“Noah” Movie, Based on a True Story

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Noah movie bibleI expected the Noah movie to be a fairly careful following of the Bible story, where the fun would be in quibbling about how various verses were interpreted, but the movie was (surprisingly) more interesting than that.

It has Noah, his wife, and the three sons. There’s the enormous ark, the animals, and the flood. And then there are tangential bits that are nevertheless still in the Bible—the Nephilim, Methuselah, Tubal-Cain, and Noah the angry drunk.

But that’s about it for Bible. The rest is Hollywood. Perhaps that’s to be expected when you must expand four Bible chapters into 138 minutes.

Spoiler alert: you’d think that everyone already knows the story of Noah (“Omigod! You mean that everyone else drowned? Wow—I didn’t see that coming!”). Not this interpretation.

The Nephilim

In the verses immediately before the Noah story (Gen. 6:1–4), the Bible introduces the Nephilim. Before the Flood, angels came to earth and fathered children with women, and these were the “heroes of old, men of renown.” It’s unclear whether “Nephilim” refers to the angels or their children, but the Bible doesn’t condemn them.

Other ancient Jewish texts do. The Nephilim taught man the secrets of metalworking and weaponry, as well as makeup and jewelry (read: killing and adultery), and one of the purposes of the flood was to get rid of them.

Noah shows these Nephilim as fallen angels and calls them “Watchers,” the term used in these ancient Jewish texts. They came to earth to help man with the gift of technology (nothing about getting frisky with their women), but were cursed by the Creator so that they became gigantic multi-armed rock monsters (duh—what else would cursed angels look like?). Since their previous contact with humans led to no good, the Watchers are ready to kill Noah and his family, but he befriends them and they help build the ark.

There’s nothing like a dozen 20-foot-tall immortal monsters to help make that tough job go a little easier.

The Others

Noah is in the line of Seth, Adam’s third son. They’re the last of their kind. But there are thousands of others living nearby who descended from Cain, Adam’s first son—the one who killed Abel. These are the bad people corrupted by the art of metalworking. They’re led by Tubal-Cain, who the Bible tells us was the first metalsmith—again, with no hint of condemnation.

This distinction between the bad men of Cain, corrupted by weapons and killing, and the noble Noah of the line of Seth doesn’t hold up, however. Noah uses metal, both as tools and as weapons, and he kills people when he has to.

The Plot

This is a world of magic. There are visions, spells, incense that makes the animals on the ark hibernate (nicely solving the problem of feeding them and them eating each other), and lots of magical plants. (The clash between those on the side of magic and those who favor technology reminded me of the 1977 movie Wizards. Technology loses in that one, too.)

The harsh terrain (it was filmed in Iceland) and the clothes (more Viking than Bedouin) made me think of Middle Earth rather than the Middle East.

The Bible says that the three sons have wives. Not so here. There is only an adopted daughter, found as an injured girl, and she and the oldest son are something of a couple. Noah tries to find wives in the Man Village, but the savagery is so extreme that he returns empty-handed and convinced that their job is simply to convey the animals safely on the ark, not to continue humanity. Humans are so inherently evil that their line must end.

On the boat, Noah passes on to his little band the seven-day creation story. Though the flood is accurate to the Bible when geysers burst from the ground, which points to the Sumerian cosmology of water beneath the earth and in a canopy above, the visuals that accompany Noah’s story would be at home in Neil deGrasse-Tyson’s Cosmos series. We see the solar system coalescing and a protoplanet crash into the young earth to form the debris that became the moon. Evolution is shown, as animals evolve from fish to amphibians to reptiles to mammals to primates. Creationists will find no support in this depiction.

Noah says that the Creator demands that humanity must end with them. This causes some friction on the boat when the son and daughter get pregnant with twin girls. It’s not enough that they ignored the sounds of the drowning multitude at the beginning of their voyage, but now Noah is determined to kill the babies. Love overcomes the wishes of the homicidal Creator in the end.

One wonders where girls will find a husband. I suppose the logical choice is the last of Noah’s sons, their uncle.

