Originally Posted by
gamerdude873
I agree quite a bit. The passion contains many errors that could have been easily corrected.
1)Pilate is (as in all the gospels) clearly whitewashed and upright, whereas Josephus condemns him as a clearly autocratic tyrant who deliberately provoked the Jews, then executed them, on several occasions. He is also shown to be weak and easily pushed around by Caiaphas. Historically, Caiaphas only had his job as long as Pilate let him have it. Caiaphas was not popular as a roman sympathizer and thus could hardly lead a rebellion against his employer, as Pilate was worried. Moreover, Pilate was a paranoid man who was clearly in league (though one has to read the gospels VERY closely to see it) with the authorities, seeing how he lent them troops to arrest Jesus (in John). The Jews had no right to order Roman soldiers around, so who do you think gave them to the arrestors? Pilate did. The same man who caused an uprising in the Temple court was in town, so Pilate could not have an inflamatory man like Yeshua out and about during a nationalistic holiday.
2) Yeshua himself is flayed alive, but if one actually counts the number of times he was flogged in the movie, it was well above the standard 39 lashes. The other criminals are not even chastised before execution, the common procedure. The Roman execution squad appears to be either drunk on duty or excessively cruel, and defied orders in the movie. I'm really sure that would have gone over well with their officers. They also dislocate Yeshua's shoulder, something that is not mentioned anywhere nor was particularly necessary.
3)Worst of all, Mel Gibson took it upon himself to portray the Jews in general as murderous, cruel, and traitorous, rather than the simply the Temple Authorities, who were the real source of the trouble and injustice that Jesus was attempting to confront, in order to establish his vision of a new world order (The Kingdom of Heaven vs. the Kingdoms of Earth).
4) Quite ironically and irrationally, the same people who were transfixed by Jesus' teaching, welcomed him as a king into the city, could be later found tormenting him and calling for his execution in the movie. In reality, Jesus would have had the people on his side the whole way through. They trusted him. WHy would they suddenly turn on him? Mel Gibson also used a notoriously anti-semitc nun from around the 1800's who claimed to have visions of the passion as a source for the movie.
5) the Lorica Segmentata doesn't look quite right. It's better than most i've seen in movies, but it leaves the a large part of the upper chest exposed. As I understand it, the LS covered from the base of the neck to the waist. And yes, the church Latin vs ancient latin and greek...
The list could go on. The Passion is a well-made movie, but I don't know about it being terribly accurate. It tended to come off as the Gospel according to Mel Gibson. :)
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