Shortest fisking to date.

When I am looking for insights into biblical accuracy, authenticity and fidelity to Christian tradition, the first person I consult will not be an Episcopalian.

Fastidious ordained ECUSA ninny sniffs disparagingly, and at wearying length, about the Gibson film for the soon-to-be-shuttered Salon Magazine.

Quelle suprise.

I'm not going to excerpt this at length--go read the link if you want that. I'm just going to give you a couple of samples.

I could see how it would work on an unsophisticated audience.

At this point, your septum should start deviating as a result of the derisive snorting. This is what the hoi polloi think of you, folks. They're the sophisticates, you're the extra y-chromosome types who blather on endlessly about your Bronze Age Palestinian sky god.

OTOH, it also helps you understand how VGeR got elected, now, doesn't it? Now, one last point:

I don't see the point of magnifying the violence of his arrest, torture and death. I find it perverse and strange and really vulgar. As Ray Brown says, the Gospels are pretty straightforward. They arrive at Golgotha, and then it says, "Then they crucified him." They just say it in a little short sentence.

This criticism, reasonably common, makes no sense after a little reflection. For someone who likes to tart up and trot out his half-remembered historical criticism, he's missing the point--ever hear of sitz im leben? When the accounts were written, there would have been no need to explain crucifixion in any detail--the readers would have known it instinctively. And shuddered.

Two thousand years later, we, who have no crucifixion frame of reference, need to be educated.

I also love the "Ray" reference to Fr. Brown. On a first name basis with the late scholar, were we?

Ultimately, the Rev.'s spleen venting review says more about the author and his attitude to the untermenschen he was forced to share the room with than the film.

It also demonstrates that the Cross is still folly to the Gentiles.