Killing Jesus

[Mary_Estelle]

I too, watched the movie and was disappointed with it even as a historical event. I felt it was often contrived and lacked a real focal point in the telling of the real Jesus. It was a dumbed down version and made Jesus look like some kind od dolt. Really could have been better.

 

[KSU]

Well, the thing is, one can read the accounts from Philo and Josephus that describe Pilate as showing him as anything but the common inference one gets about him from say, the gospels of Matthew and John: someone who was simply pressured by ‘the Jews’ to kill Jesus. The Pilate of Philo and Josephus, however, is (in Philo’s words) “a spiteful and angry person” who does not easily bow down to pressure. (Of course, it may be argued that both authors were exaggerating his cruelty, but still, even granting for some rhetorical exaggeration, Pilate still comes across as anything but what some folks who only know him from the gospels think he was.)Pilate’s personality is irrelevant to the issue of whether he wanted to release Jesus. John, for one, says he did.

Second thing is this. Since the Holocaust happened, any filmmaker who tries to tackle the life of Jesus must find a way to deal with the anti-Jewish (not to be confused with anti-Semitic) sentiment present in the gospels without ending up making the temple priests or the Jewish crowd into two-dimensional caricatures that feed into the old anti-Semitic sentiments. Again, that’s irrelevant to the issue.

One has to remember that there was this pervasive anti-Jewish (not to be confused with anti-Semitic) sentiment in early Christianity, which sprung from Christianity’s Jewish origin. There was a common trend to emphasize Jewish responsibility over Jesus’ death starting from the first generations of Christians themselves (cf. 1 Thessalonians 2:13-16; Acts 2:22-38; 3:12-26; 4:8-22; 5:29-32), which was based on the traditional Jewish pattern of calling Israel for its disobedience and/or the rejection of its prophets (e.g. Nehemiah 9:26; 2 Chronicles 36:14-16). It’s not surprising that the two most Jewish gospels of the four, Matthew and John, are at the same time, paradoxically, the most anti-Jewish gospels. **“Anti-Jewish”? If an event is reported accurately, one can look at the report and, from his perspective, find it painful, but that of course does not change the accuracy. Accuracy should not be judged on the basis of whether or not it causes discomfort to some people.
**

If you simply film the gospels literally, that is what you will end up with: two-dimensional caricatures. Corrupt temple priests, holier-than-thou Pharisees, fickle Jewish crowds, a somewhat weak Pilate who bends to these ‘bad guys’. (But to be fair, the gospels don’t give much of their characters solid character traits.) Every filmmaker who has made a Jesus film knows this, but in order to make a good film out of the gospels one will have to go beyond what the gospels say (at times maybe even go against the gospels), because the gospels as they are are simply unfilmable - they don’t make good, engaging films. **Maybe, but that’s an opinion with which millions would disagree. An engaging film is in the eye of the the viewer. ** Mainly because (1) the gospels are not and should not be read as, objective modern historical accounts (they never pretend to be ‘unbiased’ histories: they were written with the objective to convince the reader that Jesus is who Christians say He is); (2) they never tell you the hows or whys. You don’t get much character depth, and no explanation as to why people acted like this or that or what they could they have been thinking in a given situation - it’s all dry narration (“At that time, Jesus said this” or “Jesus did that”); and most importantly (3) Jesus is not a typical film ‘hero’: He doesn’t fight, He doesn’t fall in love, He doesn’t get into real trouble (well yeah, He dies, but we all know He’s gonna rise again eventually so… ) If all that is true, why produce a film that in all probability will be bad? An agenda, perhaps? Why else make a film that goes beyond or even against Scripture and label it as historical without saying (in the intro or perhaps through narration) that Scripture is wrong?

(This was actually the weakest element of The Passion of the Christ. Now that film really went far beyond the gospels, but its portrayal of the Jewish crowds and Pilate is the one part where it kind of sticks close to the gospels, specifically, that of Matthew and John. ** Sort of. It’s common knowledge that Mel Gibson altered his original script, which was closer to Scripture, to placate Jewish objections. ** But in doing so, the film failed to give a clear reason as to why the Jewish leaders hated Jesus and wanted Him dead and why the crowd was howling for Jesus to be crucified. In other words, the temple priests in TPotC are just that - two-dimensional bearded baddies in dark robes who bully the clean-shaven, intellectual, ‘soft’ Pilate to do their bidding. At least Caiaphas in John’s gospel still had the “Better for one man to die…” line.)

