Jesus Movie Ideas--Anyone?

[JB_Brother_4446]

Well, you could be right, but unless you give us some concrete examples there’s really nothing to discuss.

I think the clothing, for instance might be a problem. Hollywood has always made Jews of Jesus’ time look like Arabs,but in reality they actually dressed a lot more like Greeks.

 

[JB_Brother_4446]

A sweet-voiced older lady. (At His death, she was at least 45, and men and women aged hard in that place and time.)

ICXC NIKA

In some movies, Mary has incredible insight into her Son’s ministry. In the movie King of Kings, Jesus is at His mother’s house and sees a broken chair. He says,“The chair will have to wait until I return.” But then Mary says,“The chair will never be mended.”

 

[JB_Brother_4446]

An example for a scene in my ideal Jesus’ movie is when John the Baptist reveals Jesus to his disciples, Andrew and John. John is baptizing people when he sees a figure with unkempt hair unlike his own, which is braided since he is a Nazirite. John recognizes him as Jesus, a person who he has baptized nearly, a month ago. John points to Jesus and says,“Behold the Lamb of God.” John, a man of approximately 21 years of age who has barely grown his beard, packs his bag and starts to follow Jesus. Andrew, his friend is doing the same thing. John the Baptist bids his two zealous followers farewell.
An hour passes John and Andrew are still following him. Jesus eventually turns around, and asks them what they want. The two young men reply in unison,"Rabbi, where are you staying?" Jesus then answers, "Come and see." Jesus then asks their names and recognizes His young cousin John bar Zebedee and inquires of his brother James. John says his brother is well and inquires after his aunt Mary, his uncle Joseph, and Jesus' "brothers."

 

[patrick457]

If you want to make a movie about Jesus, what ideas would you implement?

Hey, good thread idea!

Personally, just from the possible approaches I could make:

(1) For the first option, I’m thinking something of like the Mahabharata segment from this Indian television series from the 80s called Bharat Ek Khoj (The Discovery of India). The two-episode segment alternated between adaptations of scenes from the actual epic to traditional ways stories from the epic were told and transmitted to popular consciousness (folk music or theater like Kathakali).

I’m thinking of a sort of combination of reenactments of episodes from the gospels plus stuff like the medieval passion plays or those church plays or stuff like Handel’s Messiah or Bach’s St. Matthew Passion. Granted, this is quite an artsy approach, and frankly, this isn’t so much a film adaptation of the Jesus story from the gospels itself as a sort of celebration of and tribute to 2000 years of ‘Jesus stories’.

(2) The second option is to make a film about the four gospels themselves. Every evangelist (talking-head documentary style) would narrate a pericope/passage from their respective gospels, while a reenactment of the scene would play. Now here’s the thing: while many of the sets, the costumes, and the acting would be the same, the actors for each respective segment would be different. In other words, the Peter that would appear in Matthew’s segment is a different actor from the Peter that appears in Mark’s. Maybe the one actor that would stay the same is the guy playing Jesus, but we could also cast four different actors.

Again, this is rather artsy (and is admittedly a bit unconventional), but hey, when you’ve watched too many a Jesus film, you’re going to want to explore other areas. I’m thinking of using this approach to highlight both the similarities and the differences between each of the four gospels. Many people simply lump them together; why not let each of the four have their own voice, even if only for a moment?

Matthew: Now Jesus got into a boat, crossed the lake and came to his own city –
Mark: – when he returned to Capernaum, it was rumored that he was at home.
Matthew: Just then some people brought to him a paralytic lying on the bed.
Mark: Now when the men could not get near Jesus because of the crowd, they dug through the roof –
Luke: – they went up to the roof and let him down with his bed, they removed the tiles and lowered him down before Jesus.
Mark: Now Jesus seeing their faith said to the man, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”

Pretty much something like that.

