Mel Gibson’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">The Passion of the Christ</Emphasis> Seen Through Jewish Eyes

Mel Gibsons The Passion of the Christ has stirred up long simmering tensions between Christian, and Jews. This article, by someone of the Jewish faith who has for many years worked at a Presbyterian seminary, discusses Gibsons morbid—almost pornographic—fascination with violence, Gibsons theology of sin and atonement, and the dangers of Gibsons disparaging and inflammatory portrayal of Jews through the use of despicable stereotypes. Gibsons violence drenched Christianity is contrasted with a more tolerant Christianity rooted in love and justice.     

More Reel than Real: Mel Gibson’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">The Passion of the Christ</Emphasis>

Responses to Mel Gibsons film The Passion of the Christ have run the gamut from high praise to condemnation for excessive violence and antisemitism. Outlining some key observations of the psychology of antisemitism, this article explores how Gibsons film may or may not be antisemitic. It further explores whether Gibsons cinematic technique guides the viewer to a specific understanding of Jesus crucifixion and its meaning, drawing on theories of meaning-making and interpretation proposed by Umberto Eco and Norman Holland and René Girards theory of sacrificial violence and the scapegoat.D. Andrew Kille is director of Revdak Consulting and InterfaithSpace and co-chair of the Psychology and Biblical Studies Section of the Society of Biblical Literature.     

A Post-9/11 <Emphasis Type="Italic">Passion</Emphasis>: Review of Mel Gibson’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">The Passion of the Christ</Emphasis>

Gibsons film extends a long tradition of Euro-American passion plays and martyr dramas, related also to the ritual sacrifice of god-actors in other cultures. Yet, the extreme violence of this popular religious movie involves the devotional dangers of cinematic sadomasochism and melodramatic paranoia, with Jews, Romans, and devils as villainous stereotypes–as well as the potential value of tragic catharsis–on a vast scale for todays mass-media audience, especially in the post-9/11 context.Mark Pizzato is Associate Professor of Theatre at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. His publications include Edges of Loss: From Modern Drama to Postmodern Theory (Michigan, 1998) and Theatres of Human Sacrifice: From Ancient Ritual to Screen Violence (SUNY, 2004).     

Where is the History in Mel Gibson’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">The Passion of the Christ</Emphasis>?

Mel Gibson’s repeated claim for the accuracy of his powerful and popular film, The Passion of the Christ, inevitably raises the question: Where’s the history here? A close analysis leads to these conclusions: Gibson provides no context for understanding the brutality suffered by Jesus in this film, why anyone hated him or followed him. Gibson relies on medieval speculations and 19th century visions for most of the plot and many of the scenes. He whitewashes the Roman prefect Pontius Pilate and presents Pilate’s wife as a crypto-follower of Jesus. He demonizes most of the Jewish leaders, especially the high priest Caiaphas, makes Mary, Jesus’ mother, the unhistorical focus of very many scenes, and ignores the historical Jesus’ critical actions, prophetic social critique, and profound concern for the poor and marginal.     

A Semiotic Comparison Between Mel Gibson’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">The Passion of the Christ</Emphasis> and Pier Paolo Pasolini’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">The Gospel According to Saint Matthew</Emphasis>

The purpose of this article is to draw a comparison between Mel Gibsons and Pier Paolo Pasolinis filmic representations of the Passion of Jesus through semiotic instruments of analysis.University of Siena (Italy) and, in 2004, Fulbright Visiting Scholar at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley (USA)     

“Anticipating” Gibson’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">The Passion of the Christ</Emphasis>: The controversy over Cecil B. De Mille’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">The King of Kings</Emphasis>

Cecil. B. De. Milles epic production The King of Kings (1927), though not the first to recreate a Passion Play, raised first a quiet and then a more public Jewish outcry, which lead to rancor and, eventually, changes, if minor, in the film. The Anti-Defamation League also reached an agreement with the Motion Picture Producers Association allowing it to preview potentially problematic films. Jews were especially outraged at De Milles pernicious portrayal of Caiaphas, but saw the film in its entirety as arousing anti-Semitism. De Mille himself felt misunderstood. By contrast, Mel Gibsons, The Passion of the Christ (2004), which uses cinema realite to create a sense of horror, evoked an immediate public uproar, although with no concessions on Gibsons part. Following the story of reactions to The King of Kings compared to reactions to The Passion of the Christ provides important perspective on the evolving Jewish self image in the United States between 1927 and today.     

