So a disclaimer: I have not seen The Passion of the Christ. I have no intention of seeing The Passion of the Christ. I seem to have enough trouble actually going out and seeing the movies that I do want to see, so it’s very very likely that I will never see The Passion of the Christ. And it’s paragraphs like this one that make me wish that there was some sort of easy Lemper-Zivity built in to HTML.
Anyhow. From what I’ve read, this is a movie about suffering. It’s a basic tenet of Christian doctrine that Christ suffered and died for sinners (i.e. everyone else) so that they wouldn’t have to. Well, sort of; it’s a little more complicated than that, but that’s the essence. So Gibson’s movie is constructed, as I understand it, to drive home the point that Jesus suffered. A lot. More, perhaps, than anyone else in history. That last bit is probably not stated directly, but it’s clearly the implication.
It’s an interesting charge. I think probably the best argument against it is the short story / essay Three versions of Judas
by Jorge Luis Borges, which can be found in the collection Labyrinths. It’s about a theologian who has come to the realisation
that , in terms of making an Ultimate Sacrifice, Jesus is outshone by Judas. Jesus gave up his life, and returned; Judas gave up his soul, and shall suffer for all eternity. It’s a nice little story in that half-infuriating Borgesian way: you’re convinced that there’s a problem with the reasoning somewhere, but it’s just elusive enough to convince.