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Emanuel A. Winston , Middle East analyst and commentator, writes extensively about geo-politics and war, often forecasting coming events in the region of the Middle East, including the relations between Washington and Jerusalem.
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By Emanuel A. Winston
February 18, 2004
Mel Gibson has let his Hollywood imagination get carried away with special effects as he inflated his "Passion" film.
Let us deal with a few small things first. Take a look at the lumber being carried by the Jesus actor. Any carpenter - or even lay handyman - will tell you that the Jesus player is carrying a saw-mill produced 6-inch x 6-inch x 10-foot timber. In the news clips on Fox News you can see that it is neatly trimmed and squared timber which is usually displayed in churches and medallions of the cross.
The problem is that the Romans had been crucifying rebellious Jews for many years and didn't commit the man-hours needed to take a tree trunk and hand craft it to a neatly squared and smooth timber, merely to crucify another Jew. The best they could do would be the familiar technique of building a log cabin where two sides of a tree trunk were laboriously chipped with a mattock on two sides so they could be stacked somewhat flat on top of each other. The Romans would not have bothered to square timber and besides, having already crucified thousands of rebellious Jews over 30 years, they had plenty of posts standing and empty, the bodies having rotted away.
Long before Jesus was added to the hundreds of thousands (some 220,000 of crucified Jews), the surrounding forests were chopped down for their Roman torture instruments which the Christians subsequently adopted as their symbol, the cross. The posts would have been raw trees with bark - no fancy mill work.
Next: Notice the cross lintel so carefully mortised into the main timber. One would need an excellent saw device to make the cut and fit the cross member. Did Gibson forget that the cross member was usually merely lashed with rough hemp rope, just in order to stay in place?
Then: Take a look at the length of the cross that Jesus was supposed to have dragged down the 'Via Dolorosa.' Any farmer could have told you that, even to keep an eight-foot fence post upright, you would need to dig down at least three feet. Since there were no post hole diggers at that time, each hole would have to be hand dug - which would mean that a hole had to be at least four-feet wide at the top to go down four feet at the bottom in order to keep the loose soil and rock from sliding into the hole as it was being dug.
So, why four feet? You will note that, in all depictions of a cross post with a body on it, the post is at least twelve to fourteen feet above ground. Which means that the total length of the post was at least sixteen to eighteen feet in total. In order to bear the weight without tipping, the post would have to be four foot into the ground - which then had to be compacted to keep it upright.
The weight of 6-inch x 6-inch by 10-foot (or as depicted in Gibson's film eight x eight x ten) would have been far too short. If the length was sixteen to eighteen feet, plus the cross lintel, the weight would have been virtually immovable by one man. Since Jesus was not a Samson or even a very physical man, the cross could not have been carried or even dragged by him - as the myth goes from the 'Via Dolorosa' to the edge of Jerusalem by the supposed whipped Jesus.
The Romans used the tree trunks as highly visible torture instruments to remind passers-by that this was the penalty for rebellion against the Roman Empire. Their objective was not to beat their victims to death before hanging them up but, rather to keep them alive for as long as possible. A figure dying slowly over many days, groaning, screaming, pleading for water, was a far better deterrent than whipping a victim so that he would bleed to death in hours - as was displayed in the Gibson film. With the amount of colored ink dribbling down Gibson's Jesus, he would have died in hours from blood loss or infection.
Hundreds of thousands of Jews lined the Road going up the Jerusalem, crucified, babbling insanely as they died of dehydration and pain.
I haven't seen a film section where they nail Jesus to the cross but, if the past myths prevail, they will put spikes through his hands. They will have to use special effects because the problem with that depiction is that nails or spikes through the palms cannot hold the weight of a human body before it tears through the flesh of the palms or tears longitudinally through the fingers. Spikes must go through the bones to hold but, the myth of bleeding palms has been firmly established in Christian mythology.
Remember, these stories were created by the Four Gospels which were written separately, between 40 and 75 years after the death of Jesus. The four Gospel writers based their Gospels on hearsay - stories or myths long after the facts. As each one was written later than the last, it became further removed from the real history. So the last, was the most mythical. If those myths are challenged as historically incorrect, it causes Christians to have problems with the faith they base their religious beliefs upon. That challenge to their faith cannot be allowed. Therefore, the Jewish religion, if it stands as authoritative, is too great a challenge and must, therefore, be denigrated, diminished and demonized. This is the basic source of root anti-Semitism. Islam must be viewed as a similar hostile challenge to the faith of Christians, because strict Muslims consider Christians (as all non-Muslims) to be infidels.
