A lively discussion about Mel Gibson's film \The Passion of the Christ"" brought everyone from devout Catholics to ""rib-loving Jews"" together in the Humanities building Wednesday.
A panel led by Charles Cohen, director of the UW-Madison Religious Studies Program, examined prominent issues surrounding the film, including its alleged anti-Semitism and prolific violence.
""'The Passion' comes at a cultural moment where images of Jesus are highly contested,"" he said.
UW-Madison religious studies lecturer Ron Troxel opened the discussion by calling the film ""the Gospel according to Mel,"" stating many discrepancies exist between the four Gospels and the movie.
The movie, like the Gospels, were told with an audience in mind, Troxel said.
""[The Gospel writers] weren't interested in writing a part of the story, but in pushing their own agendas,"" he said.
Edgewood College religious studies Professor Judith Wimmer, described Gibson's religious background in ""traditionalist"" Catholicism, an extremist sect that rejects recent reforms in the church.
Gibson's father, for instance, published a newspaper denouncing all ties with Rome and labeled Pope John Paul II a ""Quran-kisser.""
""[Gibson's] film is devoid of any of the joy and life and light of the Hebrew scriptures and the New Testament,"" Wimmer said.
Finally, UW-Madison Jewish Studies Professor Leonard Kaplan said a viewer's perception of the film was based on the intellectual ""baggage"" taken into the theater.
But Kaplan, Jewish himself, discounted criticism that the movie was somehow ""anti-Semitic,"" saying he expected much worse.
Still, calling the movie ""exquisitely masochistic,"" he said he could barely watch the movie's violence.
""If you haven't seen it, I don't recommend it; it was very painful to watch,"" he said. ""It's better than 'Pulp Fiction', perhaps.\
