Is this anti-semitism?

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wouldn't the solution involve *dialogue*?

run it off (run it off), Thursday, 29 January 2004 12:26 (twenty years ago) link

run it off, I certainly do seem to be a relativist!

One persistent problem has plagued relativism, though. How can the relativist's argument (that these values are arbitrary) be any better (on the relativist's own terms) than the non-relativist's argument? Relativism is internally coherent for this reason.

Yes, but I don't see that as a problem. I don't mind others disagreeing with me. Both myself and them can be right.

mei (mei), Thursday, 29 January 2004 12:32 (twenty years ago) link

wouldn't the solution involve *dialogue*?
-- run it off (davebeec...), January 29th, 2004.

Yes. I think one of the problems is that both sides are convinced that they're right _and_ the other side are wrong.

For every spittle there's someone as sure as him, but sure he's (or she's) wrong.

mei (mei), Thursday, 29 January 2004 12:38 (twenty years ago) link

Yes, but I don't see that as a problem. I don't mind others disagreeing with me. Both myself and them can be right.

-- mei (meirion.lewi...), January 29th, 2004.

Sorry, to clarify this, I'm not talking about any particular issue, rather, I don't have a problem thinking that this whole 'relativist' position (which I apparantly hold) is wrong.

mei (mei), Thursday, 29 January 2004 12:44 (twenty years ago) link

You've made some very good points here.

What is a belief if it has no argument behind it or can't be argued for?

That's what a lot of people would call a belief. Some mentalists would argue that the more implausible and less evidenced a belief the better it is. Most of these mentalists would be religious.


I think, if pressed, you would certainly come up with good reasons to be a relativist. If that's true then even a relativist can understand that other people (non-relativists) will - and have a right to! - offer their good reasons too!

I'm not arguing against reasoning and I think some positions (in all matters) have more to commend them than others. But they're just reasons, suggestions, hints, supporting evidence...

It's not possible to _prove_ which side of an ethical argument is correct. In fact, this is partly why I say two opposing view points can be right at the same time - because neither can be proved right or proved wrong.


And if that's true, then we are not simply in the position of exchanging unfounded beliefs that can't be resolved because there is no difference between right and wrong; we are in the position of discussing the rights and wrongs of each other's arguments.
-- run it off (davebeec...), January 29th, 2004.

This depends on the belief in question.
There are unfounded beliefs that just happen to be correct.


Discussing the rights and wrongs might change peoples minds, but often it can' prove the validity of beliefs.

I do kind of think that there is no fundamental difference between right and wrong. Can you formulate a definition of what 'right' is?

mei (mei), Thursday, 29 January 2004 13:02 (twenty years ago) link

I meant "...CAN'T prove the validity of their beliefs."

mei (mei), Thursday, 29 January 2004 14:36 (twenty years ago) link

four weeks pass...
Again, this annoyed me today, in relation to the Mel Gibson film:

"This is a tremendous, tremendous setback. I hope this will not be accepted by Christians in this country. It is this lie, the lie that Jews were responsible for the murder of Jesus, which planted the seeds of the Holocaust, Rabbi Avi Weiss, president of Amcha, said. (http://www.nbc17.com/entertainment/2874405/detail.html)

I mean yeah, you can say that 'Jews killed Jesus' is completely missing the point of the gospel, fine, but to say that it's a 'lie' that Jews were responsible for his death is just wrong, unless you're challenging the historicity of the gospels' accounts of the crucifixion, which I don't think he's doing. Why use that word 'lie', when it just plays into your opponents' hands?

On the radio, I heard someone from the Anti-Defamation League making the much more reasonable point, that all the bad Jews in the film looked stereotypically Jewish, whilst the good ones (ie. Jesus and his disciples) didn't. Assuming that's true, then that's completely fair criticism.

N. (nickdastoor), Thursday, 26 February 2004 21:50 (twenty years ago) link

Well, the Romans killed Jesus, is the thing. The limited Jewish leadership in the area, which operated only so long as Rome allowed it to, was complicit in the execution at the most, but by the same token it's unlikely they could have done anything to stop it.

It's not completely, thoroughly false that Jews were involved in the execution of Jesus; it's completely misleading to say "Jews were responsible for the death of Jesus" if you're singling them out to do so.

Tep (ktepi), Thursday, 26 February 2004 22:29 (twenty years ago) link

it's a bit like saying that poles were responsible for auschwitz, innit?

strongo hulkington (dubplatestyle), Thursday, 26 February 2004 22:33 (twenty years ago) link

It's also just sort of funny, because it's not like there were loads of other people around to be complicit in it. The whole libel seems contingent on this bizarre idea that most everyone loved Jesus and it was just some Jews from around the way who came by and knocked him off.

