It's potentially as harmful to Christians as it may be for Jews.

The determined effort to give a patina of historical authenticity (which could be challenged on many essential points) is expressed most obviously by the use of Aramaic and Latin. Mel Gibson, in the interview following the screening, said it was to add an air of "mysterious reality."  Maybe so, but putting another language into a film doesn't necessarily add to its historical accuracy or truthful storytelling.

The film's anti-Jewish bias magnifies what the Christian Scriptures do indeed contain: A growing discomfort between this wild new group of Jews for Jesus and faithful mainline Jewish groups of that time and place.  But having the temple high priest Caiaphas as the prominent cheerleader demanding crucifixion unduly villainizes him and the faith tradition he represents.

The focus on Pilate's hand-washing (only in Matthew's account) reinforces the perception that the "blame" is laid squarely on the Jews.  This is, of course, preposterous and offensive to Jew and Christian alike: Christian theology -- and even a bit of this fragmented film -- affirms that the death of Jesus was freely accepted and necessary.  Complicity in his death is shared by the Roman occupying power (the charge and the sentence were theirs), religious traditionalists (who happened to be Jewish), an out-of-control mob and, most significantly, by the weak and spineless disciples of Jesus.

Gibson's larger bias, regrettably shared by thousands, is that the gospels have been diluted of their power by "revisionists" -- his disdainful word for the past two generations of faith-filled, critical scholars of the texts, including the enlightened official principles for biblical interpretation promulgated by the assembled bishops of the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s.

He further dismissed the idea that the gospel writers had "agendas," a concept that puts him firmly outside official Catholic teaching and all of mainstream Christian biblical interpretation.  That wholesome tradition recognizes the very definite theological, pastoral, and spiritual agendas of the written gospels, not as eyewitness accounts, but as theological works to answer questions and express divine truths in a particular time and place.

The violence-induced "R" rating is compared by the film's promoters to the same rating given to "such fine films as Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan."  The biblical accounts are supremely less wanton and morbid.

The gospel writers straightforwardly and soberly state that after arriving at Golgotha, "There they crucified him."  Only Hollywood, or an overactive and distorted religious imagination, would add such details, literally ad nauseam.

When a pastor, who was interviewing Mel Gibson at the end of the screening I saw, tried to commit him to doing more biblical films, Gibson squirmed and wisely said, "There are a lot of good stories out there."   Indeed, the greatest literature and films often illuminate the mysteries of human suffering, redemption, salvation, forgiveness, brutality and betrayal, renewal and resurrection.

For "religious" inspiration, it's often best to skip Hollywood altogether and find a generous group of praying believers.  Or go for Hollywood's best and noblest offerings.  The Passion of the Christ is not among them.