If you choose to see the movie "The Passion of the Christ" please do remember that you are not watching history, or factual scenes. What you are watching is Mel Gibson's fiction. His fictional story of Jesus that will make a fast buck. Jesus seems to be always a hot money making item, no matter how comical or distorted he is presented. They estimate the movie will take in 35 to 50 million dollars the first week. That giant philosopher and theologian Soren Kierkegaard, known as "The Great Dane", wrote clearly and sharply about this hawking the name of Jesus.
"Gangs of swindlers have taken forcible possession of the firm of Jesus Christ and have done a flourishing business under the name of Christianity. In criminal cases, it is called forgery."
The Jesus jazzers with their Jesus fantasies flourish. Make Jesus anything that feels good to you.
Mel Gibson's movie is simply a product of his imagination.
I have said that the movie is fiction. It is also true that the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are largely fiction. I do not know of any biblical scholar, from any major university who would take exception to that statement. I am talking about scholars who are free and independent of Christian financial support.
Rudolf Bultmann, distinguished German theologian: quote: "We know nothing about either the life or the personality of Jesus since early Christian sources are fragmentary and legendary."
T. Henshaw, Ph.D, Oxford University: quote: "Imagination would soon begin to weave legends around
the figure of Jesus. Disciples would modify them in accordance with their own particular views."
Dr. Joseph Klausner, the University of Heidelberg, in his book, "Jesus of Nazareth", quote: "Jesus was not a Christian. He was a Jew. Jesus was a product of Palestine and Judaism. Jesus would never have dreamed of being a prophet or a messiah to the non-Jews."
Dr. Malachi Martin, former professor at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome with a doctorate in Semitic languages and Oriental history, wrote in "Jesus Now"...quote: "This book is a journey through the quagmire of distortions, deformations and illustrations piled around our view of Jesus."
Daniel-Rops, French Biblical scholar, quote: "The Gospels are not historical documents. Early "Christian" teaching was not written down at all. Among the disciples probably none of them could even write."
Dr. Robert Funk: a Fulbright Senior Scholar, a Guggenheim Fellow, and a Society of Biblical Literature
Fellow at the Institute for Antiquity and Christianity, Claremont, writes in "Honest to Jesus" quote: "It is time to declare the New Testament a highly biased record of various early attempts to invent Christianity."
John Dominic Crossan, Professor Emeritus, DePaul University and author of "The Historical Jesus" writes this about Funk's book: "It is a searing indictment of lectern and pulpit, pastors and professors, for not saying clearly what they know technically and not saying publicly what they think privately."
AMEN AND AMEN.
As readers of my columns well know this too has long been one of my major themes: my utter disgust
with the wimps of hypocrisy, and fraud, who do not have the guts, or the integrity to talk from the pulpit about what they know, our of fear of losing money and members. It is a sin among a large segment of the Christian clergy that I find despicable. The SIN OF OMISSION or THE SIN OF SILENCE.
My friend, Dr. Gerald Larue, distinguished professor emeritus of Biblical studies at the University of
Southern California wrote this: "For clergy who do not know any better...it is simply gross ignorance. For clergy who do know better...it is a DISGRACE."
A number of years ago I asked the Senior Minister of the largest Episcopal church in the Coachella
Valley why he did not invite to lecture at his church one of the leading biblical scholars in America to
promote education. His answer to me was : "Why Edelen I would lose half of my members and over
half of the church's income"... I told him, in the words of Kierkegaard, "what you are doing here is simply playing a phony game called church...It is forgery."
To make a long story short...this is the reason that you will not realize that the Passion movie is pure
fiction and not historical or factual. It is the fiction of human imagination. And the reason you will not know this is that your minister, if he or she has had a good solid religious and biblical education with world class scholars...is simply afraid to tell you about it. I call it the SIN OF SILENCE. the promotion of falsehoods and superstitions.
The much loved Senior Minister of the famed City Temple of London, Leslie Weatherhead, wrote:
"not for much longer will the world put up with the lies...distortions...and superstitions about Jesus and the bible."
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