Noah the drunk

The Bible says that Noah took to drink after the ark landed (Gen. 9:18–27). Perhaps he was due a little celebration after all that work, but it got a bit out of hand, and he passed out naked in his tent. His son Ham saw his father in this embarrassing state, but the other two brothers covered him without peeking. Noah discovered this and bizarrely responded by cursing Ham’s son Canaan, presumably to support Israel’s future conquest of the land that Canaan’s tribe would occupy.

Bible scholars have woven many interpretations out of this odd curse, trying to figure out what is euphemism and what is literal, but the Noah film takes a different approach. It presents this wine scene literally, but Ham and Noah had friction that went back a long time. Before the flood, Ham had found a girl for himself, but Noah refused to help save her. On the boat with every eligible female in the world dead, Ham was angry enough that when he discovers the single stowaway—Tubal-Cain, of course—he listens to him.

Tubal-Cain says that the Creator (“God” is never mentioned in the movie) made man in his image to subdue nature. And he kinda has a point. In the creation story that Noah just told, the Bible says, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground” (Gen. 1:28). But you can imagine who wins in the fight scene.

The trailer ends with the text, “The film is inspired by the story of Noah,” which tries to placate everyone. It’s a “story,” so that doesn’t offend those who don’t follow the Bible. It’s “inspired by,” so it apologizes to Christians, Jews, and Muslims who think that it takes too much license.

At the premiere, the director Darren Aronofsky said, “Anything you’re expecting, you’re fucking wrong.” Perhaps with this summary of highlights, your expectations can be a little more on target.

I explore the various story strands that make up the Bible’s Noah story here.

No prophet of God hates people. …
Noah is wrong about everything.
— Glenn Beck

[Christians are] mad because this made up story
doesn’t stay true to their made up story.
— Bill Maher

Photo credit: IMDb

Chick Tract: The Movie (Review of “God’s Not Dead”)

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atheist review God's Not DeadAbout six weeks ago, I wrote a summary of a particular Chick tract (a Christian cartoon handed out to evangelize) in which a gallant Christian student stands up for the Christian truth in a classroom run by a dictatorial atheist. Now that I’ve seen the new “God’s Not Dead” movie, that tract does indeed look like the first draft of the screenplay.

The first thing to get past in this movie is that plausibility is out the window. In this world, philosophy professors can bully Christians to renounce their faith without consequences, then demand that they debate him in front of the class and put a large fraction of that student’s grade on the outcome.

Show me such a situation, and I’ll show you a professor who is in trouble with the college administration. Not only is that unethical, it is crying out for a lawsuit. Every atheist I know would be allied with the Christians to say that that’s way out of bounds.

Sure, Christian students can have their beliefs challenged when they go to college. I see no problem with that. But as long as we’re not pretending that school-sanctioned humiliation of Christians is typical in the real world (despite the long list of court cases at the end, I’ve yet to see even one example), I’m fine with Christians having their David and Goliath movie.

But there’s plenty more to criticize.

Atheist journalist gets cancer

A liberal atheist journalist discovers that she has cancer, and she’s immediately dumped as a result by her rich go-getter boyfriend. Then we see her talking with the doctor about her MRI results. The doctor asks if she has anyone that she’d like to be there with her. But no, she has no one. She’s alone and afraid.

At the end, she barges in on the Christian rock group about to play at a concert (that’s her journalistic style), and we realize that God pushed her to do that. Then they have a good pray.

But there was no mention of the helpful elephant in the room: science. That is, medicine, MRIs, surgery, chemotherapy, and all that. Yes, that’s coldly clinical, and a warm and loving friend would be a comfort, but science is the only thing that will actually, y’know, do anything about the problem. Even the prayer at the end did nothing more than encourage God to support her through the treatment.

Muslim tensions

Ayisha wears a niqab so that only her eyes are showing, or at least she does until her father drives away. You see, she’s become a Christian in the last year. When her father finds out, he beats her and throws her out of the house. He’s torn apart by his misguided devotion to a ridiculous faith, and he collapses in tears.

