"Kingdom of Heaven" & the Crusades

[Fidelis]

With the release this weekend of the new movie about the Crusades, “Kingdom of Heaven,” a whole new generation will be misinformed as to the true history these conflicts. Here are a couple of informational links to help you explain any questions you might receive:

SCHOLARS CALL NEW CRUSADE MOVIE ‘RUBBISH’
ewtn.com/vnews/getstory.asp?number=56343

Crusade Propaganda: The abuse of Christianity’s holy wars
catholiceducation.org/articles/history/world/wh0049.html

Other helpful links:
catholiceducation.org/links/search.cgi?query=crusades&submit.x=30&submit.y=13

 

[BibleReader]

On 9/11, Moslems cheered and celebrated in the steets as human flesh burned in the World Trade Center. On 9/12, after Yasir Arafat proclaimed that “radicals” were responsible for singing in the streets as the World Trade Center burned, the people of Palestine gathered for an even larger celebration in the streets, to prove Mr. Arafat wrong.

This post will probably be censored, in this site, but the truth is that in some fundamental way Islam is a defective religion married to *death. * The suicide bombers in Iraq who murder so that they can cow the people into submission so that they can murder them even more, the members of al-Queda that seek to purchase nuclear weapons from former Russian states, the Pakistanis who told NBC that they wish they had *known *the identity of Osama bin Laden’s #3 man, before his arrest, so that they could protrect him – all these are directly or indirectly married to murder.
**
I believe that it was no different at the time of the Crusades.

 

[Cherub]

There is a link to one of those articles in this blog entry:

The Crusades for Dummies

Mel seems to agree with you. She seems to be thinking a lot of people will buy this bad history. I hope not.

 

[Milliardo]

The need for a better treatment of the Crusades should be made. Maybe someone can contact Mel Gibson and make a film that is more historically accurate?

 

[Fidelis]

I doubt if he’d take one on so soon after the release of this flawed re-telling. There are SO MANY stories that need to be told from a Catholoc viewpoint.

 

[jako]

I wonder if anyone here saw the film? It seems some have. I only ask out of curiosity.
I just got back from the film. I watched it with my son. I do feel that Ridley Scott did a good job from a film makers point of view. But not from a historical or fair view point POV. If that makes sense. Anyway, I found it to be good movie/story. It portrayed both sides as good and bad. The templers were especially nasty. A certain sect of the muslims were also nasty.
My biggest complaint however was the portrayal of anyone conected to the Catholic Church. The Bishop of Jerusalem was shown as a coward and greedy. Power mad and oppertunistic. I’m no historian, but I do know that the crusades were not what the common man and those who twist history to their own ends think they were. The movie was also unfair to the Church in some of it’s lines by the characters.
Go see it for what it is. A movie made by one of the best filmmakers around, based on historical events and characters. But not a history lesson, if you want a good history on the crusades read a book.
James