Forget about "Mad Max" and "Lethal Weapon." Mel Gibson is now trading on his celebrity to complete the most personal and provocative project of his career: a graphic depiction of the last 12 hours of the life of Jesus Christ.

Gibson, a devout Catholic, says he wants to share "the greatest hero story and love story of all time," and has poured $25 million of his own money into "The Passion."

"This is a movie about faith, hope, love and forgiveness - something sorely needed in these turbulent times," he said in a statement.

But however high-minded his intentions, the filmmaker appears to have stepped on a theological landmine. Two months ago, a group of Jewish and Catholic scholars reviewed an early, leaked movie script, and wrote to Gibson that it portrayed Jews as "bloodthirsty, sadistic and money-hungry enemies of Jesus," according to the Anti-Defamation League, which helped assemble the scholars.

Fearful that such images would reignite ancient hatreds against Jews, as have earlier passion plays, the ADL asked Gibson to consider changes.

"Given your talent and celebrity, how you depict the death of Jesus will have widespread influence on people's ideas, attitudes and behavior towards Jews today," league director Abraham Foxman wrote Gibson.

But Gibson denies he, or his film, is anti-Semitic, and responded with a threatened lawsuit against the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which helped select the nine scholars. He charged that the group illegally obtained an early draft of the script that no longer represented what is in the film.

The Catholic Conference backed down. But the ADL denied any illegality and has stood by its criticisms.

"It's not that Jews want to be the author of his script," said Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean and founder of the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center. "But we have a right to say that the notion that Jews were collectively responsible for Christ's death was one of the worst sins committed against the Jewish people. And we have paid dearly for it. So we have a right to be concerned and to ask him to be responsible."

Jewish groups have also asked to view the film before it is released, but Gibson has not obliged, though he has shown it to others, including a gathering of evangelical Christian leaders.

By all accounts, "The Passion," will be no "Jesus Christ Superstar," which told the messiah story in a 1970s' rock-and-roll idiom. Gibson said he is aiming at an unvarnished and graphic portrayal of Christ's torture, trial and crucifixion unlike anything ever made.

A trailer released last week showed a battered and bloody Jesus staggering through the streets of Jerusalem. Shot in Italy entirely in Aramaic and Latin, the movie stars Jim Caviezel ("The Thin Red Line"), with Gibson directing and co-writing.

Gibson declined to be interviewed for this story, but e-mailed a statement defending his position.

"If the intense scrutiny during my 25 years in public life revealed I had ever persecuted or discriminated against anyone based on race or creed, I would be all too willing to make amends," he said. "But there is no such record.

"Nor do I hate anybody - certainly not the Jews."

But Jewish leaders wonder, then, why he won't show them the film or even sit down to talk with them.

"First of all, it's a historical fact that cannot be disputed that the principal cause of anti-Semitism for 20 centuries has been the false charge of deicide against the Jews," Hier said.

"This is a story for which millions of people throughout history paid with their lives. They were burned at the stake, killed in pogroms and the Inquisition, and it was also these ideas that served as the foundation of the Holocaust."

No one, in fact, disputes that passion plays have triggered violence against Jews throughout Christian history. Following 16th century productions in Rome, the city's Jewish quarter was routinely attacked. After Adolf Hitler viewed a 1934 staging of the world's most famous passion play produced in Oberammergau, he praised it as a tool "that convincingly portrayed the menace of Jewry."

Until recent decades, the Oberammergau production showed Caiaphas, the Jewish high priest who hands Jesus over to Pilate, in a horned hat. And as late as the 1980 performance, the Jewish cry at Jesus' trial before Pilate - "His blood be on us and on our children" (Matt. 27:25) - was repeated four times, according to a history of the play.

More recently, that play has been overhauled to reflect the Catholic Church's repudiation of the deicide charge, as well as Jewish sensitivities conveyed by groups like the Anti-Defamation League.

For the most part, Hollywood has steered clear of anti-Semitic stereotypes in its portrayals of Jesus. While Cecil B. DeMille's "King of Kings" offended many Jews back in 1927, more recent productions have not raised those concerns, Hier said.

And now along comes Gibson's project - likely to be one of the highest-profile passion plays of all time when it is released next March.

Paul Lauer, Gibson's publicist, acknowledged the bloody history surrounding passion plays, and said in an interview that Gibson and his production company "have no intention whatsoever of creating something that would have that outcome."

But he added this caveat.

"Are some people going to make the argument for anti-Semitism [in the film]?

"Maybe. But to do that, they would have to call the New Testament gospels anti-Semitic, which as you know, some people do. You can't change the story told in the gospels any more than Steven Spielberg could be expected to change the history of the Holocaust to avoid blaming the Germans."

But that does not alleviate Jewish anxieties. Hier acknowledged that those were further fueled by a New York Times Magazine story last March that quoted the actor's father, Hutton, 85, a traditionalist Catholic, as expressing doubt that 6 million Jews died in the Holocaust. Hutton Gibson also described the landmark Vatican II Council (1962-1965) as a Masonic plot backed by the Jews to subvert Catholicism.

The younger Gibson has not publicly shared his views of the Holocaust, but he, too, is a traditionalist who has criticized Vatican II reforms and has built his own church where a Latin Mass is celebrated.

"We can't blame him for his father's remarks," Hier said, "but it would be helpful to say, 'You know, in view of comments that have been made, I believe the Holocaust was one of the greatest tragedies visited upon humankind.'"

The Jewish and Catholic scholars said they were also troubled that Gibson has described his source materials, in addition to the four gospels, as the writings of an 18th century German nun, St. Anne Catherine Emmerich, whose visions included the confession of a Jewish woman that Jews strangled Christian children and used their blood for rituals. Gibson also purportedly used a book by Mary of Agreda, a 17th century Spanish aristocrat, who wrote that all Jews share the guilt of Jesus' crucifixion, according to Rabbi Eugene Korn, who was part of the scholars' group.

Lauer, however, said that those extra-Biblical texts provided "creative inspiration" and nothing more. He also noted that the film has been shown to "a variety of religious leaders from different denominations, not just Christians, who confirmed our sense that we were headed down the right road."

Though Lauer insisted that some were Jewish, he declined to identify them.

Several evangelical Christians who saw the film in Colorado Springs said they found the pre-release criticism unfair and unwarranted.

"I was awestruck by the movie," said Paul Hetrick, spokesman for Focus on the Family, a Colorado Springs evangelical organization.

"If one watches the film, you're not stirred up in anger against the Jewish people; you're stirred up about the tragedy of Jesus' death. I thought it was very moving, stunning even, and theologically accurate."