bdshort

Watched the trailer, and I'd say as a non-religous person, it still looks like it could be a mighty powerful movie.
I've been under the impression for quite some time that the nails were put through the wrists during crucifixions, but in any case, that seems like a minor detail. Mel Gibson is Catholic, and isn't Jesus on the cross with nails through the hands the classic Catholic image?
I also read that the languages spoken in the region at the time were Aramaic and Greek, not Latin, so we should bitch about that too! Or we could debate about whether or not this Jesus guy was really the son of a diety, since there is no historical evidence for that either.
I think Mel was trying to go for something that was accurate as far as the Bible is concerned, not actual historical fact.

One question. There is a bag of coins tossed at someone at the beginning of the trailer. Is this Judas? It looked like the same guy that was in the very last shot of the trailer.

Brian

DGibFen

I'd assume so. Judas sold out Jesus for thirty pieces of silver.

Matthew 27:3 (ESV)
Then when Judas, his betrayer, saw that Jesus was condemned, he changed his mind and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders...

BBEANLPHIE

I believe the last person in the trailer is Jesus. It would make the most sense since it showed someone stepping on the head of the Serpent (Satan) and then it immediately went to the shot of him standing up. It would make no sense to show judas after the stepping on the head of the Serpent as Judas is not the one that has defeated Satan.

Groucho

I don't understand why people are looking to the Shroud of Turin as any kind of evidence. You do realize that it only dates back to about 1350?

BBEANLPHIE

OMG . If you actually read deeper into and saw that the carbon 14 testing was done on a single piece of it and that piece was tested multiple times where as it would be more accurate if multiples pieces were tested instead of one piece and the burning it had sustained during a fire would cause the date to be wrong. You know what I give up some people can never be pleased! You need to relax bro and stop being a scholar on everything that is posted on here. Please note I am not saying the Shroud is a 100% fact of Jesus Resurrection But from what I've read and watched from all the documentaries on this subject I myself believe it to be.

Kal-El

Of course that was Jesus. I don't even know why you guys are thinking the stepping on the serpent and that last shot is part of ONE shot. It's an edited trailer for crying out loud. It's 2 different scenes.

BBEANLPHIE

I never said it was 1 shot its obvious its 2 shots the stepping of the head is in the dark and the last scene is in the daytime. Calm down man sheesh..

Seeker

Ok, all controversy about little issues aside, this looks like it might be a decent movie.

Otto

OMG, STFU! Sheesh, you are way too intense. First off, calm down. He only said it carbon dated to 1350 and you go nuts.

If you *really* want something to go nuts over, then here you go.

The faint sepia image is made up of billions of submicron pigment particles (red ochre and vermilion) in a collagen tempera medium. Dr. Walter McCrone discovered this by polarized light microscopy back in 1979. This included careful inspection of thousands of linen fibers from 32 different areas of the shroud. He characterized the only colored image-forming particles by color, refractive indices, polarized light microscopy, size, shape, and microchemical tests for iron, mercury, and body fluids. The paint pigments were dispersed in a collagen tempera, probably produced in medieval times from parchment. It is chemically distinctly different in composition from blood but readily detected and identified microscopically by microchemical staining reactions. Forensic tests for blood were uniformly negative on fibers from the blood-image tapes.

The Electron Optics Group at McCrone Associates in 1980 used electron and x-ray diffraction and found red ochre (iron oxide, hematite) and vermilion (mercuric sulfide). Their electron microprobe analyzer found iron, mercury, and sulfur on a dozen of the blood-image area samples. The results fully confirmed Dr. McCrone's results and further proved the image was painted twice-once with red ochre, followed by vermilion to enhance the blood-image areas.

The carbon-dating results from three different internationally known laboratories agreed well with his date: 1355 by microscopy and 1325 by C-14 dating.

The suggestion that the 1532 Chambery fire changed the date of the cloth is ludicrous. Samples for C-dating are routinely and completely burned to CO2 as part of a well-tested purification procedure. The suggestions that modern biological contaminants were sufficient to modernize the date are also ridiculous. A weight of 20th century carbon equaling nearly two times the weight of the Shroud carbon itself would be required to change a 1st century date to the 14th century.

It's a fake, man. Some monk painted it in the 14th century. Get over it.

LBPound

Good to see that this thread has stayed on topic in discussing the trailer for Mel Gibson's "The Passion."

