The Passion Q&A

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The Passion Q&A

Trevor Peterson

2004

1 Believers

Question: Should non-Christians see the movie? Should Jews see themovie? Should Muslims see the movie?

Answer: The answer to all three questions is both yes and no. Theyprobably wont get much out of the movie without someone to talk to. ForChristians, the background of already knowing the gist of how and why Jesusdied, of already attaching significance to that event, can make watching themovie a powerful experience. For someone without this background, theviolence can seem bewildering. If someone asks you whether they should seethe movie, the best response is probably to offer to go with them. Preparethem a bit for what they can expect to see, so theyre not caught off guard.

Try to build in time to talk about it afterward. They will probably havequestions.

Question: What unique issues will Jews have with the movie?

Answer: There has been a lot of talk about anti-Semitism in the movie,and they will likely have heard at least some of it. Chances are pretty goodthat they will at least be curious about this aspect. More specifically, theymay want to talk about who was responsible for Jesuss death and negativeaspects of the portrayal of Jews in the movie. They may also want to talkabout whether Jesus was God and whether he was the Messiah. In the

Jewish understanding, the Messiah cannot die without fulfilling prophecy.Everyone who has been thought to be the Messiah in life has been rejectedafter death. The radical difference with Christianity is that we teach theMessiah could die before fulfilling his complete mission, rise from the dead,

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and come back later to finish the rest. Jews also consider it idolatry to

worship a man as God.

Question: What unique issues will Muslims have with the movie?

Answer: The Quran teaches that Jesus was not really beaten or crucified.Needless to say, Muslims will generally view the movie as basically untrue.They may ask about why Christianity teaches that Jesus was crucified orthat he is God.

Question: When did it become OK for Christians to go see R-rated movies?

Answer: There is some potential for hypocrisy in the way Christians haveapproached this movie. I think the notice I saw posted at the theater boxoffice is a good one, that parents ought to think seriously before bringingtheir children to see it. To whatever extent it is a bad idea for some peopleto be watching that much violence, this applies as much to Gibsons currentmovie as to any others he has made. On the other hand, some of it dependson your principles. If the point of shielding children and other sensitivepeople from violence in most movies is that such depictions are unneces-sary, one could argue that contemplating Christs suffering and death is acompletely different matter, where the violence is important to see. I thinkthe bottom line on the matter is that we need to take a more nuanced ap-

proach to standards for viewing. Simply saying, Christians shouldnt watchR-rated movies, is probably not the best approach to things. If a personhonestly has convictions about watching any violence or sexuality to thatdegree, then presumably it would extend to not watching this movie either,in which case a blanket ban is probably OK. But in general, I think mostpeoples reasons for avoiding R-rated movies are more specific, which is whythey do not object in this case. Personally, I think thats the better way togo.

Question: How should I respond to the movie as a believer?

Answer: I think the way the movie is set up, it will speak most directlyand profoundly to those who are already believers. This is not to say thatit cannot produce desirable results in others, but it presumes quite a bit ofbackground that most believers will have, but most others will not. The

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question is, why should we contemplate the death of Jesus in such excruci-

ating detail? Some general answers are that it helps us appreciate the depthof his suffering on our behalf and the love he displayed by submitting toit; that it causes us to focus on the consequence of our sin, and renews ourappreciation that we did not have to bear that consequence ourselves; thatit shows us his perfection as our high priest, since he himself has enduredall suffering that can be endured; that it reminds us of Gods sovereignty bywhich he overturned the cycle of sin and death.

2 Both

Question: How did the movie make you feel?

Answer: Obviously, this is something we cannot answer for anyone else.It will be a good opportunity for seekers to get some general insight into theminds of believers, and vice versa.

Question: Who killed Jesus?

