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  Pain and Passion February 22, 2004 Reporter :Jana Wendt  This coming Wednesday, The Passion of the Christ, a film directed, produced and funded by Mel Gibson, will be released in Australia. But even before the curtain goes up, Gibson's film has triggered an international furore. After advance screenings to selected, mainly religious groups, some Jews have expressed concern the film may stir up anti-Semitic feeling. They claim that the film, with its gory depiction of the last hours of Christ's life, could be seen as holding Jews responsible for Christ's death. So what do we know about what really happened to Christ? And who was responsible for his death? Jana Wendt will be joined in the studio by Dr Paul Barnett, a biblical scholar; Dr Shani Berrin, a specialist in ancient Judaism; and Jeremy Jones from the Australia Israel and Jewish Affairs Council …Transcript JANA WENDT: Thank you all very much for coming in this morning. Dr Barnett what can we, truthfully, do you think, say about who killed Jesus Christ? DR PAUL BARNETT, BIBLICAL SCHOLAR: I think the first thing, Jana, is to say is whilst this movie is detailed and I understand gory, I haven't seen it, the Gospel's account of the crucifixion of Jesus gives no details at all of the horrors of crucifixion. So I think there's an immediate difference between our available sources, the Gospels, and this movie. JANA WENDT: But what about the answer to the question. As a scholar, what can you tell me about who's responsible for that death? DR PAUL BARNETT: Israel was a country under occupation, Roman occupation, and only the Roman governor had the power from the Roman emperor to conduct capital punishment. So, therefore, the technical answer is the Romans, under Pontius Pilate, killed Christ, and that's reflected in the week-by-week Apostles' Creed that Christians around the world have since then said he suffered under Pontius Pilate. JANA WENDT: OK, Dr Berrin, from your perspective, studies in Judaism, do you agree with that answer to the historical question, who killed Jesus Christ? DR SHANI BERRIN, SCHOLAR, ANCIENT JUDAISM: If I had to give an answer I would agree with it. As an academic, I have a problem saying we can answer the question. And I know Mel Gibson, the little bit that I saw, dismissed scholarly uncertainty as 'horse manure', to give a nicer word to what he said. But that really is my position. So what can we say about it? We can say volumes. Scholars have written volumes on every written perspective of who Jesus was and who killed him. From a technical point, yes – the Roman – the Catholic religion, Christianity, the Gospels, our sources, say it was the Roman government who did that. The Gospels also, to be honest, indicate the role of some Jews at that time. Does that translate into 'the Jews' having do it, I don't understand what that means. JANA WENDT: OK, well, that is a serious question, this 'the Jews', the reference to 'the Jews' and Dr Barnett, do you think that refers to Jews generally? DR PAUL BARNETT: I'm sure it doesn't. In the Gospel of John, in particular, the term 'the Jews' which appears about 70 times, if you look at the references in context, it's very clear that by 'the Jews' that writer means 'the Jewish leaders', the high priests in particular. JANA WENDT: How is it clear? Why do you say it's clear? DR PAUL BARNETT: Just the way in one sentence it speaks about 'the Jews did so and so' and then the next verse it makes it quite clear by that it means the high priest or the chief priest or the religious authorities. JANA WENDT: Just to clarify this, the Gospels – we are talking about men who are writing who would have regarded themselves as Jews. DR PAUL BARNETT: They were Jews, maybe Luke wasn't but the other three certainly were Jews. JANA WENDT: All right, so these are Jews writing Gospels saying 'the Jews' were responsible for the death of Christ, who was himself a Jew. DR PAUL BARNETT: Yes. They are saying that indirectly because they understand that it is, in fact, the Roman authority who does it. But they see that Jesus is unacceptable to the powers that be of the moment and he's a problem and so they arrange, by various means, to hand him over to the Romans and the Romans crucify them. JANA WENDT: Dr Berrin, this issue of 'the Jews', there were various groups, various sects can we say, Jewish sects at the time. DR SHANI BERRIN: I want to say absolutely there were various groups. Whether to call them 'sects' implies – and this comes back to the problem of collapsing it into 'the Jews'. My area of specialisation is Dead Sea Scrolls and the Dead Sea Scrolls were written by a certain group of Jews, and in my field when we talk about 'sect' many people objected and said, "Well wait. If you have a sect that means you have the normative church, or a group, and these are the sects that are breaking away from them." Whereas the picture that scholars are getting through the Scrolls and other sources, and from the Gospels re-read through our new lenses, is of much greater diversity. And so there's a definite sense that there were a lot of different 'Judaisms', is the term used by one American scholar and by many of us, and now that there are many different 'Christianities' as well and … JANA WENDT: So, can I clarify this? Are we talking about different Jewish groups at odds with one another, that perhaps those writing the Gospels might have wanted to portray the what – the temple elite – as responsible for Christ's death, because those groups were at odds? DR SHANI BERRIN: I'd almost say perfect. I'd even think I'd have problems with "the temple elite". Because just at this time, shortly after Jesus' crucifixion and death, we have the destruction of the temple and there was such tremendous infighting that happened. The Romans are the ones that destroyed the temple. Jewish tradition say the Jews are to blame in some ways for the destruction of the temple. What does that mean? That they set fire? No, it