 

[KSU]

patrick457, my friend, in reply to your post #17, there is no point in my trying to explain or defend perceptions of the movie, especially if you haven’t seen it.

My perceptions are informed by my belief in the historical aspects of the Gospels and common sense. Accordingly, I’m not a fan of the movie, nor, for that matter, of the usual deconstructionist tenor of anything Biblical on the National Geographic and History channels.

 

[KevinAK]

Yes. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

I did hear of that minor controversy, where some people went like “Oh noes! A Muslim’s gonna play Jesus!” For some odd reason, some Christians out there just get allergies when they learn that actors are not cast based on their personal beliefs. Sure, I can understand the protest if it’s someone like Christian Bale (“I think [Moses] was likely schizophrenic and was one of the most barbaric individuals that I ever read about in my life”) , but I mean, it’s not like the actor (Haaz Sleiman) is proselytizing or inciting anti-Christian rhetoric or anything. (Quite the opposite.)

.

Christian Bale has played Jesus also.

imdb.com/title/tt0214930/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

O’Reilly’s book Killing Lincoln was so full of historical inn accuracies that the Ford Theatre gift shop refused to carry it. I doubt the Jesus book will be any different.

 

[Pax2u]

I was disappointed in the movie.

Have not read the book, but I don’t mind Bill O’Reilly at all…I watch his program often. Expected better in the movie. It was supposed to be based on history but there was stuff that was thrown in that I doubt Bill had historical references for…ex: a scene with Mary Magdalene that made it look like Jesus had feelings for her but was not going to give in (it’s inferred, not stated); a scene where Jesus thinks He should fight as an earthly King, it’s inferred that one of the disciples is Jesus’ brother (he’s sitting around the dinner table with Jesus and Mary and a young girl, not at a dinner with all the disciples, made to look like dinner at home with the family). I’m guessing these things perhaps weren’t in the book, as how could there be documentation of historical accuracy? It was like Hollywood just threw this stuff in to spice up the story.

My husband watched for a bit, but when he saw the horrendous fake beard on John the Baptist he let out a disgusted snort, made a comment about “low budget costuming” and went to bed! It was very, very bad…like something you’d see at the Halloween Superstore.

I thought the actor who portrayed Jesus did a good job, and I liked the woman who portrayed Mary. The acting overall was fine, in my opinion.

 

[Bookcat]

I made (forced) my way through the movie…thankfully it was recorded and I could fast forward to the end… (would need to be able to answer anyone who asked… and maybe there could be a scene to see that was done well)

NOT a movie to recommend…or sit through…

:nope:

 

[Faith1960]

I was disappointed in the movie.

Have not read the book, but I don’t mind Bill O’Reilly at all…I watch his program often. Expected better in the movie. It was supposed to be based on history but there was stuff that was thrown in that I doubt Bill had historical references for…ex: a scene with Mary Magdalene that made it look like Jesus had feelings for her but was not going to give in (it’s inferred, not stated); a scene where Jesus thinks He should fight as an earthly King, it’s inferred that one of the disciples is Jesus’ brother (he’s sitting around the dinner table with Jesus and Mary and a young girl, not at a dinner with all the disciples, made to look like dinner at home with the family). I’m guessing these things perhaps weren’t in the book, as how could there be documentation of historical accuracy? It was like Hollywood just threw this stuff in to spice up the story.

My husband watched for a bit, but when he saw the horrendous fake beard on John the Baptist he let out a disgusted snort, made a comment about “low budget costuming” and went to bed! It was very, very bad…like something you’d see at the Halloween Superstore.

I thought the actor who portrayed Jesus did a good job, and I liked the woman who portrayed Mary. The acting overall was fine, in my opinion.

