PROFESSOR LOUIS FELDMAN: Thank you very much. As Elie Wiesel has said, the world is willing to forget the slaughter of six million innocent Jews sixty years ago, but it will never let the Jews forget the execution of that one Jew two thousand years ago.

What we have in the film The Passion is a passion play of the sort that used to be put on in Oberammergau and which was always an occasion not merely for the production of the play, but also for raising the population against the Jews. And I believe that the danger of such a film is tremendous, precisely because it is a passion play type, and this will be the most watched passion play in history. Billy Graham has remarked that this film is a lifetime of sermons in one movie.

Now, what has Mel Gibson done in this movie? He himself has said that his intention is to make "a responsible, historically accurate movie". And that is what I want to talk about, whether it is historically accurate, whether it is a responsible movie. The fact that he chose to have the movie in two languages which most people don't know - the Jews speak Aramaic and the Romans speak Latin - is I think a key to his intention. He wanted to have people think this is the way it really was, this is what really was said by both the Jews and by the Romans.

Now, the fact that he chose Latin is a very interesting point because at that particular time, in that particular place in Judaea, Latin was not the prevalent language. Certainly most of the soldiers we know in the Roman army came from the immediate area, and they spoke Greek. So why should Gibson have chosen to have the Roman soldiers speaking Latin? The answer, I think, is that he was very much upset by Vatican II forty years ago, and he wants to turn the clock back.

Now, one of the things that Vatican II did was to make it optional for the mass to be conducted in various languages, whereas originally, as you know, it was certainly for many, many centuries in Latin. So he wants to have the Latin brought back. And the Latin in the film, I might say, is not the Latin that was spoken by Cicero. It is church Latin. He wanted to have this film as a religious experience, not as an intellectual experience, an emotional experience.

I thought to myself, as I was watching the film, how could the actors have memorized their lines in a foreign language? It must have been very difficult for them. They didn't know Aramaic; they didn't know Latin. Then I realized, as I watched the film, why it was not really so difficult. Because the film actually has very few spoken lines, has very little dialogue. It's basically an attempt to present these people as people who have faces, and there are a tremendous number of shots of individuals, particularly, as we'll see, the high priest, shots of the high priest. The film, in effect, is much more than the words. It is really a panorama.

Now, the film, of course, claims to be accurate in the sense that from Mel Gibson's point of view, it is a correct representation of the account of the last hours in the life of Jesus according to the Gospels. However, the fact that it depends upon the Gospels immediately raises a number of questions. Because, after all, when you say the Gospels, there are four different accounts in the Gospels and they don't agree with one another in a number of respects. For example, there are different genealogies of Jesus. They have different accounts of the trial of Jesus. And we'll see there are other discrepancies.

In addition to those four accounts, there are a number of accounts that never made it into the canon of the New Testament. So therefore to speak of something that will be dependent upon the Gospels, which Gospel? And as we'll see, he picks and chooses whichever he wants.

Secondly, how could you depend upon the Gospels when after all, the Gospels were not composed in Galilee where Jesus came from. They were not composed in Jerusalem where Jesus died. They were not composed in Aramaic, the language that Jesus spoke, but in Greek. They were written by people who never knew Jesus in person. None of them knew Jesus in person. One of them, Luke, was not a Jew, incidentally. And the Gospels were written at least forty years after the death of Jesus. Now, coming from such sources, would evidence be admitted in a court today, let alone be ready to convict somebody?

I said that the movie intends to create a mood. You see it at the very beginning and throughout the movie. We're the devils. What is this connection of the devils with the events that the movie tries to present? What he is again trying to do is, based upon the New Testament and based upon the church fathers, is to look upon the Jews as possessed by the devil, who murder their offspring. I'm quoting incidentally from John Chrysostom in the 4th century. His name Chrysostom indicates that he was a great golden mouth orator: "They [the Jews] murder their offspring, they immolate them to the devil. The synagogue is the domicile of the devil, a cavern of devils. "

And having the Jews associated with devils, then, creates a certain mood, and that prevails through the movie as a whole. You see Jewish children, for example, in the movie taunting Judas. And they turn into demons. Again, that particular scene is not in the Gospels at all but is part of the mood that he's trying to create.

The result of Vatican II was that the Roman Catholic Church decided that something had to be done to prevent these mass attacks upon Jews that have prevailed through the centuries. And they suggested, in particular, two things, which, as we'll see, Gibson does not do. One of them was to drop the scenes of large chanting Jewish crowds. I'm not saying there weren't large Jewish crowds. Maybe they did chant. But the fact that you have large crowds in the movie constantly chanting creates mass hysteria that the Roman Catholic Church itself has advised their adherents to drop.

And secondly, to drop the device of the Sanhedrin trial. Now, again, that's in the Gospels. But the fact is that it does create, as we'll see, quite a number of attacks upon the Jews that are unwarranted.

In particular, what Gibson did was to take these mass crowd scenes and to give all the ingredients for an outbreak against the Jews. Certainly the most vicious anti-Jewish remark in the Gospels is the one in Matthew where the Jews say, "His blood be upon us and on our children." In other words, that not only they themselves take it upon themselves, but also their children, presumably forever. And it was upon us, too. That statement has been more responsible for attacks upon Jews than any other single statement, I think, in the whole New Testament.

Now, he was made aware. He had a council of advisers when he made the movie, consisting of people who were experts in the field of New Testament study and the whole Hellenistic period, etc. And they advised him to remove that from the film. He finally decided on a compromise. What he did was, he removed it from the subtitles but he did not remove it from the original language. So, therefore, if you happen to know Aramaic, you will hear it. That, I think frankly, is again an indication of where he stands.

In regard to the Sanhedrin, I said that the Roman Catholic Church itself realized the danger in presenting the scene of Jesus being questioned before the Sanhedrin. There are a number of problems which the Roman Catholic Church itself understood. First of all, I might say that the word which is used in the Greek is Sunedrion, which is the same word as our Sanhedrin. To be sure, there are some people who claim that it's not really the Sanhedrin; it's just a meeting, a kind of meeting of people who get together, a conference sort of thing.