Mel Gibson’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">Passion</Emphasis> and the Many Uses of Christ’s Suffering

Many Christians resonated with Mel Gibsons film, The Passion of the Christ. The films sympathetic portrayal of Pontius Pilate reinforces the sense of victimization Americans have experienced since 9/11, however, and obscures the real meaning of Christs suffering.Marian Ronan is Assistant Professor of Contemporary Theology and Religion at the American Baptist Seminary of the West, a member seminary of the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA.     

The Role of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Umwelt</Emphasis> in Husserl’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">Aufbau</Emphasis> and <Emphasis Type="Italic">Abbau</Emphasis> of the <Emphasis Type="Italic">Natur/Geist</Emphasis> Distinction

In this essay I argue that Husserl’s development of the nineteenth century Natur/Geist distinction is grounded in the intentional correlate between the pre-theoretical natural attitude and environing world (Umwelt). By reconsidering the Natur/Geist distinction through its historical context in the nineteenth century debate between Wilhelm Dilthey and the Neo-Kantians from the Baden or Southwest school, it is possible to understand more clearly Husserl’s appropriations and novel contributions. One of Husserl’s contributions lies in his rigorous thematization and clarification of the constitutive features proper to the natural and human sciences as they arise from the pre-theoretical experience of an environing world. This ordinary lived experience between the lived body and environing world is presupposed by and forms a unity with both Natur and Geist, thereby acting as the unified ground that is inclusive of naturalized Geist and a geistig nature. This unbuilding (Abbau) of the Natur/Geist distinction is necessary, according to Husserl, for the radical clarification of the respective methodologies of the natural and human sciences.     

Advertising <Emphasis Type="Italic">Fantasy</Emphasis>: Consuming Passion -‘Consumed’ <Emphasis Type="Italic">Desire</Emphasis>

Advertisements (n = 400) published in Bengali periodicals in four different time periods, 1947–48, 1971–72, 1991–92 & 2008–09 drawn following a multistage sampling were analyzed to see the pattern of change in concepts associated with products. They included four categories of products/ services : Jewellery, cosmetics, garments and banking. The analysis of advertisements indicated that diverse values are associated with products that have social and cultural connotations. Through such value addition, as if consumption of these commodities provides the consumer with an opportunity to construct, maintain and communicate identity and social meanings. However, the consumer emerged not as a passive victim, but an active agent in the construction of meaning.     

Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology in the light of Kant’s Third <Emphasis Type="Italic">Critique</Emphasis> and Schelling’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">Real</Emphasis>-<Emphasis Type="Italic">Idealismus</Emphasis>

In this paper I offer a selective, systematic rather than historical account of Merleau-Ponty’s highly complex relation to classical German philosophy, focussing on issues which bear on the question of his relation to transcendentalism and naturalism. I argue that the concerns which define his project in Phenomenology of Perception are fundamentally those of transcendental philosophy, and that Merleau-Ponty’s disagreements with Kant, and the position he arrives at in The Visible and the Invisible, are helpfully viewed in light of (1) issues which Merleau-Ponty identifies as raised by Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgement, and (2) Schelling’s conversion of Kantian idealism into a Real-Idealismus. Finally I address the question of whether, and on what basis, Merleau-Ponty’s claim to have surpassed systematic philosophy can be defended.     

Frege’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">Begriffsschrift</Emphasis> as a <Emphasis Type="Italic">lingua characteristica</Emphasis>

In this paper I suggest an answer to the question of what Frege means when he says that his logical system, the Begriffsschrift, is like the language Leibniz sketched, a lingua characteristica, and not merely a logical calculus. According to the nineteenth century studies, Leibniz’s lingua characteristica was supposed to be a language with which the truths of science and the constitution of its concepts could be accurately expressed. I argue that this is exactly what the Begriffsschrift is: it is a language, since, unlike calculi, its sentential expressions express truths, and it is a characteristic language, since the meaning of its complex expressions depend only on the meanings of their constituents and on the way they are put together. In fact it is in itself already a science composed in accordance with the Classical Model of Science. What makes the Begriffsschrift so special is that Frege is able to accomplish these goals with using only grammatical or syncategorematic terms and so has a medium with which he can try to show analyticity of the theorems of arithmetic.     