I mentioned Jesus’ Heard, but forgot to mention John the Baptists beard. They were both horrible.
When Jesus was carrying His crossbeam, it looked like it was made of Styrofoam.

 

[Pax2u]

I mentioned Jesus’ Heard, but forgot to mention John the Baptists beard. They were both horrible.
When Jesus was carrying His crossbeam, it looked like it was made of Styrofoam.

Faith, your post made me laugh! Those were pretty awful beards!!!

 

[Faith1960]

Faith, your post made me laugh! Those were pretty awful beards!!!

 

[patrick457]

patrick457, my friend, in reply to your post #17, there is no point in me trying to explain or defend perceptions of the movie, especially if you haven’t seen it.

My perceptions are informed by my belief in the historical aspects of the Gospels and common sense. Accordingly, I’m not a fan of the movie, nor, for that matter, of the usual deconstructionist tenor of anything Biblical on the National Geographic and History channels.

AND that’s why I’ll follow up later, when I’ve watched the thing for myself. This could really be an interesting discussion. I’ll reply to your post later.

 

[patrick457]

Christian Bale has played Jesus also.

Thanks for reminding me of that! I’ll admit, I didn’t like Christian Bale there. He’s too Anglo-Saxon and too handsome. But then again the same thing could be said of many film Jesuses (and I’ve seen a lot of them).

 

[patrick457]

I was wondering about the scourging scene. In real life was it like in Killing Jesus or The Passion of the Christ? In the Passion, the scourging was much more severe, and thought that was how it was in real life.

First thing to remember is that Mel Gibson was being Mel Gibson in TPotC. Scourging is the one single consistent thing across different crucifixions (there was no common procedure for crucifixion; it’s basically just scourge the person and then hang him on a cross). We know from ancient texts that scourging could get nasty, but we really have no firm support for the common cliche that the victims would look like raw hamburger. (We do have texts that describe brutal scourgings, but many of them are talking about scourgings as punishments on their own right - disciplinary beatings or ‘death by scourging’ - not scourgings as prelude to crucifixion). The scourging scene in TPotC is - to be frank - overplayed and overblown (not necessarily a bad thing). IRL a person would die under a whipping of that magnitude.

 

[MarkR]

I watched until I couldn’t take anymore (which wasn’t long). Jesus looked like an endodermic, befuddled little guy with a fake beard. I had my “Off with Killing Jesus” moment when they showed John the Baptist (another little guy with a fake beard) taking a private, quiet stroll with Christ, explaining to Him who He was–Jesus-“You mean you heard voices about me?”. That was it for me–the O’Reilly/Ann Rice theory (heresy) that Jesus didn’t know who He was until it suddenly dawned on Him.

What also bothers me is that O’Reilly had FOX’s little resident, smiley face priest and a smiley faced Evangelical minister on giving the movie accolades. I wish he had the guts to have Father Pacwa on to discuss the movie’s "historicity. What a shame.

I understand FOX News Channel will air it on Easter Sunday to confuse more badly catechized Catholics and Christians. Thanks FOX…

 

[KSU]

First thing to remember is that Mel Gibson was being Mel Gibson in TPotC. What does that mean? Scourging is the one single consistent thing across different crucifixions (there was no common procedure for crucifixion; it’s basically just scourge the person and then hang him on a cross). We know from ancient texts that scourging could get nasty, but we really have no firm support for the common cliche that the victims would look like raw hamburger. (We do have texts that describe brutal scourgings, but many of them are talking about scourgings as punishments on their own right - disciplinary beatings or ‘death by scourging’ - not scourgings as prelude to crucifixion). My friend, that’s where you are still inexplicably wrong regarding Pilate’s intentions toward Jesus. Pilate did not have Jesus brutally scourged, etc. as a prelude to crucifixion. According to Scripture, the scourging was to PREVENT the crucifixion, i.e., it was Pilate’s attempt to satisfy those Jews who wanted Jesus crucified. A typical whipping would not have been enough to satisfy them. The scourging scene in TPotC is - to be frank - overplayed and overblown **What is your source for that? I’m not referring to Gibson’s portrayal of the Romans’ brutality (which I tend to believe), but of the serverity of the scourging itself. Who has convinced you that it was not as brutal as Gibson portrayed it? **(not necessarily a bad thing). IRL a person would die under a whipping of that magnitude. Again, what is your source for that contention?

