email this page to someone

Mel Gibson Movie?

News reports | Commentary | Other

News reports

"Chanukah - by Mel" by Derek Rose, New York Daily News (March 17, 2004)

Ekklesia News: "Gibson plans second biblical epic" (19/3/04)

"Anti-Defamation League executive director Abe Foxman said Wednesday: 'My answer would be, 'Thanks, but no thanks. The last thing we need in Jewish history is to convert our history into a western.

'In his hands, we may wind up losing.'"

Reuters / Haaretz: "Mel Gibson says he's intrigued by Hanukkah story" (March 17, 2004)

Associated Press: "What will follow Gibson's 'Passion'?" Arizona Daily Star (March 12, 2004). Speculation and humor, including the notion that Gibson could reuse the Passion costumes, since "peasant fashions probably didn't change much in those days."

Beliefnet discussion of this article, noting that the author incorrectly states the story is simply not in the Bible (Anglicans, Catholics and Eastern Orthodox accept 1 and 2 Maccabees).

Knight Ridder: "More epics pitched after Hollywood hits Homer" by Steven Rea (May 30, 2004)

Commentary

Mad Max and the Maccabees by Mark D. Roberts. Roberts, a pastor with interest and facility with ancient texts[1], reviews the prospect, and concludes "everybody will be mad at him," listing Jews, Evangelicals, secular critics, Syrians and Greeks. (See the two Greeks below for confirmation.) He concludes by examining 1 Maccabees, and concluding it has much to tell us about Christian origins.

"Misograecist Jewish Film Underway" from the "Hellenic Nationalist Perspective." Gives Antiochus a pass for "prohibiting some of the barbaric customs and religious rites of the Jews" and asserts "Chanukah is and remains an inherently misograecistMisograecist? What's wrong with misohellenist? Why use a Latin word to describe holiday."

"An Open Letter to Mel Gibson Pertaining to the Maccabean Revolt against the Greeks" Although previously defenders of Gibson against the "vicious, Christianity-hating cabal of Zionist overlords"—Gibson's failure to put any Greek in The Passion notwithstanding—the "Greco Report" now begs him to avoid a one-sided Jewish movie:

"The answer, Mel, is simply this: Hellenism was never the problem! The problem ... was "the tedious plots and counterplots and treacheries" of the Jews themselves: The never-ending back-biting and eye-gouging that is the normal pattern of behavior for this race who, when there are no goyim around to exploit, persecute and vilify, turn on one another with an indescribable savagery unique in the history of mankind."

Other

Palaojudaica, a blog by Saint Andrews scholar James R. Davila has been my source for some of the Gibson/Maccabees stories. If the movie surfaces, this will be the first place to check for scholarly comment and evaluation.