Groucho

In order to keep this thread from being even more hijacked than it already is, I started a "Shroud of Turin" thread here.

al_bundy

There is a copy on www.movie-list.com for those who can't access aintcoolnews.

As far as the trailer, it looks like this will surpass The Last Temptation of Christ as the best movie about Jesus.

uteotw

I haven't looked forward to a movie as much as this one in at least 10 years. Looks INCREDIBLE and is an absolute MUST see. People who "see the whole thing as fictional" are totally missing the mark since, whether or not you believe Jesus was the messiah or just another guy, there's very little argument that Jesus did in fact exist. And simply from a movie standpoint, this looks absolutely first rate. I'm keeping an open mind and will see it as soon as it opens.

Spooky

Kind of shocking that we get this impressive trailer and all some people can do is whine that Jesus is nailed by his hands instead of his wrists...

Look at the trailer again people, there is CLEARLY rope tied around his wrists to keep him up on the cross. I'm assuming Mel is going by the BIBLE as his source of material, and the BIBLE clearly states that Jesus hands (not his wrists) were nailed.

If this trailer is any indication, Gibson better get his tux ready to get that second Oscar for Best Director...he's proven he's much more than a pretty face when it comes to his material.

I, for one, can't wait to see this movie...it looks like a incredbile work of art from one of our finest directors.

Numanoid

Ahh, but as I posted before, the Hebrew word for "hand" also includes the wrist.

audrey

Maybe I'm missing your point, but I don't see what Hebrew has to do with the issue; the new testament was written in Greek.

DGibFen

One can hope. I still don't understand why everyone loves LTOC. (The whole retaining accents from other regions, the idea that Jesus would be fooled by Satan, etc. Never understood why).

Spooky

Well, I think the point was that he was tempted, not fooled (hence the title of the picture) - however, this is a bit of poetic license by Scorcese...the Bible only claims that Satan tempted Jesus at the beginning of his ministry...there's nothing to indicate that he was tempted while on the cross, although he does state that God has foresaken him...which may be an indication of temptation.

al_bundy

Maybe after it was codified at the Council of Nici in 350AD I think it was. What about the original manuscripts that were written by Paul and the original Apostles? I doubt that a bunch of fishermen and goat herders from Israel spoke Greek or Latin.

Stoolie

I question Gibson's dedication to historical accuracy in any endeavor after what he and Randall Wallace did to Scottish history in Braveheart. Most of that butchering was lost on the average viewer, but in this case virtually everyone has their own belief of the story. I do not remember if Gibson defended Braveheart as historically accurate.

This will be another case of a movie's inability to please everyone. Some will agree, some won't. Gibson is clearly presenting it as what he believes is history. Personally, I consider much of the story of Jesus to be fiction or severely altered, therefore whatever he wants to do to this story is fine by me. Braveheart was a different story however, and some elements of that film were made up or shifted entirely.

I do concede however that it is all "history" and therefore always subject to change.

Scot1458

Not to go off on a tagent, but if you really investiage the Whitechapelm murders and peel away fiction from fact, Moore is correct in that they were a few murders during that time. Everything else he presents is completley wrong. The doc on the disc isn't bad, but they still include alot of the crap in there (mostly stuff created by the London papers at the time.)

Scot1458

The Miracle Maker is a better movie on Jesus than the Last Temptation...

DGibFen

The reasoning by many as to why Jesus said "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" is because Christians (and myself) believed that Jesus lead a perfect life without sin. Since His death on the cross was to serve as an atonment for all sins for all humanity (reflecting a Jewish tradition where the sacrifice of a lamb would serve as atonement for wrongdoing), it is said that Jesus suddenly became like sin to His Father. Since God is perfect and cannot have anything to do with sin, God had to distance Himself from Jesus.

I know, sounds a little confusing, eh?

The idea in the movie bothered me. That Jesus would

I know that's why I had huge problems with LTOC.

Groucho

DGibFen,

audrey

Following the conquests of Alexander the Great, Greek was the most universally understood language in the east. While there are those who argue that the original text for Mathew (and a few others) was written in Hebrew, certainly John (who was Greek) and Paul knew Greek. In any event, the earliest extant copy of the New Testament is in Greek; thus it remains the best source.

I’m not sure why you brought up Latin?