NOT OFTEN DOES A MOVIE GET THE kind of prerelease raves that have greeted Mel Gibson's The Passion. "Could fuel hatred, bigotry and anti-Semitism" (the Anti-Defamation League). "Could readily promote anti-Semitism" (Sister Mary C. Boys of New York City's Union Theological Seminary). Some critics predicted toxic damage: "Its real tinder-box effect could be abroad," wrote Frank Rich in the New York Times, "where anti-Semitism has metastasized since 9/11." In the usually sober pages of the New Republic, Paula Fredriksen, the Aurelio Professor of Scripture at Boston University, warned, "When violence breaks out, Mel Gibson will have a much higher authority than professors and bishops to answer to." That's when, not if.

Makes you wonder what they'll say when they actually see the movie. Months before its release, Gibson's movie, starring James Caviezel as Jesus, has stoked an incendiary debate on issues both fundamental and touchy: artistic freedom vs. historical accuracy, Catholic traditionalism vs. Jewish sensibilities. Often these issues clash within the combatants, as Jewish rabbis and writers, by nature defenders of the First Amendment, now call for Gibson to edit his film to their wishes--and Jewish movie people defend a project that has outraged their brethren.

From the outset, The Passion--a Jesus film that underlined the story's physical and emotional violence--was bound to start arguments. For extra realism, dialogue is in Aramaic and Latin (though some scholars say the Romans in Palestine spoke Greek). To accent the strangeness, there are no subtides (that's being rethought). A $25 million film directed, co-scripted and self-financed by a famous Catholic conservative.

The Passion punch-up broke out when Gibson's father Button, 85, a rabid Catholic traditionalist who writes treatises on the perceived lapses of Mother Church, denied the Nazi Holocaust in the New York Times Magazine. Now Gibson should no more be blamed for the sins of the father than Arnold Schwarzenegger is. But Mel, who attends Latin Mass, is outspoken against the Vatican's reforms of the 1960s. Some say he saw The Passion as his own declaration of Catholic fundamentalism. He wanted to steamroller the new Catholic orthodoxy, not steam up a host of biblical scholars.

Religious films are notoriously hard to market. The U.S. is stocked with believers, but they don't often go to movies made for them. Some films financed by Christian groups, like The Omega Code, have relied on grass-roots campaigns to spread the word, with mixed results. For the animated Moses film The Prince of Egypt, producer Jeffrey Katzenberg consulted hundreds of religious leaders and scholars, then made changes to placate the experts and avoid the sort of controversy that is hurting The Passion.

To Gibson, apparently, winning ecumenical approval is less important than being true to his bold vision. But he did hold early screenings, stacking the audience with clerics, scholars and media types who would probably like it. That annoyed some of the uninvited, whose antennas had detected trouble when a group of interfaith scholars got an early version of the screenplay and criticized it for historical errors and unfairness to the Jewish figures in the story. (Gibson threatened to sue over what his company called a "stolen" script.)

In Houston this month, Gibson screened the unfinished film for a group of Catholic, Jewish and Protestant leaders--all of whom signed a confidentiality agreement. That day one of the attendees, Rabbi Eugene Korn, director of Interfaith Affairs at the Anti-Defamation League, told the Houston Chronicle, "We still have grave concerns," and the ADL elaborated on them in a press release. This breach rankled other leaders, who signed a group letter sent privately to the ADL (a draft of which was obtained by TIME): "The Passion is a powerful and graphic film . . . We do not all agree on the effect, presentation or accuracy of the film. [But] we are deeply disappointed in and saddened by the tactics employed by Rabbi Eugene Korn and the Anti-Defamation League . . . We call on Rabbi Korn and the ADL to apologize to Mel Gibson."

Gibson's Hollywood posse is in his corner. "The story is controversial," says Joel Silver, who has produced five Mel-odramas (four Lethal Weapons and a Conspiracy Theory). "What this man [Jesus] was doing was new; people felt threatened by it and wanted him gone. Well, Mel's taken this timeless story and made it feel contemporary, as he did with Braveheart."

Dean Devlin, co-producer of Gibson's Braveheart, is also passionate for The Passion. "I thought it was an amazingly powerful piece of work" he says. "I didn't find it in the least bit anti-Semitic, and I'm Jewish. In the film I saw, everybody turns against Christ. This film doesn't cast blame on anyone. It casts blame on everyone. The last thing Mel wanted was for anyone to try to use this to justify hatred."

Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, who expressed his own concerns about The Passion, says the center has received a flood of angry calls and rancorous e-mail. "Not all of them are hateful," he says. "Some of them invite us to become Christians." Hier won't demonize Gibson. "I don't believe he is an anti-Semite. But I do think he has a responsibility here. Wonders can be done to a film in the editing room. Corrections can be made. That is, if he's interested in healing this issue."

Healing is Gibson's prime task, says a seasoned Hollywood marketing executive. "They've got the worst kind of controversy, the kind that goes to the core of their credibility," the executive says, noting that films like The Last Temptation of Christ and Priest grossed less than $10 million at the box office. "Gibson has to show it to Jewish religious leaders, as well as prominent cultural and intellectual figures. The public has to feel there's an overwhelmingly favorable consensus among people who might be offended."

Gibson is still honing the film, which may open late this year. He recently cut a conversation between Caiaphas and Pilate about the mocking sign (KING OF THE JEWS) on Jesus' cross. The edit was supposedly made not out of religious sensitivity but to trim the film's running time--though Devlin's one criticism of the film was "I wouldn't mind if it was longer." He adds, "I don't know if there will be wide appeal to go see it, but I think the vast majority of people who do see it will be moved to tears by it." Matt Drudge, the Internet tattler (who is Jewish), called The Passion a "total tears" experience.