But the fact is that it is called the Sanhedrin, and that's the way it's presented in the movie as well. Once they say that it is the Sanhedrin, then there are a number of differences between the way in which that particular group met and the way in which the Sanhedrin conducted itself. For example, the Sanhedrin had a presiding officer who was a Pharisaic scholar. In the movie, of course, as in the Gospels, it is the high priest himself. Now, we're going to see that what he has done is he takes two figures who are the main figures in the whole story, aside from Jesus himself, and they are the high priest, on the one hand, who represents the Jews, and Pontius Pilate, who represents the Romans. The high priest is presiding over the Sanhedrin. That's not the way in which the Sanhedrin conducted itself so far as we can see in the Mishnah and in the Gemara and, as far as we can tell, throughout the time that the Sanhedrin was functioning.

Secondly, the place of the Sanhedrin is not, as in the Gospels and in the movie, the house of the high priest but rather in the particular hall known as the Hall of Gazit. The time when the Sanhedrin met is not, as it is in the New Testament and in the movie, at night or in a festival. They didn't meet that way so far as the Mishnah is concerned.

Now another thing. According to the procedure of the Sanhedrin, the trial must begin with reasons for acquittal. That's not the way in which this procedure is presented in the Gospels or in the film itself. Witnesses must be warned before they give witness that they're doing something very important, very serious. They're not warned in the Gospels or in the film. And most important in the procedure, the person who is on trial cannot incriminate himself. The idea of self-incrimination is completely foreign to the procedure, whereas here Jesus is asked to incriminate himself. And in one of the Gospels he actually does incriminate himself, as we'll see.

Then the verdict may not be given on the same day. The committee or the Sanhedrin has to sleep on it, so to speak. Some people say that that's the reason why we have two days of Rosh Hashanah, because you shouldn't have the verdict on the same day. I might say one last point. Remember that the Sanhedrin is a Jewish organization. According to the rules of the Sanhedrin, if there was a unanimous vote then the defendant is automatically freed. I suppose they felt that if you could get seventy-one Jews to agree on something, they were in cahoots or something like that.

But what I'm saying here is, the procedure that was followed certainly is not the procedure that we're familiar with. And we know, we have a statement, that a Sanhedrin that condemned one person to death in seventy years is called a bloody Sanhedrin. It was not very common, to put it mildly.

Now, what were the charges made? Here you have, I think, a matter of great importance. What were the charges, in this particular case, before the high priest in the movie, before the Sanhedrin? Well, he is told, "Tell us if you are the Christ." Now, the word Christos in Greek means "anointed one", and is the word that we would translate as mashiach. Tell us whether you are the mashiach, the son of God. And in one of the Gospels, Mark, he actually says, "I am." In the others he is equivocal about it.

The high priest then says, "He has uttered blasphemy." Now, blasphemy means you uttered the name of God, the tetragrammaton, in vain. There's no indication so far as we can tell in the Gospels, or in the movie for that matter, that Jesus ever did commit blasphemy in that particular sense, because it's a very technical sense. Then they say, "Do we still need witnesses?" Of course, from a Jewish point of view, "the matter rests upon two witnesses." Yet, they say it doesn't need witnesses because he has incriminated himself. And the assumption of the title mashiach is not in itself blasphemous. As a matter of fact, as you know, there have been quite a number of people in Jewish history who have claimed to be a Messiah. Not too long after Jesus, you have Bar Kochba, for example. And there were others as well.

Then the charge with regard to the Temple: Jesus says, "I am able to destroy the Temple and to build it in three days." We then are told, "Not even so did their testimony agree." Well, if their testimony didn't agree, then that particular charge would be thrown out. But to be plotting against the Temple, to say that the Temple would be destroyed, you're not going to be convicted. Nobody is convicted because of words. You're convicted because of deeds. That same kind of talk, predicting that the Temple would be destroyed, you find in the prophet Jeremiah, for example, or the prophet Ezekiel. We have similar talk in the time of Jesus, for example. But that is certainly not a charge which would bring about a penalty.

Another one of the charges is a case where we have something in the film that is not in the New Testament itself. Witnesses tell the Sanhedrin that Jesus worked magic with the devil. That's not in the New Testament; that is in the film. And that's part again of this mood that is being created by the film, that the Jews are connected with the devil and that it's certainly much more than just one man who claims to be the Messiah, or even if he claimed to be God.

Someone then says, "He said that if we don't eat his flesh and blood that we will not inherit eternal life." That's not in the Gospels; that is in the film. And again, it's part and parcel of the agenda of the person who made the film.

Another charge made in the film but not in the New Testament is that Jesus violated the Sabbath. That particular charge, violation of the Sabbath, is a very serious charge of course. But again, it's not mentioned in the Gospels. It is mentioned in the film.

You see, what Mel Gibson has done is he has picked and chosen from the various Gospels those things which he wanted to emphasize. It may very well be that this interrogation of Jesus was not before a Sanhedrin but rather was before a kind of grand jury proceeding, the sort that Haim Cohn, for example, has written about in one of his books.

I want to say now something that is, I think, extremely vital in understanding what Mel Gibson has done. He has taken the character of the high priest and made him into a major figure. Now, at one time the high priest was really a major figure. There's no question about that. At the time of the Hasmoneans, from the middle of the second century B.C.E. to the middle of the first century B.C.E., the high priest was the king and he indeed had tremendous power. But when the Hasmoneans were overthrown and then the Romans took over, and then, remember, you have a King Herod for many years who was a kind of puppet of the Romans, and when he died he was succeeded by his son. Then there was great dissatisfaction with his son, Archelaus, and the procurators took over.

