16 Years Ago In Time

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The emotional response stirred by Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ has historical precedent. Witness the furor from Christian groups over Martin Scorsese's fictionalized version of the life of Jesus, The Last Temptation of Christ, the subject of a 1988 TIME cover.

Jesus has brief onscreen sex with his first wife Mary Magdalene and later commits adultery. Judas is a hero, the strongest and best of the apostles. Paul is a hypocrite and liar. Jesus is so dazed that, even on the eve of his Crucifixion, he is still not quite sure whether to preach love or murder Romans. Ready for director Martin Scorsese's new movie, The Last Temptation of Christ? ... When it opens this Friday, religious crowd scenes are almost certain to appear outside the theaters as well as in them. For the past month, conservative Christians have denounced the film as blasphemous, staged demonstrations, called for boycotts and shaped a national campaign to have the picture withdrawn. Along the way, there have been anti-Semitic incidents and threats against the "non-Christians" at Universal who took a chance on the film. --TIME, Aug. 15, 1988