(In other words for "Romans" we should substitute "state" and for "Jews" we should substitute, like, "public.")

nabiscothingy, Thursday, 26 February 2004 22:34 (twenty years ago) link

i am just loving the number of churches now quoting the bit about "jews killed jesus" (thessalians, right?) (probable sp there) on their little billboards.

strongo hulkington (dubplatestyle), Thursday, 26 February 2004 22:34 (twenty years ago) link

(knee-mail!)

cozen (Cozen), Thursday, 26 February 2004 22:36 (twenty years ago) link

it's bad enough i have to be confronted with the horror of my own body every time i go to the gym, but it's even better that i get slapped with something about "culture war", the backlash against gay marriage, this fucking mel gibson movie EVERY DAY.

strongo hulkington (dubplatestyle), Thursday, 26 February 2004 22:37 (twenty years ago) link

it's a bit like saying that poles were responsible for auschwitz, innit?

I was trying to think of a comparison like that. I can't come up with one that works perfectly, mostly because there's a sort of ... range of possibility ... of the Sanhedrin's actual power.

(I'm not denying, by the way, that the Sanhedrin would have supported Jesus's execution, since J-dog going Jericho on the Temple is one of the bits we can be pretty sure actually happened. But likewise, this was a time when many, many Jews, both in and outside of Jerusalem, disagreed with the Sanhedrin. And you have to read the Gospels bearing in mind that they were written during and immediately after a time when Christians were being excluded from Jewish communities and services.)

Tep (ktepi), Thursday, 26 February 2004 22:38 (twenty years ago) link

it's a bit like saying that poles were responsible for auschwitz, innit?

some do maintain that very position ... but that's another topic.

if memory serves me right, most the really objectionable stuff (from a jewish perspective) re the crucifixion and the jews' alleged liability therefor is from the Book of Matthew. that's where the "his blood is on our heads" line comes from i think (tep?) but it was, of course, pilate who sentenced him and the romans who tortured than executed him. based on the reviews of the film that i've read, the romans don't get off the hook for the torture and actual crucifixion -- but pilate's role is whitewashed.

Eisbär (llamasfur), Thursday, 26 February 2004 22:40 (twenty years ago) link

but see THEY WANTED HIM TO DIE SO EVERYONE COULD BE SAVED...weren't the romans or the jews or the hitites or gozer the gozarian or WHOEVER doing them all a favor anyway?!

strongo hulkington (dubplatestyle), Thursday, 26 February 2004 22:41 (twenty years ago) link

i've also read that the alleged ceremony where the jews selected who was to be execution and who was to be spared was a fiction created by matthew -- that there was no such ceremony among the jewish people then or ever. i have no idea whether or not this is true.

Eisbär (llamasfur), Thursday, 26 February 2004 22:43 (twenty years ago) link

to be executED, even

Eisbär (llamasfur), Thursday, 26 February 2004 22:43 (twenty years ago) link

haha i remember asking something like the above in sunday school and beng made to stay after

strongo hulkington (dubplatestyle), Thursday, 26 February 2004 22:43 (twenty years ago) link

or the whole prophecy thing ... i mean, if it was prophesized that the messiah would be executed then it had to happen anyway -- it could've been the jews, or the romans, or the french.

Eisbär (llamasfur), Thursday, 26 February 2004 22:46 (twenty years ago) link

Whoever was responsible for the death of Jesus, shouldn't they be regarded as blessed by God, as agents of salvation? St Pilate, St Judas...etc. Seriously i've never understood this as a theological point; obv. makes perfect sense from the political/storytelling angle (gotta have decent bad guys and Satan doesn't always care to show up).

pete s, Thursday, 26 February 2004 22:46 (twenty years ago) link

that's where the "his blood is on our heads" line comes from i think (tep?)

Yep. I can probably find it, just cause.

"Why? What crime has he committed?" asked Pilate.

But they shouted all the louder, "Crucify him!"

When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that instead an uproar was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. "I am innocent of this man's blood," he said. "It is your responsibility!"

All the people answered, "Let his blood be on us and on our children!"

Matthew 27:23-25

but see THEY WANTED HIM TO DIE SO EVERYONE COULD BE SAVED...weren't the romans or the jews or the hitites or gozer the gozarian or WHOEVER doing them all a favor anyway?!

It's like Pharaoh in the Exodus story -- God hardens some hearts and gets the bad guys to ... well, to be bad guys ... but it doesn't stop them from being bad guys, or excuse them from the repercussions. I'm not crazy with any of the theological explanations for this, and I'm not a theologian anyway.

i've also read that the alleged ceremony where the jews selected who was to be execution and who was to be spared was a fiction created by matthew -- that there was no such ceremony among the jewish people then or ever. i have no idea whether or not this is true.

I think it's one of those things we can't be positive is crap, because there's not enough information, but there's no compelling reason to think it's true, and the choice they're given, if they want to spare Jesus, is Jesus Barabbas -- "Jesus, the son of the father." They're being asked, who do you want to kill, Jesus the Messiah, or Jesus the son of the father?