So then shortly after the beginning of the first century C.E., the procurators were the ones in control. They were the ones who actually appointed the high priest. That's very important to bear in mind, because in the film what you get is that the high priest has tremendous power, tremendous influence; and the procurator Pontius Pilate is afraid to go against the advice of the high priest. But, I repeat, the high priest was an appointee of the procurator; and we hear, for example, that one of the procurators actually appointed four different high priests, one after the other. He fired them one after the other because he was not happy with them, and he'd appoint another one.

That's not the kind of high priest who would exercise the kind of control that one would expect from the film. Imagine, in order to get his clothes, and, as you know, there's a very elaborate set of clothes that the high priest has to wear on Yom Kippur, he had to go to the procurator to get those clothes.

Again, that's not the sort of thing that you would get from the movie at all. But what you do get in the movie is the high priest, Caiaphas, constantly appearing on the screen, and especially, as we'll see, during the time when Jesus is tortured. It was Caiaphas, we are told, who had given counsel to the Jews that it was expedient that one man should die for the people. In other words, that one person should be handed over to the Romans and in that way it would save the Jewish people presumably. Otherwise they would suffer terribly.

Now, that's something that again we know something about, particularly of course from rabbinic literature. That's one thing which Jews don't do. There's one case in rabbinic literature where Joshua Ben Levi persuaded Ulla to give himself up because the Romans demanded it, and they threatened to destroy Lydda unless Ulla was surrendered to them. Eventually he persuades him to do that, and the rabbis are very much opposed to it. We are told that Elijah, the prophet Elijah, had been accustomed to reveal himself to Joshua Ben Levi but not after this incident. Finally, he went to Elijah or Elijah appeared to him. He said, "What's the story? Why haven't you appeared to me?" And he said, "Because of what you did."

This is something that Jews don't do, to hand over another Jew, especially for this kind of punishment that is simply not acceptable and without proper procedure, which is certainly not acceptable. So that really is something that was added, it seems to me, that does not have basis.

It's very interesting that there is one other account which, if it is authentic, does deal with the crucifixion. And that is by the Jewish historian Josephus. The question is whether Josephus really wrote it. And I've written about that, and I've come to the conclusion that he couldn't have written it, certainly in the form that we have it, because Origen, the Christian church father, at one point says that Josephus didn't recognize that Jesus was the Christos.

But the fact is that it is there in our Greek text. Now, it so happens that in the tenth century a Christian Arab named Agapius wrote an account closely paraphrasing Josephus; and he comes to this particular passage. In this particular passage, in Josephus, as we have it in the Greek, it says that Jesus was turned over by the leaders, the Jewish leaders, to Pilate. Whereas in Agapius' version, a very close paraphrase - and again, he's an Arab Christian - he says merely that Jesus was crucified. He doesn't tell you on whose recommendation he was crucified. So it seems to me that it may very well be that the original version of Josephus, which was used by Christians for a long time as evidence that the Jews also recognized what Jesus had done there was no statement at all about the role of Jewish leaders. This, I think, may very well be without basis altogether.

There's one other thing which I think we have to realize as we watch the film. We find that in the New Testament, the word "Romans" appears only once, only once. It appears in the Gospel of John. Now why is it that the New Testament should have said so little about the Romans, or at least mention them by name? The answer would seem to be, and this is part and parcel of what Gibson then develops in his film, that the Gospels want us to believe that the Romans really are not the culprits. They're not really responsible.

You might ask why the Christians did not give a more major place to the Romans. It may very well be that they were afraid that if they did do so, they would not be getting the kind of treatment or acceptance that they wanted, that they would, in effect, be regarded as people who were trying to overthrow Roman rule of Judaea, and so on and so forth.

One thing that I think you have to understand is that in the parables that Jesus gives, at least as recorded in the Gospels, very often you have the word "king." Jesus is presented as a king, and there are parables of kingdom or kingship, and so on. When the Romans heard that, they saw that this particular person, or in his name, was trying to establish an independent state. Independent state means they're going to overthrow the Romans. So therefore the Christians were very sensitive on that score, and they didn't want to appear to be unfair to the Romans. So they cut the role of the Romans considerably.

You see in the film, and again this happens to be in the New Testament, too, that Pontius Pilate says that there is a custom that the festivals, meaning the three festivals of the year, Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles, for the person who's in charge, the procurator, to free a prisoner. We know a good deal about Roman history. We know a good deal about the practices of the Romans. We know a good deal about the way in which the way the Roman Empire was administered, their provinces, and so on. Nowhere, aside from the New Testament, do we find this particular practice ever mentioned, let alone put into practice.

So it seems very unlikely that they would do a thing like that, because after all they were always afraid that they'd be overthrown. There were so many revolts in the Roman empire, if you know something of the Roman history. So therefore they would certainly never do such a thing, to yield to demands of the people. Certainly not.

Now, one thing that certainly emerges from the Gospels and is emphasized even more by Gibson in the film, is the role of Pontius Pilate. Here we have two people - and these are really the only two people who deal with Pontius Pilate at any length, namely Philo, the Jewish philosopher of Alexandria, who was the leader of the Jewish community in Alexandria, and Josephus. They both mention Pontius Pilate. I might say that Josephus mentions Pontius Pilate in both the Jewish War and in the Antiquities.

The major difference, I might say, between the two accounts of Josephus is that the Jewish War account, which is almost as long as the one in the Antiquities, does not mention the passage about Jesus, which is a central focus of the Pontius Pilate account in the Antiquities.

Philo says about Pontius Pilate, and again you would never get this from reading the Gospels and certainly not from Mel Gibson, that he was "inflexible, he was stubborn, of cruel disposition. He executed troublemakers without a trial." He refers to Pilate's "venality, his violence, thefts, assaults, abusive behavior, endless executions, endless savage ferocity." And I'm quoting.

