'Jesus Of Nazareth' Proposed Film Angers Christians With Depiction Of Jesus As Result Of Rape

Jesus Of Nazareth, a film by Paul Verhoeven, may anger conservative Christians.

A proposed new film about Jesus is outraging conservative Christians with its unorthodox story line.

The Daily Mail reports the movie is based on the book "Jesus of Nazareth" by Paul Verhoeven, the Dutch director most famous for his films "RoboCop," "Total Recall" and "Basic Instinct," will also direct the movie version of "Jesus of Nazareth."

The most controversial aspects of the book and future film include a portrayal of Jesus as the child of a Roman soldier who raped Mary, a depiction that is contrary to the profession of faith by Christians that Mary was a virgin. The story also discounts the common biblical teachings of Jesus performing miracles, the resurrection and of Jesus' divinity.

As William Doehring explains in the Examiner, the film is based on the work of prominent Biblical theologians such as Rudolf Bultman and Raymond Brown, and the members of the Jesus Seminar, a group of biblical scholars whose research focuses on constructing an accurate portrait of the historical Jesus, one who was more ethicist and radical prophet than Son of God.

Verhoeven spoke about his research to Mike Fleming at Deadline.com:

“If you look at the man, it’s clear you have a person who was completely innovative in the field of ethics. My own passion for Jesus came when I started to realize that. It’s not about miracles, it’s about a new set of ethics, an openness towards the world, which was anathema in a Roman-dominated world. I believe he was crucified because they felt that politically, he was a dangerous person whose following was getting bigger and bigger. Jesus’ ideals are about the utopia of human behavior, about how we should treat each other, how we should step into the shoes of our enemy.”

Verhoeven’s take on Jesus isn’t likely to pacify more conservative Christians who are already gearing up for a fight.

"Hollywood isn't anti-Christian, we are constantly told. Yet the evidence keeps piling up that it is precisely that way," Dan Gainor of the Culture and Media Institute told RadarOnline.

Catholic League President Bill Donohue called Verhoeven's claim about Mary "laughable," on Fox News' website when the book came out in 2008. "Here we go again with idle speculation grounded in absolutely nothing," Donohue said. "He has no empirical evidence to support his claim (about Mary), which is why they say 'may have.'"

It seems unlikely that Christian protests will be able to prevent Verhoeven from making the film -- he recently obtained funding -- and the controversy may offer the film the kind of free publicity that helped Martin Scorsese's "The Last Temptation of Christ," and Monty Python’s "The Life Of Brian."

Loading Slideshow

• Priest (1994)

  "<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110889/" target="_hplink">Priest</a>," a depiction of <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/Priest-Faces-Fire-and-Brimstone-Catholics-3038800.php" target="_hplink">homosexuality in the priesthood</a>, drew the <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1995-03-25/news/mn-46939_1_general-release" target="_hplink">ire of the Catholic League</a> when it was released in 1994.

• Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979)

  Monty Python's "Life of Brian" was so contentious when it was released -- <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/8833320/The-Life-of-Brian-When-Monty-Python-took-on-God.html" target="_hplink">it angered Catholics, Jews and others</a> -- that <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-13856561" target="_hplink">the BBC made a comedic film for TV about the controversy</a>, "<a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2046493/Monty-Pythons-Life-Of-Brian-caused-uproar-release-BBC-drama-reveals.html" target="_hplink">Holy Flying Circus</a>."

• The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)

  Based on a 1955 novel that was banned by the Catholic Church (and whose author was excommunicated by the Greek Orthodox Church), Martin Scorsese's "The Last Temptation of Christ" was <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/cultureshock/flashpoints/theater/lasttemptation.html" target="_hplink">called blasphemous by Christian groups</a> before it was even released. Thousands of theaters later refused to screen the film. Still, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1988/08/13/movies/the-last-temptation-of-christ-opens-to-protests-but-good-sales.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm" target="_hplink">people lined up to see it</a>.

• The Golden Compass (2007)

  "The Golden Compass," the first in a trilogy of fantasy films, was <a href="http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1573421/golden-compass-angering-christian-groups.jhtml" target="_hplink">decried by the Catholic League</a> as "selling atheism to kids" and denounced by Focus on the Family for encouraging people to reject God. The protests may have <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/christian-protests-may-leave-philip-pullmans-trilogy-as-one-of-a-kind-870833.html" target="_hplink">prevented the rest of the trilogy from ever being made</a>.

