges a squad of Roman soldiers to quit beating Jesus and says if they do not he will not move the cross no matter what they do to him. This gratuitous scene was clearly added to cast another Jew in the role of hero. Gibson probably felt he needed to do this in response to his critics. I found it distracting and completely unnecessary; the entire story is about a Jewish hero who offers Himself to save mankind.

The characters speak in Aramaic and Latin with English subtitles. I rarely watch movies with subtitles, but it was very well done. After a few minutes, I almost forgot they were there. When I did notice, it was when bits of my high school Latin came back to me and I was checking what I thought I heard with what I was reading.

The movie struck me as very Catholic. It uses poetic license in giving Satan a role in the film, appearing to discourage and mock Jesus at various points. It has demons torment Judas before he hangs himself. Catholics treat Mary with more reverence than Protestants and Gibson presented Mary as an almost supernaturally calm woman who had expected this to occur. All of these events may have been going on (after all, one would assume Satan to be quite interested and delighted at first, and then quite dismayed when Jesus died without committing a sin and came back from the dead), but lacking Biblical guidance on these details, Gibson used his imagination.

The film is very violent. For the most part, it was not gratuitous violence, it was intended to show Christians how much Jesus suffered on their behalf. However, it was stomach churning. I had to look away during parts of the crucifixion scene, especially when they were nailing Jesus to the cross. Young children should not see this movie.

I do not think this is remotely the best movie about Jesus ever made. It is not even close. It is probably the most realistic film treatment of the time from Christ's arrest to His crucifixion. The film's deliberate focus on this one weekend of time presumes the audience is already familiar with the life of Jesus and the Jewish prophesies He fulfilled. However, for those not familiar with the reasons why Jesus had to suffer and die for everyone, this film did nothing to address these questions.

While I still have mixed feelings about the movie, I have several firm opinions on it. 1) It is a very pro-Semitic movie. 2) It does not even attempt to explain why the death of Jesus was so important – although viewing the movie may cause non-Christian viewers to pose this question. 3) Children should not see the movie because of the graphic violence. 4) It will help Christians visualize Easter Weekend more vividly, although they will be disappointed that the movie does not show the resurrected Jesus reuniting with his disciples (it ends immediately upon Christ's resurrection).

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