Yes, that happens. Yes, that’s a tragic thing. But why show it happening in a Muslim family when there are so many more Christian families in America broken up over religion? If the point is that religion can make you do crazy things, a Christian example would make the point more clearly.

Apologetics

There are other subplots to critique (and if you want more of a plot summary, I recommend the Geek Goes Rogue review), but I’d rather focus on the apologetics arguments. I’ll use David to refer to our plucky student and Goliath to refer to the dictatorial professor.

No one can prove God? Well, no one can disprove God, either! True, but that’s not how we make conclusions. We don’t believe in Bigfoot or unicorns because their nonexistence hasn’t been proven; rather, we follow the evidence. The evidence points to no Bigfoot, no unicorns, and no God. Let’s be open-minded enough to consider new contradicting evidence if it comes in, but for now, we have no justification for belief.

You want an explanation for the Big Bang? Look to Genesis: “Let there be light.” (Despite being unprepared for this challenge, David has unaccountably awesome presentations.) No new science has come from the Bible. You can try to show that, now that we know how things work thanks to science, the Bible was sort of pointing in the right direction (it wasn’t), but let’s not pretend that the truth was right there in the Bible all along.

Atheists say that the universe came from nothing, and they must defend that. First, it’s scientists who do the saying (not atheists), and second, no they don’t say that the universe came from nothing. Maybe it did, but the jury is out.

There’s nothing embarrassing or unreasonable in science saying, “We don’t know.” That’s how we focus on new questions to answer. Science not knowing something gives no grounds for the Christian to jump in and say, “But I do!!” Finally, note that any cosmological argument is a deist argument. Even if we accepted it, we’re a long way from Christianity.

Atheists ask, Who created God? but God was uncreated! Backatcha, atheists! You don’t respond to a scientific question with a theological claim. “My religion says that God was uncreated” is no answer in the real world.

Both Christians and atheists must explain how the universe started. Wrong again. Science always has unanswered questions. That’s no evidence in favor of Christianity. Science has explained much in the real world; Christianity has explained nothing. Weigh the evidence and choose the best explanation.

What about the sudden arrival of animal species? The Bible nicely explains it: “Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the firmament of the heavens.” More theology in place of science. No, science doesn’t come from the Bible.

Note that Goliath made none of these rebuttals. He does little besides mock, and destroying David has become a personal mission. In one brief attempt at holding up his end of the debate, he quotes Stephen Hawking: “Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist.”

This is just an Argument from Authority. Hawking is a smart guy, but just because he said it doesn’t make it true. This is a data point, nothing more. But does David point this out? Nope, since he wants to respond with his own Argument from Authority by bringing up John Lennox. (I’ve responded to Lennox’s embarrassingly shallow apologetics here.)

In the end, David hammers Goliath with, “Why do you hate God?” And then it comes out, in front of his class: it’s because God killed his mother. As a 12-year-old, little Goliath had prayed to God to cure his mother’s cancer. God didn’t, and he’s held a grudge ever since. So, it turns out that Goliath actually does believe; he’s just mad at God.

The students then stand, one by one, to render their unanimous verdict: “God’s not dead.” The professor walks out, humiliated.

Marketing God? Or marketing the movie?

Our Christians celebrate at the concert at the end. David’s noble battle is publicly acknowledged, and everyone at the concert is encouraged to text “God’s Not Dead” to all their friends. (Wait a minute—isn’t that also the name of a current movie?) And, of course, we in the real audience are next encouraged to tell all our friends that “God’s Not Dead.”

If the flabby arguments in the movie are any evidence, however, there is scant reason to think so.

The Almighty deserves better advocacy
than he gets in this typically ham-fisted
Christian campus melodrama.
— Scott Foundas critique of the movie in Variety

Photo credit: Rotten Tomatoes

What Did the Original Books of the Bible Say?

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BibleRemember the 2011 film Anonymous that questioned the authorship of Shakespeare’s plays? It argued that William Shakespeare was just a front man for the true author, Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford. Modern historians have proposed several candidates besides Shakespeare himself, who some have argued was illiterate.

