Those Who Forget the Past

by Ron Rosenbaum

  When Gibson is trying to understand the antagonism that his project has excited, he characteristically conjures his scenario of the great spiritual realms, unseen but ever warring over humankind. “I didn’t realize it would be so vicious,” he says of the criticism. “The acts against this film started early. As soon as I announced I was doing it, it was ‘This is a dangerous thing.’ There is vehement anti-Christian sentiment out there, and they don’t want it. It’s vicious. I mean, I think we’re just a little part of it, we’re just the meat in the sandwich here. There’s huge things out there, and they’re belting it out—we don’t see this stuff. Imagine: There’s a huge war raging, and it’s over us! This is the weird thing. For some reason, we’re important in this thing. I don’t understand it. We’re a bunch of dickheads and idiots and failures and creeps. But we’re called to the divine, we’re called to be better than our nature would have us be. And those big realms that are warring and battling are going to manifest themselves very clearly, seemingly without reason, here—a realm that we can see. And you stick your head up and you get knocked.”

  More temporal forces are also at work, those enduring enmities rooted in the great social and political divides of the 1960s. The culture wars that resulted are felt in American life still, in the media, in politics, and, as the anguished split over homosexuality in the Episcopal Church currently attests, in religion. In the dispute over Gibson’s film, the familiar advocates have reflexively assumed their usual stations, even though the dramatic form at issue—the Christian Passion play—is so obscure in the secular age that many Americans, perhaps most, would not likely be able even to describe it. That The Passion became the subject of such contention a year before its planned release, however, was an accident—not of politics, or even of religion, but of real estate.

  When Gibson decided to build a church, he bought sixteen acres of land in the community of Agoura Hills, through an entity he controls called the A. J. Reilly Foundation. Some local homeowners objected to the project as it made its way through the zoning process. One homeowner suggested that his son, a freelance journalist named Christopher Noxon, write about the church. The resulting article, published by The New York Times on March 9, 2003, created three salient impressions: that Gibson’s faith is a “strain of Catholicism rooted in the dictates of a 16th-century papal council and nurtured by a splinter group of conspiracy-minded Catholics, mystics, monarchists and disaffected conservatives”; that Gibson’s father is representative of this paleo-Catholic strain; and that Mel Gibson’s movie about the Crucifixion may serve as a propaganda vehicle for such views. Noxon attended Mass in the new church, and noted that the service rituals were “remarkably” like those he remembered from childhood.

  The Times story caught the attention of a group of activists, scholars, and clerics who make up what is known as the interfaith community. Within the Church, these are the progressives and their spiritual heirs who advocated for Vatican II, and, in the years since, they have invested their careers in making ecumenism an important discipline unto itself. Doctrine is promulgated on how the Christians regard the Jews, and guidelines govern the presentation of Jews and Judaism in liturgical teaching, preaching, Biblical interpretation, and dramatic depictions of Christ’s Passion. In this last regard, the interfaith committee of the national Bishops Conference issued, in 1988, a list of criteria to be followed when dramatizing the Passion, warning of the historical dangers in the form and urging that “anything less than [an] ‘overriding preoccupation’ to avoid caricaturing the Jewish people, which history has all too frequently shown us, will result almost inevitably in a violation” of Vatican II principle.

  The interfaith community would not have been comforted by the news that Mel Gibson was basing his movie upon the Gospels, even if he weren’t a Traditionalist Catholic. On the contrary, using the Gospels as the source would be cause for alarm; it is held that the Gospels, read alone, contain potentially dangerous teachings, particularly as they pertain to the role of Jews in the Crucifixion. “One cannot assume that by simply conforming to the New Testament, that anti-Semitism will not be promoted,” a group of Catholic ecumenist scholars declared, regarding Gibson’s film. “After all, for centuries sermons and passion plays based on the New Testament have incited Christian animosity and violence toward Jews.”