means that the infighting that was going on was very destructive. And so there were, among the leaders, pharisees, sadducees, zealots, and – well, Christians probably wouldn't have been among the temple elite, but Christians are another one of these groups or, if you will, sects of Jews. JANA WENDT: Okay, Jeremy Jones, it sounds as though our academic friends here are agreeing there were different groupings of Jews and therefore, the biblical reference to 'the Jews' being responsible for Christ's death may not quite be what perhaps some people say Mel Gibson's film is about. What do you know about this film and what it says about Jewish responsibility? JEREMY JONES, AUSTRALIA ISRAEL AND JEWISH AFFAIRS COUNCIL: It's a complicated question because when somebody talks about Pontius Pilate being the single person most responsible, or the Roman regime being responsible, and this being understood by everyone, the historical picture over 2000 years, or close enough to 2000 years, which showed that in the mind of the people listening to the stories you don't hear of incitement against Romans or Italians or even politicians, but you do hear of focus on Jews, wherever they may be. Not the Jews of the time, but whichever Jews various people are instructed in a certain way in The Passion story focused on, people with whom they lived with in many circumstances. And I know within Australia today, in conversations I've had in the past week with people who went through life in Europe in the 1930s, for example, in the 1940s - their starkest memories are the fear for their lives whenever they knew that the story of the Passion was being taught in their local church because people would come out hearing that Jews were responsible for the death of Jesus and therefore there was some sort of legitimation in focusing on this particular group. JANA WENDT: Right, so to be blunt, this issue of Jews seen as 'Christ killers' is a live issue today, as far as you're concerned? JEREMY JONES: It's a very serious issue and I think that's why there's been the concern by Jewish and Christian and other scholars and authorities who have looked at the film, academics who have looked at the film, and have said you can't tell a story like this and remove it from the context of all Christian teaching, and expect it to stand on its own and have the clothes of all of Christian teaching – Christianity being as dynamic as it is and as diverse as it is – and say this is a true story somehow. What we have is an artistic rendering by one person of how they view a certain part of Christian teaching. DR SHANI BERRIN: A very influential person. JANA WENDT: An influential person. I know you've only seen excerpts of this film, but did you form an impression on this specific issue? JEREMY JONES: I couldn't form an impression on the issue of the Jews, I could form an impression on the violence and the confronting nature of the film, and I even went back and checked what I could about the little bits I saw and how closely they would accord to the Gospels themselves and Christian teaching generally, and straightaway, you can see a brutal imagination, for instance, the treatment of Jesus at the hands of the Jewish priests. There's not a lot to suggest hugely violent treatment towards him in the Gospels, as far as I understand. DR PAUL BARNETT: There isn't any. JEREMY JONES: There isn't any. But in the film, you're seeing violence. DR SHANI BERRIN: But there are later traditions about that and certain ... And that's the problem – again, when you have Christianities, I understand that there are later traditions that do have stories about that. DR PAUL BARNETT: They're not traditions, they're not traditions from that era, no. They're much later. DR SHANI BERRIN: No, I'm saying ... When Jews tell stories, Prince of Egypt or any of the Egyptian ones you might think of, will tell stories, will look at the Bible primarily, but then will incorporate other ones and recognise that this is an artistic rendition. And then people see these movies, they don't say, "The Egyptians! Let's go get the Egyptians" now. DR PAUL BARNETT: I think there's no denying that, as you say, that those terrible things happened. However, anti-Semitism predates Christianity, and the Roman sources, like Tacitus, give some window into the significant problems there were between Jewish communities and Graeco-Roman communities. JANA WENDT: So, Dr Barnett, what's your reading, what are you hearing on the tom toms from some of your Anglican colleagues about this film? DR PAUL BARNETT: Happily, for many, many years, very cordial relationships have existed in my circles and Jewish circles and I have many friends – or some friends – in the Jewish community and, you know, we share deeply the concern of our Jewish friends the possibility that this film may be misread from that particular point of view. And we would deplore any kind of return to the unquestioned anti-Semitism that did arise from certain Christian quarters in the past and the not-too-distant past. So we don't want it, we don't want that. That's not true to our faith at all. JANA WENDT: You don't want it. Is it a possible outcome of viewing of this film? DR PAUL BARNETT: Look, there are extreme groups around in various places in the world and it's possible that this movie may spark that. But my general impression is that in 2000 years, to generalise, things have never been so good as they are today, to generalise, between Jews and Christians on the world scene. JANA WENDT: You mean they're good between the churches or they're good at a grassroots level? DR PAUL BARNETT: Well both, I think, yes – but certainly, at the level of official dialogue, relationships between Jews and Christians, I would say, has probably never been so good as it has been the last half-century. JANA WENDT: That sounds like a very positive note on which to leave there. Dr Barnett, Dr Berrin, Dr Jones, thank you much for joining us today. |
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