  urlLink Guardian Unlimited Film | News | Gibson film ignores vow to remove blood libel : "...Geza Vermes, a former professor of Jewish Studies at Oxford and the author of five books on the life of Christ, writes of the film in today's Guardian: 'I have never seen anything so dreadful and I hope I never will.
' The blood-spattered two-hour film about the crucifixion - in which all the dialogue is in contemporary languages with English subtitles - has provoked complaints from Britain's Jewish organisations but a broad welcome from evangelical Christians and Catholics. Prof Vermes immediately picked holes in the film, criticising its use of 'Catholic church Latin' by the Roman soldiers instead of the Greek they would have spoken, pointing out that Pilate is referred to as the 'governor' rather than the prefect of the province and spotting that the wrong Aramaic word for God is used throughout. The British Board of Deputies of British Jews said: 'It would have been better if this film had never been made.
The glorification of violence and bloodshed and the reinforcement of medieval stereotyping of the Jewish people are extremely dangerous. ' But Joel Edwards, general director of the Evangelical Alliance, said: '[We] believe the film will provide a good opportunity for Christians to talk to others about Jesus. ' In Rome, the veteran Italian film director Franco Zeffirelli, who himself made a controversial film about the life of Christ, said Gibson was 'sinisterly attracted to the most unrestrained violence'..." 