 

[oneofmany]

Well in the trailers the beards did look scraggly but then back in those days they didn’t have barbers to tailor the beards to make them look nice. I would think the men just washed in the morning and let their beards dry however they did in the wind.

I didn’t read the book but I don’t think John the Baptist told Jesus who He was. If that is in there, it’s wrong but are you mixing it up with the CNN series “Finding Jesus”? The one about John the Baptist did have John doing that.

 

[patrick457]

Before I reply to your first reply, I’ll reply to this other one.

What does that mean?

Well, look at Braveheart.

My friend, that’s where you are still inexplicably wrong regarding Pilate’s intentions toward Jesus. Pilate did not have Jesus brutally scourged, etc. as a prelude to crucifixion. According to Scripture, the scourging was to PREVENT the crucifixion, i.e., it was Pilate’s attempt to satisfy those Jews who wanted Jesus crucified. A typical whipping would not have been enough to satisfy them.

You’re right - if we’re talking about John’s gospel, where the scourging is placed in the middle of the trial before Pilate. In Matthew and Mark though, the scourging is a prelude to crucifixion and is at the end of the trial, after the sentence.

Then [Pilate] released for them Barabbas, and having scourged Jesus, delivered him to be crucified. (Matthew 27:26)

So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released for them Barabbas, and having scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified. (Mark 15:15)

Now of course a common method among us Christians is to conflate and harmonize all these details together: so the scourging in Matthew and Mark is combined with the one in John. (Or, if we’re going by the more literal approach here, say Jesus was scourged twice.) But I think a nice question to ask ourselves is: why do we conflate and harmonize?

What is your source for that? I’m not referring to Gibson’s portrayal of the Romans’ brutality (which I tend to believe), but of the serverity of the scourging itself. Who has convinced you that it was not as brutal as Gibson portrayed it?

We have many sources describing the person to be crucified being whipped and tortured first, but almost none of them explicitly describe how violent it could be. The only thing that comes close is this quote from Seneca:

Can anyone be found who would prefer to be driven to that infelix lignum (‘unfortunate wood’), already disabled, already distorted, the breast and shoulder deformed into an ugly hump, he would have many reasons to die even beside the crux, than to draw the breath of life among such numbers of outdrawn torments.

Really, our main source come from descriptions of non-crucifixion whippings slaves and non-Roman citizens were subjected to (which were at times brutal). For example, the Jewish historian Josephus talks about a man named Jesus son of Ananias/Ananus who in the 60s kept prophesying about the destruction of Jerusalem. The “leading citizens” were disturbed with his words and beat him, but to no avail. He was then brought before the Roman governor, who had him whipped some more - “flayed to the bone with scourges” (Jewish War 6.5.3) - but still he kept prophesying. Exasperated, the authorities set him free, considering him a madman and a minor annoyance. This Jesus lived for a few more years until he finally died when his predictions came true in 70 - he was hit by a stone hurled from a Roman catapult. In another passage Josephus also talked about some Galileans opponents of his who he had scourged “until the entrails of all of them were exposed” (Jewish War 2.21.5)

You might extrapolate something out of these accounts (i.e. pre-crucifixion floggings were probably similar to these floggings, since crucifixion was also a slave’s/non-citizen’s punishment), but at the same time you need to take into account that crucifixion is meant to keep the victim as alive as possible up on that cross and suffer (so you don’t want the person to die during or soon after the scourging), whereas in some of these texts the scourging itself is meant to kill. So I highly doubt that a pre-crucifixion scourging would be of the same intensity as these two whippings in Josephus.

Again, what is your source for that contention?

In the film, Jesus is first beaten with wooden rods. Then comes the flagrum or the flagellum which the soldiers use on Jesus with gusto until He is reduced to a bloody pulp - front and back. If they did that to me, I’d have probably died of traumatic shock. Forget crucifixion or even setting me free.