(3) The third would be a ‘straight’ Jesus film. But, in this case, I really want to make a Jesus film from a sort of “outsider’s” perspective. One gripe I have with many Jesus movies is that they’re really made by Christians, for Christians: they presuppose the viewer already knows the story and doesn’t bother to explain stuff that a person who isn’t familiar the gospels or the time period in question would need to know. (Okay, when was the last time a Jesus film explained what ‘Jews’ are and where ‘Judaea’ is, what ‘Passover’ or ‘crucifixion’ is, or what kind of group ‘Pharisees’ or ‘Sadducees’ or ‘Samaritans’ are?) In addition, they really take the Christian idea of Jesus - He’s the Son of God - for granted and make that as their starting point. As a result, the finished product is really just this long tract like the kind you see some Protestants hand out: “Jesus is the Son of God, will you accept Him as your personal Lord and Savior?”

I’m thinking of doing a different, dispassionate approach - in other words, I’ll be thinking out of my Christian box. I’ll let the viewer reach their own conclusions as to who Jesus is. Jesus will be shown in the context and the background of His era, alongside prophets and holy men and zealots and bandits and teachers (I mean, He was hardly the only holy man in Palestine back then who (claimed to) perform miracles or preached the coming of God’s reign.) Is Jesus just like these other people, or is He different? If it is, what makes Him different?

(4) For the fourth option, to be honest: why does it even have to be a Jesus film? Why not make a film about other people who lived in the Second Temple period? Jesus can appear in it, but He doesn’t have to be the main character, and the movie doesn’t have to be the run of the mill ‘man finds faith in Jesus’-type of story. I personally would like to see a film about Pilate or Caiaphas or that crucified guy whose bones were discovered in the 60s (Jehohanan) or better yet, some random Jewish villager.

 

[patrick457]

I don’t think that would work.

Our world has been so “salted” by Him that a modern world in which HE had not yet appeared would be unrecognizable. That was the failing of such pictures as the Judas Project:. He is transposed into a modern world that is indistinguishable from our own, which would not be the case.

ICXC NIKA

Funny you brought up The Judas Project. That’s one Jesus film I never saw in full yet, but the bits I did see didn’t really raise my hopes up for it. Although I did kind of find that idea of that heavenly fireball burning IIRC this film’s version of Caiaphas interesting in the ‘wow, that’s kind of messed up but still looks awesome’-kind of way.

 

[patrick457]

But, yes, Jesus as a miracle worker and semi-divine would be very boring. Heroes without a tragic flaw are always boring.

In a way, you have a point. Jesus as a film character is very unconventional - as you say ‘boring’; He’s not your average film hero. He doesn’t fall in love (so no romance scenes), He doesn’t get into fights (there goes any potential action scene), and most films - particularly the reverential ones - don’t really dare show some kind of internal, psychological conflict.

You might say it’s the fault of the source material itself. I’m gonna bring up that quote by Ed Sanders again:
The synoptic gospels lack most of the things that we now expect in the story of someone’s life. Looks, personality, character - we know very little. When it comes to the other figures besides Jesus, we are really in the dark. Pilate, curiously, is given touches of character by Matthew and John, but for the most part the other actors are very flat. Peter, we learn, was a little wishy-washy. What was John like? James? We do not know. What about the Pharisees? They appear in a group, denounce Jesus, sometimes are denounced in turn, and disappear. What were they up to? Were they all equally hostile towards Jesus? Where did they go when they disappeared? If they thought that Jesus’ disciples were breaking the sabbath law (Mark 2.24), why did they not lay a charge by reporting them to a priest (who might have fined them by requiring that each bring a sin offering, two birds, when next in Jerusalem)?

Many readers today do not realize how episodic the synoptic gospels are, since Christians have had almost 2000 years to build up a more novelistic view of the events and people in the gospels. Books have been written, movies made, explanations offered. On Sundays numerous priests, pastors and teachers retell some aspect of the gospel account, adding personality and motive. Judas, the disciple who betrayed Jesus, is often depicted as a frustrated zealot who wanted Jesus to lead a revolution, who thought of himself as a great man in Jesus’ kingdom, and who was bitterly angry when he learned that Jesus wanted another sort of kingdom. This gives the story colour and drama. There is nothing in the gospels about Judas’ ambitions at all. Perhaps he realized that Jesus was a marked man and decided to get out when he still could, while also making a profit. One guess is as good as another. Similarly Mary Magdalene has appealed enormously to people who have imagined all sorts of romantic things about her: she had been a prostitute, she was beautiful, she was in love with Jesus, she fled to France carrying his child. For all we know, on the basis of our sources, she was eighty-six, childless, and keen to mother unkempt young men.