  After reading the Times story about Gibson’s church and film, one leading Catholic ecumenist, Dr. Eugene Fisher, talked to an old friend from years of interfaith work, Abraham Foxman, the head of the Anti-Defamation League. Foxman was equally alarmed by the Gibson project, and had written to Gibson, seeking assurances that the movie “will not give rise to the old canard of charging Jews with deicide and to anti-Semitism.” Fisher and Foxman agreed to convene a small ad-hoc group of likeminded colleagues, and to offer Gibson their help in making his film conform to contemporary doctrine.

  The group comprised nine members, mostly Catholic scholars who are, like Fisher, specialists in Christian-Jewish relations. Fisher also invited into the group a respected Boston University professor, Paula Fredriksen, who would present Gibson with a different set of problems to consider. Fredriksen’s specialty is the study of the historical Jesus. It is a relatively young field of inquiry, just two centuries old, and it is only in the past few decades that the discipline has assumed an authoritative voice.

  Historical-Jesus scholars generally excuse themselves from the matter of Jesus’ divinity, focusing instead upon Jesus the man—why he thought and behaved as he did—in the context of early-first-century Judaism. They concede that the four Gospels are probably the best (if not only) documents directly bearing upon the death of Jesus, but they depart from many Christians as to their origins and purpose. Ask Mel Gibson who wrote the Book of John, for example, and he would not hesitate to answer that it was St. John—that’s why it’s called “The Gospel According to John.” Ditto Matthew, Mark, and Luke. “John was an eyewitness,” Gibson says. “Matthew was there. And these other guys? Mark was Peter’s guy, Peter’s scribe. And Luke was Paul’s guy. I mean, these are reliable sources. These are guys who were around.” The historical-Jesus scholars, however, are not so sure. “We do not know who wrote the Gospels,” contends E. P. Sanders, of Duke University, who is the author of The Historical Figure of Jesus, and one of the preeminent scholars in the field. Sanders holds what is probably the consensus view, that the Gospels were written anonymously by early Church teachers, and were later assigned to the four evangelist saints, perhaps to bestow legitimacy.

  The Gospel narratives generally concur on the essentials of Christ’s Passion—the Last Supper, his betrayal by Judas Iscariot to Jewish leaders who were hostile to his messianic claims, his arrest in Jerusalem, an interrogation before the Jewish authorities, condemnation by Pilate, and crucifixion, followed by burial and resurrection. The accounts differ on particulars; Matthew and Mark, for instance, have Jesus interrogated before a full Sanhedrin trial, while John skips over the trial and has Jesus questioned at a high priest’s residence before delivery to Pilate. In the view of historical-Jesus scholars, such differences invalidate the Gospels’ strict historicity, and, therefore, any dramatization based literally upon them is deemed ahistorical. Many Christians, however, consider the Gospel narratives not contradictory but complementary. Regarding the interrogations to which Jesus was subjected, for example, they argue that the important fact is that there was some sort of Jewish legal proceeding, in which Jesus was effectively indicted. “The Gospels don’t contradict one another,” Gibson insists. “They mesh. There’s a couple of places where, yeah, that’s not quite the same scene. But they just complete parts of the story that the other guy didn’t complete. That’s all. They do not contradict one another. If you read all four of those, they mesh. Because if they didn’t, you wouldn’t have so many people hooked into this.”

  The study of the historical Jesus is a field inclined toward hermeneutical acrobatics, and its scholars routinely disagree not only with lay theologians but with
each other. On the subject of Jewish involvement in the Crucifixion, for example, most historical-Jesus investigators believe that the Jewish high priests wanted Jesus dead, as the Gospels attest, and that the only question is why. Sanders believes it is because of Jesus’ actions at the Temple during his Passover visit to Jerusalem, when he drove the money changers from the premises and overturned their tables. Fredriksen, though she is an admirer of Sanders, believes that the Temple scene probably didn’t happen. She places the initiative of the Crucifixion entirely upon Pilate, almost to the point of absenting Jews from the scene altogether. Fredriksen’s theory is that Jesus was so popular among the Jewish people (as evidenced by his triumphal entry into Jerusalem on the day Christians call Palm Sunday) that Pilate wanted him dead in order to teach Jews a lesson: Do not rebel.