Tep (ktepi), Thursday, 26 February 2004 22:50 (twenty years ago) link

gozer

cinniblount (James Blount), Thursday, 26 February 2004 22:51 (twenty years ago) link

the Romans killed Jesus, is the thing

I knew someone would say this. If the Rabbi had said 'it's a lie that the Jews killed Jesus' then that would be at least be technically correct, but what he said was about responsibility, and the Bible does make it fairly clear that his cruxificion was the Jewish people's choice. Of course 'washing your hands' isn't a morally great position, but that doesn't make any difference to what the Pharisees and the mob's own responsibility. If Matthew made all that up then fine, attack that, not the film.

As I said, the film may well be anti-semitic in its emphases and subtexts, but I just thought this was a particularly dumb way of phrasing an attack.

N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 27 February 2004 02:25 (twenty years ago) link

If the Rabbi had said 'it's a lie that the Jews killed Jesus' then that would be at least be technically correct

Though irrelevant, of course, since the film doesn't make this claim.

N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 27 February 2004 02:27 (twenty years ago) link

If Matthew made all that up then fine, attack that, not the film.

But the movie isn't a strictly Gospels-and-nothing-but portrayal -- and even the parts that do rely on a Gospel still often must decide which (with Gibson favoring Matthew and John, from what I've seen).

Tep (ktepi), Friday, 27 February 2004 02:44 (twenty years ago) link

Yeah, fine - but now we're talking again about emphases and suchlike. I still don't see how anyone could support the attack that Rabbi Avi Weiss made (I'm not saying you are).

N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 27 February 2004 02:47 (twenty years ago) link

Oh yeah, in my initial post I guess I was talking about the "Jews killed Jesus" claim in general, and then for some reason I jumped to the movie specifically just now. I don't know why -- because I don't particularly think the movie's anti-Semitic, from the sounds of it. I'm not even sure it's anti-Judaism, all that strongly, if we wanted to make that distinction.

I think it includes a lot of things that can elicit a smug nod from people who hate the Jews already, but that doesn't mean it's nodding along with them; I do think the "let the blood be on our hands" line was a stupid one to include, but it's been removed from the subtitles (although it's still there, for those few Aramaic speakers in the audience who can make out the poor pronunciation.) A number of the changes Gibson has made to the Gospel material seem at first to make the Jews come across worse than they need to, but I think they make the Romans come across worse than they need to, too, so if Gibson's message is that everyone's a fuckbastard except me and my Messiah, I'm not sure I'm willing to charge him with subsets of calling-people-fuckbastards.

Tep (ktepi), Friday, 27 February 2004 02:55 (twenty years ago) link

Ha ha.

N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 27 February 2004 02:59 (twenty years ago) link

I haven't seen it either, Tep, but I'm thinking the movie is clearly anti-semitic. The clear racial delineation of the "bad" Jews from the "good" Jews, the fact that "bad" Jews are all wearing black and all but twirling their mustaches, that the "bad" Jews are chanting for Jesus' death, that Pontius Pilate is portrayed as ineffectual and vaguely disinterested while the priests are the one who want Jesus eliminated. I mean if that isn't textbook pre-Vatican II anti-semitism, what is?

Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Friday, 27 February 2004 03:06 (twenty years ago) link

See, I guess it depends on which of the reviews sound most accurate, I guess. For the moment, I'm trying -- successfully or not -- to look at it purely in terms of what I know about plot and dialogue, which leaves a lot of room for interpretation. I can't defend it from charges of anti-Semitism unless I see it; but from what I know of it, I don't think anyone comes across as a good guy, except Mary, Jesus, and I suppose the apostles by proximity. And even Jesus sounds like little more than a superhuman Timex.

Tep (ktepi), Friday, 27 February 2004 03:12 (twenty years ago) link

Well, these charges will leveled on the Charlie Rose show last night and basically everyone seemed to agree that these were pretty troubling aspects of the film (a Newsweek guy, a CSM guy, Christopher Hitchens--who seems to have found a new enemy, breath easier Kissinger, and a New Yorker guy.)

Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Friday, 27 February 2004 03:19 (twenty years ago) link

denby?

s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 27 February 2004 15:05 (twenty years ago) link

the Bible does make it fairly clear that his cruxificion was the Jewish people's choice.

well, all it really says is that the pro-Roman high priests were all for it, and that there was a mob shouting "give us Barabbas!" and "crucify Jesus". It's a bit of a leap from that to say that all Jewish people wanted Jesus crucified. It doesn't even follow that all or most Jewish people in Jerusalem wanted him killed.

DV (dirtyvicar), Friday, 27 February 2004 15:16 (twenty years ago) link

I never said that it says 'all Jewish people' wanted it. Does the film?

