Too bad in the new Mel Gibson movie, "The Passion of the Christ," the name "Yeshua" is used. It's a distortion of the name of Eashoa and leads to the fallacy that the name of Eashoa is not mentioned in the Old Testament. However, Eashoa is the name of our Lord and it is in the Old Testament and it means "Life-Giver" or "Savior."
After seeing "The Passion of the Christ" tonight (February 27, 2004,) I realize now why this film is so terribly prejudicial toward the Jews. The movie is symptomatic of the way modern Christianity regarded the Jews during the Middle Ages, which I believe caused the genocide of six million Jews during the WW II era. This movie regards the Jews the same way even today. Moreover as an Eastern follower of the Messiah Eashoa I'm shocked to see the lack of recognition for the truth about the faith in the Messiah and the rejection of the Ancient Aramaic Scriptures and how the movie blasphemes in the pronunciation of His words from the Cross, namely, "Eili, Eili, l'ma-na sh'wik-thani," which are rendered, "Ullahi, Ullahi, lema sabactani," and translated in error as, "My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me."
This utterance of Eashoa on the Cross is retained in the Ancient Aramaic in all the Scriptures, albeit transliterated in error. Maybe there's a providential reason for it, because on this passage alone may hang the entire misinterpretation of the Scriptures by modern Christianity. I can't think of anywhere in the Scriptures that the word "sh'wik-thani" means "forsaken." This is a blasphemy against the Messiah that has evolved out of the Chaldean-Arabic version of the Bible, the very version that the Greek and the Latin Vulgate are translated from, and subsequently the King James Version and all other modern Bibles. They all blaspheme in this passage and declare that the Father forsook His Son. I don't believe that it was this version that was to be the true Gospel; however, it may have been intended as the stumbling block for modern Christianity, necessitating a return to the true Faith sometime in the future.
And now this film of Mel Gibson's comes on the world stage and unintentionally exposes this hypocrisy of the modern churches. On the one hand the mainstream Christian churches of the West claim that the New Testament was written in Greek, and on the other hand they retain the Chaldean-Arabic passage in the Text of their Bibles. How ironic! Whereas the Hebrew-Aramaic Text of the passage reads "Eili, Eili, l'ma-na sh'wik-thani" and there is no translation after it, such as "My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me" or whatever, because there's no need to translate the Ancient Aramaic as the passage, as well as the entire New Testament, is already in the original language.
And it's not only that this film grossly misquotes the Scriptures, it's fanatical in its prejudice against the Jews of all ages. Together with the falsehood against the Jews, this movie desecrates the memory of our Lord by showing Him as helpless. Eashoa was never helpless. He gave his human life willingly like the ram that is slaughtered at Passover. His courage was as great if not greater than the courage of Isaac when he climbed on the altar and bid his father Abraham to sacrifice him.
As the movie is breaking attendance records, Christians of all denominations should ask themselves why is this film so popular and yet portrays the Jews with such prejudice? How could Mel Gibson make an exploitation movie about Jesus? What I think about the movie.