An arrogant gang of so-called scholars and journalists is conducting a very public crucifixion of Mel Gibson for daring to make his new film, "The Passion of the Christ," and it's about time that the motives behind their attempt to destroy him were examined.
To begin at the beginning, after being alerted to the film by Gibson's appearance on the Bill O'Reilly show and by a sleazy New York Times magazine smear of Gibson's father, a group falsely depicting itself as an official arm of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) got its hands on a shooting script of the film, then in the first stages of production in Italy, and charged that it was a historically flawed work that would promote anti-Semitism.
Unreported was the real motive behind the complaint: This group of Catholic and Jewish revisionists doesn't think very highly of the New Testament, which the Roman Catholic Church for 2,000 years has insisted was inspired by the Holy Spirit and is therefore, as other Christian churches agree, unerrant.
Based on these scholars' own historical research, which simply contradicts the most basic tenets of Christianity, they charge that the New Testament is based on the prejudices of the apostles and rigged by their successors. One of them even claimed that the Gospel accounts of Christ's passion and death were written to curry favor with the Romans – the same Romans who returned the favor by gleefully executing many of them.
After their first attacks on the film based on their perusal of a stolen, rough, shooting script were met by the rejoinder that the film, then simply titled "The Passion," is solidly based on the Four Gospels and is therefore factual, the critics charged that the Gospels themselves can be construed as anti-Semitic and therefore any script based on them can be expected to stir up anti-Semitism among viewers.
To put it simply, these revisionist scholars are telling the world that the Gospels can't be trusted and, by implication, that the biblical story of Christ's passion and death is at the very least partially fictional because it is slanted in favor of the Romans and, in their warped opinions, historically inaccurate.
But the details in the New Testament accounts of Christ's passion and death are not the only evidence backing their authenticity. There is another source – one just as vivid as Gibson's film in showing the incredible horrors Jesus endured in the last 12 hours of his life.
That source is the Holy Shroud of Turin, an artifact that has been subjected to much of the same kind of treatment Mel Gibson is now enduring.
I know a few things about the Shroud of Turin. I have been intrigued by it since I was a young boy, studied it for years, wrote a small book about it in 1996 and, just as Gibson has done, concentrated on Christ's ordeal at the hands of his Roman tormentors and executioners.
My motives were the same as Gibson's: to reveal in the most graphic manner possible what our Lord endured for all of us, to show the extent of his love for a flawed mankind.
The Shroud has been called "The Fifth Gospel." Experts of all kinds, from forensic medical examiners to widely respected Israeli horticulturists, have testified as to its authenticity. Others have all but demolished the widely reported Carbon 14 testing that allegedly dated the Shroud to the 14th century.
What the Shroud depicts are the terrible wounds inflicted on Jesus by the scourging. It reveals that the Lord was whipped by Roman flagrums, some 120 marks caused by double-thonged flagrums with barbell-shaped pieces of metal or bone embedded in their tips.
The Shroud reveals that Jesus was scourged by two men, one taller than the other, and that all over his torso his flesh was deeply lacerated and torn from his body by the thongs and their cruel tips.
The Shroud reveals the wounds inflicted on Christ's head by the so-called crown of thorns and shows it to have been a cap rather than a crown. Christ was the only victim of crucifixion ever to have such a cap placed atop his skull.
The Shroud, whose image does not penetrate the linen but floats mysteriously on its surface, is stained with his blood, which did sink into the fibrils.
Step by step, Christ's final hours can be traced. The face of the man on the Shroud bears mute testimony to the beatings he endured at the hands of Romans, his knees show the contusions caused when he fell on the rough surfaces as he carried the
The Shroud shows the nail marks in his wrists, testifying to the agony Christ endured when the nails rubbed against the great and highly sensitive median nerves located there.
In my book, "Sancta Sindone," I was able to follow Christ as he endured the final 12 hours of his life, just as Mel Gibson has now done. His source was the Gospels, mine the Shroud and medical experts who interpreted what it showed.
Our accounts agree in most details. (Mel shows Christ carrying the complete cross; the Shroud shows he carried only the
The whole story is told in my book, which, although dated and overcome by new evidence of its authenticity, allows the reader to learn the basic facts about the Shroud and follow Christ step by step to Calvary. My book can be read free in its entirety on my personal Web site, "Wednesday on the Web." (http://www.pvbr.com/Issue_1/sindone.htm)
Read it and then go see "The Passion of the Christ." It has a vitally important message I am convinced, along with Mel Gibson, that the Lord wants delivered in these troubled and faithless times. It is a message of complete love, a message that tells us: "This is what I did for you – every single one of you. Now follow me and love one another."
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Phil Brennan is a veteran journalist who writes for NewsMax.com. He is editor & publisher of Wednesday on the Web (http://www.pvbr.com) and was Washington columnist for National Review magazine in the 1960s. He also served as a staff aide for the House Republican Policy Committee and helped handle the Washington public relations operation for the Alaska Statehood Committee which won statehood for Alaska. He is also a trustee of the Lincoln Heritage Institute and a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers.
He can be reached at
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