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Who Killed Jesus?

Continued Pages 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
Page 3 of 4

Newsweek

As the day dawns, Jesus is taken to Pilate, and it is
here that Gibson slips farthest from history. Pilate is presented as a sensible
and sensitive if not particularly strong ruler. "Isn't [Jesus] the prophet you
welcomed into the city?" Pilate asks. "Can any of you explain this madness to
me?" There is, however, no placating Caiaphas.

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The scene of a crowd
of Jews crying out "Crucify him! Crucify him!" before Pilate has been a staple
of Passion plays for centuries, but it is very difficult to imagine Caesar's man
being bullied by the people he usually handled roughly. When Pilate had first
come to Judea, he had ordered imperial troops to carry images of Caesar into the
city; he appropriated sacred Temple funds to build an aqueduct, prompting a
protest he put down with violence; about five years after Jesus' execution,
Pilate broke up a gathering around a prophet in Samaria with cavalry, killing so
many people that he was called to Rome to explain himself.

Jesus seems very much alone before Pilate, and this
raises a historical riddle. If Jesus is a severe enough threat to merit such
attention and drastic action, where are his supporters? In Gibson's telling,
they are silent or scared. Some probably were, and some may not have known of
the arrest, which happened in secret, but it seems unlikely that a movement
which threatened the whole capital would so quickly and so completely dwindle to
a few disciples, sympathetic onlookers, Mary and Mary Magdalene.

In the memorable if manufactured crowd scene in the
version of the movie screened by NEWSWEEK, Gibson included a line that has had
dire consequences for the Jewish people through the ages. The prefect is again
improbably resisting the crowd, the picture of a just ruler. Frustrated,
desperate, bloodthirsty, the mob says: "His blood be on us and on our children!"
Gibson ultimately cut the cry from the film, and he was right to do so. Again,
consider the source of the dialogue: a partisan Gospel writer. The Gospels were
composed to present Jesus in the best possible light to potential converts in
the Roman Empire—and to put the Temple leadership in the worst possible light.
And many scholars believe that the author of Matthew, which is the only Gospel
to include the "His blood be on us" line, was writing after the destruction of
the Temple in 70 and inserted the words to help explain why such misery had come
upon the people of Jerusalem. According to this argument, blood had already
fallen on them and on their children.

Philippe
Antonello

Mattia Sbragia's sinister Caiphas is at the center of
anti-Semitism charges against 'The Passion.'

A moment later in Gibson's movie, Pilate is
questioning Jesus and, facing a silent prisoner, says, "You will not speak to
me? Do you not know that I have power to release you, and power to crucify you?"
Jesus then replies: "... he who delivered me to you has the greater sin." The
"he" in this case is Caiaphas. John's point in putting this line in Jesus' mouth
is almost certainly to take a gibe at the Temple elite. But in the dramatic
milieu of the movie, it can be taken to mean that the Jews, through Caiaphas,
are more responsible for Jesus' death than the Romans are—an implication
unsupported by history.

The Temple elite undoubtedly played a key role in the
death of Jesus; Josephus noted that the Nazarene had been "accused by those of
the highest standing amongst us," meaning among the Jerusalem Jews. But Pilate's
own culpability and ultimate authority are indisputable as well. If Jesus had
not been a political threat, why bother with the trouble of crucifixion? There
is also evidence that Jesus' arrest was part of a broader pattern of violence or
feared violence this Passover. Barabbas, the man who was released instead of
Jesus, was, according to Mark, "among the rebels in prison, who had committed
murder in the insurrection"—suggesting that Pilate was concerned with "rebels"
and had already confronted an "insurrection" some time before he interrogated
Jesus.

Except for the release of Barabbas, there is no hint of
this context in Gibson's movie. "The Passion of the Christ" includes an invented
scene in which Pilate laments his supposed dilemma. "If I don't condemn him," he
tells his wife, "Caiaphas will start a rebellion; if I do, his followers will."
Caiaphas was in no position to start a rebellion over Jesus; he and Pilate were
in a way allies, and when serious revolt did come, in 66, it would be over
grievances about heavy-handed Roman rule, not over a particular religious
figure, and even then the priests would plead with the people not to rebel. In
the movie, far from urging calm, the priests lead the crowd, and Pilate, far
from using his power to control the mob, gives in. And so Jesus is sentenced to
death.

Mel Gibson's 'The Passion of the
Christ'

•
Who Killed
Jesus?

•
Interview: 'You
Want Me To Play
Jesus?'

Clear
evidence of the political nature of the execution—that Pilate and the high
priest were ridding themselves of a "messiah" who might disrupt society, not
offer salvation—is the sign Pilate ordered affixed to Jesus' cross. The message
is not from the knowing Romans to the evil Jews. It is, rather, a scornful
signal to the crowds that this death awaits any man the pilgrims proclaim "the
king of the Jews."

The Roman soldiers who torture Jesus and bully him toward
Golgotha are portrayed as evil, taunting and vicious, and they almost certainly
were. Without authority from the New Testament, Caiaphas, meanwhile, is depicted
as a grim witness to the scourging and Crucifixion as Gibson cuts back to the
Last Supper and to moments of Jesus' teaching. After Jesus, carrying his cross,
sees the faces of the priests, he is shown saying: "No one takes my life from
me, but I lay it down of my own accord." Is this intended to absolve the
priests? Perhaps. From the cross, Jesus says: "Forgive them, for they know not
what they do."

As clouds gather and Jesus dies, a single raindrop—a tear
from God the Father?—falls from the sky. A storm has come; the gates of hell are
broken; back in the Temple, Caiaphas, buffeted by the earthquake, cries out in
anguish amid the gloom. Then there is light, and a discarded shroud, and a risen
Christ bearing the stigmata leaves the tomb. It is Easter.

Continued Pages 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

© 2004 Newsweek,
Inc.

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