Christian, Jewish Scholars Urge Changes To Oberammergau Passion Play Script

By Alfredo Garcia
Religion News Service

(RNS) Jewish and Christian scholars have called for a full edit of the script for the world's largest Passion play, currently on stage in southern Germany, even as changes couldn't be made until at least 2020.

Produced once every 10 years, the Oberammergau Passion Play in Bavaria is the largest and one of the oldest theatrical reenactments of the final days of the life of Jesus.

The Oberammergau play attracts hundreds of thousands of spectators and employs approximately half of the town's 5,200 residents. Like many Passion plays, however, Oberammergau has been criticized for its anti-Jewish elements and stereotypes.

The Council of Centers on Jewish-Christian Relations, an umbrella group for more than 30 academic and educational interfaith centers in the U.S. and Canada, drafted a list of 17 recommendations for a new script, even though the play won't be staged again until 2020.

The report concluded that "Jewish opponents of Jesus are unjustifiably depicted in such extreme terms as to risk impressing on the audience a negative image of the entire Jewish community."

The report encouraged editors not to draw primarily from previous versions of the play that contain anti-Jewish elements.

The current script contains edits from the 1980s overseen by director Christian Stueckl and dramatist Otto Huber. Even with an emphasis on Jesus as a rabbi and the elimination of anti-Jewish references from the Gospel of Matthew, the current script continues to raise ire among clerics and academics alike.

The study recognized these changes, but called for further adjustments.

The CCJR points specifically to "refinements for the presentation of Old Testament scenes, the relationship between the Roman governor and the Jewish High Priest, the nature of the capital charges brought against Jews, and the numbers and mood of Jewish spectators."

The report has been praised by Rabbi Eric J. Greenberg, director of the department of interfaith affairs for the Anti-Defamation League, as a "monumental step forward in proving how Christians and Jews can work together to benefit both faiths."

Comments

[FlGlades]

05:19 PM on 07/02/2010

The fact matthew is jewish and he being called antisemitc in the article is a joke

[mightbesane]

08:33 AM on 07/02/2010

There are four Gospels, not counting those that didn't make the final cut, written by four men with obviously different religious/political perpectives. They are inconsistent. Most Americans read the Gospels as translations of translations. In other words, The Word is comprised of a bunch of different Words.

In any event, just imagine Jesus walking into St. Peter's in Rome (if they'd allow him through the gates), patting the Pope on the back, and saying,"Good job. This place was just what I had in mind for my church." roflmao

[FlGlades]

06:16 AM on 07/02/2010

I went there 20 years ago and it was a play based on historical truth as presented in the Gospel of Matthew. Since Civil Jewish/Roman historian Josephus verified and validated the history presented in the Gospel 2000 years ago, it seems you want to rewrite history. I guess this is an example of an inconvient truth.


Wow! They had the play in a foreign country in their language. And then you are arogant enough to complain that it didn't have english subtitles. I witiness this arogance in Munich 20 years ago too. An american traveler was yelling a store employee because she didnt speak english. Hello your not in US. The real irony in 1783 the US Congress voted for a national language and it ended in a tie. The language wasn't engish. It was german,.

[Damir]

08:26 PM on 07/01/2010

We just came back having seen the Passion Play!
While the spectacle was stupendous' it let me with a really bad taste in my mouth!
It reminded me of what I have read about the anti Jewish progroms in Europe over many past centuries. The same bias is reflected in the play - stuff from previous centuries of ignorance and religious persecutions.
It also gave me a feeling of concocted script without basis and a lot of bias.
It needs major reformation!
Finally to improve the understanding during the play they should provide "super titles" in English so that once does not have to theIr heads buried in the play book!o

[FlGlades]

07:16 AM on 06/30/2010

This is censorship and political correctness run amok!

[KriTiKiT]

10:39 PM on 06/28/2010

pish. you can't rewrite Christan history M-Kay

[Proud Bay Man]

02:27 AM on 06/30/2010

Why not, they did.

[KriTiKiT]

07:18 PM on 06/30/2010

all you get are schism's and rifts, and literal misinterpretations. Then they take money from the followers, then they declare war on people that never did anything wrong , all they did was just believe differently. A christian believes everyone is a sinner, so of course folks who do the wrong thing end up justifying and rewarding bad behavior.

judging by your response, you looking for a reason to justify your bad behavior.

[DeSwiss]

08:39 AM on 06/27/2010

What does it matter? It's all lies anyway.

[FlGlades]

10:25 AM on 06/26/2010

Give me a break. Oberammergau has been doing the passion play since the plague hit Europe. In fact the town started doing the play during the plague. While other towns around Oberammagua were hit with the plage. Oberammagau was spared the plague.

[cbzd]

11:16 AM on 06/26/2010

Then they blamed the Jews for the plague and after the play went and killed them. Yup, some stuff really should be left alone because of its' history.

[Damir]

09:28 PM on 07/01/2010

The town was not spared, just the whole town was not wiped out!

[alysheba 3]

08:57 PM on 06/25/2010

So where all all the Christian righties screaming about how some people are forcing changes to their Bible's depiction of events?

[Odeemgawa]

08:57 PM on 06/25/2010

I thought he burned down.

[SilentSolidarity]

06:20 PM on 06/25/2010

Another defeat for freedom of speech. Atheist hypocrisy calls for free speech against religion but censorship of religious media.

[SilentSolidarity]

06:27 PM on 06/25/2010

They turned a religion into an ethnicity so that it receives protection when attacked. Pretty smart. Maybe Christians should do the same so that they can fight anti-Christian attacks by atheists in court.

On that note, almost all religious scholars agree that the Romans ki.lled Jesus, not the Jewish people. The claim that the Jewish did it comes from the biased Lutheran translation. Most churches use a modern version where there is no reference to Jewish people being in any way responsible for the death of Jesus.

[JohnFromCensornati]

06:32 PM on 06/25/2010

It's fiction. In the Gospel of JFC, ACORN was responsible.

[AbrahamMcLemore]

01:09 PM on 06/26/2010

Most churches rely on translations from the original text. There are copies abounding which were written a THOUSAND years BEFORE Luther.

Please give us a "scholarly" reference to such drivel.

Where do you get these ideas?

[Tulka2]

05:35 PM on 06/25/2010

It's really, truly, deeply creepy. Just plain creepy. Why don't they just put up "the biggest outdoor screen in the world" and show Mel Gibson's film on a continuous loop? Cheaper and just as offensive.

[cbzd]

11:17 AM on 06/26/2010

That thought gives me the creeps

[Tree201]

03:06 PM on 06/25/2010

It's about time. This has been a deeply offensive and anti-Semitic play for far too long.

[JohnFromCensornati]

08:26 AM on 06/25/2010

Somebody had to ki|| Mr Christ so that he could save us all from Gawd. The jooze should stop complaining about it and tell the christians "You're welcome very much".

[Tulka2]

05:32 PM on 06/25/2010

That's about it, isn't it?

[ChimpsWithNukes]

06:52 PM on 06/29/2010

As I tell my christian friends "If we didn't kill him, you wouldn't worship him"

[Mackenzie9]

04:28 AM on 06/25/2010

Were these the same people who were going on about how Mel Gibson's 'Passion of the Christ' was so historically accurate? This is just political correctness. It's a silly, violent story and it gets re-enacted because it's a tradition and because it's violent. Like the re-enactments of the Civil War battles. Do they get re-written because the South doesn't like how it ended?

If they don't like what the bible is saying, how about they scrap it and open a book on science instead? They might actually learn something.

http://shortopenletterto.wordpress.com/