The Passion

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Originally posted by emily655321
All any of us can do is support blindly, if we choose to follow one or the other. That's called faith.

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I couldn't disagree more.

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Originally posted by emily655321
Unfortunately I've seen a lot more people -- on both sides -- who choose to just repeat their dogma and turn a blind eye to their neighbor. Sometimes I think, maybe people are better off just not trying to understand the mysteries of the universe, because they all seem to conclude something different about it, and then make war with each other like children over who is right. (I mean on a global scale. If more people would sit down and discuss, like we're doing, and listen and learn what one another believes, we'd be a lot better off as a planet.)

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Yeah. Make us your liders. :D ;)

Hehehe. Right, let's start the revolution!
The Forum Members as the new masters of the planet. :D

Gee, I just found out that you don't discover interesting threads until you have a paper to write.

Anyway, my two-cents.

I'm a Catholic, though not a very good one. I think the scene where Jesus got beaten up was unnecessarily gruesome. Too much blood. On the other hand, it made me aware of how much Jesus really suffered prior to the crucifixion.

One thing that I thought was important was how Jesus kept seeing Satan as He was carrying His cross. I didn't realize until I saw the movie that it must be very tempting for Jesus to "follow" Satan. I mean, He was bleeding and suffering, and as the Son of God, it was easy for Him to say the words and punish everyone who tortured Him, you know? But He went through with everything, so that was something.

For those who know about the Bible, I have a question. I heard that nowhere in the Bible it says Mary Magdalene is a prostitute. But in the movie, she is shown as the unnamed woman in John 8 or 9, so is that just a production of Mel Gibson's imagination or it was true?

It's a long-standing myth that Mary was a prostitute. Actually, it used to be a big topic for discussion among theologians, but now most of them conclude that she was not. It's generally believed that it was a deliberate move by early Christian leaders to undermine her significance as an important figure in Jesus' group. Powerful women are slandered this way still in our times, but in a first century Jewish community she would have seemed many times more threatening. A new (and obviously controversial) theory is that she may be the real author of the Gospel of John, but I haven't heard the arguments on either side of this yet. About 50 years ago the Gnostic Gospels (the Gospel of Philip and the Gospel of Mary) were discovered in Egypt. They were written and circulated along with the other Gospels, but never made it into the Bible. An early Christian group known as the Gnostics used them as a regular part of their teachings, thereby preserving them.

Here's an excerpt from an article about Mary in Time magazine:

Nothing in the Bible says she was a prostitute. Magdalene is named by Mark (15:40-41) and Matthew (27:55-56) as one of the women from Galilee. Luke (8:2) says seven devils (probably mental illness) were cast from her. The Gospels place her at the crucifixion, watching from a distance. She might have remained a minor character in the story, except that the Bible says she was the first witness to Jesus's resurrection -- therefore a critical figure in the Easter story.

In John (20:16), the weeping Magdalene mistakes Him for the gardener. "Jesus saith unto her, 'Mary.' She turned herself and saith unto Him, 'Rabboni,' which is to say, Master." But after telling the disciples what she has seen, she's never mentioned again in the Scriptures.

There are three prominent Marys in the New Testament: Mary, the mother of Jesus; Mary of Bethany, sister of Lazarus and Martha; and Mary of Magdala. John describes Mary of Bethany anointing Jesus's feet and wiping them with her hair. In Luke, an unnamed woman does the same thing, but this one is called a sinner. In the very next chapter, Luke tells the story of Magdalene and her demons.

Magdalene's reputation as a wanton woman was sealed by [AD]591 when Pope Gregory announced that the Magdalene, Mary of Bethany and the sinner were, in fact, the same woman. (It wasn't until 1969 that the Catholic Church restored them to three separate individuals.)

This by Victor Greto of The Gazette:

The misreading of Mary Magdalene, critics say, is almost as ancient as the Gospels of the New Testament themselves, if only because there are up to five different Marys in the Gospels and seven in the New Testament as a whole.

The greatest damage done to Magdalene's reputation, however, is only partly the confusion of these Marys, says Sister Evelina Belfiore, director of Catholic education for the Colorado Springs, Colo., diocese. The main problem is the way some decided to identify an unnamed woman with Magdalene in the Gospel of Luke.

In 7:37-38, Luke tells the tale of a woman, "a sinner" who goes into a dinner party and anoints Jesus' feet. The following chapter immediately introduces "Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out. . . ."

"In the early church," Belfiore says, "as people have placed her in art and legend and misinterpretation, they linked her with the sinner from the chapter before."

Here's also a link to a university paper someone wrote on the subject:
http://jamaica.u.arizona.edu/ic/mcbr...00/marymag.htm
At the bottom is a link to an excerpt of the Gospel of Mary.

[edit] Better: here's the whole thing. http://www.gnosis.org/library/marygosp.htm
The other Lost Gospels are here too, for anyone who's interested. (I know they published them all in a book recently. Does anyone remember the name of it?)

Wow, first time to respond in a forum, EVER. Maybe I live a sheltered life but I was very moved and impressed with the way Gibson depicted scripture so well. There were several scenes that someone who was not versed in the scripture wouldn't have a clue about. I felt it was a movie that I had to see, not for entertainment. My family and I did not buy any concessions out of respect. God does use his followers, we are to be missionaries to all, preaching the gospel, throughtout, it just may be your next door neighbor. (Getting off the subject, didn't mean to preach here.) Anyhow, as a Christian for more years than I want to admit due to revealing my age, I was still moved in the deepest way within my heart and glad I saw it.