Last month, Kevin Sorbo was making the rounds promoting the DVD release of his film “God’s Not Dead” when he set off a bit of controversy by declaring that the Jews were responsible for killing Jesus.
Sorbo was discussing Jewish concerns that Mel Gibson’s “Passion of the Christ” was anti-Semitic; concerns which he entirely dismissed because, as he said, “News bulletin: you did kill Jesus!”
Those comments generated a bit of controversy, to which Sorbo initially responded by blaming everyone else for not being “enlightened” enough to understand the point he was supposedly making:
Sorbo, the star of “God’s Not Dead” and a new film “Let the Lion Roar,” told TheBlaze on Thursday that he made a “flippant comment” that should have been crafted better.
“Here’s the deal. Here’s reality. The Jewish leaders offered Jesus up to Pilate, preferring to free a hardened criminal,” Sorbo said. “Did all Jews at that time hate Jesus? Of course they did not. The people screamed to let the hardened criminal go. That’s in the book. That’s in the facts.”
Sorbo, who is a non-denominational Christian, said that there were many Jews who defended Jesus at the time and who mourned Christ’s death.
“After all, [Jesus] was Jewish and … the Jewish leaders and a handful of Jews [gave him up],” Sorbo said. “It was more like they were accomplices to his murder. They knew he was going to be murdered. There was no question.”
The actor said he assumed people were more “enlightened” on the issue and would realize that he was being over-simplistic in his remarks.
He credited Jews for creating Christianity as well and affirmed his support for Israel.
“I should have worded it better. We live in such an age where everything is scrutinized,” he said. “Liberals love to project a false image on the wall and get very upset with the image they’ve created themselves.”
Last week, Sorbo appeared on “The Phil Valentine Show” where the topic came up and, once again, Sorbo tried to blame everyone else for not understanding his point, insisting that his original comment was entirely accurate because the Jews “were certainly accomplices” to Jesus’ death.
“And here’s another flash bulletin,” Sorbo said, “that was what was supposed to happen. That was the intention of God. Jesus came down here to die for our sin, right? So that’s the way it happened … Don’t tell me that the Jewish population at the time, the Pharisees, didn’t have a hand in something to do with Jesus’ death. I mean, come on!”
Sobro brushed the whole thing off because people with “nothing better to do” are just trying to create problems.
“Haters just love to hate,” he said:
Interestingly, the more Sorbo is asked about his comment, the more his explanation evolves, as last night he appeared on Alan Colmes’ radio program where the topic was brought up once again and now Sorbo is just trying to pass it all off as a joke:
SORBO: I wasn’t trying to say that Jewish people had a hand in the death of Jesus because quite clearly many mourned his death at the time he was being crucified. There was no question about that. You know, I was going for a joke, a bad taste joke.
COLMES: You think that was a joke? That was a joke?
SORBO: It was just meant to say that they had a part, there was certainly a part of them that was saying, here is Jesus, here was this hardened criminal, and the Pharisees said….
COLMES: How is that a joke? I can understand you may misspoke, but a joke?
SORBO: Well, OK, you know, c’mon. I’ve taking enough beating on this. I’m hardly an anti-Semite.
Maybe people wouldn’t have such a hard time understanding what Sorbo “really” meant by his original comment if his explanation didn’t keep changing.