The British poet W.H. Auden once said that the only way you could convincingly depict Jesus on stage is either to show Him either as a baby or as a corpse - because one cannot portray holiness in dramatic form. For Auden, it “is impossible to represent Christ on the stage. If he is made dramatically interesting, he ceases to be Christ and turns into a Hercules or a Svengali. Nor is it really possible to represent him in the visual arts for, if he were visually recognizable, he would be a god of the pagan kind.”

This guy named Bill Jenkins who wrote an article entitled Jesus Christ, Superstar? Why the Gospels Don’t Make Good Movies actually points out that the gospels were perhaps not originally meant to be read straight through in one sitting at all. That explains why they’re ‘episodic’ and two-dimensional: they were written with a liturgical context in mind; in other words, the gospels were meant to be read in segments, in the context of the liturgy (the Eucharist).

Leland Ryken, who has written about the Bible as Literature for several decades, points to the literary idiosyncracies of the Gospels, allowing readers to see why attempts to transfer them into film leads to the kind of re-writing that Auden claims will transform Jesus too much. Ryken states that, above all, the Gospels are “episodic”; unlike narratives that achieve their unity through progressive action of a protagonist, one event leading to the next sequentially, the Gospels use apparent randomness to make their statements about Jesus.3 Unity instead depends primarily on “dialogue and encounter,” so that individual and often non-contiguous episodes “lay out the action into separate dramatic scenes, as though it were a play, focusing on each segment and also noting the sequence or positioning of scenes as we move through the episodes.”4 Summarizing his description of how the Gospels work, Ryken claims that the Gospels rely on characteristics that just do not make for compelling film: “a preference for the brief unit, a relatively self-contained quality to the individual episodes, a prevailing realism, and a simple, unembellished style.”5 This style is paratactic, which consists of short clauses strung together with conjunctions. Nearly every modern translation of the Gospels break up their paratactic style in an attempt to make the Gospels more palatable for modern readers. Whereas the repetitive syntax of Mark, for instance, lends itself to short, self-contained segments such as the assigned readings of the lectionary, it works not at all as an unchanged script for a film.

 

[patrick457]

Oh yeah, as an aside there this televised play called The Mysteries. It’s essentially a modern adaptation of a number of medieval English mystery plays, covering the Creation, the lives of Jesus and Mary and the Last Judgment. To be honest I actually find these plays more convincing than some ‘historically accurate’ Jesus films based on the actual gospels out there.

If you can stomach theater (and the rather ancient English), I’d recommend watching this:

The Mysteries, 01: Nativity (Part 01)
The Mysteries, 02: The Passion (Part 01)
The Mysteries, 03: Doomsday (Part 01)

 

[friardchips]

In some movies, Mary has incredible insight into her Son’s ministry. In the movie King of Kings, Jesus is at His mother’s house and sees a broken chair. He says,“The chair will have to wait until I return.” But then Mary says,“The chair will never be mended.”

Maybe a remake of the great book and film ‘The Robe’?

Mary’s Holy Spirit-induced insight and anticipation of her Son during His life.

Take one of the passages of the Gospel and go into the parable telling it in a contemporary world - a series of short films ‘(film shorts’) - then going back to the Biblical again.

The life of many a saint - St. Francis (a remake) or St. Dominic or St. Faustina, or St. Augustine, or St. Ignatius, perhaps?

Take on a word He says in a passage and interpret it into a film to convey the depth of meaning in each sentence spoken and lived by Him.

Peter wasn’t “wishy-washy” but rather a very responsible man, who recognised the voice of His Call and was (IMO) carrying a lot on his own shoulders. Which all the more glorifies his Teacher. You could do something on this subject.

You could draw on the differences between the world and the spiritual life - When He met with Pilate. The conversation that occurred. Or the differences between Barabbas’ ideas and the King of Mercy (Pope Emeritus speaks of these in one of his three published books).

One Station of the Cross.

One Mystery of the Rosary.

A film based on a prayer: St. Patrick’s Prayer; Prayer of St. Francis; The Our Father; The Hail Mary; The Glory Be. A film could be made for one of these.