Answer: This is a question thats particularly poignant for Jews, sincethey have long been labeled Christ-killers as a prelude to anti-Semitic activ-ity. A person who sees the movie without any awareness of these historicalissues will probably come away assuming that the Romans performed the

crucifixion, but at the request of the Jews and may not feel like anythingmore needs to be said about the issue. But it is a question that can be diffi-cult to answer. To answer matter-of-factly that the Jews did it is to distortthe picture. A fairly common response is that we all killed him, or sinnerskilled him. These answers are true in a very real sense, but they are alsosomewhat superficial. In the most direct sense of the term, Jesus was killedas penalty for a criminal act. In this respect, he was like any other executedcriminal. Who kills a person sentenced to death today? Well, someone hasto throw the switch or push the plunger. That person kills the individual,but only as an agent of some other entity. A judge hands down the sen-tence, but even the judge is a representative of the governing authority. In

a democracy, we can make the argument that the judge sentences on behalfof the people. On the other hand, a criminal charge is stated in terms ofthe people vs. the accused; so there is some benefit to thinking of thejudge and jury as distinct from the accuser. In Jewish law, witnesses arekey to the conviction process, and it is generally the case that the witnesses

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initiate the execution. Even though Jesus had to be sentenced in a Roman

court, because the Jews could not hand down their own death sentence, itis still important to recognize the role of the witnesses as responsible for thedeath of the accused.

All of this complexity makes it hard enough to establish precisely whokilled Jesus from a legal standpoint. To complicate matters further, Chris-tian theology attaches to his death a special significance. He was not merelya victim of conspiracy or a corrupt judicial process. He was handed over todeath by God himself, as a sacrifice for human sin. In this sense, God is alsoresponsible for his death, and so is every sinner for whom his death paid. Ifit werent for our sin, he would never have been in this situation to beginwith. So we created the scenario in which he would die, even though we did

not consciously choose his death as the means of payment. That was Godsdecision, and that makes him responsible as well for the death of Jesus. Allof this is important to consider when the question is raised. And the othermatter to contemplate is that, regardless of who is held responsible, if webenefit from his death, then to that extent, it was a good thing for us. Whatright, then, do we have to retaliate against anyone as his killers?

Question: Whats up with the languages?

Answer: Needless to say, the Romans and Jews of the first century wouldnot have spoken Modern English. The language issue is actually a sticky

one, since we never have any actual evidence of spoken languages from thedistant past. What we have are written texts, sporadically preserved andgenerally uncooperative for providing a coherent picture. Several languagesare attested textually from the region and period of the movie, but only twowere selected for use in the movie: Latin and Aramaic. Aramaic was thelanguage of the Arameansneighbors to the north of Palestine, where themovie is set. Centuries before the time of Jesus, the Persian Empire bor-rowed Aramaic as its official language, and the influence was strong enoughthat writings emulating that standard persist until well after his time. Af-ter the Persians were overthrown by the Greeks, however, Aramaic sufferedsome decline in favor of Greek as the language of international communi-cation. Aramaic continued in wide use, both in written and spoken forms,

the latter of which fragmented into regional dialects, which eventually sup-planted the written standard in literature. Of these regional dialects, theSyriac dialect in particular gained wide usage east of the Mediterannean,and penetrated as far east as China, dominating much of the Middle East

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until Arabic became the new standard with the Islamic conquest. It is

widely accepted that Aramaic was spoken by many Palestinian Jews at thetime of Jesus and particularly was probably the dominant spoken languagein Galilee, where Jesus was said to have grown up. There is more heateddebate surrounding the question of whether Hebrew functioned as a livinglanguage at this time, particularly in Judea, if anywhere. (Judea is theprovince in which we find Jerusalem, where the movie takes place.)

Also debatable is the use of Latin in this part of the world. When theRoman empire conquered the Greek, it adopted much of Greek language andculture as its own. Since Greek was already widely understood throughoutthe empire, it could be put to use for international communication ratherthan implementing a new standard. Latin would probably have been used for

official documents, and it may have been spoken between Roman soldiers(those who knew it, anyway), but scholars generally favor Greek as thelanguage of communication in these eastern provinces. Gibsons choice ofLatin was likely influenced by its importance to the Catholic Church and hasbeen widely criticized by those concerned with this sort of thing. (Indeed,the Latin in the movie is pronounced more like Church Latin than it islikely to have been pronounced at this time.) Because Greek is absent fromthe movie, he has the Romans speaking Aramaic whenever they need tocommunicate with the Jews. The exception is when Pilate begins speakingwith Jesus, and Jesus responds in Latin. From that point on, every exchangebetween the two is in Latin. Presumably the idea here is that Jesus, as Godhimself, could speak any language he chose.

