摘要：1]This essay originated in the confluence of three events: a New Testament Greek course, the release of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ(hereinafterThe Passion), and the stimulating conference sponsored by the Center for Study of Religion and Societyand the Journal of Religion and Filmthat is at the heart of this issue of JRS.We found that the questions we were asking supplemented, rather than overlapped, those in the other discussions published here, in part because wehad the benefit of seeing the film in its final form. We have submitted our work in the belief that it might help round out the picture that emerged at the conference. Our primary questions were these three: Why should critical reaction to the movie have been so hostile. Why did Gibson make this film in this way. What artistry has he employed in making the film. While we did not set out to write apologia for the film, we did find that critics' hostility had blinded them to undeniable artistry in its making, and that the critics' response was (perhaps unsurprisingly) more interesting than what they said.