Now, Philo was certainly a scholar. He apparently had good information. You can see that he certainly tries his best to be fair towards the Romans. He got along with the Romans. He was the head of a delegation to the Roman Emperor Caligula, yet this is the way he speaks about Pontius Pilate. And those are the only substantial accounts that we have of Pontius Pilate. Pontius Pilate, according to Josephus, actually took money from the Temple and built an aqueduct in Jerusalem. He offended Jewish sensibilities by attempting to introduce busts of the emperor into Jerusalem.

Again, when the Samaritans arose to make a pilgrimage to Mt. Gerixim, he sent his soldiers, who slaughtered the people. Eventually he was deposed. The Roman governor of Syria, who was in charge of the procurators, actually forced him out of office. Moreover, in the film Jesus tells Pontius Pilate that the high priest, Caiaphas, bore the greater sin for delivering him over to Roman authority. That's not in the New Testament.

But again, the film is intended to put the emphasis upon the high priest, Caiaphas, and on the Jews as handing over other people. That's something which again I say we have no reason to believe the Jews did.

There's one point in the film where Mary Magdalene tries to get help from Roman soldiers when Jesus is taken to be tried by the Jewish priests, the implication being that she would get further with the Roman soldiers than with the Jews. That's not in the New Testament. The fact is that this was intended to show the Jewish culpability, Jewish control, and again it's not in the Gospels.

At one point Pilate says to his wife, if I do not condemn Jesus, Caiaphas will start a rebellion. Not in the New Testament. And Caiphas was in no position to start a rebellion for the reason I indicated. He was powerless. He was appointed by the procurator and he would have been deposed if he ever tried anything at all.

The clear impression that Gibson is trying to create is that Pilate was unable to resist the tremendous pressure from a powerful Caiaphas. The charge that is brought before Pilate, and all four of the Gospels agree on this, is: are you king of the Jews? Notice that's the first charge: Are you king of the Jews? The only way we can understand that is: are you a person trying to create an independent state? Because one of the functions of the Messiah is to create an independent state.

I might say parenthetically that if you take a look at Maimonides' codification of how you're going to recognize the Messiah when he comes, the one thing that he will do is he'll establish an independent state. Which means not a state that's going to be subservient even to a power like the United States, but rather a truly independent state. And he is going to gather the Jews from all the four corners of the earth, meaning from Manhattan, Forest Hills, and so on, and all of them are going to come to Israel.

The fact is that the Messiah is known by what he does. And if you say: are you king of the Jews, meaning are you going to establish an independent state, once that question is asked the implication is, we have reason to think that you are. Now, Jesus gives answers that are sort of in between, or he's silent. But the fact of the matter is that the charge is made.

In one of the Gospels, Luke, we read that the Jews declare that this man is perverting our nation and forbidding us to give tribute to Caesar, saying that he himself is Christ, meaning mashiach, a king. He stirs the people up. Forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, rending to Caesar the things that are Caesar's. If you don't pay the Romans what is due to the Romans, then you are revolting against the Romans. The famous line in Virgil, "Parcere subjectis et debellare superbos," to spare those who are giving in to you and to humble those who are haughty." But that is the way the Romans did it.

In all cases, are you king of the Jews? Again, Jesus either says "You have said so" or he's silent, etc.

Why does Jesus not criticize the Romans? Why does he use the phrase "kingdom" or "king" in so many of the parables? Again, I think that he realized that if he ever did come out with it he would be regarded as one who was trying to overthrew the Roman rule of Judaea.

What emerges, however, is that Jesus was a political rebel, and that is why he was crucified. And that is why the inscription on the cross - the wording is a little bit different in all four gospels - "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews." He tried to establish an independent state as Messiah. At one point, we hear a band of soldiers and their captain and the officers of the Jews seize him with weapons. And what do you mean, "seize him with weapons"?

Why would a band of soldiers be needed to seize Jesus? It sounds rather that the Romans suspected that there is somebody who's trying to promote a revolution, like the fourth philosophy that Josephus talks about. That therefore they had to seize him before he actually carried it out. Remember, the other two who are crucified with him are crucified as "leistai." Now, "leistai" in the Talmudic language are robbers, but they're not robbers. These people are revolutionaries. Jesus is a revolutionary. You can see that he's a political figure from the fact that Jesus says to his disciples, "Whoever has no sword, let him sell his mantle and buy one."

Why do you have to buy a sword? Matthew 10:34, "I bring you not peace but the sword." Why? It sounds again that he had political ambitions to establish an independent state after the terrible years under Herod and under the procurators. The fact that he's linked with Barabbas, and the name Barabas may very well be a duplicate of Jesus: Bar Abbas, literally the son of the father, led a recent insurrection against the Romans, according to Mark. So therefore he's coupled with revolutionaries.

One of his followers is Simon the Zealot. Now the word "Zealot" there is Zealot with a capital "Z". There was a party, a revolutionary party called the Zealots, who tried to overthrow the Romans and establish an independent state. One of Jesus' followers is Judas Iscariot. What kind of name is Iscariot? Iscariot probably is Ish Sicarius. He is a member of the sect known as the Sicarii. That is the group that took over Masada, for example, and these were revolutionaries who wanted to establish an independent state.

In the Book of Acts, depicting what happened right after the crucifixion, when Jesus' disciples come to see Jesus risen, they ask the allegedly resurrected Jesus, "Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" Now, what kind of question is that? Restore the kingdom to Israel. He means establish an independent state, such as we had for example under Saul and David and Solomon and under the time of Hasmoneans. Are you going to establish an independent state?

It's interesting that Tacitus, the Roman historian who lived at the end of the first and beginning of the second century, actually mentions the death of Jesus and, I might say parenthetically that this is probably the most important source for establishing the historicity of Jesus. Because you know there are people who claim that Jesus never lived. A whole book was written about that in 1835 even.

So here's what Tacitus says, and Tacitus is no great friend of the Jews, no great friend of the Christians either. "Christos, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius." That is the name of the Roman Emperor at that time. "Jesus died at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilates. And the most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their center and become popular."