So we don’t know who was perhaps the most famous and influential author in the English language? Shakespeare only died in 1616, we have a good understanding of the times, and he wrote in Early Modern English, and yet there remains a gulf of understanding that we can’t reliably cross.

Authorship of the books of the New Testament

And we flatter ourselves that we can cross the far more daunting gulf that separates us from the place and times of Jesus so we can accept the far more incredible claims of the gospel story.

Let’s see how reliable our modern New Testament is. We’ll follow it back in time to track its tortuous journey. This post will go back to the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE, and later posts will explore the hurdles between that point and the life of Jesus.

Translations

Our first step is to get past the translations. In English, we have dozens of versions—New International Version, American Standard Version, Revised Standard Version, and so on. Some Christians prefer the more archaic King James Version even to the point of arguing that it alone is divinely inspired. Proponents of different versions find plenty to argue about.

Translation is especially difficult with a dead language like New Testament Greek since text examples are limited and there are no living speakers to consult. Consider an English example: imagine the idiom “have your cake and eat it too” interpreted 2000 years in the future. Or “saving face” or “kick the bucket” or “throw in the towel.” If given only a handful of examples, future interpreters would have to guess at the meanings.

It’s easier for us to see examples in different languages. Consider l’esprit d’escalier in French (literally, “spirit of the stairs”). It’s better translated as “stairway wit,” the clever retort that you think of too late. Or German Ohrwurm (“ear worm”), a song that gets stuck in your head. Or Spanish ser uña y carne (“to be fingernail and flesh”), to be bosom buddies. Today, we have modern speakers who can translate these phrases authoritatively. Not so with ancient Greek or Hebrew.

Even single words can cause problems in the Bible. Consider the Hebrew word reem, translated nine times in the King James Version as “unicorn.” For example, “Rescue me from the mouth of the lions; save me from the horns of the reem.” It’s now translated as “wild ox,” so perhaps we’ve got this one resolved. But what other rarely used words and phrases have been misunderstood? With no authority, we have nothing more than our best guesses to rely on.

Paul’s use of arsenokoitai in 1 Cor. 6:9–10 is an example that has consequences today. It’s often translated as “homosexual,” but, with no record of its use before Paul, we can’t be sure.

Canonicity

A bigger question is: what is “the Bible”? That is, what is the canon, the set of books accepted as scripture? The Christian church is not unified on this question. For example, Protestants accept the fewest books. The Roman Catholics add two books of Maccabees and Tobit (and others), the Greek Orthodox church accepts those plus the Prayer of Manasseh and Esdras (and others), and the Ethiopian Orthodox church accepts those plus Enoch and Jubilees (and others). In other words, Christian churches themselves can’t agree on what books contain the inspired word of God.

Revelation is the only apocalypse in the New Testament, and it was accepted only around 400 CE. There were lots of plausible candidates that didn’t make it (Shepherd of Hermas, epistle of Barnabas, Didache, and so on).

Manuscript copies

Our next challenge is to find the best original-language copies. The King James version was based on the 16th-century Textus Receptus (“received text”), which was a printed version of the best Greek New Testament texts known at the time. More Greek manuscripts have come to light since then, and modern scholars rely on a broader set, so let’s discard the Textus Receptus and focus on the best copies instead.

Many apologists point proudly to the thousands of New Testament manuscript copies we have today—roughly 5000 Greek manuscripts and lectionaries (collections of scripture used during church services) and close to 20,000 manuscripts in other languages (mostly Latin, but also Ethiopic, Slavic, Syriac, and more). This compares with 2000 copies of the Iliad, our second-most well-represented ancient book.

These are impressive numbers, but too much is made of them. Many of these are incomplete fragments—especially the oldest and most important—and almost all are far removed from the early church period. Suppose scholars discovered a library with 1000 previously unknown Latin Bible manuscripts from the 12th century. This would be quite a find, but these late manuscripts wouldn’t override the content from the best and oldest handful. Today’s 25,000 copies tell us little more about the originals than would having only the most reliable and complete 25 copies. (I’ve written about the late date of the vast majority of them here.)

