You really want me to do this? Just remember u asked 4 it.

"The poor lady in Kansas who suffered a heart attack and died as Jesus was being scourged may be the first to die from The Passion of The Christ, but I doubt she'll be the last."

Right off we start with demagoguery. People are gonna DIE from this movie! Well Elliot it was released, it's out on DVD now, you tell me, did that happen? Kindly point out links to Gibson-inspired pogroms, please. I shall peruse them if proffered.

"there's no proof for just about anything that appears in the movie, except that there was a city called Jerusalem [...]"

Stupid (and unfair) objection. Movie is explicitly based on the Bible not history texts. There's no "proof" for just about anything that happens in The Ten Commandments or Clash of the Titans either. But "proof" is the standard a Passion story, as opposed to those others, must meet because why? There's no "proof" that JC as such actually existed, let alone that he was the "son of God" (obviously), so, what, Christians can't make movies premised on those things?

"The Christian faithful believe the Gospels, but everyone knows that they were written a generation after the events they are supposed to describe."

What's that "but" doing there? The Christian faithful believe the Gospels, AND everyone knows that they (in the forms we know them) were written later. So what? He's dangerously beginning to sound like he's constructing an argument that the Christian faithful need to reject their books, on some level, to make him happy.

"At worst, they had their own motives to make the Jews look bad, not least of which was that the Jews were not buying in to their message that Jesus was messiah, and the gentiles -- Romans, Greeks and other foreigners -- were not relishing the idea of being circumcised."

Ok so here's speculation about the motives of "Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John". Nice simplistic analysis too, apparently this guy's sure that there were four guys with these 4 names. Ignorant of all that "Q" type scholarship about how the Gospels *really* evolved, of course.

"The solution was to make it easy for the Gentiles to accept Jesus without accepting the Torah"

Well of course. This notion was very important to early Christianity. He's criticizing an aspect of Christianity which was at its core, that you can be "saved" (or whatever) without not eating shellfish (and so on). He's saying it's like not ok for Christianity to have developed that concept because this is mean to Jews. Well clearly Christianity is inimical to Judaism (in that it's *not* Judaism but uses some Jewish books and notions) but stated that way it doesn't seem like such a valid complaint now does it?

"just believe that he died for your sins and you will be saved, while everyone else will go to Hell."

Heh. "everyone else"? Nice straw-man cartoon of what Christians believe. Who's the one employing stereotypes?

"I have no objection to those who believe in every word as the Gospel Truth."

Course not. Ok so I can ignore the preceding coupla paragraphs.

"But Mel Gibson set out to kill this Jesus. [...]"

Now we get a bunch of stuff which is basically saying "I don't think it's ok for Mel to have set out to make this movie". Ok sorry but what? Yes we can all recognize that Mel's belief has a curiously hyper-Catholic fixation on the suffering and the pain and the flaying and the whatnot. That's his deal, that's the movie he wanted to make, and he did. Not ok, I guess?

"What is important, it seems, is "who done it." And here Gibson stacks the decks and makes it clear as day that the Jewish priests pushed and manipulated and howled for Jesus to be killed and tortured."

So what? First of all is that not what the source material states? David Deutsch just explained to me that the ADL says it's perfectly possible to make a story from said source material about said events and not be antisemitic. Who cares if "the Jewish priests" (=a majority of the Sanhedrin) pushed for his execution? 1) On the face of it, they were correct to do so as a matter of religious law. 2) Even if you think they weren't - even if you think this makes those Jewish priests monsters or look like monsters (I don't) - this is a slander against *the Jewish people* HOW, exactly? Only if you're stupid enough to see it that way, to equate "those Jewish priests" with "all Jews". Who is? Show of hands please?

"Gibson's public statements that all mankind sinned, and that Jesus took all those sins upon himself, and that this is a movie about love and forgiveness, or that he is just telling the truth -- well, that may sound good to Diane Sawyer, but it doesn't wash"

=I have read Gibson's mind and he's lying about the stuff he believes. He says he believes X but I know better!

