Most Christian-faith-based media is overly saccharine or unrealistic. The Chosen is one of the few pieces of Christian media I’ve not just watched, but thoroughly enjoyed. It focuses on characters rife with their own set of personal issues who are changed by their encounters with Jesus. It portrays a realistic world full of problems we can all relate to. Ironically, it is a breath of fresh air precisely because it has a bit more grit.
I concur. As a believing Christian, if somebody comes along and says “hey do you want to watch this Jesus show/movie?” my honest answer is…not really! I went into the Chosen expecting it to be awful and have been very impressed by the story telling and production quality . You pinpoint part of the problem: in an attempt to be reverent, shows or movies will make it all so pious as to remove anything earthly or real about it. And, surprise surprise, that’s dreadfully boring. Or if there is some grit/problem, there’s a “once saved always saved” bent to it where the problem is fixed and then the movie ends…as of life isn’t full of hardships after baptism/whatever!
I think the second problem for Jesus films is due to the nature of the gospels themselves: outside of the Passion narratives, they are strung together stories with little narrative connection. (I know, I know, it’s more nuanced than that…but the point being that a film director just can’t make a film about the gospels without making it seem like a random string of events with largely different people/places). It is this problem that the Chosen so masterfully addresses: make the focus on the characters in the story, not Jesus, and thereby give a narrative form to what are otherwise brief, well-known stories. The healing at the well, whose brother is made to be a militant apostle, is a great example.
There have also been some flourishes in the show that have indicated some real artistic meditation/thought by the writers, for example when Jesus and John discuss the Torah and John is given the first insights into his eventual theology.
> ... outside of the Passion narratives, they are strung together stories with little narrative connection...
It may seem this way given the style of books we're accustomed to reading in the 21st century, but there are clear narratives to each Gospel, and the events are amazingly well arranged.
You might enjoy a book like Reading the Gospels Wisely.
Thanks for the recommendation! I’ve read NT Wright and Bauckham and others on this topic, but I haven’t heard of Pennington. Will check it out! Wright in particular has really helped me to see each gospel in its own narrative form.
I agree that the gospels do have narrative structure when considered as products of the first century. Perhaps the closest to a “modern” narrative would be John’s gospel, but even that is very difficult to tackle given the heavy theology interwoven throughout. In fact, it was seeing scenes from John’s gospel in The Chosen that really alerted me to the talent of the filmmakers. Seeing them pull of John 3 in a meaningful and natural way was phenomenal, as they avoided the potential for dry/impersonal theology by wrapping it in the deeply personal experience of Nichodemus.
It’s a challenging tightrope to walk: You either have to take a lot of creative liberties about Jesus (for lack of explicit background) or you limit your content to just the source material, and end up with a very limited depiction.
Everyone (or at least every Christian) has their own version of Jesus in their head and when media is produced about him, they correlate that version with their own.
The esoteric philosophical background of Jesus and early Christianity is obscure, but it’s not that complicated. Let me share a quick take—which might be interesting to people on this thread.
To start, as with esoteric Judaism, Islam and Platonism, God is conceived as an ineffable oneness. Not a person in the sky, but a divine perfect ”One god” or principle. Hard to talk about, but many books have been written on the topic. The diversity in the cosmos comes from the emanation of the One; this emanation is known as the logos. The logos is typically translated (very poorly, IMO) as “the word.” The logos, as eternal emanation of the one, is therefore metaphorically conceived as “the son of the father.” Jesus is the logos, or in some interpretations, he is the incarnation of the logos (ie, “the word” made flesh).
What’s important to realize here is that this belief in the one (god the father) and the emanation from the one (the logos) is completely orthodox across Catholicism, eastern orthodox and most Protestant interpretations. I think most Christians and nonChristians would find that surprising.
In Acts 18:24, Paul says that Apollos of Alexandria was able to preach this philosophy without even knowing about Jesus. That’s likely because of the massive influence of Philo of Alexandria (b. 25bce) who wrote extensively about the logos as “the son of god.”
Philo also wrote prolifically about the early preChristian communities around Alexandria, the Therapeutae, which Jesus likely encountered as a child—he also wrote about the Essene sect that most resembles the Judaism of Jesus. I’ve assembled and highlighted some of those texts here. At the end, there is also a text from Pope Benedict that formalizes the connection between Jesus and the Essenes.