"Gibson makes the Jews look bad"
Many news articles have been written, compliments and critiques given after various versions have been screened by Gibson in the run-up to its release February 25th on Ash Wednesday. I believe many a good and fair writer has been fooled by some edited versions. However, the Newsweek cover story by Jon Meacham of February 16 (on newsstands and Internet now) "Who Killed Jesus," tells the story with graphic pictures in great depth. Meacham covers the philosophy, the slant toward anti-Semitism, how "Gibson, an ultra-conservative Roman Catholic traditionalist" deliberately chooses the Gospel that "makes the Jews look bad and the Romans, especially Pontius Pilate look good." Meacham deals with the "troublesome source of the Christian roots of anti-Semitism in overly literal readings or misreading of many New Testament texts."
Meacham says that in the two Newsweek screenings of a rough cut, "the Jewish priests and their followers are made to be the villains, demanding the death of Jesus again and again; Pilate is [shown as] a malleable governor forced into handing down the death sentence. But in fact, in the age of Roman domination, only Rome crucified. The crime was sedition, not blasphemy. Crucifixion was a political weapon to warn against revolution. Pilate was cruel and known to execute troublemakers without trial."
Hollywood special effects stirred liberally with misconceptions of real crucifixion, can make for such an exciting, gory Gibson film that it is rated R - but, it is a fake.
Testimony from several Jewish academicians, trained to look at details regarding anti-Semitism and the torture instruments of both the past and the Holocaust periods have made their observations plain. The Gibson film is inciteful and provokes anti-Semitism. This story has been told in churches during Lent and Easter, leading to Christian mobs launching murderous pogroms against Jews. It is part of their up-bringing. This film will make their church-taught hatred more real because the film is so realistic. Tickets are being purchased now in large blocks by various Christian churches to inspire more participation by their laymen.
The Jews in Gibson's film were made to look grim and threatening, all in accordance with Christian literature of what they call "the perfidious Jew." Gibson was very careful to follow early Church doctrine in demonizing the Jews which recommended murder as a solution to their "Jewish Problem."
The Roman soldiers look fit and clean, presumably the pre-cursors of the Church of Rome, although they were the ones who actually tortured, beat and crucified Jesus.
The Chicago Tribune of February 8 reported that Reverend Pawlikowski who directs the Catholic Theological Union's Catholic Jewish Studies programs was part of a nine person inter-religious panel who sent Gibson a scathing critique of the script last spring. Pawlikowski said: "We concluded that it was one of the worst things we'd seen in 25 years," Pawlikowski said. "It went to all the classical accusations about primary Jewish responsibility for the death of Christ which, of course, was the source of a great deal of anti-Semitism from the Christian side over the centuries."
No doubt, we will be hearing more about Gibson's playing fast and loose with the Gospels when the film is screened.
Another quote from the Chicago Tribune was striking - as follows: "Last August, The New York Times's Frank Rich wrote a column accusing Gibson of 'baiting' Jews by publicly anticipating their attacks even as he refused to show the film to anyone but political and Christian conservatives."
In a New Yorker profile, Gibson shot back: "I want to kill him. I want his intestines on a stick...I want to kill his dog."
I keep getting the feeling that Gibson, in his real life role as an early Christian, wants to be whipped and hung on a cross so he, too, can be a martyr like Jesus. Well Mel, first you would have to study the laws of Torah and become wholly Jewish like Jesus. Then you have to adopt the role of a charismatic Jew, preaching to his people to follow the laws of Torah as given to the Jewish people by G-d through Moses. Only then could you volunteer to be one of the Jewish crucifixion victims.
Mel, I am sure that once you became an authentic Jew, the Church of Rome would be glad to hang you on a tree trunk or - at least - go to Home Depot for a neatly trimmed Post and Post Hole Digger.
This is a rabble-rousing film by Gibson, sure to exacerbate violent anti-Semitism. When (not if) synagogues are torched and Jews assaulted due to Gibson's incitement, dust off the law books and sue Gibson, the film distributors, theaters and all connected with this Hollywood travesty.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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