The Sacrelige of the Christ

[Mojlnir]

Well said Thanateros...Jesus was a Jew! He was not, and in actuallity could not have been a Christian because they did not yet exist. He was, as you correctly pointed out, interested only in changing some of the practices of Judaism and reaching out to those abandoned by the Roman rulers. What we consider today as Christianity (in its entirety) is an evolved sect of Judaism. This evolution, including the editorial work done on the bilical texts occurred in no fewer than 7 stages :

 

49 A.D. Council of Jerusalem

325 A.D. Council of Nicea

381 A.D. First Council of Constantinople

431 A.D. Council of Ephesus

451 A.D. Council of Chalcedon

553 A.D. Second Council of Constantinople

680 A.D. Third Council of Constantinople

787 A.D. Second Council of Nicea

 

During this period of time "Christianity" as we know it today was created by Paul, not by Jesus or his disciples. The original off-shoot sect created by the disciples and centered in Jerusalem and the other group, the Gnostics, were cut out and essentially destroyed by Pauline "mainline" Christianity.

 

Jesus was born into Judaism, lived in Judaism and died in it. He wasn't executed for peoples sins, he was executed because he pissed powerful people off.

[Breton Thief Oriana]

plus "Jesus Christ" wasnt his real name...that is greek, meaning something-or-another, and only what others called him. But, Thats OT. Im not pissed because its anti-semetic, im pissed because its relativly antichristical. is that evan a real word? whatever...Just doesnt matter...I thought it would be fun to sacrelige The Passion.

 

Its obvious jesus didnt die for peoples sins, but thats not what christians think. He didnt rise for their sins either. The second coming is when a messiah will die for people's sins illbeit.

[Ancalagon]

I dislike the premise of 'The Passion' simply because it focuses on the death of Jesus. I think it is wrong to produce a movie about the toture and crucification of Christ, and use that as a tool for people to re-affirm their faith in God, etc.

 

The movie should have focused on his life and teachings, not focusing on his death and torture. That was done in the Dark Ages as an excuse for Anti-Semitism, in my opinion (I am of the agnostic persuasion) the movie isn't really Anti-Semitic[sp] but I think that it guilt-tripped alot of people about the death of Christ. One of my friends made the comment 'It was like I was there...blah blah blah *insert sentence about strengthening one's faith etc. and so on* '

 

I agree with Mojlnir. Jesus just happened to be at the right place at the right time, and was created a martyr in the end. He did piss off people, I cannot recall whom, but because he caused so much trouble he was executed for it. In my opinion his death was just used as a spark to later ignite Catholicism and so on.

[Hogosha Ookami]

okay i cant stand it any more.

 

Jesus dies on teh cross for us. In the old covonent if we did not follow God's law perfectly we were sent to hell, this is unless, you mkae a sacrifice of your best animal. God realized that humans could not live up to this standard so he sent himself as his son, Jesus, to preach to this world and as a sacrifice of his own. He baired the burden of sin for us, all of us. His death on the cross was him taking the sin for all of us. Now, in the new covonent, we must beleive in Jesus christ and let him be the ruler of our lives to get into heaven. Its that simple.

 

So, the death of Jesus is something major. This is why it is called "The passion of the Christ", it was his passion for us, his love for us, that made him do that. He loved us so much that he was torchered and died in the most brutal way to alloww us to go to heaven.

[Ancalagon]

That's wonderful.

 

His death on the cross was him taking the sin for all of us. Now, in the new covonent, we must beleive in Jesus christ and let him be the ruler of our lives to get into heaven. Its that simple.

 

However, that's all in the Bible. Which wasn't ( gasp! ) written when all of this supposedly happened. I think that Jesus was just in the right place at the right time, and that his death was the consequences of his actions (namely, pissing off the wrong people). He was more than likely nothing more than a martyr. Again, you do not realize that he WASN'T christian. As Thanetros stated:

 

When people discuss the necessity for Jesus' life to be examined I think that it would also let people know that originally Jesus practiced Judism. His doctrine sought to fix the steep criteria of the Jewish faith (such as fasting, eating requirements etc.). It blows my mind that people get so caught up in the anti-semetic element when really Christianity is a simplified offshoot of Judism.