Question: Why is the movie so violent?

Answer: The obvious part of the answer is, because Mel Gibson madeit. Most people expected a certain amount of violence because of what theyknew of him as a filmmaker. Both Braveheart and The Patriot were ground-breakers in thier use of graphic violence to tell a story. Gibson has alwaysbeen drawn to tell stories that help us to understand the sacrifices that havebeen made in the generations who have gone before us which allow us to-day to enjoy certain freedoms. He has intentionally used realistic violence tohelp todays audiences better understand the tremendous sacrifces those who

have gone before have made. Doing the Passion is a natural progression inhis moviemaking. Perhaps more importantly, Gibsons Catholic backgroundpredisposes him to contemplate the suffering of Jesus at his trial and execu-tion. It is a noteworthy distinction that, whereas Catholics regularly use the

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symbol of the crucifix, with Jesus hanging on the cross, Protestant crosses

are often empty. Generally speaking, the Protestant focus is more on theresurrection; the death is something of a prelude to this important event.Where Protestants think about the death of Jesus, it is with a view towardwhat that death accomplished as payment for our sin. That the death in-volved suffering is understood, but not regularly dwelt upon. Gibson washeavily inspired by the written accounts of visions seen by an 18th-c. nun,Anne-Catherine Emmerich. According to Catholic sources, she was afflictedwith stigmatamarks of the crucifixion, including wounds in the hands andfeetand many of her visions were of Jesuss sufferings. Contemplation ofhis suffering can help us identify with the depth of the price he paid for oursin.

Question: Specifically, why is there so much whipping? The Gospels dontseem to indicate that it was so severe?

Answer: Some of this may be artistic license or based on other concep-tions of what happened. Some of it may also come from what we do knowabout Roman beatings. It was possible to beat a person to death, and theRomans had no restriction (as did the Jews) on the number of blows in-volved. We often think of Jesus as having received 39 lashes, which was theJewish standard. But since the Romans administered the beating, we reallydont know. If Pilate was hoping to satisfy the crowds desire for blood by

beating Jesus instead of crucifying him, it was probably pretty bad. Theuse of two different methods in the movie provides an opportunity to seewhat instruments were at the Romans disposal. Because we dont knowwhat method was used on Jesus, Gibson seems to have offered both likelyoptionsrods and the spiked whip. The severity of the beating in the movieis also clearly an expression of the emotion of the guards. They went beyondwhat Pilate commanded, so here we get some insight into their own feelingstoward Jesus.

Question: Why did Jesus have to die for our sins?

Answer: There is a lot to consider in answer to this issue, but for ourpurposes it is probably best to restrict ourselves to a few key passages. Heb9 sets up an analogy between Jesus as our high priest and the high priestunder the old system. Whereas the latter would bring the blood of animalsinto the earthly temple each year on the Day of Atonement, Jesus brought

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his own blood once for all into the heavenly sanctuary. The idea is that

God required bloody sacrifices before the death of Jesus as a temporaryand imperfect measure to cleanse things physically, but something morepermanent was eventually necessary to cleanse us spiritually. The key ideain this passage is v. 22forgiveness comes only with the shedding of blood.Why? If we go back to look at the Torah, we see in Lev 17:1014 that eatingblood is a capital offense; blood is to be reserved for use in atonement onthe altar, because it contains the life-force. This is the significance of blood.Shedding blood produces death; its only payment is to shed the blood of theoffender. This is probably part of the reason that Abels sacrifice from theflock was accepted, while Cains from the field was rejected. So going all theway back to the beginning (and probably also in the need to slay animals

to provide Adam and Eve with skins to wear), shedding of blood was a wayto pay for sin with the life-force. When it is animals slain for humans, thiscan only be a partial fix. To undo the damage inflicted on all humanity andthe whole world by Adams sin, one human had to die as a sinless offering.Jesuss blood was the only thing that could ever cleanse us spiritually andmake us acceptable before God.