He didn't like anybody. But the fact is that it's interesting that he mentions Tiberius, the Emperor, mentions Pontius Pilate the procurator, and says nothing about the Jews, whom he despised and if you read Tacitus, the work called The Histories, Book 5, you'll see in the first thirteen sections the most extensive account by a non-Jew of the Jewish religion and Jewish history that has come down from antiquity.

Now, in the film there's a tremendous amount of time given to the scourging, where Jesus is mercilessly beaten, I mean blow by blow. This is something that I can understand somebody would want to mention, but why does Gibson go into it at such length? Here again there's a major difference between Mel Gibson and the New Testament, what he does with the scourging, which is a central feature of the film. What I think people who go to it I'm sure are going to never forget. I think this certainly has tremendous potential for trouble for the Jewish people.

What do the Gospels say about this preparation for the crucifixion known as the scourging, this merciless whipping? Matthew 17:26, "When Pilate had scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified." It doesn't tell you anything about the details of the scourging at all. Mark 15:15, ditto, same thing. It mentions that he was scourged but it does not tell you any of the details. Luke 23:26 mentions nothing at all. It just mentions the crucifixion. And John, the most anti-Jewish of all the Gospels, 19:17, mentions nothing at all about the scourging, just that he was crucified.

Yet here is Mel Gibson, who has given you a blow-by-blow account, terrible, bloody, brutal, and so on, of what happened. And who is the master of ceremonies of this account? The high priest who is watching over all this. They constantly show his face, and you can see that there's such vicious bitterness in his face. That is what Mel Gibson is trying to convey.

I'm not saying incidentally that there aren't certain things in the film that do present positive things about the Jews. For example, Simon, who is actually identified as a Jew, carries the cross. He's actually forced to carry the cross, but he is a Jew. Veronica brings a cloth to wipe the face of Jesus when he is being beaten. The Jews in the crowd finally cry out to stop this torture. And the truth is that even though the Romans I say are treated rather lightly, the Romans also are laughing at the scourging and at the crucifixion, too.

I would say this, that if you look at the film as a whole, what I think Gibson has done is that he has tried to cover himself by saying, well, there are some Jews here or there who are doing something positive. And there are some Romans who are negative, etc. But the overall impression, especially I repeat a visual impression, of the way in which - look at the teeth and the noses, incidentally, of these Jews. You see that there's something that he tries to present, namely the vicious side of the Jews.

Of course, if the Jews had anything had to do with it, why should all the Jews of today be responsible for it, any more than all the Athenians are responsible for what the Athenians did to Socrates? Or the Italians because of what Pontius Pilate did to Jesus?

Again, at the beginning of the film you have the devils. At the end of the film, you have the destruction of the Temple. Now, the destruction of the Temple is Gibson's way of saying that God has finally given the Jews what was coming to them. As you know, the Temple was not destroyed until considerably later, the year 68 according to the rabbinic Seder Olam and the year 70 according to the usual chronology. But this is really the moral of the story, that the Jews are going to get what was coming to them.

Now, why didn't Mel Gibson, as he was advised by a number of people, why did he not put in the end of the film a statement to the effect that the Jews of today are not responsible for what some Jews are alleged to have said or done two thousand years ago? How effective it would have been if Mel Gibson had ended his movie with a prayer of penance, proposed by Pope John XXIII shortly before his death in the year 1963. Here's what Pope John XXIII said: "We recognize today that many centuries of blindness have veiled our eyes, so that we no longer see the beauty of the chosen people and no longer recognize the features of our first-born brother. We know now that the mark of Cain is on our forehead. Over the course of centuries, our brother Abel has lain in the blood we have spilled and has wept tears which we have caused, because we forgot Your love. Forgive us for the curse which we unjustly placed on the name of the Jews. Forgive us for crucifying you a second time, for we knew not what we were doing."

Thank you.

QUESTION AND ANSWER SESSION

Question: Could you tell us what historical evidence is there that Jesus actually lived or did not live? What does the Talmud tell us? And is it reliable? Were there two Jesuses, as certain schools of thought propound? And if he did live, when did he live and is he a composite of one or two or characters?

PROFESSOR FELDMAN: You want me now to give you another lecture. You're referring, of course, to the statement, it's actually in the uncensored copies of the Talmud in the tractate Sanhedrin 43A. If you look at that page in our copies of the Talmud, you'll see a lot of blank space because our copies of the tractate were censored by Christians who took out the passage pertaining to Jesus. Now, that particular passage does mention Jesus. The question is whether it's the same Jesus. Because the name Jesus is a very common name. If you take a look, for example, in the pages of Josephus you'll see, I believe, something like 21 people named Jesus. It's a very common name. His name was Joshua. Therefore you can't be absolutely sure.

Now, there is a work called the Toldot Yeshu, which dates, as we have it, from the 10th century but it is referred to actually even earlier, in the 8th century, which is the Gospel according to the Jews, you might say, and which has an account of Jesus that's quite different from what you'll find in the Gospels.

There you do have an account of Jesus being tried before a Jewish court. The only problem with the passage that you have in the tractate Sanhedrin is that it doesn't explain the Mishnah, which is the usual method of the Gemara.

For example, according to the Mishnah, one must give the name of the accused and his father's name. The Gemara does not give the name of the father. Also, you have to indicate the witnesses. The witnesses have to be given by name, and no witness is mentioned by name, and so on. I think in general one finds that that particular passage in the Gemara, which is the one that supposedly deals with Jesus, is to put it mildly, a very, very doubtful passage, probably interpolated. The question is by whom and when, etc.

If you take a look at the Toldot Yeshu, a more extensive account, it seems to say that Jesus lived a hundred years earlier in the time of Joshua ben Perahyah. So therefore, I might say, there are people who have argued that our Jesus is not the same as that particular Jesus at all.

