xhonzi said:

TheBoost said:

But let's take a look at this comparison. Are you comparing NAZI's potentially being upset about portrayals of real history vs JEWS being upset about the bits of the Gospels that has been responsible for 2000 years of persecution, murder and genocide?

*whew* This feels like something of a loaded question, so I'm going to try to step lightly here.

I am comparing modern Germans being upset by someone saying that Nazis were Germans with modern Jews being upset by someone saying that some of the people responsible for killing Christ were Jews.

I guess I don't really buy that the New Testament has been responsible or "the source" for persecution of the Jews. The Old Testament is full of stories of people not liking the Jews too, so some of that rhetoric pre-dates Christ, or the writing down and widespread distribution of the Gospels.

I understood your comparison and don't think it holds water. True points that the root cause of Antisemetism is complex...

BUT, the Passion Play, and specifically the lines from Matthew have been used repeatedly for two thousand years to whip people into a frenzy to murder Jews with impunity. Vatican II and all the lengthy explanations about who really killed Christ (or why Christ died or this and that) don't change the actual history of bloodshed.

So when Gibson's movie comes out in our wonderful modern post-racial era and repeats what for twenty centuries has been real bad news for the Jews, and makes 600 million dollars, I can understand the Jews not being happy with the state of affairs.

If for the next two millennia people show Shindler's List and then go out and murder Germans, I'll be sympathetic to them the next time it gets remade. Until then I don't really see a comparison.