Today I saw The Passion of the Christ. It was, at times, moving. I was most taken with how the film portrayed Mary’s witness to the death of her son. On the whole, however, I agree with critics who charge that Pontius Pilate was depicted as reluctant to harm or kill Jesus. It was only the Jewish leaders and their crowds of followers who forced Pilate to crucify Jesus. Not to crucify him would have meant a Jewish rebellion. In Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ it is clearly the Jews who are at fault for Jesus’ death. This film is not an accurate portrayal of the Gospel stories or history.
A note on the violence in the film: it is gratuitous. The New Testament accounts of Jesus’ death are obviously violent. But this is Gibson’s made up version. It is his vision of what occurred. You can tell the star of Lethal Weapon wrote and directed this film.