I'm hoping that more pre Christian Jewish texts will be found. The dead sea scrolls and similar finds did so much to enrich our knowledge of second temple Judaism, helping to support or undermine existing conjectures.
I read recently an excellent discussion on the Samaritan penteteuch, a masters thesis from 2008 - the first direct to English translation ever done from Samaritan oral language. There are clearly an evolving set pre-masoretic texts in pre Christian antiquity and we can see some of the not-quite MT types being used in the vulgate and others.
I suspect, like how the dead sea scrolls illuminated some factional rivalries in second temple Judaism- if we can find more texts from this period it'll better flesh out when, how, and to what extent Greek philosophy influenced the various sets. there is an old idea that the synthesis of Logos and Judaism occurred in John's gospel but this seems undermined already...
Amen. The story continues to evolve. Did you hear about the discovery last year of THC/cannabis residues on an 8th century Jewish temple? It just about guarantees that the billowing smoke from the Mosaic tabernacle was psychoactive.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03344355.2020.1...
When I get more time, I want to invest in reading the Mandaen literature. They worshipped John the Baptist —and their religion still exists!!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandaeism
'The Passion of Christ' is a great example of something that can be truly emotive for some, but not for others. I found it barely interesting and frankly not sure how much it has to do with Christianity, or rather in a pedantic way. It was nice production design, neat to see 'what it would have looked like' and I'm actually sympathetic to why 'it's good in a way' ... but to me it's all kinds of besides the point.
Populism is perhaps more real in Faith than it is in politics, there are various lowest common denominators that can appeal to broad audiences and suck a lot of wind out of the situation.
I remember being 5 or 6, many years before I became Christian, seeing a depiction of Jesus hanging on the cross. It was grotesque, and fascinating in the “I don’t want to look, but I kind of do” way that is especially appealing to kids. I was shocked and dumbfounded that it was anything someone would have on their house.
Though the Crucifixion is part of Christ’s sacrifice, I continue to find it an odd thing to focus on, especially in the context of the resurrection.
It was interesting to me as someone who's been adjacent to, and by necessity somewhat versed in Christianity, for 20 years, but the need to make the audience sit through all 40 lashes, that felt very hardcore "if the Mass isn't in Latin, it doesn't count" Catholic to me.
As a Protestant, none of it made any sense to me at all on the level of Religion or Faith. It seemed like one of those big budget 'History Channel' re-enactments of an important moment, with a big focus on the violence, for what I can gather are reasons of ratings, and that's it. Without offending anyone who liked it, it seemed to almost offensive to me.
It had an obvious focus on the suffering of the Christ, then the victory. It's obviously Catholic derived.
If you've not had the experience, I strongly recommend attending a Stations of the Cross in a Catholic cathedral on a Good Friday if possible. You'll see what the movie is derived from far better, and the Catholics know how to put on a good show.
I mean considering the extreme amount of creative liberties in the source material which started as an example of the genre of bios which is both biography and propaganda written decades if not centuries after the death of their subject, was then heavily edited (Origen already complained about that in the third century), before being carefully handpicked and arranged by the Roman church as a political tool, a bit more creative liberties would not change much things.
Most critical scholars dont really think the gospels are centuries after the fact anymore, that's a 20th century position that's largely lost support. Atheists love it tho!
The general consensus is that Mark was written fifty years after the fact, Matthew and Luke à century after mostly based on Mark and John at least a century after with some thinking even later from who knows what source but with a clear political goal. We are clearly in the decades if not centuries range.
Most scholars date Mark to c. 66–74 AD, either shortly before or after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 AD
This is essentially a few decades after the fact.
It's very challenging to really try to push Mathews gospel much further than 80s AD - and even that date has some serious problems.
You seem to have cherry picked certain (older) views... it was certainly popular in the last century to try try push the dates well into the second century but this approach is very fraught and can't be well supported at present.
> This is essentially a few decades after the fact.
That’s literally 75 years after the fact. Scholar put Mathew between 80 and 110 years after the fact so a century as I correctly pointed.
I understand you don’t like being faced with the fact that the gospels were written with a clear political agenda long after what they depict and that the canon is mostly an exercise in late Roman politics. The fact remains.