While there are fragments of gospels going back to the second century, for complete copies we go to manuscripts such as the Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus. These are our oldest complete copies of the New Testament, and each was written in roughly 350 CE, perhaps as part of the newly approved canon from the Council of Nicaea.

We’ve still got a long way to go before the events in the life of Jesus. It’s like we’re looking the wrong way through a telescope.

Continue with Part 2.

We see through a glass, darkly
(That is: we dimly see in a mirror)
— 1 Corinthians 13:12 (KJV)

(This is an update of a post that originally appeared 4/17/12.)

Homosexuality in Nature

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homosexuality in nature same sex marriageChristians often argue that homosexuality is unnatural. That is, the purpose of man/woman sex is clear—it’s what propagates the species. Any other kind of sex simply isn’t using human anatomy for what it was meant for. There’s only one way to properly fit the jigsaw puzzle pieces together.

The Catholic Church is a vocal proponent of this idea that homosexuality is unnatural. Let’s pause to savor this for a moment—that’s a community of celibate men, if you can imagine such a thing, calling another lifestyle unnatural.

But the fact is that homosexuality is natural. It’s widespread in nature and has been observed in 500 animal species, including all the great apes, of which humans are a part.

The science that explains homosexuality is immature—homosexuality might be the consolation prize, for example, or maybe it’s nature’s way of reducing competition among males—but why isn’t the point. It’s clearly natural, and that’s been recognized within society. We’re decades past the time when homosexuality was categorized as a mental disorder.

But natural doesn’t mean good, the Christian will say. Rape, violence, and cyanide are natural, and they’re harmful.

That’s true. Then let’s move the conversation from natural vs. unnatural to where it should be: good vs. harmful. Rape, violence, and cyanide are inherently harmful, but homosexuality isn’t.

Saying “I have homosexual inclinations, so I should act on them” is like saying, “I have alcoholic inclinations, so I should act on them.”

Once again, the issue is harm. Alcoholic inclinations cause harm, and homosexual inclinations don’t. What’s the problem caused by consensual homosexual sex (besides offending the Old Testament god)?

Homosexuals can be treated. They can become un-gay.

In 2012, Alan Chambers, president of Exodus International, then the largest ex-gay organization in the U.S., said:

The majority of people that I have met, and I would say the majority meaning 99.9% of them, have not experienced a change in their orientation or have gotten to a place where they could say that they could  never be tempted or are not tempted in some way or experience some level of same-sex attraction.

The organization disbanded less than two years later.

No, there’s little evidence that someone who is gay can become un-gay. And why would that be a goal, anyway? I love desserts and, frankly, it would do me some good to become an ex-lover of desserts. There are health benefits to doing so. But why become un-gay? (I mean, besides avoiding all the artificial obstacles homophobes erect against gays.)

But if everyone were homosexual, the population would die out!

Yes, and if everyone were female, the population would also die out. So what? No one’s saying that being female is bad or immoral or unnatural. It’s not the case that everyone is female, and it’s not the case that everyone is homosexual. No problem then! Anyway, animals have apparently been gay since forever, and evolution stumbles along just fine.

I’ll close with something that I wish I’d said:

Homosexuality exists in 500 species.
Homophobia exists in only one.
Which seems unnatural now?

I fear that we [Christians have] lost not only the culture wars,
but also our Christian identity,
when the “right to refuse” service has become
a more sincerely-held and widely-known Christian belief
than the impulse to give it.
— Rachel Held Evans

(This is an update of a post that originally appeared 3/26/12.)

Photo credit: Gabludlow

Biblical Marriage: Not a Pretty Picture

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same-sex biblical marriageThough the momentum in America is clearly toward allowing same-sex marriage, conservative Christians aren’t going gently. They imagine that the Bible is on their side. Let’s see if that claim holds up.

Jesus said, “A man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh” (Mark 10:8). If the Bible said only that, the conservative Christian might indeed hold the winning hand, but it says much more. Things get messier the more we poke through the Bible.

Interracial Marriage. Deut. 7:3 says, “Do not intermarry with [those in the Canaanite tribes]. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons.” King Solomon got into trouble for violating this rule and marrying foreign wives (1 Kings 11).

