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THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST is a vivid depiction of the last 12 hours of Jesus Christ's life.
Sometime around the year A.D. 30, in the Roman province of Palestine, an
obscure Jewish carpenter named Jesus of Nazareth began
to teach publicly and to proclaim the coming of a 'Kingdom of God.' For
centuries, the Jewish people had expected the appearance of a promised deliverer
known as the Messiah --a figure who would restore their ancient dignity, and
free their sacred homeland from all evil and despair. In the minds of many,
Jesus appeared to be this Messiah. Surrounded by a core group of twelve
disciples, Jesus began to attract a massive following from among the common people of
Galilee and Judea, who eventually praised him as their Messiah and King. However,
Jesus also had many enemies in Jerusalem. The
Sanhedrin, a governing senate composed of the leading Jewish priests and
Pharisees, conspired to put Jesus to death.
With the aid of Judas Iscariot, a member of Jesus' own inner circle, the Sanhedrin succeeded in arresting Jesus,
handing him over to the Roman secular authorities on unsubstantiated charges of
treason against Rome. Although Jesus consistently maintained that his Kingdom
was a heavenly and spiritual one, the Roman procurator Pontius Pilate, faced
with the possibility of a riot, ordered that Jesus be taken outside the city
and crucified as a common criminal.
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