  In order to give informed advice to Gibson, Fisher and his group of scholars needed to see the film, or, at least, a script. When they approached Icon Productions in late March, however, they learned that Gibson was still in Italy, working on the film. Fisher then appealed to Father William Fulco, a Jesuit professor of classics and archeology at Loyola Marymount University, in Los Angeles, who had been hired by Gibson to translate the script into Latin, Aramaic, and Hebrew. Fisher sent along the Bishops Conference’s guidelines for dramatizing the Passion, and Fulco assured him that Gibson’s script committed no offenses. The scholars wanted to judge that for themselves, and asked for a copy of the script. Fulco said that the screenplay was not his to give. Icon did not respond to the request for a script. The scholars and Icon were at a standoff.

  Then, in early April, Rabbi Yehiel Poupko, a Judaic scholar involved in interfaith work in Chicago, returned home to find a large, unmarked manila envelope at his front door. When Rabbi Poupko opened it, he found a script that had no identifying title page. But Poupko realized that the script must be The Passion, and called up a friend in interfaith work, Father John Pawlikowski, who was one of Fisher’s team of scholars. Pawlikowski asked to see the script, and Poupko sent it over.

  Pawlikowski passed the script along to Fisher, who, plainly delighted by the development, made copies and sent them to each of the members of his panel on April 18—which happened to be Good Friday. By e-mail, he informed Father Fulco that “the Easter Bunny came early to my office and delivered a copy of the script.” Fisher attributed the mysterious appearance of the script to a “Biblical Deep Throat,” and added that he had sent it along to the scholars “in time for their Good Friday meditations.” Fisher’s tone was solicitous; he told Fulco that “my own response is that with a couple of very minor adjustments, all is resolved.”

  But when the other scholars read the screenplay they were aghast. The script confirmed their worst fears about the Gibson project. Gibson seemed to be violating many, if not all, of the Bishops Conference’s guidelines on dramatizing the Passion; the script included the scene from Matthew in which Pilate washes his hands of responsibility, and, worse, it had Caiaphas uttering the line “His blood be on us, and upon our children.” The descriptive portions of the script, which do not necessarily reflect what gets filmed, were filled with inflammatory cues: Peter is “aware of the bloodthirsty nature of the rising chaos”; at the sight of the Cross, “the crowd’s bloodthirst redoubles”; when Jesus is crushed by the weight of the Cross, the Roman guards holding the crowd back “have a difficult time restraining the impatient, predatory bloodthirst of the people”; and, most egregiously, as Jesus is reduced to a bloody mass, Caiaphas’ eyes are “shiny with breathless excitement.”

  Now the tone of the scholars’ dealings with Icon became openly adversarial. On Easter Monday, one member of the panel, Sister Mary Boys, a professor at the Union Theological Seminary, in New York, and an interfaith veteran, spoke to a Los Angeles Times reporter about the scholars’ concerns that Gibson’s film could incite anti-Semitism. Rabbi Eugene Korn, the head of the A.D.L.’s interfaith affairs, was quoted in the article as warning Gibson that he should not ignore the scholars’ group. “If he doesn’t respond, the controversy will certainly heat up,” Korn said. “We are all very vigilant about things like this.”

  Gibson, who had returned to California, was furious. He began to hear negative comments from his friends in the industry, including the advice that he stay away from the Grand Havana Room. Three days after the article appeared, Gibson and his producer, Steve McEveety, had a telephone conversation with Eugene Fisher. According to notes taken by the Gibson team (Fisher won’t comment), McEveety asked how the scholars could be trusted after they had gone public with negative comments based on a stolen script. He said that the whole thing felt a bit like extortion. Gibson said he found the article threatening, “a hatchet job.” Fisher was again solicitous, saying that “this whole kind of thing I find very distasteful,” and agreed that the implications of anti-Semitism were “absolutely untrue.” He conceded that the fact that the script was stolen would “taint” any criticisms deriving from it, and said that Rabbi Korn “blew that one” by speaking to the press.

  “You guys got ripped,” Fisher said. But he defended the Anti-Defamation League as being a responsible group. He suggested that Gibson and his associates hear the scholars out.

