Next round of Crossan and Witherington on The Passion

Thanks to David Mackinder for pointing out to me that the next round (4) of the Crossan and Witherington correspondence on The Passion of the Christ has begun at beliefnet (so far just Crossan's fourth email). Incidentally, why on earth is it called "Scholarly Smackdown"? What is that supposed to mean?

Scholarly Smackdown: Round 4 (Crossan)

In this instalment, Crossan focuses again on the question of anti-Semitism, relating his own experience of visiting an Oberammergau Passion Play in 1960 and going on to give his own reading of the identity of the crowd in Mark (cf. his previous contributions to this exchange) and asking questions about how the film will play in places like Japan, where many will not know the story, or to Muslim audiences. "What will Muslims see when 'the Jews' act so viciously to Jesus, a prophet from their Holy Quran?" Not many of the Muslims I know would be likely to go to see this film, I think, so the question may not arise. But I'd also guess that those who do would be more concerned about Jesus dying on the cross, which the Qu'ran does not affirm, than about alleged depictions of Jews, not least in that the term "the Jews" is not one that the film (apparently) uses. But I may be wrong.

Update (22.05): Dwight Peterson and David Mackinder help me out with my ignorance over "smackdown", apparently a term from professional wrestling. The image is presumably of two scholars, one "liberal" and one "conservative" battling it out as would two sweaty wrestlers. Not a happy image!