Not as in “extortion,” but in the sense of “using your blog to send personal messages in public.”
Dear Dorothea,
No problem. I was working on the Greek, and I got about halfway (I ended up looking for the numeric character entities myself), and the term began ending, with my customary overload of assignments coming due. No need to renounce pay; anyone who publicly polemicizes against the disappearing “u” is OK with me.
And then, as part of an email exchange:
Dear David,
That part of The Passion where Gibson, not satisfied with the gospels’ account that the Temple curtain was torn in half, raises the stakes another order of magnitude by concocting an earthquake that destroys the Temple itself — there’s just a flat-out anti-Judaic gesture. Remember, too, that the scene of the destruction of the Temple is intercut with the scene of Satan being isolated in the arid desert [of Hell?], and it seems likely that Gibson prompts his viewers to think that the destruction of the Temple (perhaps compressed from Rome’s immolation the Temple at the end of the Judean War) serves as a punishment for Judaism. Throw in the omnipresence of the High Priest through the brutal scourging and crucifixion scenes, and Gibson is (in the words of the Apostle) without excuse.
I’ve been going on and on about complexity and ambiguity (as did Paul de Man), but I shouldn’t let that obscure what seems prominently true about The Passion Of The Christ — that Gibson has produced a film that, without any cinematic or historical or narrative or theological necessity, spotlights Judaic responsibility for brutal torture inflicted on Jesus, and suggests that Judaism has been punished for its treatment of Jesus.
Finally, to people in general: What was with that drop of water at the end of the movie? Mark thought it was a tear from heaven (argh! pretty schmaltzy — besides, St. Eric Clapton has written that there are no more tears in heaven), and I saw someone think it was a reference to baptism (seems strained to me). I just thought, “Hey, it’s been cloudy and windy for a while, that’s just one superdense raindrop.”
Posted by AKMA at March 12, 2004 11:16 AM | TrackBackReminder:
Matthew 27:51 (1) And behold, (2) the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and (3) the earth shook and the rocks were split.