(Of course one might say, ‘Well Jesus is God, He could have taken in more physical suffering than a normal human could.’ This is where you see some disagreement: one could also argue that since Jesus suffered in His humanity, wouldn’t there be a potential that this idea that ‘Jesus drew on His divine strength to endure superhuman tortures’ could be construed as Jesus somehow ‘cheated’ a bit to suffer some more?)

P.S. Just a little suggestion. Can you divide the quotes you’re answering to when you’re quoting me? (Use the quote tag: QUOTE ] /QUOTE ]) The way you quote kinda makes it a little hard to read for me. Thank you.

 

[patrick457]

Here’s my review (actually, more like random notes I jotted while watching) of Killing Jesus. Warned: there be spoilers, and lots of geeky stuff that some might find incomprehensible. Here’s the first fifteen minutes for now; I’ll post the others later.

• I think the opening sequence is rather nifty: Herod the Great dreams about an old man (Isaiah the prophet?) warning him that a child born in Israel will be greater than he is and will overturn him and his seed. This is of course a non-biblical sequence, but I find it close to Matthew in spirit in its use of dream visions. I admit I kinda like the actor playing Herod the Great’s performance: he kind of plays the historical Herod’s paranoia well. (And kudos to the makeup department for putting those sores on Herod - other film Herods don’t really look sick, though we know from Josephus that Herod was suffering from a horrible disease that caused pain on the colon and the whole body and caused worms to eat on his flesh. They muted the worm part, but it’s a start.)
• Is it just me, or are those temple priests who show up before Herod wearing those same dark costumes the priests wore in The Passion of the Christ? (TPotC really started a trend.)
• I know I’ve seen that temple set (or something like it) in a couple other Jesus movies - the very small court is kind of a dead giveaway. And now I’ve possibly confirmed that Killing Jesus is filmed in that city in Morocco where many productions who shoot biblical movies go to: Ouarzazate. (In fact, you can really darn tell it’s Morocco or some other area in the Sahara, the way the houses look. )
• To this film’s credit, this is probably the first Jesus film that I’ve seen to feature singing in the temple. But what’s Herod doing inside the sanctuary? :ehh:
• When will I ever see a Jesus film where the Magi ride on something like horses rather than camels?
• I interpreted that very short scene where Antipas watches the dancers to be some nice foreshadowing. In fact, the Magi scenes all in all are really handled in a rather fresh, interesting way. No problem here. (Finally, a toddler Jesus that isn’t an Anglo-Saxon baby. But why is Joseph wearing a mop top hair?)
• As with most other Jesus films, the killing of the infants is kind of played up. (Bethlehem at the time of Jesus would have been just a small village, not a large town or a city as shown here. One estimate puts the population of the town at only 300 - at most, Herod’s soldiers would have killed only six or seven toddlers, give or take a handful more.)
• Killing Jesus repeats the ‘Herod dies pathetically at Antipas’ feet’ trope from the 1961 King of Kings, the only other Jesus film to do that. But hey, at least Antipas doesn’t kick his father here. Come to think of it, I found the characterization of the Herods - Herod the Great and Herodias in particular - very interesting: Herodias’ desire for power in particular would resonate to people who’ve read about her from Josephus.
• Another minor detail the film gets right: Herod Antipas was not officially a king. He was a tetrach, ‘ruler of a fourth’. (Mark (6:14-29) insists on calling Antipas ‘king’ - technically, inaccurately; Luke on the other hand gets it right (3:1, 19; 9:7; Acts 13:1), and Matthew too (14:1), except for the one passage where he slips to calling him ‘king’ (14:9).) When Herod the Great died, his kingdom was divided among his three sons (yes, it’s still a mystery why three sons got one-fourths), Archelaus, Philip, and Antipas. Archelaus ruled the lion’s share (Judea and Samaria), but he was so incompetent a ruler that the Romans booted him out and assumed direct control of the territory he inherited, making it into a Roman province and placing it under the governance of a Roman prefect.

Where the film does not get it right is a sin of omission: Archelaus or Philip, the other two sons, don’t appear onscreen. (Though they are apparently referred to in passing as the ‘sons of Herod’.)

