![\"killingjesus-carryingcross\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/227\/2015\/03\/killingjesus-carryingcross.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nA few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of attending the world premiere of Killing Jesus<\/a><\/i> at the Sun Valley Film Festival and speaking to Haaz Sleiman, the actor who plays Jesus. We had met before when I visited the set<\/a> last year, but back then he still had certain crucial scenes to film, including the crucifixion, whereas when I spoke to him in Sun Valley, he and I had both just seen the completed film for the first time.<\/p>\n An edited version of our interview is now up at Christianity Today<\/a><\/i>. An excerpt:<\/p>\n During the Q&A, you talked about how, when you got the role, you talked to your mother about it. What were her words again?<\/b><\/p>\n \u201cBless you, my son, for playing our prophet, peace be upon him.\u201d<\/p>\n Right. I thought that was interesting, because we\u2019ve heard plenty of talk about how you can\u2019t depict the prophets [in some Islamic traditions], and I know that in Egypt there\u2019s been controversies over films about Joseph and so forth<\/a>, and it was interesting to hear that your mother encouraged you like that.<\/b><\/p>\n Well, in Islam, Jesus is a prophet, and if you look at Mohammed and Jesus and Moses, it\u2019s not like Moses is better than Jesus and Jesus is better than Mohammed. They\u2019re all so highly respected and honored and followed and they\u2019re all there for a reason. Jesus is probably even more important than Mohammed in a way. He came before Mohammed, and I think he\u2019s mentioned in the Koran so many times, people would be shocked.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve heard that there\u2019s an entire chapter on Mary.<\/b><\/p>\n Oh absolutely! Absolutely. So it\u2019s an honor for me, as someone who was raised Muslim, to play him. It\u2019s beyond an honor. Now, I know that in Islam, they sometimes say you cannot put a face on Mohammed, and equally they say you cannot put a face on Jesus. I think they came to celebrate humanity and show us how beautiful we are. So yes, absolutely, for me, it is in no way degrading to them<\/i>, because that\u2019s what they came for\u2014for us. Why else would God send them to us, if that\u2019s your belief? So if we feel like it\u2019s degrading to be human, that is exactly the problem that we\u2019ve been dealing with all our lives, for all the centuries: that we think being human is degrading and unworthy. That is why there\u2019s so much pain and suffering, because we believe that.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Sleiman and I had a good chat about the relationship between humanity and divinity \u2014 much of which didn\u2019t end up in the posted interview because it really had nothing to do with the film, and I had a word limit besides \u2014 but here\u2019s an excerpt from that<\/i>:<\/p>\n This would actually dovetail very well with something I\u2019ve been saying over the years, which is that the problem is\u2013 I think there are<\/i> films that try to make Jesus human and they go too far, partly because they associate humanity with weakness, and I think the trick is to recognize\u2013 In Christian theology, we would say that Jesus is fully divine and fully human, and fully human would include, I think, part of what you were getting at.<\/b><\/p>\n Right. Absolutely. Because God created us. If I\u2019m going to sit here and tell you, \u201cI trust God,\u201d but I don\u2019t trust myself, then I don\u2019t trust God. God created me. He created me! He didn\u2019t create your brains and your heart and your lungs and your intelligence and your divinity within you and the wisdom and the knowingness that you have from birth. We didn\u2019t create that \u2014 we didn\u2019t give that to ourselves \u2014 God did, if you believe in God, or a source. So then, if you spend your time thinking, \u201cI don\u2019t trust myself but I trust God,\u201d no no no, you don\u2019t trust God, God created you. When you trust yourself, then you trust God.<\/p>\n Okay. That goes a little further than I would, but I understand what you\u2019re getting at.<\/b><\/p>\n If you created yourself, then I would understand, okay, yes, yes, you know, but we didn\u2019t. I didn\u2019t give birth to myself. My mother gave birth to me because of whatever source that created her to do that, and then likewise and going back and back and back in time. But what I\u2019m getting at is that it is that oneness of it, the connectedness of the fact that we came from God, he created us. So to trust God, that means to trust in ourselves, to trust our knowingness. And it\u2019s about not judging all of it. Because the minute that you succumb to fear and anxiety and worry, it means you embrace all of it, but when you do embrace all of it and you don\u2019t judge it, you don\u2019t succumb to it. The closest you\u2019ll get to God, ever, in your existence, is measured by how close you get to yourself. Because your connection with God is you. He created you. That is the ultimate connection you have with God, is you. We can agree to disagree, but that\u2019s like the air that I breathe.<\/p>\n For what it\u2019s worth, I would put it the other way around. I would say that\u2013<\/b><\/p>\n When you go out and look at nature, do you see God in nature? Do you see God in the trees?<\/p>\n Absolutely.