Question: What does the death of Jesus mean for me?

Answer: To a certain extent, this question must be answered by eachperson as an individual. In Christian teaching, his death stands in place of

our own suffering and death to pay for our sins. He himself was sinless andhad done nothing to deserve death for his own sake, which enabled him todie on behalf of others. By dying the lowest possible death, as a condemnedcriminal sentenced to execution by a means declared in Scripture to be acurse (hanging on a tree), it was assured that he bore the supreme physicalpenaltyenough to cover any level of sin. In addition, his cry of forsakennesson the cross suggests that he also experienced spiritual abandonment byGod the Father. So when he became accursed for our sake, he not onlydied physically, but he experienced the same separation from God that isthe primary cause of torment in the afterlife for those who pay for their ownsins. Because his death was for us, his resurrection is also for us; just as itshows that death could not hold him, it also shows that we will ultimately

have victory over death with him. The good news of Jesus is primarily aboutthis death and resurrection, because it is the message of our deliverance. Allthat is required of us is to trust in the price he paid and accept the gift heoffers of freedom from the penalty of our own sin.

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3 Seekers

Question: Did everything thats in the movie really happen?

Answer: Its important to realize that anything like a movie will blendfact with fiction (assuming it has some fact). Its impossible to come up witha complete portrayal without some sort of interpretation on what happened.Additionally, as already mentioned, Gibson followed Emmerich in filling insome of the gaps. Even devout Catholics will admit that her visions arenot factthey are impressions and reflections on Jesuss death. To theextent that Gibson follows her writings, he is following one persons vision ofwhat happened. Gibson also draws on traditional elements like the stationsof the cross and classic artistic portrayals of the passion. There may besome truth to these elements, but their development is shadowy and oftenmuch later than the events involved. Finally, there are elements of themovie that follow Gibsons own vision as a filmmaker. We must thereforebe careful in our perception of the movie as it relates to the actual events.These extra elements that appear in the movie may have varying degreesof authenticity, but in general we should take them for what they aresomeones impression of what happened or might have happened. Theymay be helpful for visualizing the events, but we are free to disagree withor abandon them.

Question: How do we know what happened?

Answer: We know what happened the same way that we know anythingelse happens. If we werent present ourselves to see it, we rely on otherforms of evidence. We appeal to the accounts of those who were there andto material remains that provide some information about the event. In thecase of Jesuss death and resurrection, there is very little in the way ofmaterial remains to help us out. We can confirm that crucifixions were acommon means of execution under Roman rule and learn something abouthow they worked. But since the fundamental point of the Christian messageis that Jesus rose from the dead, we cannot expect to find his body. Someattention has been given to locating his tomb, but in all likelihood it was

so much like other tombs that it is lost to us. This leaves us primarily withwritten accounts of what happened. Our most informative sources are thewritings of the New Testament. A few other statements by historians ofthe period make brief mention of Jesus. They establish little more for our

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purposes than that he was put to death and believed by many to have been

raised.

Question: How do we know we can trust the Gospels account?

Answer: Since this leaves the Gospels as our primary source of informa-tion about Jesuss death and resurrection, we have to address the questionof how reliable they are.

Question: What was Jesuss crime?

Answer: There are two somewhat vague charges involved. That most

decisive for the Jews is blasphemy, that most significant to the Romans issedition. Both relate to Jesuss claims about himself. The Jews perceivedthat he claimed to be equal with God, which for them was a crime punish-able by death (assuming that the person making the claim was not in factGod, which they seem to assume by virtue of the fact that he is a man).His messianic claim could easily be construed as rebellious against Rome,since the messiah was supposed to be a political deliverer, who would restorenational sovereignty to Israel. There were several messianic movements atand around the same time, some of which ended in militant uprising andcrushing response by the Romans. Regardless of the specific teachings in-volved, a messianic movement would have been perceived by the Romans as

a political threat.What the movie generally lacks is a clear presentation of these threats.

