History, Archaeology, and Mel Gibson's Passion

Abstract

Whatever else The Passion of the Christ is about, it is about history. Thus, it is important to examine the film from the perspective of history, and see how, and if, the film incorporates what we have come to know about that era. A great deal of progress has been made into the recovery of the first century C.E. in the last several decades, and much of it has been done by archaeologists. In my few pages in this section, I propose to examine the film's depiction of the last few hours of the life of Jesus in the larger context of the world in which his crucifixion took place. It must be admitted that our sources are not very good. What passes for most of our written sources were written well after the death of Jesus, many by followers who did not witness the crucifixion and who were anxious to demonstrate how the world had changed because of his life and death. Click for larger view Figure 1 The World of Jesus