Egypt: Biblical epic 'Exodus' banned over errors
I'm just surprised it took them this long.
Again for newer members, I'll repeat at tedious length: from 2005-09 I lived in Alexandria, Egypt and worked at a job site out in the rural Nile Delta. So I'm pretty familiar with the Egyptian Culture Ministry and its habit of banning stuff on allegedly religious grounds.
When I lived in Egypt, the head of the Culture Ministry was Mr. Farouk Hosny. Hosny criticized the wearing of the hijab (headscarf) by Egyptian women. Which earned him much hatred and death threats from the Muslim Brotherhood, Egyptian Jihad and their buddies.
So...good liberal Muslim guy, right? Except Mr. Hosny also threatened to search Egyptian libraries and burn any books he found written by Jews.
He also banned the Israeli movie "The Band's Visit" from the Cairo Intl. Film Festival. And that's about the most inoffensive movie imaginable, with the message that most humans are pretty much alike. But maybe that's what pissed him off. I'd recommend you give it a watch, FWIW.
So maybe not such a good liberal Muslim guy after all.
Oh, and finally, the frigging article...
The Culture Ministry explained its decision for the first time in a statement issued a few days after the ban was announced...
Censors objected to the "intentional gross historical fallacies that offend Egypt and its pharaonic ancient history in yet another attempt to Judaize Egyptian civilization, which confirms the international Zionist fingerprints all over the film," the statement said...
The ministry said it had convened two committees -- one of censors and one of archaeologists -- to review the film. The committee of archeologists agreed with the decision to ban the film because it showed "a false and wrong mental image of Egypt's history," the ministry said.
Artistic works dealing with religion are often banned in the Muslim world because religious scholars argue that the depiction of prophets is unacceptable. Such works are also often at odds with the Islamic portrayal of biblical prophets, which itself often diverges from their portrayal in Judaism and Christianity. According to Islam, for example, Jesus was not crucified, and the prophet Abraham was ordered to sacrifice Ishmael, not Isaac.
"Noah," another Hollywood biblical epic, was banned in Egypt and much of the Muslim world due to its depiction of prophets and fears it would offend viewers. Perceived insults to Islam have in the past sparked protests and deadly violence.
http://www.aol.com/article/2014/12/28/egypt-biblical-epic-exodus-banned-over-errors/21121820/
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Mel Gibson's "Passion of the Christ." That thing played all the time on Egyptian cable.
It got a lot of praise for its "realism" and quite a few Egyptians urged me to see it. Can't imagine why... 
Never saw the whole thing. It was hard to watch, though for technical and not aesthetic reasons. As everyone knows, POTC was in AUTHENTIC ARAMAIC! Which meant, on Egyptian TV, it had subtitles in both Arabic and English. So there was very little room left on the screen for the damn movie, with 2 sets of subs running.
Actually I heard very little overt anti-Semitism in Egypt. But that may be because I'm American and therefore automatically assumed to be part of the International Zionist Conspiracy. OTOH, in Saudi Arabia I often heard "Hitler was right" and other variations.
In both countries, bookstores proudly sold Deluxe editions of "Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion." Usually in the same section as the Qu'rans, Bibles and other religious books.