"And yes, if it was foreordained that Jesus should die, then everyone was just playing their part in this passion play and no one should be blamed. That may operate for those of deep faith, but that is not the director's intention."

More wonderful mind-reading. Does this guy do parties?

"No, this is a movie about bloody premeditated murder"

Wrong, it's a movie about an execution. The bloodiness and the gore of that execution can be chalked up to the fact that the ruling power in that place and time (NOT Jews) had an especially barbaric way of executing people. If there was something unlawful about the execution so as to make it murder this can be blamed on the Roman who ordered it.

"a murder of Christ by the Jews."

Funny in the movie I saw a bunch of Roman brutes did the deed.

"As The Lovingway United Pentecostal Church in Denver so lovingly put it, on opening night, in a sign it posted opposite the local movie theater: "Jews Killed the Lord Jesus.""

Wow. If he can point to some extremists that totally proves something!

"and now a Roman Catholic rich boy says,"

FYI Elliot (and David, who seems to have been offended by this fact), this is the part where I stopped reading this wonderful, marvelous, informative article earlier. Do you really blame me? "Roman Catholic rich boy"? We are veering into immature name-calling territory here. (Now I may do that at times, but I don't get published on Israel Insider ;-)

"says.. that it was the Jews who did it, after all."

Sigh. Watch the movie: he does not. The Romans did it, the council of Jewish priests asked them to because Jesus had blasphemed. This is how the frickin story goes! You can't tell this story if it doesn't go like that. Bottom line here with these objections is "you just can't tell this story".

"The Satanic Jews,"

!!! Is this guy trying to win a straw-man record or what.

"Christian critics wondered why the resurrection scene was so short, why the redemptive power of Jesus was hardly touched upon."

I didn't "wonder" at all, I knew the answer, because Gibson's particular sect/faith is particularly obsessed by the passion as opposed to the resurrection. Although that emphasis may ring hollow/unsatisfying to Protestants, etc, (incl. myself) that's still allowed, isn't it? What I'm hearing here: "no, it's not! not allowed!" This article-writer is telling Gibson what sort of faith he's allowed to adhere to. I don't presume to do so.

"We're not talking about the twenty million bucks...[etc]"

Weird recital of how much money the movie made. What does this have to do with whether it's antisemitic?

"this movie is designed from day one to advance the theology of the cultish sect of retro-Catholics to which Mel and his wacked-out, hated-consumed mother and father belong"

1) From what I've heard, that's basically true, Mel makes no secret that he made the film to advance his religion. Not ok? 2) Dunno anything about Mel's mother, I'm sure the "wacked-out" charge is correct when it comes to his father, but nevertheless this kind of name-calling and guilt-by-association would be beneath a better, more responsible writer who wasn't writing a stupid, hate-filled article. Alas....

"anti-Popes, his dad calls them"

More crap about his dad, relevant why?

"This is his attempt at payback for those Hollywood Jews who resisted his idea, and the anti-Christian (i.e., Jew-dominated) Media."

Wow this writer's really riffing now. He's spun a whole theory about Mel's private thoughts and everything. I was supposed to continue reading because this is all so brilliant, right David?

[more about imagined-Gibson's take on "Hollywood Jews", Gibson's father, etc... getting bored]

"Gibson left it in but "generously" didn't add a subtitle. He didn't need to: he ensured there was so much press coverage, attracting attention not only to the line but to the Jewish efforts to remove it, that he fixated viewers on finding the Aramaic curse and on Jewish "censorship" of that "truth." "

He's claiming that Gibson "fixated" viewers on finding the Aramaic curse. Interestingly he produces no such viewers who were so "fixated". He imagines that they were. That is what I call junk. Maybe *he* was fixated on it. That is what I call projection. Frankly when I saw the film I forgot to look for Caiaphas saying those lines. Probably my fixation was so subconscious that I looked for it subconsciously

[mind reading bla bla]

"Mel tries to portray himself as the poor victim of the Jews"

where? how?