• Just another minor rant, but it seems the filmmakers can’t resist putting a shot of the pyramids in the background, can’t they? Nothing says ‘Egypt’ like pyramids, I guess.
• The portrayal of Joseph here as fixing carts and even building houses is closer to the meaning of the Greek word tekton than the English word ‘carpenter’, which has a rather narrow meaning of ‘woodworker’. (Tekton literally just means a laborer or a craftsman, an artisan, without any specification of what one worked on; it could be wood, it could be stone.) Did I mention Joseph’s moptop and kid Jesus’, erm, hippie hair are distracting?
• It has now become a cliche in Jesus films for Jerusalem to be portrayed as a city smack dab in the middle of a desert plain, a far cry from the mountainous, green Jerusalem IRL. (Morocco has its limitations, I guess.)
• Ever since TPotC gave Pilate’s wife the name Claudia (a name attested in apocryphal sources, alongside Procula), most subsequent Jesus films followed suit. This film is no exception. The upper-class, haughty, rather vain Claudia of Killing Jesus is related to the similar Claudia in the 2008 BBC/HBO production The Passion and the 1969 Dennis Potter play Son of Man, but this Claudia’s high-handedness is in a new level.
• Haaz Sleiman: the first film Jesus I know of to tie his hair. Yes, the fake beard is distracting. But at least he looks more ‘authentic’ than Diogo Morgado or Jim Caviezel or Robert Powell. Or even Christian Bale.

 

[patrick457]

Second part. I’ll post the rest when I’m not feeling lazy.

• The film does show who I take to be James the Just – ‘the brother of Jesus who is called Christ’ as Josephus calls him – living with Jesus and Mary (Joseph is already diseased). I think this is what some posters were referring to. Now of course the idea of James being a literal brother of Jesus (in other words, a biological son of Mary) will be problematic from a Catholic POV. But so far I don’t see any overt indication to that effect. Yet. (I’m kind of jotting this as I’m watching.) So at this stage it neither confirms nor denies, nothing wrong with that I think. (Heck, this film called The Color of the Cross is more problematic in this regard since in that film, the siblings of Jesus are explicitly His biological brothers. Oh, and Joseph is still alive in that film.)

We often imagine the Holy Family living just by themselves at their home in Nazareth, but remember that in biblical cultures, it was not uncommon for the extended members of the family to live in the same house. I grew up in the Philippines, where it’s still common for members of the extended family and different generations of the family to live with each other. In this case, even if you take ‘brother’ to not refer to a biological relationship, IMHO Killing Jesus is still accurate to the culture.

• It’s nice to see the relationship between Mary and Elizabeth affirmed and fleshed out here, something I found lacking in many past Jesus films. Some of them only have them meet during the Visitation and then that’s it. A few films would even go so far and imply that John does not know who Jesus is, in fact is not related to Jesus (a nod to certain ‘way out there’ modern theories that Luke simply invented the relationship between John and Jesus). So the film, to its credit, ends up being a breath of fresh air here.
• Is there supposed to be some unwritten rule among Jesus films that Caiaphas must have a thick beard and look not too handsome?
• Killing Jesus eventually falls prey to the ‘shouting neurotic Pilate’ syndrome that first started to surface in the late 1960s. I really find this overused, even annoying: the best you can do to make Pilate look like one who had “vindictiveness and furious temper” (the way Philo describes him) is what? Make him shout a sentence angrily?
• Is it just me, or did the whole scene with John the Baptist look almost like a Revival meeting? (The people shouting ‘Hosanna’ every time someone is baptized; what’s up with that?) And yes, John’s beard – also blatantly fake.

 

[on_the_hill]

I think I’ll watch. It got a good review online, which shocked me considering the generally left-leaning nature of Internet entertainment commentary and Bill O’Reilly was the writer. Talk about a caustic relationship–Bill O’Reilly and the media.

The only thing I have to add is the man who played Jesus referred to himself as Arab, not Muslim, in an interview.

 

[on_the_hill]

Here’s my review (actually, more like random notes I jotted while watching) of Killing Jesus. Warned: there be spoilers,

Thanks for the warning. I won’t read further.

Except I’m pretty sure I know how it all ends.