by Aaron J. Shuster; op-ed israelnationalnews.com, 2004.03.01
I do not know whether Mel Gibson is an anti-Semite or not. All I know is that The Passion of the Christ brings up many important religious and historic questions for individuals to consider.
"Most importantly, I was shocked that Mel Gibson had Jews in a movie set in a period two thousand years ago. Why, for at least one hundred years, the Arabs and Moslems have been telling the world that the Jews don't come from Israel and have never lived there. They have been telling everyone who will listen that the so-called Palestinians or Arab inhabitants of the Land of Israel are the genuine inhabitants of Israel and that the Jews are nothing more than foreign invaders or as they like to call them colonialists.
"Furthermore, the movie is completely bereft of any Arabs who after all have been the real inhabitants of the Land of Israel since time immemorial. How could this be? Strangely, there is not one shot of the Al-Aqsa mosque in the entire film or discussion of it in the entire film. This must be an oversight as it has always been there and the Temple Mount is a Jewish fabrication. The absence of Arabs in the story of Jesus is an important omission that must be questioned. After all, why would the Arabs want to be omitted from such an important part of their history?
"If the Arab claim is true that they have always been the historic presence in "Palestine", as the world body has readily accepted (since they are de facto forcing the creation of an Arab Palestinian state), it raises important questions about the story of Jesus, the origin of the Jews and the very foundations of Western civilization.
"Let us examine the Arab claim that the Jews do not originate from the Land of Israel and have never lived there. If this is so, then thousands of years of world history have been recorded incorrectly. This poses an epistemological challenge to history and Judeo/Christian belief of momentous proportion. And most importantly, if the Arabs are right, it renders Mel Gibson's movie nothing more than a fanciful tale and erroneous in conception.
"If the Jews do not originate from Israel and never lived there until their sudden invasion around the turn of the Twentieth Century, then Jesus could not have been Jewish nor could he have been killed by Jews as The Gospels claim. According to the Arab point of view, they have been the main inhabitants of Israel since the dawn of time. Therefore, if this is true, either Jesus was an Arab or he never lived in Israel. If Jesus was a Jew and the story unfolded as described, then it must have happened somewhere else like Babylonia and then later transposed to the Land of Israel by the writers of The Gospels in an attempt to refute the existence of the true Arab inhabitants of Israel. Proof of a vast Jewish conspiracy would be exposed.
"If, however, Jesus crucifixion indeed happened in Jerusalem, then perhaps, the story has a problem in that it tells of Jesus as having been born of a Jewish mother because Jews never lived in Israel. In this version, Jesus was born of Mary an ancestor of Palestinian Arabs, steeped in early Islamic traditions, although inexplicably the religion of Islam was not created for another thousands years. Equally, baffling is Jesus direct references to Judaic teachings and reference to the Jewish concept of God. This version obviously requires a leap of faith but one I m sure many would be willing to take.
"Now, if we are to accept that the Jews never lived in Israel and Jesus was not a Jew but an Arab, therefore, it must be the case that the Jews could have had nothing to do with the crucifixion of Jesus. Firstly, they never lived there, so it would have been impossible for them to have convened a court there and pass judgment on his activities. The only way the version in the existing New Testament could have transpired is if the Jews had somehow convened a court and then sent it to Israel to pass judgment on a man who was not a Jew and preached in an Arab country under Roman dominion (however, perhaps, according to the Arabs the Romans were never really in Israel as well another Jewish conspiracy!) Or perhaps, a court, not unlike the World Court in The Hague, was formed by the Jews to pass judgment on a case on which it had no jurisdiction. One thing this version does not explain is why the Arab inhabitants of Israel would submit to a foreign Jewish court's ruling over one of its inhabitants? Obviously, more research is required in this area.
"Secondly, there could not have been shouting mobs of Jews present calling for Jesus death as Mel Gibson would have us believe. The only way this could have happened is if thousands of Jews were shipped to Israel from another country to watch the crucifixion and scream for Jesus death. Maybe this was a mercenary mob that was sent on such excursions. They could have been shipped on Roman vessels from the Isle of Manhattan a.k.a. "Hymietown" from whence Mr. Gibson's father would have us believe the Jews originate. There is an account in Josephus of a Jewish mob being shipped to watch a concert of Jethro Tull at the Paladium.
"There is another possibility: the story of Jesus is entirely an Arab story. Perhaps Jesus lived in Israel but not as a Jew as most accounts presume, but as an Arab in an Arab land. This being the case, it must have been an Arab court that passed judgment on Jesus and an Arab crowd that called for his crucifixion. According to this version, the Romans did the Arabs bidding by crucifying Jesus. It was the Arabs who said, May his blood be on us and that of our children. Obviously, this version, the true version according to Islamist scholars has tremendous ramifications. For thousands of years the Jews have been blamed for the death of a man who was not even Jewish nor had they any hand in his demise since they never lived in Israel. Like a character from a Kafka story, the Jews have been pursued through history for something they had nothing to do with.
"According to the Arab version of history, it must have been the Arabs who put Jesus to death and Christianity emerged from early Islamic theology. Therefore, all of Western civilization is based on the fallacy that Christianity emerged from Judaism. For thousands of years Jews and Christians have been living a lie, there is absolutely no relationship between Judaism and Christianity. This conclusion will obviously have important ramifications for Western civilization. Christianity is really rooted to Islam, not Judaism as we have erroneously been led to believe for the last two thousand years.
"However, if this version, on the other hand, is not true, then there is an important picture that emerges. The Arabs did not live in the Land of Israel at the time of Jesus existence and were not even a noted presence by either Jewish or Roman historians. That means that in some period between the death of Christ and the present day, the Arabs invaded a country that belonged to the Jews and built a mosque on the holiest site in all of Judaism and have colonized the country.
"If that is the case, then someone has been perpetrating a big lie. However, if the story of Jesus "is as it was" it invalidates all Arab claims to the Land of Israel. It shows that the Jews lived in Israel and were indeed the original inhabitants and de facto have a claim to their indigenous homeland.
"Mel Gibson's movie may have an unforeseen consequence; the Arab colonialists may realize that Israel is not the country of their origin. Perhaps, they might realize that it is they who are the colonists and that it's time for them to pack up and head back to the countries from which they originate east of the Jordan River.
"It might even be the right time to move the Al-Aqsa mosque to the place where it should be and correct an historic fallacy. After all, Mohammed died thousands of miles away from Jerusalem. The mosque should really be built where he died, since that is the place from which he assuredly ascended to heaven. That is unless he astrally projected himself to Jerusalem to ascend to heaven for some inexplicable reason. Again, a giant leap of faith is required here.
"It seems that Mel Gibson's movie raises important epistemological and theological questions that must be answered. It reminds me of Pontius Pilate's famous jest to Jesus up on the cross when he asked, "What is truth? This question seems more important than ever.
"Either the Jews lived in Israel and are the indigenous people of that country or the Arabs did. Who's telling the truth? I don't know and certainly don't want to be first to cast the first stone. All I know is a guy could get himself crucified for these kind of omissions."
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