 

Which is furthered by Mojlnir:

 

Jesus was a Jew! He was not, and in actuallity could not have been a Christian because they did not yet exist. He was, as you correctly pointed out, interested only in changing some of the practices of Judaism and reaching out to those abandoned by the Roman rulers. What we consider today as Christianity (in its entirety) is an evolved sect of Judaism. This evolution, including the editorial work done on the bilical texts occurred in no fewer than 7 stages :

 

49 A.D. Council of Jerusalem

325 A.D. Council of Nicea

381 A.D. First Council of Constantinople

431 A.D. Council of Ephesus

451 A.D. Council of Chalcedon

553 A.D. Second Council of Constantinople

680 A.D. Third Council of Constantinople

787 A.D. Second Council of Nicea

 

During this period of time "Christianity" as we know it today was created by Paul, not by Jesus or his disciples. The original off-shoot sect created by the disciples and centered in Jerusalem and the other group, the Gnostics, were cut out and essentially destroyed by Pauline "mainline" Christianity.

 

Jesus was born into Judaism, lived in Judaism and died in it. He wasn't executed for peoples sins, he was executed because he pissed powerful people off.

 

Ookami posted

So, the death of Jesus is something major. This is why it is called "The passion of the Christ", it was his passion for us, his love for us, that made him do that. He loved us so much that he was torchered and died in the most brutal way to alloww us to go to heaven.

 

And I understand why it's called 'The Passion'. I think it wrong to focus on the death of someone in order to guilt-trip us into becoming 'good, submissive little Christians'

[Morgoth]

OK, I usually don't post on this board, but this time I can't help it.

 

Which wasn't ( gasp! ) written when all of this supposedly happened.

 

First of all, that's nothing new or kept secret. Of course the Bible wasn't written by Jesus himself, and out of simple reasons not by the people who directly participated in the events - who would want to write down something when the world's end is so close? (Actually, even Jesus expected that the world's end would still take place during his lifetime - obviously, he erred, and only later on people got the idea that what they had been told orally so far might be worth of being written down).

And before anyone thinks he needs to further expand on the word "supposedly", Jesus most definitely existed and was crucified - there's plenty of evidence in both (non-Christian) Roman (e.g. Tacitus) and Jewish (e.g. Flavius Josephus) sources.

Aside from that, it's also no news that Jesus was a Jew and couldn't be a Christian since Christianity did not exist. But I do not see how that relates to the argument.

 

plus "Jesus Christ" wasnt his real name...that is greek, meaning something-or-another, and only what others called him.

 

Not exactly. Jesus is simply the Greek rendering of his actual name Joshua, Christos was a surname given to him later. And that makes plain sense because the New Testament was written in Greek.

 

 

The "critique" brought up by you mainly stems from a plain misconception of Christian belief which you look upon as sufficient to hold lectures on the wrongs of Christianity - if Christianity was as nonsensical as you display it, it would have never been able to become such an important religion (and please not that we are currently talking about the religion Christianity and *not* the institution Church).

 

To clear this up. Christianity is *not* about Jesu death. It is *not* about Jesu life.

It is about Jesu teachings in relation to his life, death *AND* resurrection. If Christianity was only about Jesu death as some of you claim, the New Testament would be a lot thinner, and there would be absolutely no sense behind it.

However, since one of the most important elements of Christianity is his resurrection (which we will celebrate in a week), his death can be understood as an inevitable step towards his final destiny (thus of course not trying to take away the meaning inherent in his crucifixion).