One of us must be using a different form of math - I take 66 AD, subtract 33 AD and get a mere 33 years
You can try to push out mathew to 110 but it gets kinda tough....if there is that much of a gap between mark and mathew why do we have lots of mathean quotes in the early church and virtually none from mark? Kinda stretches credulity, for me at least.
I feel that if Mark really did enjoy a lengthy period as the of extant gospel it should have acquired a sort of prominence.
33AD?! You can substract zero. No one believes that the event of the gospel happens in 33AD apart from Colin Humphreys and his arguments are completely bogus.
Can you elaborate on this? I had no idea that a date of roughly 33AD was controversial, and Wikipedia seems to say that the consensus is that 30AD or 33AD are when the later events of the gospels occurred.
When I google Colin Humphreys, he seems to be a physicist who dabbles in bible studies. According to Wikipedia, his argument was that the Last Supper occurred on a Wednesday instead of a Thursday, not that he disagreed with anyone about the year.
I was raised Catholic, am now an atheist, but I'd watch this too. I also highly recommend "Jesus of Nazareth". It's a more traditional telling of the New Testament but the cast and performances are truly outstanding.
There's also The Gospel According to St. Matthew, by Pasolini. It's currently in my to-watch list, but many people claimed it's a step above Zeffirelli's Jesus of Nazareth
I think it would accurately be described as Christian derived (being Western) but, given the exponential growth of published writing over time, I doubt the majority of written media is Christian based. Just my hunch..
Does the grit extend to Jesus himself? That is to say, do we get the Zen monk-style Jesus from modern Western media or do we get the anger-issues Jesus from the Bible?
> That is to say, do we get the Zen monk-style Jesus from modern Western media or do we get the anger-issues Jesus from the Bible?
Both of those are your interpretation of others' interpretations, and I question whether either of those is a widely held view. Personally, I don't see the media as depicting him as zen-like and I definitely don't read him as having anger-issues in the Bible.
Give it another read. He gets pissed off all the time and for the most bizarre reasons, like the time some people he was teaching don't understand his parable and he's asked why he teaches in parables if people have trouble understanding them and he throws a shit-fit.
I understand how someone could come to this conclusion, especially if you read the Old Testament and believe that Jesus and Jehovah are the same being. But I do think The Chosen has successfully captured the essence of the Gospels and made them much more relatable.
Man, that webcomic was supremely thoughless - no willingness to engage at all with the text, unlike Life of Brian.
That passage appears in the context of Jesus and his disciples making the pilgrimage to Jerusalem to celebrate Passa, which takes place in April. Just after the fig tree incident comes the purification of the temple.
Everyone who has a fig tree in the garden knows that some varieties bear an early crop, which is what Jesus was hoping to find. And no one swears at trees, as the webcomic helpfully points out.
The only possible interpretation is that that tree wasn't a fruit tree at all but some random wild tree from the fig genus that doesn't bear edible fruit. The Jesus that appears in the gospels is averse to showy and thoughtless practice, and this is yet another instance.
I think it's clear in context that the fig tree is symbolizing the kingdom of Judah, who's leaders Jesus is very critical of. In the gospels, he says they will be disowned and their kingdom given over to another. The fig tree is a symbol of the kingdom of Judah and it really works in context.
You'd like to see a willingness to engage. "You are all dumb" never was a good argument, you get many more points for "Dogma X is outrageous".
You can make fun of the anti-homosexual tendencies of evangelicals as much as you like and they'll just reply that queers are gross and the bible says it. But if you point out that the prohibition of homosexuality appears in the context of cultic practices you meet them on their own ground and imply that they don't understand their own foundational text.
Funnily enough, I've seen similar arguments to "proof by mortification" in apologetics around historical Jesus - basically, if you were going to invent a Messiah, you wouldn't do it like this e.g., the first witnesses to the resurrection being women, in a very patriarchal world.
I'm fascinated by this view, where do you find support for it in the texts?
To me, and most Christians, it looks like jesis is appropriately angry, sad, happy and generally experiences a full range of human emotions in the gospels.
Jesus had his angry moments, but he's not an angry figure in general, but more specifically I'm pointing to the populist imagination: Jesus is generally not viewed as an angry figure, but rather overwhelmingly empathetic.