N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 27 February 2004 15:21 (twenty years ago) link

All the people answered, "Let his blood be on us and on our children!"

This is totally reminding me of the scene where the multitude are gathered outside Brian's bedroom window in Life of Brian and all answering (at length) in unison Brian's mother's questions.

Markelby (Mark C), Friday, 27 February 2004 15:23 (twenty years ago) link

If the Rabbi had said "but to say that it's a 'lie' that the Jews were responsible for his death is just wrong" that would have been fair, if ambiguously phrased, comment, since 'the Jews' implies Jewish people as a whole. But he didn't.

N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 27 February 2004 15:27 (twenty years ago) link

Well, how do you weight responsibility? If you go along with something you have no power to stop, are you responsible for it?

(I'm talking in general again here, not about the movie I haven't seen.)

I think the Rabbi is oversimplifying, but I do think there's a lot to credit in the idea that blaming Jews -- the Jews, some Jews, any Jews, if the statement of blame makes a point of their Jewishness -- for Jesus's death, while forgiving the Romans, is tied in with the anti-Semitism that was a necessary prerequisite for the Holocaust.

Tep (ktepi), Friday, 27 February 2004 15:33 (twenty years ago) link

What happened to Christian forgiveness, anyway?

Markelby (Mark C), Friday, 27 February 2004 15:35 (twenty years ago) link

I think a lot of this, re: the movie -- or Jesus movies in general, comes down to the question of to what extent does the filmmaker have a responsibility or expectation to consider his material in light of how it was used by people after the scope of his film[*]. I think that quickly becomes trickier than it looks, since every damn idiot has had his way with the Bible in the last bunch of centuries, and every verse has been used to support one idiot notion or another.

[*] For instance, if the "let his blood be on our hands" line had some greater pertinence, and removing it would remove some of the good along with the bad -- which I don't think is the case -- then there'd be the question of what to do with it, whether a rephrasing could retain the good while still removing the bad, etc.

But nevertheless, some idiot notions were popularized more than others.

It's something I can't condemn yet sight-unseen, because when I wrote my own Jesus novel, it was something I kept having trouble with -- I'd like to think I'm not the least bit anti-Semitic, but when your protagonist opposes the status quo, and the status quo is Jewish, and his followers are more ardent about the opposition than he is, you do find some sentences need to be rewritten to avoid things that could be taken very wrongly.

(I can't help but suspect Gibson was less concerned about that than I was, but I don't know if that's fair.)

Tep (ktepi), Friday, 27 February 2004 15:42 (twenty years ago) link

Let me make it quite clear, in case it wasn't already, that I think being anti-semitic because of what happened to Jesus is completely bonkers and misses the point of the gospels.

N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 27 February 2004 15:51 (twenty years ago) link

i wish i could believe that there is some 'point' to the gospels

amateur!st (amateurist), Friday, 27 February 2004 16:35 (twenty years ago) link

I'm not gonna bother with that one.

Tep (ktepi), Friday, 27 February 2004 16:39 (twenty years ago) link

JESUS DIED FOR YOUR SINS, AMATEURIST.

N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 27 February 2004 16:40 (twenty years ago) link

sorry i'm being an asshole today

i'm not criticizing you tep

it's one thing to say 'oh i think this part of the gospels is more humane and more useful' but that doesn't mean the other parts are any less *there*--i dunno, there's this awful residual part of me that says that the acceptance of the authority--moral or otherwise--of the gospels is the central problem, and the problems of interpretation and selective application are just auxilliary problems

but you're right that's another topic

amateur!st (amateurist), Friday, 27 February 2004 16:41 (twenty years ago) link

hehe, are you calling amateurist a shoddy martyr?

(x-post)

Markelby (Mark C), Friday, 27 February 2004 16:41 (twenty years ago) link

Okay, just out of interest, do any jews consider the following opinions anti-semetic? I see them as anti Israel. And y'know, they might be correct or not, no need to argue against them.
a) Israel has been the agitator in most of her conflicts since 1967.
b) The Jewish religion is ruining the state of Isreal - religious views are a strong part of what is extending and worsening their conflict with Palestinians.
c) Palestinians deserve a state all the way from East Jerusalem to Jordan, and nothing less.

Seán (Ireland), Friday, 27 February 2004 23:17 (twenty years ago) link

Ummm... this jew doesn't.

Sym (shmuel), Friday, 27 February 2004 23:18 (twenty years ago) link

Good. I don't know any jews, see, and have for some reason had the suspicion that they're over sensitive about anti semitism. I now know that I'm wrong.

Seán (Ireland), Friday, 27 February 2004 23:23 (twenty years ago) link

After all, 'this jew' = all Jews

Sym (shmuel), Friday, 27 February 2004 23:36 (twenty years ago) link


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