The Flexibility of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Gua</Emphasis> and <Emphasis Type="Italic">Yao</Emphasis>—Based on an interpretation of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Yizhuan</Emphasis>

In Yizhuan’s interpretation of The Book of Changes, the book’s fundamental concepts, xiang 象 (images) and ci 辞 (words), play different roles. Concepts, including yin and yang, firmness and gentleness, sancai 三才 (three fundamentals), and the wuxing 五行 (five active elements), are used to interpret The Book of Changes through the interpretation of images, while the core Confucian values, such as benevolence and righteousness, are used to interpret The Book of Changes because of their connection with words of gua and yao. In order to expand the meaning of the words of gua and yao, Yizhuan sometimes connects words with images; in other occasions, however, it simply takes these words as independent guides. The Confucian scholars who wrote Yizhuan, therefore, not only revered the classic, but also used it to send their own message. Out of reverence, they “shu 述 (recited)”; in using it, they “zuo 作 (created)”. The combination of recitation and creation made the words of gua and yao very flexible in the process of interpretation, while the interpretation changed the meaning of the classic to a great extent.     

The Concept of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Krisis</Emphasis> in Husserl’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">The Crisis of the European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology</Emphasis>

In The Crisis of the European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, Husserl argues that the only way to respond to the scientific Krisis of which he speaks is with phenomenological reflections on the history, method, and task of philosophy. On the assumption that an accurate diagnosis of a malady is a necessary condition for an effective remedy, this paper aims to formulate a precise concept of the Krisis of the European sciences with which Husserl operates in this work. Thus it seeks an answer to the question: What exactly, according to Husserl, is “the ‘crisis’ [Krisis] of the European sciences”? There are two different tendencies in the literature on this question. According to the traditional interpretation, the Krisis of the European sciences lies not in the inadequacy of their scientificity but in the loss of their meaningfulness for life. According to an innovative suggestion, the Krisis lies not in the loss of their meaningfulness for life but in the inadequacy of their scientificity. These readings are mutually exclusive because each claims that the other misidentifies the Krisis as something that it is not. The argument of this paper, however, is that, given the many different senses of Krisis in The Crisis, an adequate understanding of the Krisis that Husserl identifies requires not a disjunctive but an inclusive approach. Therefore the paper proposes that Husserl’s Krisis of the European sciences is both a crisis of their scientificity and a crisis of their meaningfulness for life. The relevance of this result to Husserl’s philosophical and historical sense-investigations in The Crisis—as well as to the present critical situation of philosophy—is self-evident.     

Efficient estimation of Weber’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">W</Emphasis>

Many studies rely on estimation of Weber ratios (W) in order to quantify the acuity an individual’s approximate number system. This paper discusses several problems encountered in estimating W using the standard methods, most notably low power and inefficiency. Through simulation, this work shows that W can best be estimated in a Bayesian framework that uses an inverse (1/W) prior. This beneficially balances a bias/variance trade-off and, when used with MAP estimation is extremely simple to implement. Use of this scheme substantially improves statistical power in examining correlates of W.     

Judith Jarvis Thomson’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">Normativity</Emphasis>

Response-dependence theses are usually formulated in terms of a priori true biconditionals of roughly the form ‘something, x, falls under the concept ‘F’ ↔ x would elicit response R from subjects S under conditions C’. Such formulations are vulnerable to conditional fallacy problems; counterexamples threaten whenever the C-conditions’ coming to obtain might alter the object with respect to F. Crispin Wright has suggested that such problems can be avoided by placing the C-conditions in a proviso. This ensures that any changes triggered by the C-conditions’ coming to obtain will be irrelevant to the truth of the biconditional. I argue that this move leaves the equations vulnerable to counterexamples of a slightly different kind: Cases where the change is triggered, not by the C-conditions’ coming to obtain, but by the response. I consider two ways to resist these counterexamples, and argue that both are insufficient. The upshot is a challenge that must be met if provisoed biconditionals are to serve their purpose.