The following review by Drew Lynch appears here by permission of The Sound & Town Report where it first appeared on February 20, 2004. Mr. Lynch is a reporter for The Sound & Town Report and pastor of the Eastgate Church in New Rochelle.

A Review of Mel Gibson’s
“ The Passion of the Christ.”

First, let’s get the movie out of the way. Great acting. Gripping cinematography. Brutal. Artful. True to its sources.

Now, for the real story, since 99% of what’s being written about this movie has little to do with the film itself, anyway.

Does this new work by Mel Gibson – what will in effect surely become the most watched Passion Play production in all human history – unfairly blame the Jewish race for Jesus’ death? Is it anti-Semitic? Certainly not.

Do Jewish people wordwide have new reasons to fear, with the release of Gibson’s, “The Passion of the Christ?” That is a much more difficult question to answer.

History, particularly Jewish history, has proven time and again how deadly it can be to underestimate the human race’s capacity for shockingly evil behavior.

Gentile nations have known their share of suffering, but there is some thing uniquely disturbing in witnessing how the Jewish race has been vilified, harassed, oppressed, persecuted and nearly liquidated in their sojourning through the nations during the millennia of their existence.

We cannot discount out-of-hand the fears, even overwrought fears, of a people who have known such treatment. But neither should we rewrite history-particularly the biblical account of the most important hours of human history – in order to assuage those fears.

The real battle raging over Mel Gibson’s excellent, disturbing, groundbreaking film has less to do with anti-Semitism, than it does anti-Literalism.

“It is as it was,” the Pope is reported to have said after his own private screening at the Vatican. But according to the gaggle of pseudo scholars-for-hire now rushing to the web or into print, or feeding lines to the talking heads on TV – “it isn’t.”

“To take the film’s account of the Passion literally will give most audiences a misleading picture of what probably happened in those epochal hours,” wrote Jon Meachum last week using prose that employed probably the biggest “probably” of his career. Meacham’s piece in Newsweek was occasionally brilliant, though ultimately misleading itself. The article harped, as one example, on Pilate’s well known “inflexible, stubborn, and cruel disposition,” as proof that the Gospel writers’ version of events, showing Pilate resisting the Jewish priests’ demands for Jesus’ death, was mere propaganda, adjusted in the later telling, to make the young evangelists’ message more attractive to potential future Roman converts.

But the Gospels weren’t written to provide a full character profile of the Roman prefect. They are a telescopic view of the essential redemptive moments of that day’s unfolding drama.

Apparently the comment in Matthew 27 <v.18> illuminating Pilate’s awareness that “it was out of envy that the chief priests had handed Jesus over to him,” escaped Meacham’s notice. That Pilate’s general hatred of his subjects could be superceded by: (1) his particular hatred for their leaders, or (2) the effect of his own wife’s remonstrations <v.19> concerning Jesus fate-is apparently also beyond Mr. Meacham’s imagination.

Much of the “criticism” challenging the credibility of Gibson’s scriptural sources which is embroiling the highly charged atmosphere surrounding the theatrical release of his film runs along a similar vein – the setting up of straw men who are easily knocked down. But don’t take my word for it. Go see the movie for yourself. Or better yet, read the book!

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