I watched the film on Sunday, and I was not aware it was based on Bill O’reilly’s book. I have not read the book, so I can’t read say it matches it well
In my review, I will comment on one positive part of the film, and then one negative part, and so on.
Positive: I enjoyed how Jesus and His Mother had a very close relationship ( I liked the scene when Christ says “Mother, I so longed for you!”). I also liked how the movie put an emphasis on Jesus’s non-pacifist sounding sayings. Many people picture Jesus as a spiritual hippy, yet we read him saying phrases such as “the Son of Man came not with peace, but with a sword,” and “I’ve come to separate father from son, and mother from daughter,” which complicate and contradicts that viewpoint. The movie seems to bring those aspects of Jesus back into public consciousness, which is a good thing. The movie even presents Jesus angrily driving out the money changers and their merchandise (the Rock even wrestles with a couple of guys
).
Negative: However, the movie seems to bring these more “violent” aspects of Jesus’s personality in order to validate a certain viewpoint (popular with intellectual scum such as the infamous “Jesus” Seminar) which sees Jesus as a social reformer who is fighting against the “traditionalist” and “oppressive” hierarchy at the time. Notice that it’s proponents tend to be the ones obsessed with social activism, and live in a culture that values it. In the movie, for example, Jesus says he “shall destroy the Temple and in three days rebuild it” in a context which makes it seem as though he was trying to start a rebellion. Scripture is quite blunt that he was talking about the Temple of his body, however the movie leaves that out, an shows Jesus leading a sort of small riot. The Priests are even painted as being motivated by the fear of another fake messiah who will create another rebellion that will be crushed, leaving the Jewish people with broken hearts to be punished by the Romans yet again (this might be true, but the Priests were also motivated by other, less virtuous reasons too).
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However, the saying about the Temple might be regarded as one understood in retrospect. To those first hearing it, they might have truly believed Jesus was planning to undermine the Temple, and thus could have reacted with rioting (although, since the Jews loved the Temple, I doubt it).
Jesus was a Jew, who followed the Law, and came not to rebel against it, but rather to fulfill it. He might have been against the actions of persons in the office of the Priesthood, but he was definitely not against the office itself: he says that the Pharisees sit in the seat of Moses, and should be obeyed in everything but sin (notice how similar that line of reasoning is to the Catholic distinction between the person of the Pope and the office itself: just because the person is corrupt doesn’t mean that the office is). Jesus believed in tradition, which he passes on through his Apostles and their Successors to this day.
Positive: In the riot scene I mentioned earlier, Jesus might be seem as being tempted to start a rebellion like the other false messiahs, and seek worldly power, but sucessfully resists the temptation in the end. St. Paul teaches that Christ was tempted in every way, but was without sin. Also, notice the parallels between this scene and the temptation in the desert, where Satan promises Jesus all the power in the world. I think this is a good reminder that when we ask Christ for help in resisting sin, we’re asking a man who has actual experience with the temptation, but has never fallen to it. When we ask Jesus to give us Grace to resist, he is actually resisting the temptation with us (we
are his body, after all).
Negative: The film makes Judas look a little too sympathetic. I’m also trying to find out why the artists added the whole goat herder rope trading scene into the movie.
Neutral: The emphasis on Herod’s son and his female relationships, on one hand, seem like they were put in the movie in order to have some kind of sexual content, which is just pandering to our pelvic-worshiping culture. On the other hand, the characters obsessed with sex are the antagonists, and are painted in a bad light
Positive: I enjoyed the costumes and staging (I, for some reason, was drawn to the high priests’ outfits
).
Negative: The exorcism scene seemed cheesy, and it came off as far too sentimental. I prefer Chesterton’s description of Jesus the Exorcist as “a calm, buisness-like lion tamer.”
Positive: The film include the Christmas story! (Modern scholars like to unfairly dismiss the story as “myth”
yet they do not know what “myth” really is, anyway).
Negative: The clear Evangical bias, especially at the end ot the movie. There are no resurrection appearances, but instead we have St. Peter having a sort of emotional “born again” moment at the end. Notice how Jesus and his disciples also do not Baptise at all (he does, in passing, mention being born again, but he doesn’t connect that with Baptism at all). I think the movie is supporting this dangerously false theology.
Overall, the film
Killing Jesus is a curiosity, but it still seems to try to carve a lesser Christ out of the true Christ (everyone does this, but the movie does it possibly to fit certain false theories regarding Jesus) I wouldn’t buy the movie though. There are some parts of the film that might be intended to be interpreted unorthodoxly, but, if the movie is to be said to present a heretical view of Jesus, it is really only in the sense that it presents an incomplete view of Jesus (and one viewed with cultural biases). If you are looking for a spiritual movie about Jesus’s crucifixion, I recommend Mel Gibson’s
The Passion of the Christ first.
Christi pax,
Lucretius
