The Jesus Papers; didn't Martin Scorsese already do this story?

[Atman]

In case you've not been following, an author is making the talking head circuit pushing his new book which asserts that Jesus did not in fact die on the cross, and actually went on to live another 14 years. The author further states that Mr. Christ was actually married to Mary Magdalen, and that Pontius Pilate was complicite in a "sham" crucifiction.

Mere lunacy to some, utter heresy to others, but the whole story seemed to have an curious ring of familiarity to me. Then it finally came to me...wasn't this basic story line already done in the film "Last Temptation of Christ?" I haven't seen the film in a while, but I do recall the scenes of Jesus and Mary moving to a nice little vineyard in the country, although I can't seem to remember the circumstances other than some vague hallucination sequences.

As an aside to this, I just have to add one observation I had after watching a segment on this subject, on one of last night's evening "newsiness" shows (Dateline, maybe?); a theologian scoffed at the entire thesis, of course. But what I found amusing was that he scoffed because he felt the whole notion of Jesus not dying on the cross and returning from the dead to be absurd. Really? To me, it seems the whole notion of a man claiming divine heritage dying on a cross, then rising from the dead, could certainly be considered a bit absurd, too. But hey, that's just me.

Anyway, I'm curious how many of you have seen this guy on teevee, and also seen "Last Temptation." If one guy can sue Dan Brown for pilfering ideas for The DaVinci Code, maybe Martin Scorsese has a case against "The Jesus Papers," too!


(edited for spelling)

[mmonk]

1. All this is many years old

and started when people started to leave the Catholic Church in Europe in the middle ages to form their own new Christianity. They took differences from the western and eastern churches as well as taking ideas from the Gnostics and their writings.

[Heidi]

2. I haven't seen the guy,

but I'm surprised Umberto Eco, author of "Foucault's Pendlum" (a much better and more complex book than "The DaVinci Code") hasn't sued the crap out of Dan Brown.

[magnolia]

7. Dan Brown may have stolen....

...this theory from many other sources, but he's the one who brought it out into the open. You've got to give him that.

Jefferson believed that Christianity was about the teaching of Jesus, not the divinity of Jesus.

***********

And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerve in the brain of Jupiter. But may we hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this most venerated reformer of human errors.

-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823

[Atman]

9. As Reza Aslan on Real Time pointed out...

"You know, we have this idea, somehow, that prophets invent religions, that Jesus invented Christianity, or that Muhammad invented Islam. Nothing could be further from the truth. What prophets do is they take the social and cultural and economic and political milieu in which they live, and they reshape it. They recast it. They don't talk about the future. They talk about the present. It's the prophet-followers who then take those words-take those deeds, and turn it into what we call a religion. And it's often the case that it has far more to do with their own ideas, their own biases, than it does with what the prophet said or did." – Reza Aslan

[magnolia]

11. Thanks for the quote.

Very powerful statement!

[Heidi]

12. Nope, sorry.

I wouldn't be so quick to let Dan Brown slide. "Foucault's Pendulum" was published in Italian in 1988, and in English by Harcourt Brace Javanovich in 1989. Eco, whose "The Name of the Rose" was for weeks at the top of US bestseller lists when it was published in 1983, was the time "Foucault's Pendulum" was published. In fact, Eco was a widely known and internationally respected author long before "The Da Vinci Code" was published in 2003.

It may be true, however, that Brown boiled those complex theories down to an accessible reading level for mainstream consumption. :shrug:

[magnolia]

13. In other words...

...he "dumbed" it down for the mainstream (who needs a president who talks to them with 5th grade vocabulary). And apparently that's what it took to get people talking about it...which, IMO, is a good thing.

[Heidi]

15. I agree that it's a good thing.

I don't disagree with about about that at all. But I've read both books, and it's obvious that Dan Brown borrowed a good deal from Umberto Eco without attribution. I'm just saying that I believe that's dishonest. That's all I'm saying.

[magnolia]

18. Well then...you and I are...

...in complete agreement. I would prefer to leave "the who and the what" to the courts and focus on the message.

I was raised in the Christian church which was the foundation of my life and liberal principles. It saddens me that it has become so distorted and hi-jacked by the right wing. The are literally taking it backwards. I don't expect this "new" information to shatter the myth of the divine Jesus, but if it puts a crack in it, then that's a start.