So the Bible says that marriage is with someone of your own tribe.

Concubine Sex. King Solomon famously had 300 concubines (1 Kings 11:3). Four of Jacobs 12 sons were from servants of his two wives, and Abraham’s first child was from his wife’s slave.

So the Bible legitimates sex with and children from slaves and concubines.

Rape. What single person hasn’t seen an attractive person across the bar or dance floor and struggled to find a way to break the ice? Here’s a fun approach: “If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, he shall pay her father fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the young woman, for he has violated her” (Deut. 22:28–9).

So the Bible says that if you see a woman and don’t want to go through that whole getting-permission thing, you can rape and then marry her.

Captured Women. “Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.” (Num. 31:17–18; see also Deut. 21:11) I don’t know what we’re talking about here—whether it’s wife, concubine, or sex slave.

So the Bible says that capturing women (virgins only, please) is a reasonable way to get a bedmate. It doesn’t much matter whether the woman is on board with the project or not.

Slave Marriage. Exodus 21:4 says that a male Jewish slave can be released, but any wife given to him by his master (and her children) remain the master’s property.

So the Bible says that ownership trumps marriage.

Levirate Marriage. Say a man is married but dies before he has any children. Who inherits his stuff? To solve this problem, the Bible demands that another brother must marry this sister-in-law, with the firstborn child considered the dead brother’s heir. The Bible does more than simply document a curious local custom; God enforces it with the death penalty (Gen. 38:8–10).

So the Bible says that getting children as heirs for a deceased brother is more important than having your own children.

Polygamy. Abraham had two wives. Jacob also had two (or four, depending on how you count them). Solomon had 700.

God said to David, “I gave your master’s house to you, and your master’s wives into your arms. I gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more.” (2 Sam. 12:8). God has his complaints about David, but polygamy isn’t one of them.

So the Bible says that marriage is between a man and one or more women.

Apologists like to excuse the Bible’s craziness with its many variations on marriage by saying that it simply reflects the culture of the time. It applied then, but it doesn’t apply now. I can accept that—just do the same when the Bible says, “A man shall not lie down with a man.” Put that into the same bin as levirate marriage, polygamy, or killing everyone in a tribe except the hot women that are kept for your pleasure.

The Bible also argues against marriage

Today’s Christian enthusiasm for marriage certainly wasn’t mirrored by the early church. Here’s what Paul says: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman” (1 Cor. 7:1). So much for the celebrated role of procreation (which I reject here).

Paul also said, “Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I am. But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry” (1 Cor. 7:8–9). In other words, marriage is the second best option.

Paul also rejected divorce (7:10–11). Those Christians concerned about the purity of marriage might want to look at their own house to see if they’re following the rules. (You could say that Paul rejected marriage only because he thought the end was near. This might help reinterpret his curious views on marriage, but of course his being dramatically wrong raises a whole new set of problems.)

Marriage wasn’t even a Christian sacrament until the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215. This wasn’t a popular move among civil authorities of the time, because it granted the church the power to decide which marriages were legal and which not—and therefore decide which contracts (often based on marriages) were valid and which not. When the Pope didn’t like an alliance, he could just annul the relevant marriage.

The argument that the Bible and the Church make a clear and unambiguous declaration that marriage is between a man and a woman is in tatters. Sure, let’s celebrate marriage, but let’s not delude ourselves about how recent our view of marriage is.

For more on this subject: “Homosexuality v. Christianity”

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—
and you are the easiest person to fool.
— Richard Feynman

(This is an update of a post that originally appeared 3/5/12.)

Photo credit: patries71

Movie Review: “Son of God”

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“Son of God” movie atheist

I attended a free showing of Son of God, sponsored by Seattle’s Mars Hill church. They bought out three screens, and they encouraged their membership to attend and bring an unbeliever. The gospel story may be as good an occasion as any to evangelize, but I can’t imagine any unbeliever hearing much that was new.

Though the movie ended with the Great Commission and I was wearing my “Atheist: I believe in you!” t-shirt, I wasn’t able to tempt any Christians.