Whereas the God of the 'Old Testament' has some harsh actions and policies, destroying Sodom and Gomorrah, threatening to punish the Israelites if they didn't follow his commands, telling Abraham to sacrifice is son, banishing Adam and Eve from Eden, etc. There's nothing comparable to that at all in the New Testament. The New Testament is fundamentally different in tone from the Old Testament in this manner.
At least up until recently, it would have been 'Old Testament Fire and Brimstone' , 'Jesus / New Testament, Peace and Love' in popular imagination.
> There's nothing comparable to that at all in the New Testament.
There certainly is. In fact, at one point, Jesus even brings up Sodom as an example!
See Matthew 23, where Jesus calls the scribes and Pharisees "children of hell" and says that all the righteous blood shed since Abel will be required of them, prophesying the Siege of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple ("not one stone will be left upon another.") Or the famous incident where he drives people out of the temple with a whip. Or when he says hate is the same sin as murder and lust the same as adultery, and those who commit them will end up in hellfire (in the Sermon on the Mount, no less.)
Or the reason he so enraged the Jewish authorities, he repeated claims that they were going to lose the kingdom. For example, after he healed the centurion's servant: "When Jesus heard it, he marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven. But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth."
Or when he says the Capernaum is going to have a worse time than Sodom: " And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I say unto you, That it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for thee."
Or his comments on people that don't forgive: "And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him. So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses."
Or the Parable of the Vineyard.
Or this particular memorable castigation from John: "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it."
This is a view in the popular imagination, but it isn't really supportable after reading the gospels.
I don't agree at all, and your examples actually prove my point.
Yahweh was literally flattening cities, killing Egyptians with plague, destroying Cannanties by force, requiring his followers to sacrifice their children (!).
None of the 'hard advice' given by Jesus in the examples are remotely equivalent to this, nor do they paint a picture of an angry or despotic figure at all.
Jesus is laying Moral Judgment. That's not the same thing we see in the Old Testament.
I guess I fail to see the difference between God destroying Sodom in the Old Testament for their wickedness, telling Abraham he would spare the city if he could find even ten righteous men in it, and then Jesus claiming to be God in the New Testament (John 8) and saying that soon, Capernaum will be judged and face a fate even worse than Sodom because Sodom was morally better than Capernaum.
Don’t most other Christians (Trinitarians) believe Jesus is the God of the Old Testament, just also the (only) God, period?
(Also HN seems to have a fairly high tolerance for pedantry, so I hope nobody gets angry if I interject for a moment. What you’re referring to as Mormon, is in fact, Member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, the Restored Church. Mormon is not a religion unto himself, but rather another prophet of a fully restored Christian church made complete with the other apostles and prophets of the past and divinely inspired direction as continuously revealed by prophet Russel M. Nelson.
Many people have heard of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints today, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the nickname for members of Church which is widely used today is “Mormons,” and many of its users are unaware that they prefer to called members of the Church, of Jesus Christ.
There really is a Mormon, and members of the restored church believe his teachings, but they are just a part of the gospel doctrine they believe. Mormon compiled the Book of Mormon; another testament of Christ that complements, confirms, and clarifies the Old and New Testament. The Book of Mormon is the cornerstone of the religion, but arguably useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete religion. The Book of Mormon is normally studied in combination with the rest of the restored gospel, the whole system is basically Christ’s church with the fullness of the gospel revealed. All the so-called “Mormons” are really members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.)
I think that's the most well-executed and on-topic mapping of the GNU+Linux diatribe onto a new subject that I've ever seen. I didn't realize what was happening until I got suspicious around "there really is a Mormon" and started reading from the beginning again, more carefully. Bravo.
What you’re referring to as Mormon, is in fact, Member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
Everyone knows this. They're just not going to use an awkwardly-long term to refer to them. We don't refer to "members of the Roman catholic church", we just say catholics.
Mormons do have a distinct take here in attempting to distinguish Yahweh (Jehovah), who they call Jesus, from Elohim, who they call the father. To say they're two distinct beings, and that all the Old Testament prophets were talking to Jesus and NOT the father, is uniquely Mormon.