  “Whatever opinion you guys come up with are tainted notes,” McEveety replied.

  Meanwhile, the scholars worked on their suggestions, which they compiled into a report that they sent to Icon Productions in early May. The report, numbering eighteen pages, contained a long list of the film’s transgressions, which “are embedded throughout the script.” Contrary to the “very minor adjustments” of which Fisher had spoken, the scholars’ report said that Gibson’s film would basically require a remake. “We believe that the steps needed to correct these difficulties will require major revisions,” the report stated.

  For Fredriksen, one of the most dismaying elements of Gibson’s undertaking was his insistence that his film would be accurate. She notes that Gibson relied on an uninformed reading of the Gospels, as well as upon extra-scriptural Catholic literature, such as the writings of two stigmatic nuns. “He doesn’t even have a Ph.D. on his staff,” she says.

  Among the many errors that Gibson might have avoided had he followed the ecumenist guidelines is his portrayal of the two men who were crucified alongside Jesus as criminals. Although the men, described in Matthew and Mark, are identified as “thieves” in the King James Version of the Bible, as “robbers” in the International and American Standard versions, and as “plunderers” in the original Greek, the Bishops Conference prefers that they be identified as “insurgents.”

  Gibson is unconvinced by such scholarly interpretations. “They always dick around with it, you know?” he says. “Judas is always some kind of friend of some freedom fighter named Barabbas, you know what I mean? It’s horseshit. It’s revisionist bullshit. And that’s what these academics are into. They gave me notes on a stolen script. I couldn’t believe it. It was like they were more or less saying I have no right to interpret the Gospels myself, because I don’t have a bunch of letters after my name. But they are for children, these Gospels. They’re for children, they’re for old people, they’re for everybody in between. They’re not necessarily for academics. Just get an academic on board if you want to pervert something!”

  Gibson responded to the scholars through his attorney, who warned that they were in possession of a stolen script, and demanded its immediate return. What happened next placed Eugene Fisher’s panel of scholars in an awkward position. Fisher is the associate director of ecumenical and interreligious affairs for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, but he had acted on his own in forming the group. Fisher’s standing (and the fact that he had used the Bishops Conference’s letterhead in communicating with Icon) had lent the scholars’ group an air of Church authority—an important element in that part of the public debate which emphasized Gibson’s schismatic bent. Gibson and McEveety had been surprised to learn that Fisher’s panel was an ad-hoc initiative, bearing no a
uthority from the Church. After the Bishops Conference received the letter from Gibson’s lawyer, it acted quickly to distance itself from the scholars and their report on Gibson’s film. “Neither the Bishops’ Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, nor any other committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, established this group, or authorized, reviewed or approved the report written by its members,” the conference declared in June. Its counsel, Mark E. Chopko, advised the scholars to return the scripts to Icon, and issued an apology to Gibson. “We regret that ‘this situation has occurred, and offer our apologies,” Chopko wrote. “I have further advised the scholars group that this draft screenplay is not considered to be representative of the film and should not be the subject of further public comment. When the film is released, the USCCB will review it at that time.”

  The controversy, however, did not wane. The Anti-Defamation League issued no apology to Gibson, and the scholars stood by their report; some of them continued to criticize Gibson’s film publicly. I arrived in California the day after The New York Times carried a front-page article on the dispute. The next morning, the paper published a column that criticized Gibson for refusing to show his film to Jewish leaders, such as Abraham Foxman, of the A.D.L. Gibson stewed all day, and by evening he had reached full pique. He was particularly aroused by the column, written by Frank Rich, which had argued that Gibson’s film could do real harm abroad, “where anti-Semitism has metastasized since 9/11,” and which had accused Gibson’s publicist, Alan Nierob, of using “p.r. spin to defend a Holocaust denier”—presumably, Gibson’s father. Nierob, who is Jewish, and is the son of Holocaust survivors (and a founding member of the national Holocaust Museum), laughed it off. But Gibson called Nierob that evening, and apologized for “getting you into this.”