Related on HuffPost:

Comments

[321soulfree]

10:24 PM on 05/08/2013

I have followed a meandering spiritual path for many years (I am 62) and for the last ten years have been very peaceful and happy, but with a knowing that the real truth seemed to be a very elusive commodity in this distorted world.... recently, I became intrigued by a source of information that looks like newly resurrected wisdom the likes I have not seen before.
It demystifies and explains so much. here's an excerpt re the lost years of Jesus:

"Upon receiving memories and wisdom from his ancestor Enoch, (the First Lion of Judah), that were recorded in the Teraphim, Jesus traveled to India, China and Tibet, as described in the 1st recording from the autobiography that was actually written by the True Jesus and kept secret for 2,000 years.

In the first recording, people hear about the so called “Lost Years of Jesus”, and learn why all of his years as a youth were deliberately omitted from the Roman Empire’s New Testament, (from which have been written all Catholic and Protestant Christian Bibles)."

It explains away so much confusion..................thetruejesus.org

.............................................thetruejesus.org

[massageps]

01:18 AM on 11/28/2012

Once Saved. ALWAYS saved.

[cobelli]

05:30 PM on 11/27/2012

Isn't there some Talmudic text that Jesus was the son of Mary and Panthera, a Roman soldier? The text is confused, and seems to conflate the unknown woman who anointed Jesus with Mary Magdalene and midrash about her being a prostitute.

[PsychicHazard]

05:39 AM on 11/24/2012

Oh for... The basic theology is a -thirteen year old girl- was -told- by god she'd bear his son. Told, not given a choice. So, leaving aside her age (different times) that's -still- rape as she wasn't given a choice.

Hell, it's Bestiality, from another angle. God is as far above us, as we are above animals. In this scenario, Mary is the beast.

Deal with it, if you think she got it bad, read up on Egyptian mythology, as well as Greek. Remember, Faith and Religion -aren't- nice, but present a certain world view. From the outside...

Well, that's pretty much how the story seems.

[mooneflowers]

10:42 PM on 11/26/2012

According to the Bible, theology, and tradition, she was not told, she was given a choice.
I'm not getting the bestiality angle ... rather, I get how you theorize it, but I think it's skewed reasoning.
As far as dealing with it, I'm fine with tradition, theology, and the Bible. It doesn't intimidate or scare me, so I have no reason to get my panties in a knot about it. But, to each his own ... we also all have free will (as did Mary when she chose to bear the son of God.)

[PsychicHazard]

07:53 AM on 11/27/2012

She said "Be it as you say." This is -after- an -angel- appears to a -thirteen year old-. And -tells- her that god has chosen her for this task. I'm not sure how familiar you are with the old testament, but typically, once god chose you, you had two choices, say "Yes sir." or, say "No sir" and then be tortured tormented and otherwise driven to say "Yes sir."

She was also, and I can't stress this -enough- a woman of the time. When God said, I have plans, you didn't get to object.

[hewhowaits]

12:09 PM on 11/21/2012

Disgusting...

[oldmole1861]

08:57 AM on 11/21/2012

The great question is that if the Romans felt so threatened by this Jesus, why did they execute him only, and none of his followers? It seems more likely that he was just a lone rustic who wandered from the Galilee to Jerusalem every year telling of the end times and when he was mock-saluted that fateful year as "King of the Jews" on what Christians call Palm Sunday he attracted the vicious attention of the humorless Roman overlords. You'll recall that what later became Christianity was founded on the vision of a seriously neurotic "Saint" Paul a generation after this unhappy event took place, and he wrote decades before the Gospels were composed.

[Theoray]

07:21 PM on 10/20/2012

Another fairy tale added to the compendium

[Lori Bische]

06:35 PM on 08/23/2012

"An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign ..." Matthew 16:4. I don't need Jesus to perform miracles to love him or be real.

[egdirb5951]

07:50 PM on 07/12/2012

Conservative Christians have every right--excuse me, need--to feel defensive about their belief[s].

[mfrunyan]

12:52 PM on 07/11/2012

This will probably be the film about Jesus that hits closest to what really happened. Once you scrape away all the supernatural nonsense, you get to a truly remarkable man with insights still valuable for today's world.