And really, by Hollywood logic, how can it miss? A so-old-it's-new story, with an Oscar-winning hunk's name attached, and enough prerelease controversy surrounding it that millions of moviegoers will feel obliged to see it. Oh, sorry, that was Gigli.

Reuters    By Megan Goldin

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Mel Gibson's portrayal of the final 12 hours of Jesus in his film "The Passion of the Christ" has been hailed as the gospel truth by some believers, but many scholars complain that it is riddled with historical errors. Their complaints range from inaccuracies about hairstyles and clothes to a lack of gospel context in the film which has raised a furor among Jewish groups who fear its graphic depiction of the crucifixion will fan anti-Jewish violence.

Gibson, who has denied the film is anti-Semitic, has said he consulted scholars, theologians, priests and spiritual writers before scripting the film with the aim of making Jesus's agony during the crucifixion appear as realistic as possible. Many Christians see the film as bringing them closer to their religion. Evangelical preacher Billy Graham called the film "a lifetime of sermons in one movie." Gibson, a traditionalist Catholic, was so determined to make the $25 million film which he funded himself that he had his characters speak in Latin and Aramaic.

Experts say this was his first mistake as Greek was the language spoken in Jerusalem during Jesus's time, along with Aramaic and some Hebrew spoken by Jews. "Jesus talking to (Pontius) Pilate and Pilate to Jesus in Latin!" exclaimed John Dominic Crossan, a professor of religious studies at the Chicago-based Roman Catholic De Paul University. "I mean in your dreams. It would have been Greek."

Latin was reserved for official decrees or used by the elite. Most Roman centurions in the Holy Land spoke Greek rather than Latin, historians and archaeologists told Reuters. The mistakes, experts say, didn't stop with the wrong language, which Crossan -- who speaks Latin -- said was so badly pronounced in the film that it was almost incomprehensible. "He has a long-haired Jesus...Jesus didn't have long hair," said physical anthropologist Joe Zias, who has studied hundreds of skeletons found in archaeological digs in Jerusalem. "Jewish men back in antiquity did not have long hair."

"The Jewish texts ridiculed long hair as something Roman or Greek," said New York University's Lawrence Schiffman. Along with extensive writings from the period, experts also point to a frieze on Rome's Arch of Titus, erected after Jerusalem was captured in AD 70 to celebrate the victory, which shows Jewish men with short hair taken into captivity. Erroneous depictions of Jesus in Western art have often misled film makers in their portrayal of Jesus, experts said.

JEWISH GROUPS VS GIBSON
For some scholars the errors go beyond language or hairstyles. They say the heart of the problem is the film's script which interweaves the literal interpretation of four sometimes contradictory gospel accounts of Jesus' last 12 hours with the visions of a controversial 19th century nun. "This is my version of what happened, according to the gospels and what I wanted to show," Gibson told the U.S. television network ABC this month. But Crossan complained that the lack of historical context was the movie's "basic flaw."

The film begins not when Jesus enters Jerusalem to the exuberant welcome of thousands of Jews but rather at night in a garden on the eve of the crucifixion when he is arrested by the Romans after being betrayed by Judas. "Why did they need a traitor? Why did they need the night? Why didn't they grab him in the daytime?" Crossan asked. "Because they did not want a riot," he said, explaining that Jesus was immensely popular among his fellow Jews, which is why the high priests and Romans felt threatened by him. Those details, Crossan said, were absent in the film.

"The lack of context is the most devastating thing for anyone who says it (the film) is faithful to the gospels because the gospels have the context," he told Reuters. One of the most controversial aspects of the film is its portrayal of Pilate reluctantly sentencing Jesus to crucifixion under pressure from a bullying mob and conniving Jewish priests. Scholars acknowledge the scene is faithful to the gospels, but some experts say a historical perspective is imperative.

"It is important to see the historical context. Not only for the sake of being true to history but for the sake of being true to the gospel passages themselves," said Father Michael McGarry, rector of the Tantur Ecumenical Institute in Jerusalem. The gospels, he said, were written many years after the crucifixion at a time when the early Christians felt it would be politically wise to "soften Pontius Pilate as a way of placating" the Romans who ruled over them. "Pontius Pilate was a very cruel and brutal man. And he wouldn't care two winks about executing another Jew. He had killed so many before him," said McGarry, who said he had not seen the film and was commenting only on the history of the time.

CRUCIFIXION WAS "STATE TERROR"
Crucifixion was a common punishment meted out by the Romans to rebellious Jews during Jesus's time. The Romans crucified so many Jews, said Zias, that "eventually they ran out of crosses and they ran out of space." The depiction of the crucifixion was the part of the film most riddled with errors for Zias, who studied the skeleton of a crucified Jewish man from Jesus's time--the only remains ever found of a crucified victim from antiquity.

Zias said Jesus would not have carried the entire cross to the crucifixion as vertical beams were kept permanently in place by the ever efficient Romans. "Nobody was physically able to carry the thing (the entire cross).It weighed about 350 pounds," Zias said. "He (Jesus) carried the cross-beam, maximum." Nor would Jesus have worn a loin-cloth in the crucifixion as did actor James Caviezel who portrayed him in the film. "Crucifixion was a form of state terror. They humiliated the crucified victim. Everybody was naked. Men, women and children," Zias said.

Jesus, he added, would have been tied or nailed to the cross through the wrists, not the hands as shown in the film. "You cannot crucify a person through the hands because there is nothing there but skin and muscle. It will tear." Brushing off criticism of inaccuracies, Gibson has said he found contradictory opinions among the experts he consulted. "Since the experts canceled each other out, I was thrown back on my own resources to weigh the different arguments and decide for myself," Gibson said in one interview.