I'm going to read to you, you might say a biographical description which happens to be found in a work by a man named Philostratus. Here's what he says:

"In the first century, there appeared at the eastern end of the Mediterranean a remarkable religious leader who taught the worship of the true God and declared that religion meant not the sacrifice of beasts, but the practice of charity and piety and the shunning of hatred and enmity. He was said to have worked miracles of goodness, casting out demons, healing the sick, raising the dead. His exemplary life led some of his followers to claim he was a son of God, though he called himself the son of man. Accused of sedition against Rome, he was arrested. After his death, his disciples claimed he had risen from the dead, appeared to them alive, and then ascended to Heaven. Who was this teacher and wonderworker?"

Sound familiar? The answer is: this is a sketch of the life of Apollonius of Tyana based on a work by Philostratus, a writer who lived in the third century. Apollonius of Tyana's dates are almost the same as Jesus' dates. People claimed that he did almost the same things. There were a lot of people like that. So you can't be really sure that this is Jesus of Nazareth that we are talking about.

You know, Jesus was not the founder of Christianity. He was the foundling of Christianity. There was a man named Paul, formerly called Saul, who came and spoiled it all.

Question: Can you talk a little bit about the canonization of the New Testament? When and by whom was it written?

PROFESSOR FELDMAN: We don't know. The question was the canonization of the New Testament. When was it done and who were the writers, etc.? All I can say is that the church has its traditions as to when it was done and by whom it was done. And therefore they speak of a Gospel according to Matthew and to Mark and to Luke and to John. Also, I might say, there were many apocryphal Gospels that didn't make it at all into the canon. There were always disputes, as you know, among the Christians. There were tremendous disputes among them for centuries, as a matter of fact. So it was not really decided until some time later.

There were some people, incidentally, who apparently were very unhappy with Jesus as the central figure and really wanted to have John the Baptist. Because after all, John the Baptist first of all was older than Jesus, and he was the one who baptized Jesus. So there was a sect actually that centered in modern Iraq that really looked upon John the Baptist as being the central figure. Then there were many, many sects and differences of opinion with regard to the Gospels as well.

But one thing is clear, that the earliest of the Gospels certainly, usually said to be Mark, dates from around the year 70, which is long after the time of Jesus, who apparently died in the year 29. And that Jesus never wrote anything. You know, if you had an inquest in the case of Jesus, who killed Jesus, you don't have a body. You don't have anything he wrote. None of the authors of the Gospels ever talked to him. So you have nothing.

So that's why in the early second century, not long after the time of Jesus, there was a writer named Justin Martyr who wrote a work called "Dialogue with Trypho." Now Trypho many people think is Rabbi Tarphon. In that work, Justin Martyr answers the theory. He says there are some people who claim that Jesus never lived. In the second century already there were people who said that Jesus never lived, that the whole thing was a figment of imagination. If you remember the story, and I think it was Anatole France who has a story in which he has Pontius Pilate pondering his days when he was procurator. Somebody asks, "Do you remember this fellow Jesus?" He holds his head and he says, "Jesus...which Jesus?" The questioner says, "Jesus of Nazareth." "Jesus of Nazareth? I don't remember the fellow."

Question: What do we know about crucifixion and how it was practiced?

PROFESSOR FELDMAN: We first hear of crucifixion being practiced by the ancient Persians. The Carthaginians employed it, and it was from them that the Romans adopted it. Cicero calls it the most extreme form of punishment, and Josephus calls it the most wretched of deaths. Crucifixion was preceded by a cruel scourging, to which Gibson has devoted much of his film. Death usually occurred through exhaustion after three or even four or five days. You see what happened was that you couldn't move, you know. It was really a gruesome way, if you think of it. During the war against the Romans, according to Josephus, Jews were crucified by the Romans in such vast numbers that there was no room for the crosses and no crosses for the bodies. I might say, an interesting point which I think nobody has ever noticed is this. What's the connection between the crucifixion of Jesus and the death of Haman? We just celebrated Purim. So what's the connection between Purim and Jesus? The answer I'll give you is this. That if you take a look in the fifth century, Roman emperors were apparently quite upset by the fact that on Purim Jews would celebrate Purim by hanging Haman in effigy. But they didn't hang them in effigy. What they did was they crucified him in effigy. They crucified him. And it was the emperor Justinian who forbade this crucifixion of Haman in effigy.

Now, where did they get this idea of crucifying Haman in effigy? The answer I think is in a passage in Josephus, Josephus writing at great length about the Purim story. And incidentally, when he writes the account of Purim, he changes one of the things that you find in the account in the Megillah, and that is he introduces God into the story. Because as you know, the name of God is not found in the whole Megillah. He introduces God, and then he says that Haman was crucified. He actually says Haman was crucified.

Now, as you know, in the account that we have in the Megillah and in the Purim story, he's not crucified, he is hanged. Right? He's hanged on gallows. Josephus had tremendous influence. In other words, perhaps because of this passage that was allegedly written by him about Jesus, he was read. Do you realize that classical authors - I deal with classical authors... For example, did you know that there was a classical author in the first century named Didymus Chalcenterus who wrote 3500 books. Thirty-five hundred books. Fortunately, all of them are lost. Because otherwise I'd have to read them.

But you see, in the case of Josephus, Josephus wrote thirty books, thirty books. We have approximately thirty-three. What do you mean we have thirty-three? How is that possible? We have things that he didn't even write but that were ascribed to him, he was so popular. If he wrote that Haman was crucified, that was disseminated very widely and Josephus was translated into Latin and so on and so forth. That may be the equation, shall we say, that was drawn and that the Emperor Justinian reacted against. He thought that the Jews were re-enacting, in their joy, the crucifixion of Jesus.

Question: You had mentioned that attempts were made by Jewish leaders to get Gibson to add a statement at the end of movie that the Jews of today are not responsible for what they are alleged to have done 2000 years ago. Did these leaders act wisely?