<\/b><\/p>\n So why do you take yourself out of the equation?<\/p>\n I don\u2019t. I\u2019m just saying that the closer we get to God, the closer we get to our true selves, which is the reverse way.<\/b><\/p>\n Ah! I think the other way around, because he created us.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n So, I might quibble with Sleiman over whether we get closer to God by getting closer to ourselves or vice versa, but I wholeheartedly agree with him that Jesus came to show us what full humanity<\/i> was like, and that cinematic portrayals of Jesus need to suggest this full<\/i> humanity instead of looking for flaws<\/i> that they can dwell on.<\/p>\n (When I was growing up, I used to puzzle over the way people said Jesus was fully human except<\/i> he was without sin. Then one day I realized that Jesus was fully human because<\/i> he was without sin, and that it is the rest of us<\/i> who are not fully human \u2014 but by looking to Christ and following him, we can become<\/i> fully human.)<\/p>\n (And just to complicate things even more, the line between \u201cfull humanity\u201d and \u201cdivinity\u201d of some sort isn\u2019t all that<\/i> sharp in Christian theology. Numerous saints<\/a> have said that \u201cGod became man so that we might become God,\u201d or \u201cgod,\u201d etc.)<\/p>\n As for the film itself, I don\u2019t have a review written yet.<\/p>\n For one thing, I\u2019ve been too busy getting other articles written, such as this one<\/a> for The Federalist<\/i>, which uses the release of Killing Jesus<\/i> \u2014 and Sleiman\u2019s role within it \u2014 as a hook for looking at films that have moved away from the \u201cwhite Jesus\u201d stereotype, both here in the English-speaking west and within the Middle East. (And if anyone has more info about that Egyptian movie from the 1930s, please let me know!)<\/p>\n I also feel that I would have to see the film a second time to do it justice, and I just haven\u2019t had the time to do that yet.<\/p>\n But in a nutshell, I would say that I find the film a mixed bag. It\u2019s full of details \u2014 like the expanded role for Joanna<\/a> \u2014 that show the filmmakers did their homework. But the very fact that these filmmakers did their homework just makes it all the more puzzling when they change certain details for no apparent reason, like having Jesus crucified to the left<\/i> of the two thieves rather than between<\/i> them<\/a>, or having Judas use his 30 pieces of silver to buy a rope with which to hang himself, instead of returning that money to the priests a la<\/i> Matthew 27<\/a> or buying a field with it a la<\/i> Acts 1<\/a>.<\/p>\n Similarly, I really, really like the fact that this may be the only film I\u2019ve ever seen that includes both<\/i> of the miraculous catches of fish: the one from the start of Jesus\u2019 ministry in Luke 5<\/a> and the one from after his resurrection in John 21<\/a>. It makes perfect dramatic sense to imagine that the second miraculous catch was a call-back to the earlier one, even if none of the gospels treat it that way. But the film hedges its bets on the miracles as a whole, and that creates a strange dissonance in this scene.<\/p>\n For one thing, there is no resurrected Jesus standing by the shore; instead, there is only Peter\u2019s assumption that the spirit<\/i> of Jesus, or some such thing, has given him this new catch of fish. For another, the film has gone out of its way to show only those miracles that can be written off as coincidence and the like. So is Peter\u2019s renewed faith something to celebrate, as the choice of music and camera angles seem to indicate? Or is the viewer supposed to think that he may be mistaken, even deluded?<\/p>\n I understand why the filmmakers took the approach that they did. I also recognize that the film\u2019s vagueness on everything to do with the supernatural can be traced back to the original book by Bill O\u2019Reilly and Martin Dugard, which as I recall keeps the miracles almost entirely offstage, effectively reducing them to rumours and hearsay.* But this approach poses big dramatic and historical problems.<\/p>\n Dramatic, because unlike a history book that can look at people from the outside and tell us what they told each other, a film needs to draw us into<\/i> the characters by letting us experience what they experience. Instead, we get sequences like the one where Jesus tells John the Baptist he\u2019s going to the desert, and then we see him come back, but we have no idea what happened in between<\/i>. Did he have an encounter with Satan? Did he \u201chear voices\u201d like John did? How did his time in the desert affect his awareness of who he was and what he believed God wanted him to do?<\/p>\n And historical, because you simply can\u2019t make sense of the New Testament if you don\u2019t take into account the fact that the earliest Christians claimed that they had seen<\/i> the resurrected Jesus. Either the Resurrection appearances happened or they didn\u2019t \u2014 and how you answer that will have huge implications for how you see the early Church \u2014 but this film tries to chart a third course that doesn\u2019t commit to either option.<\/p>\n In any case, I don\u2019t want that to be my last word on this film.