Of course, you might just want to do the whole life but in that case it would make sense to concentrate on one of the Gospels or to combine two e.g:- St. Johns and St. Luke’s might fit together well.

 

[JB_Brother_4446]

An hour passes John and Andrew are still following him. Jesus eventually turns around, and asks them what they want. The two young men reply in unison,“Rabbi, where are you staying?” Jesus then answers, “Come and see.” Jesus then asks their names and recognizes His young cousin John bar Zebedee and inquires of his brother James. John says his brother is well and inquires after his aunt Mary, his uncle Joseph, and Jesus’ “brothers.”

So how will you portray Jesus’ brothers? Will you use the stepbrother theory, the cousin theory, or the far-fetched full blood brothers theory?

 

[Della]

I think the clothing, for instance might be a problem. Hollywood has always made Jews of Jesus’ time look like Arabs,but in reality they actually dressed a lot more like Greeks.

I’d be interested in your source for this statement.

 

[steve53]

In the first century CE, Jewish men were expected to wear togas to to the Synagogue.

 

[friardchips]

In the first century CE, Jewish men were expected to wear togas to to the Synagogue.

Are you sure? I thought it was the Romans who wore togas?

 

[Della]

In the first century CE, Jewish men were expected to wear togas to to the Synagogue.

Source? And that’s AD not “CE.”

 

[patrick457]

I’d be interested in your source for this statement.

The thing is, as far as we can tell the Jews in Jesus’ day didn’t really have a sort of distinct costume of their own that made them look totally different from Romans or from the other peoples of the Empire. (The only ones that really had a unique costume were the priests and Levites and their vestments.) Pretty much most people in the eastern Mediterranean back - from Syria to Judaea to Egypt - then wore the tunic-cloak/mantle (the Jewish tallit - the tallit being a ‘prayer shawl’ was a later innovation) combination, with many tunics sporting those two narrow strips of colored fabric (clavi) running vertically parallel that was characteristic of Roman-era clothing.

We have fragments of clothing from sites in the Judaean Desert like Masada or Naḥal Ḥever that would have been owned by the Jewish rebels that occupied those sites.

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Dyed dark red wool tunic from Masada, with blue clavi (stripes of fabric, usually dyed, woven into the tunic and descending from the shoulders - a common feature of Roman-period clothing)

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Wool tunic from Naḥal Ḥever, with clavi

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Wool mantle from Naḥal Ḥever, with notched band

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Wool mantle from Naḥal Ḥever, dyed red and decorated with gamma-shaped design

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Wool mantle from Masada, decorated with gamma-shaped design

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Child’s linen shirt from Naḥal Ḥever


Prophet (Jeremiah or Ezra) holding a scroll, from the synagogue of Dura Europos in Syria. Note the clavi on the tunic and the notched bands on the mantle.

In fact, the Romans never really noted that the Jews had a distinctive fashion. Romans usually liked to note that foreign peoples looked different from themselves, but (apart from male circumcision) they never noticed this of the Jews. The only thing that they thought was unique to the Jews was their smell: they thought Jews smelled bad.

The Arab-style long tunics and the kuffiyeh-like ‘tea towel’ head scarves really come from 19th-20th century artists who in search of ‘authenticity’ went to the Holy Land and copied what they saw there. It was a sort of continuation of this convention among some artists since the Middle Ages that tried to insert ‘Oriental’ elements (Jews looking like Moors with the turbans and everything, stereotypically Muslim buildings standing in for Middle Eastern architecture) in their artworks.

 

[808Catholic]

So how would you depict His mother?

Mary knew Jesus was special before she agreed to give birth to Him. There are plenty of examples of what happens to prophets and false prophets. I would imagine Mary, like many mothers, loved her Son beyond anything He would do so she would rejoice with each report of the success of His ministry but always knowing His path led to the cross. She may not have known of His resurrection but the joy in hearing He’s alive must have burst within her!