Sort of. The trinity is a confusing concept as taught by mainstream Christians: three in one in three. But the God of the Old Testament is the Father, not the Son, IIRC.
I’m an exmo, so I’m well aware of what Mormon means. Including that it was widely accepted as an informal demonym for many years by LDS church leaders, and only recently became officially anathema. The reasoning presented for the change has not been terribly sound, I’m afraid, and I wouldn’t be surprised if a future prophet reversed it, as other decisions have been reversed.
> Don’t most other Christians (Trinitarians) believe Jesus is the God of the Old Testament, just also the (only) God, period?
It was divisive in the early church. Marcion of Sinope who compiled what might be the first known canon was a proponent that the god from the Old Testament and the one from the New Testament are different in the second century. He had quite a following but all his writings are lost. He was excommunicated for this view but Marcionism had a lasting influence on the church.
Just did a deep dive into the Bible, several versions (King James, etc.). No "Mormon" shows up anywhere in the text of the Old or New Testaments.
"Mormon" only shows up in the Book of Mormon, which most Christians do not accept as doctrine.
Through a peculiar turn of events, the nickname for members of Church which is widely used today is “Mormons,”
Because this was the term that Mormons themselves used to refer to themselves for over a century, see for example the (fka) Mormon Choir, the Mormon College, etc. It is only very recently that they began shifting their own self-identification away from the use of Mormon.
Agreed! Matthew is such a great character. I relate a lot with him too. I get the same feeling watching the character as I do reading the book of Matthew, which makes me appreciate the gospel even more.
The best 'faith based' stuff focuses on the content or experience, not Disneyfied characterization of the Bible.
U2 is a Christian band, they make Gospel music. They just stopped saying that back in the 1970's but if you look at their lyrics it becomes immediately obvious. In fact, blatant. Literally their hit song "He Works in Mysterious Ways". They don't even hide it, yet, nobody is really aware.
That to me is mind-blowing: how something can be so obvious, right in front of our eyes, not even denied ... and we don't see it.
Mr. Rogers Neighbourhood is 100% Ministering without apparent Ministering.
'Children of Men' is possibly my favourite film, it's literally a Nativity Story.
... but the last thing on the planet I would ever want to listen to is a 'Christian Band' that calls themselves a 'Christian Band'.
There's a huge difference between The Chosen and LToC -- while both may present a "gritty" and imaginative narrative including fictionalized accounts that are not canon, The Chosen does it in a way that does not contradict anything canonical while LToC depicts a sinfully lustful Christ who abdicates his role as savior by stepping down from the cross. As such, it should come as no surprise that The Chosen is popular and well-received among believers and LToC was widely criticized.
Depends whose canon you're talking about because there is no canonical canon. Kazantzakis was very influenced by Gnosticism which set him at odds with the Orthodox and Catholic versions. Personally I found the story to be the most accessible and human version of the story.
Where does the LToC contradict the gospels? They aren't a comprehensive diary of his every thought. You can't say Jesus didn't fantasize about a life with Mary, because that's proving a negative. It's just a proposed fiction to imagine Jesus in a more human way than the vagaries of the canonical gospels. I can see how that would upset some people, but I'd be interested to know where the contradictions exist. It made me really consider the gravity of being the son of god in a way that the gospels simply aren't equipped to deliver.
The Last Temptation shows Jesus’ deity as imperceptive and impotent, contradicting his nature: not a sin so much as a denial of Jesus’ nature.
The imperfect human desires before and during the vision also carry on well past harmless observation and affect the man in a way that would have concerned the one who figuratively(?) advised to pluck out an eye rather than be burdened by sin caused by it. The temptations are incongruent with the refutation of temptation and self-knowledge displayed in the wilderness.
That said! I agree the film is a marvelous examination of human weakness and faith in this life.
I'll admit to being biased against the show from the start, but your description of it sounds like Jesus is just a constant deus ex machina. Is there more to it than "Jesus shows up and everything's cool now?"
"but your description of it sounds like Jesus is just a constant deus ex machina." - there is no reasonable way to infer this from the given comment. Thee 'bias' may be a bit stronger than imagined.
Not particularly. Their description was that everybody has real problems that are changed by coming in contact with Jesus. Real problems, solved by a solution suddenly showing up in the third act. A deus ex machina.
