Do You Consider The Jesus Of Nazareth Tv Mini Series To Be The Hollywood Version Of Jesus?
I loved the movie as a kid and believed it to be a televised version of the New Testament. Now, I am not so sure. It is difficult to compare the action in the TV miniseries with with the three Bibles that I have. With some scenes, I am not sure what version of what Bibles this movie got it’s sources.
1) Jesus confronts Barabbas at the temple in Jerusalem. Jesus tells Barabbas “he who takes up the sword shall perish by the sword.” Jesus belittles Barabbas patriotism wanting to fight the Romans and asks him to forgive the Romans. Barabbas tells his zealot followers that Jesus is a friend of the Romans, Jesus is a traitor to Israel, and conspires to have him crucified.
2) Mary Magdalene cries at the feet of Jesus. Jesus tells the chief priests that she has anointed his feet with her tears. Jesus gives Mary Magdalene a jar of oil for his burial.
3) Mary Magdalene works as a prostitute before she is saved by Jesus. I can’t find any references to this in the New Testament.
There are other examples in which the movie takes dramatic license. It is difficult to separate a fictional dramatization for a movie from the documentation revealed in the New Testament.
If you see Mary Magdalene portrayed as a prostitute, and you find out that she was never a prostitute, could you then be convinced that Mary Magdalene is a character of fiction to begin with, and therefore it doesn’t matter who or what she is or was?
If Jesus never argued with Barabbas about the moral questions of killing for the love of a nation, could it also be possible that both Jesus and Barabbas are fictional characters?
When Hollywood does this, throwing in undocumented hearsay and innuendo and urban legends and folk lore mixed in with stories based upon the gospel, it fuels the argument among a mass audience that the entire story of Jesus is fictional, and nothing more than a romantic fantasy of a mythical hero. Could that have been Hollywood’s intention all along?
Sources
Mary Magdalenehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Magdal…
Barabbashttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barabbas
Jesus of Nazareth TV miniserieshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_of_Na…
Mary, Virgin mother of Godhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Mary…
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Tags: Barabbas, Consider, Hollywood, Israel, Jerusalem, jesus, jesus is a friend, jesus jesus, Mary, Mary Jesus, Mary Magdalene, Mini, Movie, mythical hero, Nazareth, New, Series, Version
Posted on November 18th, 2009 at 6:50 pm
I’ve often wondered why script writers feel compelled to take liberties with a story that is pretty well established, and even likely to incur wrath if tampered with. It doesn’t make me question the real story, as Hollywood is known for jazzing up any story. If they did the life of Mother Theresa, they’d have to throw in a love interest and a car chase to spice it up. Maybe Chris Rock could come in with some wisecracks.
My all-time favorite what-the-heck Bible movie was the TV version of Noah and the ark that Jon Voight was in. I remember the next day at work, everyone was commenting that their Bible version must have been missing some pages. I especially liked Noah and crew coming upon an intrepid peddler operating a foot-paddle boat, loaded down with all his wares.