 

[patrick457]

Here’s a quote from Martin Goodman’s Rome and Jerusalem: The Clash of Ancient Civilizations:

According to the Babylonian Talmud, it was a religious duty for all Jews, men as well as women, to wear special clothes on the Sabbath: “your Sabbath garments should not be like your weekday garments…” In general, however, expenditure on personal appearance was assumed by Jews to be a characteristic of women rather than men. Jewish clothing, apart from the uniforms of the priests and Levites, seems to have been the same as that of others in the eastern Mediterranean. It would be wrong to imagine the Jewish tallit as an identity marker similar to the distinctively Roman toga; tallit in Hebrew means simply “cloak” and the use of such a garment as a dedicated prayer shawl did not begin until after late antiquity. The biblical prohibition on wearing garments manufactured from wool and linen, stated simply as a general law in Deuteronomy, was explained by Josephus as a way to preserve the unique status of the priesthood: such raiment “is reserved for priests alone.” That priests did indeed wear clothes made from such materials is confirmed in the Mishnah. When the Pharisees chose to “make broad their phylacteries and enlarge the borders of their garments,” they did this in order “to be seen of men;” but such ostentation must have been unusual for it to be alleged that it attracted Jesus’ criticism, and it is probably significant that no gentile pagan source betrays any knowledge of this distinctive Jewish custom. The Jewish figures in the frescoes from the synagogue at Dura-Europus have fringes on the corners of some of their cloaks, but if this reflected standard male Jewish practice, the fringes must have generally been discreet. Jewish men did not specially cover their heads. The dress of Jewish women also seems to have been much the same as that of gentile contemporaries; the Christian Tertullian remarked in Carthage at the end of the second century CE that Jewish women could be recognized as Jews by the fact that they wore veils in public, but it seems likely that such veils, common in the eastern Mediterranean, marked them out less as specifically Jewish than as simply oriental in the Roman West, where women were generally unveiled. According to the Mishnah it was regarded as immodest and shaming for a woman to wear her hair loose. The Mishnah refers to types of jewellery that a woman should not carry on a Sabbath: “She may not go out…with forehead-band or head-bangles if they are not sewn, or with a hairnet…or a necklace or nose-rings…”

Too much pride by males in their long hair was dangerously immoral, as the story of Absalom showed: he gloried in his hair, so he was hanged by it. A few hairstyles were specially forbidden by the rabbis in the Tosefta on the grounds that they looked too gentile and therefore smacked of idolatry or magic: “What are the matters which constitute ‘the ways of the Amorites?’ He who trims the front of his hair, and he who makes his locks grow long, and he who makes a baldness in front for a particular star…” But these restrictions are the exception that prove the rule, that Jews generally looked like non-Jews. Romans often noted that foreign peoples looked different from themselves, but (apart from male circumcision) they never noticed this of the Jews. One passing remark by a Roman author does, however, suggest that some Romans thought Jews had a distinctive smell: the historian Ammianus Marcellinus recorded in the fourth century CE a comment of the philosopher Marcus Aurelius in the second century CE about the Jews as malodorous. This was not a standard form of abuse of other people in the Roman world. It may even have some basis in a real difference. If modesty requires more clothing, in a hot climate old sweaty clothes may become smelly. If everyone smells equally, no one notices, and the issue of body odour (except of tanners) fails to surface in the Jewish texts.

Are you sure? I thought it was the Romans who wore togas?

Steve can correct me here, but I think what he meant was the mantle or cloak, aka the tallit. He did kind of pick the wrong word though: yes, the toga was a Roman citizen-only piece of clothing. The pallium (yes, that pallium) or himation is a closer analogue to the Jewish tallit.

 

[patrick457]

Okay, one cliche in many Jesus films that I kind of want to address is how they portray the Passion. In most Jesus films, when you hit the Passion, the filmmakers seem to really try to film every bit of it. (Mel Gibson even made a whole film out of it!) So, usually, a whole segment or so of the film is usually devoted to the scourging, the crowning with thorns, the trial before Pilate, the carrying of the cross, the crucifixion.

(This is no surprise, since the Jesus film genre really had its origin in Passion plays. The first Jesus films were simply filmed Passion plays. There was even one that claimed to be the famous Oberammergau Passion play captured in film but was actually shot in a rooftop in New York.)

