Disputed imagery is likely to keep controversy alive

After all the anticipation, the controversy, the objections based on rough cuts and early scripts, the theatrical version of "The Passion of the Christ" is here, and it provides plenty of ammunition for its critics.

There are scenes of brutal violence to Jesus that do not appear in the Gospels. There are apparent violations of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops' advice on how to dramatize the suffering and death of Jesus. And there are supernatural apparitions, particularly an androgynous gliding Satan, who smiles with glee while floating between Jewish priests watching the scourging of the man they considered a false prophet.

"The film doesn't miss an opportunity to show violence against Jesus, and if Jewish characters are the instrument of that violence, it doesn't hesitate to run with it," said Philip A. Cunningham, executive director of the Center for Christian-Jewish Learning at Boston College, who attended a screening yesterday for critics. "It presents a nonhistorical presentation of the Gospels that can readily be put to anti-Semitic purposes."

But in the Mel Gibson-produced and directed film, Jesus makes it quite clear that he does not blame fellow Jews for his upcoming death.

"No one takes my life from me," he says in a flashback to the Last Supper. "I lay it down on my own accord."

Gibson's Jesus repeatedly anticipates his own death as his destiny and forgives those who criticize him.

"It doesn't ever give the message that all Jewish people are responsible -- Jesus said he voluntarily was laying his life down and that he felt this was part of God's plan," said Gary W. Taylor, pastor of South Coast Community Church in Marion, who said he cried upon seeing the film at one of the multiple prerelease screenings for evangelical Christians. "I found it very moving that God loved me this much. How could I doubt how much he cared after what he went through to secure my redemption?"

Opening tomorrow, Gibson's graphic cinematic depiction of the suffering and death of Jesus challenges viewers to decide whether the unremitting on-screen torture and bloodshed is a powerful testament to the suffering willingly endured by a savior or an ugly resurrection of a centuries-old calumny against Jews.

Portrayals of the passion -- or suffering -- of Jesus are controversial because they have long been a spur for anti-Semitism. In 1997, Pope John Paul II told scholars that "erroneous and unjust interpretations of the New Testament regarding the Jewish people and their alleged culpability have circulated for too long, engendering feelings of hostility toward this people." Official Vatican teaching, as of 1965, says: "Even though the Jewish authorities and those who followed their lead pressed for the death of Christ, neither all Jews indiscriminately at that time, nor Jews today, can be charged with the crimes committed during his passion."

Gibson's film focuses almost exclusively on the final 12 hours of Jesus' life, from his agony and betrayal at Gethsemane to his crucifixion at Golgotha. As a result, it offers a window only into the darkest part of the New Testament -- Jesus' preachings about love, and the reasons for his popularity, are glimpsed only through flashbacks to the Sermon on the Mount and the Last Supper, while Jesus' resurrection, the moment that gives hope of salvation to believing Christians, is suggested only in a brief closing scene.

Several incidents in the movie do not appear in Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John.

For example, after Judas betrays Jesus, Roman guards brutally throw the shackled Jesus off a bridge; his fall is abruptly stopped, inches from the ground, when his body is jerked back by the chains. The scene is drawn from the visions of a 19th-century nun, Anne Catherine Emmerich, who has been criticized as anti-Semitic.

The film seems to violate several principles laid out by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops in published guidelines for the dramatization of Jesus' suffering and death. For example, the bishops advise against showing a "teeming mob" at Pilate's palace because it can imply collective guilt; in the film, the governor's courtyard is packed with Jews, many wearing prayer shawls and veils, repeatedly calling for Jesus' death. The film also depicts Pilate, the Roman prefect, as reluctant to kill Jesus, literally washing his hands of responsibility and saying to the Jewish crowd that shouts for Jesus' death: "It is you who want to crucify him, not me. I am innocent of this man's blood." This is consistent with descriptions by Matthew and John but not with historical depictions of Pilate as a brutal tyrant who crucified hundreds of Jews.

In the film, Jesus and most of his disciples, although Jewish, do not cover their heads like the Jewish men who call for his death. And upon Jesus' death, God sheds a tear that falls from the clouds to earth, causing an earthquake that sunders the foundation and topples the columns of the Jewish temple -- an embellishment of the Gospel of Matthew, which describes "the veil of the temple" being split upon Jesus' death.

But some Jews are shown siding with Jesus. When Jesus is questioned by Jewish priests, a few Jewish leaders speak up for him, although they are then heckled by the crowd. And Jesus, as described in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, is aided by a North African Jew, Simon of Cyrene, who wears a yarmulke as he helps Jesus carry his cross to Golgotha. Gibson cut, at least from the subtitles, an incendiary curse against Jews uttered by the crowd in early versions of the film.

Jewish community leaders acknowledge that they walk a fine line in responding to the movie.

"This is an unbelievably powerful film, and let's not diminish the power of the film," Rabbi Gary Bretton-Granatoor, of the Anti-Defamation League, said at a panel on the film Saturday at a convention of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, which is meeting in Boston through today. Bretton-Granatoor saw the film in Orlando last month.

"The majority of people will come out with the message that Jesus died for humanity's sins, but some could be motivated to hate."

Michael Paulson can be reached at mpaulson@globe.com.