PROFESSOR FELDMAN: That's a very important question. As you know, the Jewish community did try tremendously, while the film was being made and again while it was being revised, to get these changes made. As I said, they very, very seldom succeeded. The fact is that while the movie was being made, Mel Gibson had a board of advisers consisting of scholars who knew all the things that I've been mentioning here, and he simply disregarded their advice.

What can the Jewish community do? Some people have been critical of the Jewish community for giving as much attention as it has already given to it. I mean, this man is becoming a multi-millionaire, largely because of the controversy occasioned by this movie. And a good deal of the controversy came because of criticism by Jewish leaders. Some of them have been criticized. It is said that they should not have said these things, and that if they had not spoken, then this fellow would not have gotten so much free publicity, etc.

In my opinion, that's never a solution. The fact is that you have to speak up. If you don't, then frankly it's even worse. In answer to what can be done now that the movie is out, I would say that one thing that can and should be done is that respected scholars should go on record and should make sure... See, don't forget we have in colleges scholars who have a tremendous influence through their students. If scholars speak out and write also and make sure that these things are disseminated amongst their students and among the general public, I believe that the general public... I have great confidence in the American people as a people. We have people who are very, very fair-minded, and I think if they know the facts and these are disseminated amongst them, I think that they will not do what was done in Europe after the passion plays were put on for hundreds of years.

But the truth is it's a very big task. I'm afraid that the way the movie is succeeding and getting large numbers of people and appealing to them in the most emotional way. You identify with crowds and the crowds are people, frankly, who are like the crowds in the movie. Many people are going to go away crying and so on.

Question: Didn't you actually say that the Jews were not responsible at that time?

PROFESSOR FELDMAN: What I'm saying is that the person responsible for the killing, I think if you look at the evidence, is Pontius Pilate the Roman. If this were presented as a case in law, I think that the case in law would not implicate the Jews at all. Because, after all, the charge against Jesus is quite clear from the inscription on the cross. The charge was a political charge. Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. He was a political rebel. A political rebel against whom? Against the Jews? Jews did not have an independent state. It was against the Romans, right?

So therefore it was the Romans who put him to death. That is what Tacitus says, and that seems to me the solution that an impartial court would come to. Not that the Jews had anything to do with it. As I said, the Jews were very weak, the high priest especially weak, and certainly had no great influence upon the Roman authorities. So I would say, yes, the Jews are really quite innocent of all this.

But you see, one other thing though I should say. From a theological point of view, if the Jews did have something to do with it, then the Christians would have to say that they owe the Jews a great deal for making it possible for them to have a religion. Because you see, the whole religion of Christianity rests upon the fact that Jesus died and that Jesus was resurrected. Now if Jesus had not died, there could not have been a resurrection, there could not have been an Easter, there could not have been Christianity.

So therefore if the Jews did have something to do with it - we say they didn't - but if they did, the Christians should be very much indebted to the Jews for it.

Question: Just a clarification of procedure in the late second Temple period in terms of the Sanhedrin. As I understand it, the Sanhedrin did not have capital power at that point because in fact the Romans were in control.

PROFESSOR FELDMAN: Correct.

Question: What would have happened if the Sanhedrin or an authorized Jewish court had in fact found someone guilty of a crime that merited a death penalty? You said earlier that Jews did not turn other Jews over to the authorities, but in fact there are many times in Jewish history where we have had court systems but we have not had capital power. Either in second Temple times or in other times, what have Jews actually done?

PROFESSOR FELDMAN: Let me comment on that. That's a very important question. In the first place, there is one case mentioned by Josephus where Jews were responsible for putting a person to death. And that is the case of the brother of Jesus, James, who was put to death by a Jewish court at the instigation of the high priest. There's no Gospel pertaining to James, the brother of Jesus. So therefore all we have is the very brief passage in Josephus that he was brought up on the charge that he had transgressed the law. It would seem that sometime after Jesus the high priest did exercise some power. But the high priest did so at a time when the procurator had died and a new procurator had not yet arrived. When the new procurator arrived, the most fair-minded and those who were strict in observance of the law informed the new procurator that the high priest had no authority to convene a Sanhedrin without his consent. The high priest, who had served for only three months, was then deposed.

The fact is that the Romans... See, when it came to law, the greatest contribution of the Romans to Western civilization is Roman law. They took their legal system very, very seriously. They wanted to be sure that nobody else is going to run their legal system. So therefore they had all these rules as to who has the power to do this, who has the jurisdiction, etc. They certainly would never have yielded to a Jewish court of any sort when it came to the death penalty. Especially since they were so afraid of revolution. I mean, the Romans were constantly beset by revolutions in various parts of the Roman Empire. So therefore it seems very unlikely that they would have allowed a Sanhedrin to exercise power illegally in sentencing someone to death.

The line in Virgil, "parcere subjectis et debellare superbos," to put down the haughty people. Now if you rise up against the Romans, they're going to throw the book at you. And they did. And they did, of course, with the Jews, as we know, in the years 66 to 74, and 115 to 117, the Bar Kochba rebellion from 132 to 135. They did that all the time. So they certainly would never have allowed a court to have jurisdiction, especially in matters of life and death.

Question: Are there any scholars among the Christians, especially among the Christian Right that's pro-Israel that are speaking out with regard to issues that you've raised in terms of what Mel Gibson has portrayed in the film that deviate from the Gospels?

PROFESSOR FELDMAN: There's no question that many Christians have spoken out against Mel Gibson. Mel Gibson is persona non grata in many circles, especially, I might say, in the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church, because he is unhappy with the updating that was started in 1963. So many scholars have spoken out. In fact, I have not followed this that closely, but I have not found yet a single scholar, Jewish or Christian, who has said that Mel Gibson is "right". I haven't found anybody like that. And quite a number have come out, including of course many Christians.

But unfortunately, you see, scholars are very often naive when it comes to having influence upon the rest of the world. I might say parenthetically that one reason why the Jews were relatively well off under the Roman Empire was because scholars did not have too much influence on the Roman emperors.