<\/p>\n One of the things I like about Killing Jesus<\/i> is the way it focuses on Jesus\u2019 relationship with his family. We see Joseph talk to a stranger about how he is raising his son. Mary\u2019s cousin Elizabeth gets to meet Jesus, and not just Mary as she usually does in these films. A girl hugs Jesus when he visits his family, and it is possible that she is one of the \u201csisters<\/a>\u201d mentioned in the gospels who have never, to my knowledge, been depicted on film before. And then there is the film\u2019s focus on Jesus\u2019 brother James, who does not believe in Jesus (as, indeed, John 7<\/a> says he didn\u2019t).<\/p>\n My only complaint is that the film puts James at the scene of the crucifixion, and that this, combined with the film\u2019s implication that James is also a son of Mary\u2019s, gets in the way of Jesus telling John to look after Mary the way he does in John 19<\/a>.<\/p>\n However, given that Luke 24<\/a> does identify the people who discovered the empty tomb as \u201cMary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James<\/b>, and the others with them\u201d, it\u2019s kind of amusing to see that the film shows Mary Magdalene, Joanna and Mary the mother of Jesus<\/i> finding the empty tomb with James<\/i>, who may or may not be her son in this film. It\u2019s a strangely literal yet not literal take on that passage.<\/p>\n And that, once again, just underscores the point I made earlier about the filmmakers doing their homework and<\/i> making puzzling, gratuitous changes to the story.<\/p>\n But there I go, sounding critical again. So let me just end with this:<\/p>\n I really like some of the physical and cultural details in this film, from the blood that drips from the nails in Jesus\u2019 wrists to the dead lamb carcass that Judas slings over his shoulder after he\u2019s paid for the Passover meal, and I really like Haaz Sleiman\u2019s performance as Jesus. Consider his first scene with Peter: He doesn\u2019t just borrow Peter\u2019s boat, he gets his tools and works on it for a while, and he seems like a reasonably muscular kind of guy. And then he gets into the boat with Peter and prays for a catch of fish \u2014 and this is just one of several scenes in which he prays.<\/p>\n This is a Jesus who is fully engaged both physically and spiritually, and as such Sleiman is a worthy addition to the pantheon, as it were, of actors who have put their own unique spin on the Word of God made flesh.<\/p>\n \u2013 \u2013 \u2013<\/span><\/p>\n * The book, incidentally, is sloppy. Like, really, really sloppy.<\/span><\/p>\n Sample quote: \u201cThe northern portion of this kingdom [Israel] fell in 722 B.C. to the Philistines\u2026\u201d Uh, no, it fell to the Assyrians, who lived to the east of Israel, not to the west a la<\/i> the Philistines.<\/span><\/p>\n Another quote: \u201cTwenty-six generations separate [Joseph\u2019s father] Jacob from Abraham, and at least fourteen separate him from David.\u201d This appears to be a garbled version of Matthew 1<\/a>, which says there were 14 generations from Abraham to David, 14 from David to the exile, and 14 from the exile to Joseph. The book apparently squishes the last two groups into a single group of 14. But it gets worse: as anyone who knows the Old Testament could tell you, Matthew himself<\/i> skips over some names (there were actually 18<\/i> generations<\/a> between David and the exile). So this is sloppy and<\/i> an uncritical reading of the text.<\/span><\/p>\n Another quote: \u201cMatthew\u2019s Gospel and the first book of Acts attributes Judas Iscariot\u2019s death to suicide.\u201d That\u2019s sloppy grammatically and<\/i> scripturally. There is only one book of Acts, and it does not say Judas committed suicide. When I was growing up, the fact that Matthew and Acts gave seemingly contradictory accounts of Judas\u2019s death was one of those things you discussed in Sunday School. So this is pretty basic stuff. It\u2019s kind of shocking that neither the authors nor their editors<\/i> caught this.<\/span><\/p>\n Another quote: \u201cAfter his body was found missing, the Gospels state that Jesus appeared twelve times on earth over a forty-day period. These apparitions range from a single individual to groups of more than five hundred on a mountain in Galilee.\u201d There\u2019s an awful lot of conflating going on there. For one thing, the \u201cforty-day period\u201d comes from Acts<\/a>, not the gospels. The appearance to a group of 500 comes from one of Paul\u2019s letters to the Corinthians<\/a>, not the gospels (and he never says where<\/i> it happened). Etc.<\/span><\/p>\n I could go on, but you get the idea. None of this, however, should reflect on the film. The film is a dramatic work, and does not purport to be history in the sense that the book does. Different standards apply.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2013 \u2013 \u2013<\/span><\/p>\n Update:<\/b> I have substantially rewritten my \u201cnon-review\u201d to clarify a few points.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The star of tonight’s National Geographic special and I discuss the relationship between humanity and divinity, and I offer a few quick thoughts about the film itself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1116,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1650,4,3532],"tags":[888,1529,2544,510,345,2852,429,887,2885,556,435],"class_list":["post-29414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible-movies","category-blog","category-interviews","tag-bill-oreilly","tag-elizabeth","tag-haaz-sleiman","tag-james-the-just","tag-jesus","tag-joanna","tag-judas-iscariot","tag-killing-jesus","tag-martin-dugard","tag-mary","tag-peter"],"yoast_head":"\n