[stevendeedon2]

09:19 PM on 07/10/2012

Any implication by Verhoeven that he is a trained biblical scholar, or assertion that his book or film represents the widely held conclusions of Historical Jesus scholars, is dishonest, to put it bluntly. l When Paul Verhoeven showed his take on Jesus to members of the Jesus Seminar, he was told that his ideas were the exact opposite of theirs. A scan of Verhoeven's book indicates that he is unfamiliar with nearly all of the professional journal literature in Historical Jesus studies, and upwards of 80% of the the major books. His book dismisses the views of professional biblical scholars with barstool arguments devoid of any methodology. The late Raymond Brown ("The Birth of the Messiah") and other renowned scholars I have studied with, who have been involved with the Jesus Seminar, refute the rape story, which is derived from 3rd Century Jewish vitriol. And Verhoeven's assertions that Jesus was a violent revolutionary, and that the Temple incident occurred early in his career, much of it later spend on the run from angry priests, is shere fantasy with no evidence.

[egdirb5951]

08:04 PM on 07/12/2012

But won't you well-educated Jesus Scholars make more of an effort to get all the other "shere fantasy with no evidence" out into the mainstream were simple folks like us can understand the "bu**sh**" that has been shoved down our throats for years and years. Demythologize or go out of existence--as it is happening now!

[suebeedue]

08:35 AM on 07/08/2012

This movie will appeal to many because if reinforces their lean towards discounting the Jesus of the Bible. For some that means abandoning belief in Jesus, for others it means reinventing him with the intent of lessening who he is. Verhoeven admits that "if you look at the man, it is clear you have a person who was completely innovative in the field of ethics." And that is very true. No one before or since has spoken to the heart of the meek as do the teachings of Jesus. He offers hope to mankind and compassion beyond the ordinary. He is the ultimate role model for all who want to understand who God truly is, because no one in the history of the universe or the angels knows God more intimately than the only-begotten Son of God. He was the first born of all creation and all creation was for him and through him. And as the prophecy at Proverbs 8: 22- 31 about Christ (wisdom personified) brings out- he was there with his Father from the beginning of creation (in fact the first born of all creation- , as a very appreciative "master worker" and the of all the things the pre-human Jesus was fond of, was the sons of mankind.

[Smarty pants747]

12:55 PM on 07/08/2012

The bible isn't evidence that god exists.

[suebeedue]

06:37 PM on 07/08/2012

And I believe that it is, but thanks for getting off point.

[Brady McElligott]

07:29 PM on 07/09/2012

Your lack of proper traditional capitalization (rules for which can be found in any book of professional writing rules) does not disprove your education, either.

[blizzard man robot voice]

03:38 AM on 07/08/2012

I love all of the caring, open, and accepting comments from all of the atheists here. I also enjoy that none of them are proselytizing their views when no one is asking for them. The lack of negative and hateful comments make all people feel welcome to this website. I'm very glad that you aren't disrespecting a religion that has and will be around much longer than you.

[Circa Hatertarian]

11:05 AM on 07/06/2012

Yeah, they're all pissed about that but they have nothing to say about his first book?

The Holy Bible?

More like The Holy Rape, on account of all the rape that was in it. I guess they were going for one of those artsy names that has nothing to do with the actual book, like "Fifty Shades of Grey".

[Debra Martinez]

12:13 PM on 07/05/2012

These Blogs are making me sick. I just can't see why this blog is still Up. Is this how you all believe? By looking and chatting? Oh Father , Just one more day and cut me off of this. Its making me sick and my time is precious.

Well, there is no "Good Luck " to you all. Its been nice is meeting everyone and Its time me to cut myself off from You all..

I will pray that all comes to the accurate knowlege of the Father the giver of my life and your's. The is no truth with some of you all here. Its cofusing enough and my head hurts everytime i see a negitive comment. Eveyone claims to be something and yet have no has fact's or PROOF . I have my proof and my staff witness things so I must go and stop plying witht the spirit of truth that feeds me his light of the world . Peace be with your Debra!!!

[1jdgriff]

12:40 PM on 07/07/2012

Debra, I respect what you are saying, but wouldn't your life be simpler if you did not read the "blogs" you mention. Let it go. Understand the world is made up of many different beliefs, and the best thing you can do is to enjoy the beauty of nature around you.

[Debra Martinez]

12:59 PM on 07/07/2012

Well you are right I will keep enjoying the beauty of what around me.. But Jesus set a model for us to go help and teach truth and  all i want to do is his will. Its like if someeone falls in a lake and is drowning are you going to turn the check? No... I will give all my heart to helps someone and if it  does than" Thank  God" and if it doesn't at least I can say i tried..Thank you for you wonderful comment. I will always treasure it..