Question: Inasmuch as the question that we're dealing with tonight, the age-old question I think is the wrong question. Because if we look at the correlation between Jesus and Purim, we're realizing the tragedy, even the fight. In that situation there was passion that was dealt with in the situation, and there was victory on the other end of it. Right? That's a correlation that we can make between Purim and Christ, because [Vashti] will be deposed but she had to die so that Esther would come into place to deliver the Jewish people. Sometimes things happen in life that we can't fully understand. One thing we have to be grateful for is that hysteria and pandemonium have not taken place. Isn't it a blessing that none of that has taken place?

PROFESSOR FELDMAN: Not yet. Of course I might say parenthetically that the film I believe has not yet been shown in Europe. I shudder to think what will happen when it is shown in Europe in view of the tremendous anti-Semitism in Europe today. Also, the Moslems who of course have nothing to do with Jesus technically. I mean, after all, he's not their religious figure. But I'm afraid that the Moslems are going to exploit this, just as they have exploited the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. I hope I'm wrong, but they're going to exploit this, too. So we haven't yet seen the worst. I hope I'm a bad prophet, but I'm afraid that this may happen.

So far as Providence really controlling everything, from a Christian point of view what the Jews did or did not do, or might have done, is really irrelevant because from their point of view, Jesus had to die in order to fulfill their prophecies. After all, they cite all these prophecies in the prophets, right? So Jesus had to die. So how he died and so on is really irrelevant. I mean, the fact of the matter from their point of view, is that God was the one who arranged all this, that Jesus would come on the earth and he would do this and that, and he would die, etc. How he died, who had anything to do with it is really irrelevant from their point of view. The main thing is that he died. Because if he hadn't died, then he could never have been resurrected. That's very important.

Question: According to the Toldos Yeshu, what happened to that Jesus, and why?

PROFESSOR FELDMAN: What happened to Jesus and why. First of all, let me say, with regard to Toldos Yeshu, that that particular treatise has been used by Jews in order to show that the Jews had nothing to do with Jesus of Nazareth. Why? Because the Toldos Yeshu's Jesus lived a hundred years before Jesus. So therefore it's not the same person. So therefore in that way they were able, whoever it was who composed the Toldos Yeshu, to say that the Jews have nothing to do with Jesus. It's a different person altogether. They happened to have the same name, etc.

Therefore, what happened to that particular Jesus is really irrelevant from the point of view of the Jews, the accusation against the Jews pertaining to Jesus of Nazareth. It's a different person, just a totally different person. Now what happened in that particular version of the Toldos Yeshu was that eventually that particular Jesus was met by a person who had even greater magical power and was able to deprive Jesus of all his magical power by doing some things to him which I won't mention, and which made Jesus come back down to earth and he became deprived of all his powers.

Question: As to the emotional reaction of Christians to the movie, the very things about the film that strike Jewish people as difficult, offensive, horrifying, potentially inflammatory are either irrelevant or unnoticeable. Perhaps you might address the way in which we might make it clear to believing Christians that as powerful the film may be for them, there are components of this film which have nothing to do with their own spirituality and which historically have enormous resonance and the potential to be very destructive. I wonder how we might speak to Christians about this in a way. I recommend we have a dialogue with them about this that doesn't strike them as either offensive or punitive but that is in fact provocative and sensitizes them to our view.

PROFESSOR FELDMAN: I think that in answer to your question, which really of course is an extremely important question, how we should deal with the Christians, how we should dialogue with them, Rabbi Soloveitchik, of blessed memory, was of the opinion that we should have no dialogues with Christians. We should not engage the Christians in dialogue. Not that we should not have tremendous, wonderful relations with them in every other way, but not theologically. In other words, we do not discuss theological matters with them, because if we do, the truth is that Christianity is so very different from Judaism, so very, very different from Judaism.

Tertullian, the Christian Church Father around the year 200, says "Credo quia absurdum," I believe because it - meaning Christianity - is absurd. I believe because it is impossible.

That's the religion known as Christianity. Absurd. I'm not saying it in an insulting way. I'm saying that it's so different, it's so very, very different. Judaism by comparison is one that revels in discussions, debate, difference of opinion, and so on. Our great book is not only the Bible but the Talmud, which is a book of debate, a kind of congressional record, with constant difference of opinion. And that's typical of the Jews. We're always differing with one another. It's not a catechism.

So therefore once you start engaging these people in debate, it seems to me it's likely to lead to a much worse situation. They have something which is theirs, and we can respect their right to have it by all means. We have something which is ours, and I think a great majority of them realize that ours is ours. Because once we start comparing with them, I think it could be really much worse.

What this film does... I might say parenthetically that in the institution where I teach, Yeshiva University, the rabbis who teach the Gemara came out with a statement that Jews should not go to see this film. Jews should not go to see this film. And I can understand why they said that. To be sure, we do have the idea - "Da ma shetashuv" - you have to know what to answer. It's important to know what to answer.

But the fact of the matter is that going to see this film is for the Christian a religious experience. An experience that transcends reason. It's not an intellectual experience. See, that's why the fact that what Gibson has done to maximize the crowds, to create the crowd mentality, the hysteria, and so on, this is the thing that I think makes it particularly dangerous for us. And you can't really argue with that. You can't really say to them you shouldn't do that, it's wrong, etc. It's a religious experience for them. Going to see this film is a religious experience.

Once you say that, then the only thing I can say is that we can try to explain to them why we look at it as something that we personally cannot identify with. That's all I can say, because they certainly are going to look at it from their point of view.

Professor Louis H. Feldman, a world renowned expert on the first century Jewish historian Josephus, is the Abraham Wouk Family Professor of Classics and Literature at Yeshiva University. Dr. Feldman's books include Josephus and Modern Scholarship, 1937-1980 (1984), Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World: Attitudes and Interactions from Alexander to Justinian (1993), and Studies in Hellenistic Judaism (1996).