In her biography, Emmerich described one vision of an 'old Jewess Meyr' who admitted 'that Jews in our country and elsewhere strangled Christian children and used their blood for all sorts of suspicious and diabolical practices.' This woman was obviously a blatant anti-Semite who conveniently forgets that her Lord and His Mother were Jews, yet Gibson can't understand why there is such a furore about him using her text as a major influence on his film: 'Why are they calling her a Nazi? Because modern secular Judaism wants to blame the Holocaust on the Catholic Church. And it’s revisionism. And they’ve been working on that one for a while'.10 I don't know if Gibson is aware of Sr. Emmerich's belief that Jews murdered children for their blood (although similar sinister Jewish acts are briefly referred to in The Dolorous Passion) but his statement suggests that he believes, as does his father, that there is some kind of Jewish conspiracy.
Various Jewish groups urged Gibson to omit the 'blood curse' from the film although Gibson was reluctant. 'I wanted it in…My brother said I was wimping out if I didn’t include it. It happened; it was said. But, man, if I included that in there, they’d be coming after me at my house, they’d come kill me.'11 In fact Gibson, rather disingenuously it must be said, left the offending quote in the film: it is spoken in Aramaic, although not translated in the subtitles. I wonder if some non-English speaking countries will leave the offending line in their subtitles.
Any attempts to place the Gospels in a historical context are rejected.While nobody can give exact dates of when the four Gospels were written,Biblical scholars believe that Mark was completed around 60 AD; Matthew andLuke between 60-70 AD and John between 90-120 AD12. This was a time when the Romans werepersecuting Jews and Christians alike, so it is unsurprising that theevangelists weren't keen to depict the Romans in a bad light – theconsequences would have been severe. Interpretations like this are,according to Gibson, 'revisionist bullshit'.13 This is not an uncommonview among the Christian community, particularly in America whereCreationism is still taught in some schools with the blessing of PresidentBush.
Gibson's faith is his own business, but the fact remains that he was in a very powerful position when it came to the retelling of Christ's death. The story of the Passion has led to centuries of anti-Semitism, from the Crusades, to the Inquisition and the Holocaust. While Gibson obviously couldn't possibly be expected to make up for 2,000 years of Jew-hating, he could have ensured that the present generation don't make the same mistake as previous generations. He didn't. As a result, American far-right groups are delighted with The Passion, many are distributing anti-Jewish flyers outside cinemas and organisations such as the ADL and the Simon Wiesenthal Center have reported an increase in hate mail. Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center recently commented: 'Are there any manifestations of hate so far? The answer is an unequivocal yes. We have had hate mail in the past … but never in spurts like this.'14 If Gibson really did have friends whose parents had numbers on their arms, which I doubt very much, I wonder how many of them are still his friends now?
Notes
1. Anti Defamation League
2. Vatican Archives
3. Anti Defamation League
4. Totally Jewish – news story
5. Guardian news story
6. Annanova news story
7. Livius.Org articles on ancient history
8. Simon Weisenthal Centre and Jewish history – Questions and Answers
9. A full copy of The Dolorous Passions Of Our Lord Jesus Christ can be found at A full copy of The Dolorous Passions Of Our Lord Jesus Christ can be found here
10. Anti Defamation League
11. Ibid.
12. The Bible and Interpretation and Church History Timeline Index
13. Anti Defamation League
14. BBC news