[Atman]

16. This has been done with the bible many times, too

I recall, especially in the seventies, a run of "bibles" written in plain english, chapter-ized more like a regular book, in attempts to get the word out to the rapidly dumbing-down populace. But as you say, if it educates more people, it can't be a bad thing. After all, who can really read Shakespeare without some Cliff's notes? Language changes, and it just makes sense to update thousands-years-old texts for contemporary readers. Those who prefer the originals always have access to them.

[htuttle]

3. No, in Scorsese's 'Last Temptation of Christ..."

... the 'Jesus and Mary home in the vineyard' scenes were all just visions that Jesus was being tempted with. The basic events of the movie weren't terribly different than in the New Testament.

[noonwitch]

17. "Last Temptation" is a novel Scorsese adapted for a movie

the original novel is by Nikos Kazanta-whatever, who wrote "Zorba The Greek". I have the book at home, because I had to read it in college. It predates "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" for what it's worth, but you are right that it plays more on the actual New Testament than on anything else, because in "Last Temptation", Jesus doesn't actually marry and have sex with Mary Magdelene, he is tempted to do so while on the cross as part of the ultimate temptation-to step down and live a normal, human life.

[jane_pippin]

4. This is the same guy who is suing Dan Brown.

"The Jesus Papers" is the new book by one of the guys, Michael Baigent, who wrote "Holy Blood, Holy Grail." (Which is the book they say Brown ripped off).

[MadHound]

10. The funny thing that I find in that lawsuit

Is that the authors, even until this day, say that Holy Blood, Holy Grail is a non-fiction book. The DaVinci Code is clearly a work of fiction, and as such, can legaly reference a non-fiction book as long as proper credit is given, as Brown amply did.

So now the authors are saying that he somehow plagarized a non-fiction book by telling a fictional story:crazy: Somehow I don't think that the authors of HBHG have a legal leg to stand on, and if the DaVinci Code hadn't been as good a seller as it is, they wouldn't be suing.

I caught the little NBC piece last night on the Jesus Papers, and it seems to me to be a rehash of HBHG, with the mysterious Jesus Papers thrown in. I would like to read the book, but my guess is that it is a slapdash piece of work thrown together in order to cash in on the DaVinci Code bruhaha:shrug:

[jane_pippin]

14. I don't think they're going to win. In one of the news snippets I heard,

and I really haven't been paying that much attention to this, the story said that this kind of suit is really hard to prove.

Good point about the fiction/non-fiction thing--I hadn't thought about it that way, but I think you're right. Maybe bookstores can make a new section and put these three Jesus books, J.T. LeRoy's stuff, and A Million Little Pieces in it. :D

[countryjake]

5. We had the exact same response...

Which is more fantastic...that a guy survived being crucified by his government and hid out for the rest of his life or that he was crucified, dead, and buried, descended into hell, on the third day he rose again, and sitteth on the right hand of god? Dateline is sometimes good for laughs like that.

I wasn't paying much attention to such a vacuous story, but wasn't the guy saying that the Vatican was holding those "Jesus Papers"; is he peddling a book on the subject?

All I can remember from the movie is the music, some of Peter Gabriel's best. But I think it was supposed to all be a dream, kind of like a person's past life is said to flash before their eyes...those supernatural creatures get to see what might have been, also, when in their death throes.

[JHB]

6. The difference is: In "Last Temptation"...

...he still died on the cross. All the stuff about bedding Magdalene, and marrying Lazarus's sisters, and living to be an old man was the devil's "last temptation".

You may recall the standard story (also seen in the movie), where before that last trip to Jerusalem Jesus goes into the desert and the devil tries to tempt him into forsaking his destiny -- with promises of riches, with promises of power, etc. Jesus, even in his mortal manifestation, isn't swayed by these. He will go to his destiny to suffer for the sins of all mankind.

But when Jesus is up on the cross, the devil tries again, with one last temptation, one that would really tempt Jesus: to take all that weight off his shoulders, and let him live a long, happy life as an ordinary man. That would mean turning the world and mankind over to the devil, so in the end he rejects it, but it was tempting.

I find it ironic that the groups that most emphasize Jesus's "suffering for YOUR sins" seemed to be first in line to excoriate the movie, when this is probably the only movie that emphasizes the mortal side of "Jesus as both God and man", and makes you feel he actually sacrificed something.

[Atman]

8. Thank you! I'll be renting it again

It's been years since I'd seen it, and forgot all that stuff. I just remembered thinking, "boy, this is gonna piss some people off!" But you're absolutely correct about those who excoriated the movie. Especially those who'd not seen it. What I do recall is that the public reaction to it was about as close to a Christian version of Allah cartoons that we've seen in a long time, just without the full-scale rioting.