Temptation Of Christ Comparison

The Last Temptation of Christ and The Passion of the Christ In the movies, The Last Temptation of Christ and The Passion of the Christ, they both portrayed a different view of what Christ went through leading up to and including his crucifixion. The Last Temptation of Christ is a controversial adaption of Christ's crucifixion based on a fictional book of the same name by Nikos Kazantzakis. The director, Scorsese, uses an alternate version that places more emphasis on the human being and earthly desires of Christ as a man while His divinity is taken for granted. It starts out with Scorsese almost making a mockery of Christ's life as being a man who makes crosses for criminals to be crucified upon. Christ suffers from doubt, uncertainty,
and weaknesses while He imagines He's destined to be crucified but seems confused about who He is exactly. He feels God has chosen him for something but seems uncertain as to what God wants. Christ begs Judas, who is portrayed as Jesus' closest confidant, to promise he will help Christ meet His fate while Judas struggles and pleads with Christ not to have him do this. The depiction of Christ's life does not really show a relationship between Him and His mother, Mary. He goes through the same temptations as humanity. He has a friendship with Mary Magdalene that goes back to childhood and they have a mutual desire for one another while Christ resists acting upon His feelings. His divinity is seen by God choosing him for something, to be the Messiah and to die on the cross.
In the movie, Christ tells Judas that humanity and God will not be united unless He dies and there will be no redemption unless it happens. The movie shows Christ seeking answers from God but struggling to hear God while fighting temptations and deception by Satan. It follows through His trials and tribulations, baptism, teachings, and miracles until the time of His persecution and crucifixion. The movie doesn't show anything to do with His resurrection but Christ does state that He will rise again after three days. This does show the dual substance of Christ as human and divine. In the movie, salvation is depicted by Jesus' suffering and death which saves humanity from sin. This entailed Jesus, as a human, overcoming and resisting temptation and choosing to be faithful and to surrender to what God had designed Christ for and what God wanted of
Him. In the reading on The Last Temptation of Christ, the movie was criticized because the film's adaption of Jesus' trials and tribulations seemed to question Jesus' divinity. Primarily, in the final scene, Jesus imagines what His life would have been like if He were to live out the life of an ordinary man by marrying, having children, and growing to an old age which was viewed as blasphemy because Jesus envision having sexual intercourse. The union of man and wife is one of the basic reasons God created humans according to Christianity's teaching. With Jesus, the son of God, being fully formed in human flesh, He would have the same earthly desires of man and could envision the joys God bestowed upon man, otherwise Jesus' humanity would be a farce. Ebert believed that Scorsese and Schrader paid homage to Christ by portraying Jesus as a man of flesh and blood who struggled and suffered through temptations with free will to make choices while simultaneously, as the son of God, He questioned Himself and His Father about what was the right way for Him to live and die. He experienced doubt and uncertainty in who He was and what exactly God wanted of Him. He suffered through temptations and weaknesses like any other man but was tormented more by Satan trying to deceive and lead him astray from what God wanted of Him. The Passion of the Christ is tied more to the biblical story about Christ's persecution and crucifixion. It follows from the time of Christ praying in the garden at Gethsemane before He is betrayed by Judas and arrested through to His resurrection. There are flashbacks to earlier times in His life as a small child and as a carpenter building furniture, to times when He was teaching crowds and speaking with His disciples. The movie shows Christ having a close relationship with his mother, Mary, and the pain and anguish she endured during His scourging and crucifixion and the emotional aspect from Christ watching her agonizing over this. The movie shows very detailed scenes with Christ's arrest, persecution, and crucifixion and it portrays more of Christ in both human and divine form. The human aspect is depicted by the vicious and merciless pain and brutality Christ endured, which was very intense. Some incidents are not told in the biblical version of Christ's suffering but they depict the merciless and unjust treatment brought down upon Him. It showed the human and divine side of Him with the people He encountered as He bore His cross on the journey to His crucifixion. After Christ falls while carrying the cross, Mary comes to Him and He says to her, "I make all things new" before rising to His feet. When Simon of Cyrene is called from the crowd to carry the cross, a woman tells him to do it because Jesus is "a holy man." Simon starts to stand up to the soldiers who are kicking and beating Christ and threatens not to carry the cross anymore if they continue to abuse Him. A woman named Veronica comes to Christ with her veil to wipe the blood from His face and water for Him to drink. She refers to Him as Lord but treats Him with compassion as a human being. Christ endured and suffered more than any normal man could tolerate.
This is evident when He stands up after the first scourging and then He is on His feet and carrying His cross after the second more intense and brutal scourging. The movie shows from the beginning Christ knows who He is and what He has to do although He does ask God to let it pass over Him but only if it is God's will. In a flashback ,Christ tells a crowd of followers that no one takes His life from Him, only He has the power to lay down His life of His own accord and the power to take it up again by His Father's command. Shortly after His death, the earth shakes and the temple cracks in half and those who did not believe before that Christ was the Messiah came to believe, which was evident by the high priest breaking down and
crying. This movie completed Christ's journey on earth by showing His resurrection although it was brief. This showed more of His divinity by Him conquering death so humanity would be united with God in heaven instead of being damned to hell for its sins. Salvation is explained in the beginning of the movie with a biblical verse on the screen, Isaiah 53: "He was wounded for our transgressions; and by his wounds we are healed." This showed that humanity is saved by the sacrifice of Christ through His suffering and death on the cross. This was through Penal Substitutionary atonement because Jesus was the only substitute that could cover for all the sins of humanity. According to "The Viewing and Writing on the Passion of Christ," Mel Gibson stressed that The Passion was about "faith, hope, love, and forgiveness" and that he "wanted to push the viewer over the edge....so they [could] see the enormity of that sacrifice [and that Christ could] come back with love and forgiveness [after enduring] extreme pain, suffering, and ridicule." This displayed the ultimate sacrifice that Christ could endure, as a human being, and the redemption that Christ, as son of God, bestowed to humanity regardless of His treatment by man. Viewers' response to the film varied by the individual's interpretation of it. The brutal and vicious flaying in the scourging scene was enhanced with partial computer generated imagery to illustrate the merciless violence and brutality Jesus endured to give a true understanding of Christ's suffering and sacrifice. Some praised the authentic representation of this event while others viewed it as "pornographic." Some found the movie to be flawed by Gibson's mix of gospels, theology, and writings and his scant attention to the resurrection. However, the realization of Christ 's ultimate sacrifice started inter-religious conversations, there were reports of powerful emotional and physical experiences by individuals, and others were dramatically moved that they discussed it with their friends and family. I saw the dual substance of Christ in both movies, but more of the human aspect of Jesus in The Last Temptation of Christ and more of His divine nature in The Passion of the Christ. Both movies showed how Satan tormented and mocked Christ by saying how He could be arrogant enough to believe that He alone could save humanity and tried to tempt and sway Him away from what God wanted of Him. The movies also showed scenes from the last supper with Christ instructing His disciples to eat the bread which is His broken body and drink the wine which is His blood and to do this in remembrance of Him after He is gone. These both showed that Christ struggled with the temptations of man but that He would endure the suffering that awaited Him because He chose to do what God wanted of Him to save humanity from damnation. The Last Temptation of Christ was surreal and a little disturbing at times but that may have been how Christ felt in those situations. The Passion of the Christ was extremely intense. It was hard to watch Christ suffer through everything He endured but it shows He had a greater love for humanity that He was willing to lay down his life for us.