I really like it when Jesus films - I’ve watched quite a number - break this mold. I could name two films:

• Roberto Rossellini’s 1975 film Il Messia (The Messiah) really has a dispassionate approach to the crucifixion. After Jesus was condemned to death by Pilate before a very small crowd (it’s just the chief priests and their lackeys), the film jumps to Mary, John and Mary Magdalene hearing the news that Jesus was sentenced; they race to Golgotha. Omitting the carrying of the cross and the actual crucifixion scene, the next scene then shows Jesus already crucified: the camera is far away from Jesus and the two criminals, so you don’t even get to hear Jesus’ final words, if any. He just dies. There is no big crowd present in Golgotha; in fact, everybody seems to just get on with their regular lives and avoid trying to look. Even the soldiers don’t seem too concerned about the three people they just put up on crosses. Only the three disciples are paying attention, “looking on from a distance,” as in the synoptics. In this film, this Jesus dies in total obscurity. Even the film is dispassionate towards Him.

In a way, this approach is quite unique and fresh. It took me out of my comfort zone (which is usually a good thing).

• The second film is this more recent one called The Color of the Cross. This film is rather unconventional, first and foremost because Jesus (here ‘Yoshua’), His family and at least a couple of His immediate disciples (Judas is one) are depicted as black. The film even tries to make that a reason as to why the (white) Jewish leaders rejected Jesus: they couldn’t accept the idea of a black Jew being the Messiah.

To be honest, the film is low quality (by Hollywood standards) and has quite a number of holes in it (why is only Yoshua and a few other persons black, while most everyone else around Him is white? ) but it’s approach to the crucifixion was very interesting, in that it basically omits the process: the film cuts from Jesus being arrested in Gethsemane to Him already hanging on the cross and saying His last words. As reviewer Matt Page points out:

The other is the cut from Yoshua’s arrest straight to his crucifixion. It’s unclear as to whether this is a reaction to the overly long trial sequence in The Passion of the Christ, or simply a way of emphasising the story’s modern parallels. The crucifixion scene is brief, reflecting the disdain of Yoshua’s persecutors. There is no calmly meditative dwelling on this man’s death and the meaning of sacrifce. The execution is over in a minute. Yoshua is dispatched just like numerous other rebels at the same time. The dispassionate under-emphasis on his death is somewhat shocking.

 

[friardchips]

Here’s a quote from Martin Goodman’s Rome and Jerusalem: The Clash of Ancient Civilizations:

According to the Babylonian Talmud, it was a religious duty for all Jews, men as well as women, to wear special clothes on the Sabbath: “your Sabbath garments should not be like your weekday garments…” In general, however, expenditure on personal appearance was assumed by Jews to be a characteristic of women rather than men. Jewish clothing, apart from the uniforms of the priests and Levites, seems to have been the same as that of others in the eastern Mediterranean. It would be wrong to imagine the Jewish tallit as an identity marker similar to the distinctively Roman toga; tallit in Hebrew means simply “cloak” and the use of such a garment as a dedicated prayer shawl did not begin until after late antiquity. The biblical prohibition on wearing garments manufactured from wool and linen, stated simply as a general law in Deuteronomy, was explained by Josephus as a way to preserve the unique status of the priesthood: such raiment “is reserved for priests alone.” That priests did indeed wear clothes made from such materials is confirmed in the Mishnah. When the Pharisees chose to “make broad their phylacteries and enlarge the borders of their garments,” they did this in order “to be seen of men;” but such ostentation must have been unusual for it to be alleged that it attracted Jesus’ criticism, and it is probably significant that no gentile pagan source betrays any knowledge of this distinctive Jewish custom. The Jewish figures in the frescoes from the synagogue at Dura-Europus have fringes on the corners of some of their cloaks, but if this reflected standard male Jewish practice, the fringes must have generally been discreet. Jewish men did not specially cover their heads. The dress of Jewish women also seems to have been much the same as that of gentile contemporaries; the Christian Tertullian remarked in Carthage at the end of the second century CE that Jewish women could be recognized as Jews by the fact that they wore veils in public, but it seems likely that such veils, common in the eastern Mediterranean, marked them out less as specifically Jewish than as simply oriental in the Roman West, where women were generally unveiled. According to the Mishnah it was regarded as immodest and shaming for a woman to wear her hair loose. The Mishnah refers to types of jewellery that a woman should not carry on a Sabbath: “She may not go out…with forehead-band or head-bangles if they are not sewn, or with a hairnet…or a necklace or nose-rings…”