Jesus never advocated militant revolt. (His reference to taking swords seemsto have been for a very brief period of time, for a very specific purpose, sincea few hours later he rebukes Peter for using his.) But as has often been thecase throughout history, his relatively nonviolent statements could have beenperceived by others as cause for uprising. Although he never used physicalviolence against another person, his actions of clearing the temple wouldhave appeared as a huge threat to the priests. The Pharisees probablydidnt think much of him either for his vocal opposition to their halakha(ethical teachings) and his frequent use of them as examples of hypocrisy.It is important to realize that there was a careful calculation in the Jewishleaders actions to get rid of Jesus. John indicates that their concern waswith the ramifications if too many followed him and the Romans retaliated(11:48). In the same discussion, Caiaphas is said to have pronounced theneed for one man to die so that the whole nation could be saved (vv. 4952).

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Their genuine disagreement with his teaching and dislike for his ministry

should not be downplayed, but in seeking to have him killed, they wereweighing the consequences of inaction for the whole nation. We can faulttheir disbelief (cautiously, for how much better are we?), but their actionswere motivated at least in part by genuine concern for their people.

Question: Why did Jesus refer to God forsaking him?

Answer: This utterance seems to be taken from Ps 22:1 (v. 2 in Hebrew). The psalm sets its speaker in a dangerous place, where he feels abandonedand hopeless, like God is not paying any attention to his plight. As thesong progresses, however, he recognizes that God always does deliver, and

he looks forward to the time when he can tell others how God has been therefor him. It is an honest song, about the feelings we experience when we arein the midst of trouble, and God does not seem concerned with our fate. It isalso a hopeful song, grounded in the past track record that shows God to befaithful. There are times when the a speaker or writer in the NT cites a briefexcerpt from an OT passage on the understanding that the audience willrecognize the context from which it is taken and remember what else is saidthere. In this respect, it may be that Jesus is expressing his present anguishand implying that God will come through in the end. On the other hand, weshould not downplay his very real feeling at this moment of abandonment byGod. Elsewhere, Scripture tells us that in his death Jesus bore the sins of the

world. Theologians have speculated that at this moment on the cross, oursins have come upon him, and he is spiritually estranged from the Father.For the first and only time in history, a division has come between these twopersons of the Trinity, and he feels this separation more deeply than anywords can express.

To take the matter a bit further, it has been said that at the cross Godhimself died in the person of Jesus. Spiritually speaking, it is the mosthopeless moment the world has ever known. It represents the death of allreligion, all faith, all hope, in which the only suitable words are heard fromJesus himself. This was not the death of a martyr, for a martyr dies fora cause that will go on without him, with hope in the ultimate triumphof right and his own reward in heaven. His death is a testimony to the

message he proclaimed in life. But Jesus dies forsaken by God, which forsomeone who proclaimed himself as the Son of God and taught people theway to obey God means a total failure. And by any standard that we knowhow to measure, in that moment, it was a failure. What makes Christianity

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so profound is that he was raised from the dead, with a message of new

hopehope not founded on anything known before, but on the triumph ofGod himself over death. (Incidentally, this is also what makes Jesus as theMessiah completely unacceptable to Judaism. It could be no other way,because even the religion started by God himself at Sinai must fail to graspthe answer.) In this hope, the darkest despair, the worst torment, the endof most finality is rendered utterly powerless. The world has been turned onits head because end has become beginning and despair turned to hope. IfJesus had not experienced this god-forsakenness on the cross, the solutionwould have been incomplete.

Question: Can I really believe the message of Jesuss death? If so, what

do I need to do about it?

Answer: This is the sort of question that well need to prompt from seek-ers. They might be thinking it internally, but they probably wont come outand ask it. From our standpoint, the answer to the first part is provisionallyaffirmative. They can believe it in the sense that such a thing is generallypossible, but whether they as individuals are in a place to receive it at thistime is a question only they can answer. The second part is where we canprovide more help. I assume none of us needs the answer spelled out inadvance.

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The Passion Q&A

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