By fubuki
More of fubuki's wild Passion Play photos, taken in Mexico....
I heard on the radio yesterday that apparently, the bible only refers to the scourging of Jesus a couple of times, for example, in King James, "Then released he Barabbas unto them: and when he had scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified." (Apparently, scourging was mentioned quite a lot, but not in direct reference to Jesus.)
Passion Plays tend to take Jesus' trial, his scourging/suffering, and his crucifixion/death, boiling them down to represent them in whatever proportion seems appropriate. So, Passion of The Christ - Mel Gibson's exercise in sadism - weights that scourging rather heavily.
Scourging is a true horror, a terrible "invention" that humans should never have inflicted on each other. Apparently knowing that Jesus suffered so helps some feel as if their lot is not so bad. What's so strange to me is that there are "penitents" who feel is it their lot to take away some of Jesus' suffering by inflicting it upon themselves.
It all gets a bit grisly if you think about it too long.