Too much pride by males in their long hair was dangerously immoral, as the story of Absalom showed: he gloried in his hair, so he was hanged by it. A few hairstyles were specially forbidden by the rabbis in the Tosefta on the grounds that they looked too gentile and therefore smacked of idolatry or magic: “What are the matters which constitute ‘the ways of the Amorites?’ He who trims the front of his hair, and he who makes his locks grow long, and he who makes a baldness in front for a particular star…” But these restrictions are the exception that prove the rule, that Jews generally looked like non-Jews. Romans often noted that foreign peoples looked different from themselves, but (apart from male circumcision) they never noticed this of the Jews. One passing remark by a Roman author does, however, suggest that some Romans thought Jews had a distinctive smell: the historian Ammianus Marcellinus recorded in the fourth century CE a comment of the philosopher Marcus Aurelius in the second century CE about the Jews as malodorous. This was not a standard form of abuse of other people in the Roman world. It may even have some basis in a real difference. If modesty requires more clothing, in a hot climate old sweaty clothes may become smelly. If everyone smells equally, no one notices, and the issue of body odour (except of tanners) fails to surface in the Jewish texts.

Steve can correct me here, but I think what he meant was the mantle or cloak, aka the tallit. He did kind of pick the wrong word though: yes, the toga was a Roman citizen-only piece of clothing. The pallium (yes, that pallium) or himation is a closer analogue to the Jewish tallit.

Thanks for clearing that up. Interesting read.

 

[steve53]

My speculation was a joke.

There was a lot of animosity between the Jews and the Greek Syrians. So much so that Pompey when he sorted things out in the 60s BC made a separate “nation” out of the predominantly Greek-Syrian cities- a loose league with self-governing bodies called Decapolis. The area was patchwork, but after Herod the Great’s death it was NOT under the control of the Judean prefect or Herod Antipas or Herod Philip, but directly under the Syrian President- who was in control of all of Roman Asia.

There were lots of conflicts between them going back centuries.

Point being that the Jews would not adopt anything purposefully Greek. If anything, the late-coming Greeks (Alexander the Great) would adopt their attire from the Jews.

 

[steve53]

The actual physical layout of the Jerusalem of the first century A.D. is very interesting and adds some insight and perspective into Jesus’ crucifixion.

Using clues in Josephus and known landmarks, John Hagan in one of his books derives a layout map of the city Jesus knew. The outline of the second temple and the tower of Antonia are still there, but just to the west of the 35 acre temple complex- across a major north-south road that led to the Gennath Gate- would have been the 15 acre walled complex of Herod’s palace. All the Romans and important people- like Pilate and Antipas-would have stayed at one of the accommodations within the palace grounds.

The north wall of Herod’s palace would have been the ancient north wall of the city. Herod rebuilt it and set in three palace towers. The other three walls were also 60 feet high with guard towers every 100 feet or so. All this WITHIN the upper city.

The Praetorium would have been within the palace grounds, and the Gabatha, where Jesus was publicly tried, would have been directly outside the palace gate. The area inside the palace walls was considered Roman territory and unclean to Jewish priests.

On the other- west- side of the palace would have been the ancient Jewish cemetery. The expanse Herod the Great’s palace was limited by this area. The site called Golgotha was probably between the wall of Herod’s palace and the artificial chasms of the cemetery, which used to be a stone quarry. Likely a rough road ran close to palace wall outside of it, with Golgotha being served by it.

Today, this is the site of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Beyond the chasms of the stone quarry/cemetery, maybe 2-300 yards further on, would have been the major road to Damascus, or one of it’s major offshoots. People on the road could see the crucifixion site at the base of the Palace wall from across the quarry, the three towers of the palace beyond that, and beyond that the walls of the inner sanctuary of the Second Temple and the top of the gold-sheathed Temple, and at the right time of day see the smoke from the bronze sacrificial alter.

Makes for a nice panorama shot, eh?

Jerusalem is very different today Titus in A.D. 70 wreaked havoc with the surrounding countryside and filled in the quarry. What is called Herod’s Palace today was likely built after Jersalem was destroyed, and built out of block from the original palace. It served as Roman headquarters.