A look at Mel Gibson's film, the Bible story and the facts.

The Passion of the Mel

I do not doubt the sincerity of  the faith that prompted Mel Gibson's  to make the film "The Passion of The Christ", nor do I doubt that Mr. Gibson was well aware that in the current social climate in the U.S.A. anything with "Christ" in the title would do well at the box office. Throw in charges of anti - Semitism, repetition of the blood libel and a few other controversies and the resulting media circus meant success was guaranteed. Considering his reputation for making free with historical facts it was quite a surprise to learn that old Mad Max had decided to take on a subject as difficult, sensitive and emotionally charged as the crucifixion of Jesus and as a result of this has been named as the most powerful celebrity in the world

In Braveheart, a hugely entertaining film, and we should not forget that films are entertainment and not necessarily intended to be an accurate portrayal of historical events, Gibson chose to present the educated Scottish nobleman William Wallace as some kind of demi - savage and the fine manor house in which he spent his early life as an iron - age village that continued to exist five hundred years after its time. Braveheart meets Brigadoon maybe. The peasants on the Wallace family estates may have lived in wattle and daub huts but William was educated in the classics, theology, French and mathematics, a proper background for a young Scottish gentleman at a time when Scotland had a much more civilised society than England.

Another Gibson historical farrago was Patriot, a story of the American War of Independence in which Wallace (sorry; our hero Mel. One becomes confused.) joins the plucky Americans who rise up against the arrogant and overbearing English oppressor (notice a pattern emerging here?)

Well it was not quite like that of course but historians in the American academic establishment tend to be rather dodgy on this subject so perhaps I should not be too hard on a mere movie star. The war of Independence was not about freedom but about taxes and the British Gentlemen in the American colonies who rebelled against the House of Hanover, the German dynasty that ruled Britain at the time had as their rallying call not " you can take my life but you will never take my freedom," but instead "no taxation without representation." They wanted to be more British not less so.

Benjamin Franklin, who lived principally in England from 1757 to 1775 was, until 1774 campaigning for seats in the British Parliament for the American colonies. When war did break out men who had often been dinner guests at each others' homes found themselves in opposition. Bad things happened as they always do in times of war, their was cruelty, opportunism, exploitation and mendacity on both sides but the Eastern seaboard in 1776 was not the Balkans in 1996. Many of the British officers hated King George as much as the American settlers did, the only difference is that they would one day have to return to families in Britain where the chances of a restoration of the Stuart dynasty were still discussed.

The latest in the catalogue of warped history is Gibson's film about the last hours in the life of Jesus of Nazareth. The story here is taken from an account of the crucifixion given in the Gospel of Matthew. While it is the most entertaining of the five gospels, Matthew is the least historically accurate. ("Wait a minute, did he say five gospels," you ask? Yes I did but the most important and most meaningful one is omitted totally because, written at the time of the events, it is far too politically inconvenient to be included in the lexicon of modern Christianity. There's a link at the bottom of the article)

People who believe the Bible to be literally true in every detail might want to reach for their keyboard and denounce me right now. Why are religionists always so defensive? Is your God so weak or you faith so fragile that it cannot stand up to a few difficult questions. Think about the Gospel of Thomas, it was found among the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1945 and is reputed to be the sayings of Jesus to the Apostles at the last supper, written down by the Apostle Thomas. After its discovery the document was seized by the Vatican (the Roman Catholic Church was all powerful at the time) and has never been made public. Certain priests who have seen it have left the priesthood saying it made nonsense of the last two thousand years.

Still with me? OK, let's carry on. Anyone who has read the New Testament will know the story goes that Jesus was brought before Pilate the prefect (not governor) by the Jewish religious authorities. This simply cannot be true . The Romans had a good, loyal and strong client king (tetrarch or governor) in Herod Antipas who was ruler of Palestine and son of Herod The Great. Roman records show these two to have been fairand tolerant rulers of one of the most prosperous provinces of the Empire. Pontius Pilate was responsible for the administration of the Roman Emperor's business in the province, not the dispensing of justice to petty criminals such as Barrabas and minor rabble rousers which, as far as Rome was concerned, is all Jesus was. If Jesus had offended it was against Jewish religious law and so would have been dealt with by Jewish officials.

The only offence that would have warranted the personal attention of Pilate was sedition, preaching rebellion against the Empire. The gospels, if we do take them as the literal truth, tell us Jesus refused to do this and advised people to respect Rome (render unto Caesar etc.) The Romans made a point of not involving themselves in local religious matters, the case of the Druids in Britain, Western France and North West Spain being an exception, but then Druids were never truly priests so much as guardians of their people's culture and they did frequently incite rebellion.

Setting aside the questions raised so far and assuming the case was brought to Pilate's attention we must consider the ridiculous account of the hand - washing. Once Jesus had been identified as a threat to Roman authority, Rome's representative would have dealt with it. The Empire was always jealous of its authority and to hand Jesus back to the Jews for punishment would have indicated to the seditionists of whom there were many ( Palestine has not changed much in two thousand years) that Rome was weak. No Roman official would ever intentionally permit Rome to be seen as weak. If Pilate had deemed it necessary to deal with the case Pilate would have dealt with the case, it would have been a Roman matter and a Roman matter alone. History tells us Pontius Pilate was a stickler for protocol.