 

"The Passion" is certainly not about "guilt-tripping" people, just as little as anything else related to Jesu death is meant to do something like that. His death receives its meaning from the Christian belief (which has already been outlined before); if you look upon Jesus as a normal human being like you and me, of course there is no point in a movie about his death. But then it is also not your task to judge it or its relevancy.

[Hogosha Ookami]

well there is a lil catch to the idea that Jesus was in the right place in the right time. He filled over 300 profecies that God said he would. Now some could even say that these were written afterwords, but roman history proves other wise. You could also say that this too is a coincidence, but scolars have prooven that for Jesus to have forfilled just 8 of these profecies is a 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000 i did not pull this unmber out of thin air, this is an actual statistic.

[Breton Thief Oriana]

Woah, I did it again...oh, man...

 

we are NOT debating the christian religion, we are debating the sacreligious nature of the movie "The Passion", both to christianity and to others.

 

Furthermore, If the romans killed jesus by burning him at the stake, would fire be holy? yes. If they killed him by drowning, would water be holy (aside from holy water)? yes. If they simply decapated him, would axes be holy? yes. That is the problem, our symbol for worship is a tool of death...we cannot use the weapon that killed christ as a worshiping of him, that makes no sense in itself.

 

I also remember in world history, the creation of the new holy roman empire where constantinople was the capital, they painted crosses on their shields and miraculously won a greatly outnumbered battle. The comanding officer saw in the clouds in latin that "under this sign you will conquer" and also a cross...thats creepy. and its all OT. get back on topic, someboddy!

[Darnoc]

But you forget something, Breton: This is the core of christian teaching. Christianity is about two things: a person and an object. The person is Jesus, the object is the cross on which Jesus was crucified. Read the letter to the Romans and you'll understand, what I mean. At least, this is what Paul says. Now we can go on debating if Paul really said what Jesus meant to say (some say that Paul somehow twisted the orignal message of Jesus). Well, if Paul really said what Jesus meant to say... Paul said in the letter to the Galatians: "Everyone who tells you something else than we have told you, may it be a human being or even an angel from heaven, he shall be damned!" And then he tells the Galatians that they don't have to follow any laws and rules, but only have to believe in Jesus the crucified who has died for their sins etc. etc. etc. You know how it goes on, probably.

 

Now, Mel Gibson just made a film about those two things which are the core of christian believe. I also think that he should have added more about Jesus live (than because of what he said the rulers of the time wanted to kill him; at least they brought the "love your enemies"-sentence in the film which are one of the best words Jesus said and one of the best words ever spoken by any person), but in fact, the film is not at all sacriligious to Christian believe. Only if you are one of those people who think that it is sacriligious to picture Jesus.

 

But don't think now that I completly agree with Gibson. I admire him for being so couragous to make such a film, of course. This doesn't mean that I don't think that he could have done it better. OK, it is called the passion and the passion is about Jesus' death. And this is what he has made a film of. Still I think a film about Jesus whole live would have been better. Also for people who don't know the bible as good as I do, because a lot of things you don't really understand in this film without some good knowlegde of the bible (e.g. when Jesus kills the snake at the beginning, this comes from Genesis where god says that the descendant of Eve will crush the snake). It really helps when you have made some theological studies, when you go watch this film!

[Breton Thief Oriana]

Ok, darnoc, youre right...then its the people who look too deeply into it, who say things like "The passion...not just a movie, a reality" (Maybe a history, but a 'reality'? thats a little fundamentalistic) note that that was on an actual church sign. Ive seen others who would say that its based on a book...which, the bible? no, some other that they named. Well, maybe if they believe all the speculation with the truth, then thats why theyre republicans. They can believe that morals are the most important things, because ethics arent in their vocabulary.

 

But can you understand the way he cheapend it by making it into a movie? there really were a lot of people that got a heart attack from it; I was at the parking lot in fron of our movies to just hang and there was another, called in the paramedics and everything. This isnt just here, its in otherplaces I have contact to that stuff has happened. Maybe their God thinks it IS sacreligious.