Beach Boy Jesus

The movie was based on the recent 10-part miniseries, The Bible. Jesus was played by Diogo Morgado, a 6′ 3″ model from Portugal. I suspect that a Jew from 2000 years ago would have looked substantially browner, shorter, and less gorgeous.

Megyn Kelly from Fox News got into this debate last Christmas when she said, “Jesus was a white man, too … he’s a historical figure—that’s a verifiable fact, as is Santa.” Assuming she’s talking about St. Nicholas, the 4th-century bishop from Lycia (now Turkey), “Santa” probably wasn’t white either.

Overall impressions

This is a feel-good movie for Christians, with plenty of agony to make them appreciate Jesus’s sacrifice (which doesn’t do much for me, BTW). While atheists may find many individual elements of the gospel story that are new to them, very few Americans aren’t familiar with the Jesus story.

The main plot shows Pilate the Roman governor and Caiaphas the high priest trying to keep order in the prelude to the Passover. Interwoven is Jesus preaching, but much of this devolves into familiar but out-of-context platitudes. For example, in one vignette we get “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” and then “Love your neighbor.” In like manner the obligatory John 3:16 was shoehorned in somewhere.

How do you make a Jesus movie?

In the late second century, church father Tatian harmonized the four gospels into the Diatessaron, a big, fat amalgam of the four gospels. Though the Diatessaron did not become popular, Christian apologists today often harmonize conflicting passages in a similar way by arguing that they’re all true.

That struggle was evident with this movie. We would see a story element from one gospel, but then this would highlight the absence of the conflicting version from another gospel. For example, we see Mary and Joseph early in the story with baby Jesus and the Luke nativity story (which doesn’t have magi) combined with the Matthew nativity story (which doesn’t have shepherds).

Mary reappears later in the story, but this conflicts with Mark, which makes clear that Jesus’s family thinks that he’s crazy. According to Mark, his family is not a part of his adult ministry.

On Palm Sunday, Jesus rides triumphantly into Jerusalem on a donkey, but this conflicts with Matthew, which says he rode on two donkeys.

Jesus next cleanses the temple of money changers, but this conflicts with John, who has the cleansing of the temple at the beginning of the ministry.

During the crucifixion, we see the darkness and earthquake from Matthew, but Matthew’s zombie apocalypse is omitted.

Jesus preaches for 40 days after his resurrection, but this conflicts with Luke, which has him return to heaven after just one day.

The gross part

The movie was rated PG-13 for “intense and bloody depiction of The Crucifixion, and for some sequences of violence.” I’m sure Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ was much worse, but this was pretty gruesome. And that’s a conflict, too. The movie takes the flogging and crown of thorns from Mark, but Luke and John have no flogging and a placid Jesus, who seems to be more concerned about those around him than about his own pain.

It’s impossible to tell a Jesus story that respects all of the gospels.

Final thoughts

  • John the disciple is our story teller, and appearances of him as an old man on Patmos bookends the movie (yes, I know that these may not be the same guy). He says that all the other disciples died as martyrs, which isn’t true.
  • When Jesus realizes at the Last Supper that he is to die a painful death, it comes as a shock. This makes sense of his plea to God, “may this cup be taken from me,” but this conflicts with the omniscient Jesus according to John, who knew things from the beginning of time.
  • The story is completely Jewish, and it ends with Peter carrying on the tradition of Jesus. The fact that the gospels were written within a Greek context (not Aramaic) and that the movie includes nothing of Paul isn’t mentioned. This makes for a simpler though less complete story.
  • The Obama-Satan was cut from the movie (I suppose the scene would be Satan’s tempting of Jesus).
  • When Pilate asked who he should release from prison, I had a hard time not channeling Monty Python’s Pilate from Life of Brian and shouting out (with an Elmer Fudd speech problem), “Welease Wodewick!”

The movie ends with Jesus assuring John that he’s coming soon. No, I’m afraid that didn’t happen, either.

Many false prophets have gone out into the world.
— 1 John 4:1

Photo credit: Christian Film Database