So if it was shown that there was no case to answer in the eyes of Roman law that would have ended the matter and Jesus would have walked free "without a stain on his character" as the saying goes. It is simply not possible that Pilate would have delegated the authority of the Empire to a Jewish religious court, nor even to Herod Antipas himself.

The final point to consider is the crucifixion itself. Could it have actually happened? Again, known history suggests not. It has already been established that Jesus could not have been handed over to the Jewish authorities so the story of the crucifixion is in doubt from the start. But if we examine another scenario based on the knowledge that the true founder of the Christian church was not Jesus himself, nor Peter or any other of the Apostles but the Zionist revolutionary Saul of Tarsus, aka St. Paul.

Saul's politics would have required him to try to discredit Rome in the eyes of early Christians and to implicate the Empire's officials in the murder of the fabled Messiah would be the most effective way. Saul wanted a religious republic akin to the Islamic fundamentalist states of modern times, with God as supreme Head of State and religious law overriding all secular considerations. So the story that was told had Jesus being subjected to a uniquely Roman punishment and thus martyred by the Romans.

Again there is a contradiction here. The Jewish court that the New Testament insists dealt with Jesus could not have ordered a crucifixion, only the Roman courts had the power to do that. The Jews might have had Jesus stoned or whipped for blasphemy but not crucified.

Had the crucifixion taken place there are anomalies. Only really serious criminals died on the cross, if the authorities wanted to teach somebody a lesson or make an example of them it was not a bad punishment by the standards of the time. Friends and relatives were allowed to climb up with water or to apply salve to sunburn; expensive iron nails would not be wasted on a renegade preacher, he would have been tied to the cross, the guards might hang around for a few hours then would get fed up and wander off back to base, not minding if the offenders were cut down. Now a victim of crucifixion would end up with badly damaged shoulders, severe dehydration and first degree burns but that was not so bad as being tied to two chariots and ripped in half as the charioteers whipped their horses forward.

Punishment of criminals was entertainment in those times and in terms of entertainment value crucifixion commanded pretty low ratings. Just as an aside, the Emperor Nero a few years later oversaw the wholesale crucifixion of Christians. Nero was not as bad as he was reported to be; the Christians, agitated by Paul were responsible for rioting, arson, desecration of non - Christian shrines and plotting to overthrow the Empire. They had to be punished and they asked to be crucified, they wanted to die for their religion, (another parallel with modern Islamic fundamentalists?)

Roman lawyers advised Nero that is was unfair to other criminals if Christians were rewarded for their crimes and so he came up with the idea of putting them on the cross, painting their bodies with tar and setting fire to them.

The Romans whatever their faults may have been were great bureaucrats, they documented everything and so we know a lot about the functioning of the Empire. The people of Palestine were warlike, riven by tribal and sectarian rivalries and plagued by religious fanaticism. So whose account should we place more value on?

One thing we do know about Palestinian society under the Romans is that it was not the Jewish fundamentalist community the Bible presents. The majority, secular Jews, Zoroastrians and others had integrated into the Roman colonial culture.

Jesus himself was not a Jew which again casts doubt of the Biblical story of the crucifixion. Joseph, Mary and the rest of the family including the uncle Joseph of Arimathea, a much more important figure in the story than the Bible ever acknowledges, a were members of the Essene cult. There is a lot of mystery surrounding this monastic and ascetic cult and a lot of twaddle has been written about them by people who should know better. The people who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls were Buddhists, or to be more accurate Bramanists. Once this it accepted it throws light on one of the great mysteries in the story of Jesus, what happened in the years between his Bar Mitzvah and the re-emergence in Galilee at the age of around thirty. It seems likely he was a student in an Essene monastery, but that belongs in another article.

Historically there is little to support the account of the crucifixion given in the Gospel of Matthew and even less to give legitimacy to the Gospel of Mel. Mr. Gibson may have a passion for the past but his commitment to rigourous academic research is somewhat less than his commitment to swelling his bank balance.

The great problem all Biblical fundamentalists have is that in insisting on the literal truth of what is written in the Bible they detract from the much more important philosophical and symbolic truths contained in the stories. Did Jesus really die, did he hook up with Mary Magdalene as has been suggested or did he simply return to his monastic existence once his mission was finished. It is not really important what happened, the philosophical truth of the story is that it is necessary to let go of worldly wealth and ambition in order to pursue the greater good of the community.

Jesus came to save us the preachers rant but then they turn their sermons into lies by insisting that the only route to salvation is through constant kissing of God's arse (that shocked a few of you didn't it? Go and read your Bible. Properly, OK.) What Jesus was trying to tell us until his lessons were hijacked by those with a political agenda was, is, that in order to reach a state of grace it is necessary to put aside self interest and connect with our fellows in order to achieve the greatest good of the greatest number. We can all be messiahs (I didn't think of that by myself either) in a small way. Give a kid from a dysfunctional family a chance, cancel your cable TV subscription and sponsor a well in Africa so a whole village can have pure water. Buy some books for a school in India (the pupils there will appreciate it more than British or American kids who are all too brainwashed by the Murdoch - controlled media to give reading a try). And most of all DO NOT PAY MONEY to see Mel Gibson's biased, hate fuelled films. If you are a Christian you will know that the Bible says "beware of false prophets" to which I add "beware of big profits". The two often go hand in hand.