After finally viewing Mel Gibson's "The Passion," the producer-director's privately financed account of the last hours in the life of Jesus Christ, the Anti-Defamation League has renewed its criticism of the project.

After representatives of the group -- which had been lobbying for a private screening of the Icon Prods. film for some months -- watched it in Houston on Friday, the ADL issued a new statement Monday, warning that though it hopes Gibson "will consider mollifying 'The Passion,' " in its present form, the film "will fuel hatred, bigotry and anti-Semitism."

Responded Alan Nierob, Gibson's press representative: "No one associated with this film has any interest in fueling hatred, bigotry and anti-Semitism. In fact, Mel's interest is just the opposite as he has stated previously that this film is about love, hope, faith and forgiveness."

That, however, is not the view of ADL national director Abraham Foxman, who said: "The film unambiguously portrays Jewish authorities and the Jewish mob as the ones responsible for the decision to crucify Jesus. We are deeply concerned that the film, if released in its present form, will fuel the hatred, bigotry and anti-Semitism that many responsible churches have worked hard to repudiate."

Rabbi Eugene Korn, ADL director of interfaith affairs, who was actually present at the screening, which took place at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, expanded on those concerns in an interview.

"The movie is a reversion to medieval Christian portrayals of the Jews' role in the Crucifixion," he said. "It portrays the Jews as the central animating force behind the death of Jesus. It projects the high priest and the Jewish authorities as well as the Jewish mob as forcing the execution of Jesus on the Romans, which is historically inaccurate. The high priests served at the will of the Roman prelate Pontius Pilate. The high priest was subordinate to Pilate, but the movie reverses those roles."

Nierob, however, contended that is a misreading of the film. "It's very clear," he said. "Nobody but Pilate can make that decision (to crucify Christ)."

Back in March, the ADL first began to raise concerns about the film, which does not yet have a distributor, though Gibson has said he would like to see it released on Ash Wednesday next year. The controversy erupted again in June when a report critical of the movie that was prepared by scholars associated with both the ADL and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops was leaked to the media.

Although the USCCB quickly disassociated itself from the report, the ADL endorsed its findings, which were based on a reading of an October 2002 version of the screenplay, which the scholars acquired without Icon's permission.

Once Gibson began screening the movie for selected religious leaders and political pundits, the ADL's Foxman publicly challenged him to show it to the ADL, saying, "If you say this is not anti-Semitic and this is a work of love and reconciliation, why are you afraid to show it to us?"

Replied Icon marketing director Paul Lauer in the New York Times a week ago, "There is no way on God's green earth that any of those people will be invited to a screening. They have shown themselves to be dishonorable."

The filmmakers apparently relented, though, and Korn, along with several other members of the ADL, were invited to the recent Houston screening, at which Gibson and Lauer fielded questions after showing the film, which stars Jim Caviezel as Christ and reportedly depicts his final hours in graphic and bloody detail.

If the screening was meant to assuage the ADL's concerns, though, it had the opposite effect.

The ADL's latest volley contained several specific criticisms and warned that "this film may undermine Christian-Jewish dialogue and could turn back the clock on decades of positive progress in interfaith relations."

Although the movie has already earned several champions -- Ted Haggard, president of the National Evangelical Assn., has called it "the most authentic portrayal I've ever seen" -- Korn argued that some Christians might also find it disappointing since "the movie expresses a theology of torture and pain at the expense of delivering a message of the ministry of Jesus and the values for which Jesus stood."

He claimed that critics of the film, both Christian and Jewish, raised some of these issues during the Q&A, but, he added: "I have serious doubts that Gibson is interested in hearing anything critical about the film. He seemed callous to the concerns of the Jewish people who spoke and also to the Christians who criticized the movie."

Lauer could not be reached for comment.