"The truth is that Mel's technique -- inducing trauma and fixation to that trauma by the use of violence -- is a famous method acted out not only in his previous bloody films"

Can't resist dig against other Mel Gibson films. No relevance, just couldn't resist. This is more stupidity.

"so that one can proudly say that "Jews killed Lord Jesus" and feel exalted."

Who said that? (Yes I know some church the author pointed to. Who else?)

"Mel has whipped all this anger and left the audience with "nowhere to go.""

As a result, they promptly went out and committed a bunch of pogroms, right?

You know, if I took articles like this more seriously I might actually be offended at the vile slander against Americans and American society, that we're all JUST SO ITCHIN' to pogromize a bunch o'Jews that all it takes is a Mel Gibson movie. Thanks for the confidence, dude. Nice to know I'm a hair-trigger away from being a Nazi in your eyes.

"It's a straight line from the Damascus Road to the Damascus Blood Libel, to the Dachau Camp to Denver's Lovingway Church and Cineplex."

The alliteration here is perhaps the least dumb thing in the article. Of course associating Dachau Camp (murder count: N) to Denver's Lovingway Church and Cineplex (murder count: 0) is not anything like what one would call *proportion* but hey, it's clever (both start with D, get it?)

[more Mel's-his-father's-son guilt by association (dare I say "blood-guilt"?)...]

"let them realize too that the Gospels, of Mark and of Mel, try to obscure that Jesus was a Jew killed by Gentiles."

Yeah I'm such a maroon I didn't even know that Jesus guy was a Jew. Goll-ee I thought he was from Texas, thanks for setting me straight.

"The story-tellers, ancient and modern, blame the Jews so they can feel some relief for betraying and distorting the faith to which their presumed Savior belonged."

CMIIW but he's charging here that Christians are "betraying" and "distoring" Judaism. Christianity, apparently, is just not a very valid religion to belong to.

"Christians should say not "everyone sinned against Christ, and I am a sinner too""

Presumes to tell Christians what they 'should' say. He's anointed himself Pope/minister now, essentially. His authority on matters Christian must not be questioned.

"Besides, the good Christian is tempted to say, "I accept killing God, and therefore am saved, whereas the Jews do not, and therefore are damned.""

He is? Wow good to know. I never knew these things about myself till this expert on my thoughts informed me of them.

"Rather they should consider: "Christians have historically turned against the people of Jesus, the people of his God, have killed them cruelly in every generation, and I must struggle within my soul never to do so too and to confront with courage those who do.""

Well of course Christians should say that, as should everyone else. Don't be a stupid frickin antisemite. I'm on board with that and I'm all in favor of confronting with courage those who kill Jews cruelly.

Notice that Mel Gibson ain't such a person, and to focus on him, when there are, like, REAL antisemite killers REALLY KILLING JEWS, is wacky at best.

"But that, needless to say, is not Mel Gibson's intent."

Heh. Ok if you say so. This mind-reading stuff is awesome!

"The Passion of the Christ, amplifying and embellishing the inherent anti-Jewishness of the Gospels, is a real-life Lethal Weapon 5, already at a theater near you, and aimed straight at the nearest Jew."

If so then it was a total dud, wasn't it? Missed the nearest Jew and the second-nearest Jew and the Nth nearest Jew and, well, frankly failed to hit any of 'em at all. The only casualty I know of in fact is some lady in Kansas who had a heart attack mentioned at the beginning of the article, and she may not have even been a Jew (blast - Mel must've been disappointed!).

If Gibson really had wanted to kill a bunch of Jews, making this movie was like the worst way he could've chosen to do it.

"Daddy must be proud."

At some point can we agree that this daddy stuff is a low blow? Really now.

I feel dirty from having read through that whole thing. Thanks Elliot