More Movies About Jesus Based on Any Source Except the Best One

Last updated on: March 4, 2013 at 3:23 pm by Jeffrey Overstreet

More Movies About Jesus Based on Any Source Except the Best One 2013-03-04T15:23:48-07:00 Jeffrey Overstreet

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Oh joy.

Hollywood is to fill in the Bible’s “missing years” with a story about Jesus as a wandering mystic who travelled across India, living in Buddhist monasteries and speaking out against the iniquities of the country’s caste system.

Film producers have delved deep into revisionist scholarship to piece together what they say was Jesus’s life between the ages of 13 and 30, a period untouched by the recognised gospels.

The result is the Aquarian Gospel, a $20m movie, which portrays Jesus as a holy man and teacher inspired by a myriad of eastern religions in India. The Aquarian Gospel takes its name from a century-old book that examined Christianity’s eastern roots and is in its 53rd reprint.

Of course, if Hollywood decided to make a $20m action film about “the lost years” of Mohammed, I suspect there would be bombings and slayings somewhere in the world as a result. At the same time, the American media would be noisy with declarations that such a project was a show of “intolerance” and disrespect to Muslims. But this is Christianity, so… hey, let’s celebrate yet another fiction that’s bound to offend the believers! And if Christians dare furrow their brows, they’ll be described as enemies of freedom of speech.

If that isn’t depressing enough:

The producers say they are hoping for commercial and spiritual gains. “We think that Indian religions and Buddhism, especially with the idea of meditation, played a big part in Christ’s thinking. In the film we are looking beyond the canonised gospels to the ‘lost’ gospels,” said William Sees Keenan, the producer, who is currently making Lindsay Lohan’s Poor Things.

“We are looking at new themes. In our story Jesus was loyal to the untouchables [in India] and he defended them with his life by saying that everyone could read the Vedas [Hindu holy books],” said Mr Keenan, a “lapsed Catholic”.

Um, actually, the four gospels that the church does embrace make it¬†pretty clear that Jesus knew the value of meditation. You don’t have to dig¬†into sources of dubious integrity to find that.¬†

And the producer’s words fail to show me how this film will¬†”look at new themes.” It sounds like the story affirms what we already know about Christ’s compassion, and that it also brings back tired speculation and previously debunked theories.

But apparently it’s more exciting if we get our information about Jesus from sources other than those books canonized in the tradition of Christian faith by those who were most concerned with preserving the truth about Christ and debunking untrustworthy sources.

“Thanks,” of a sort, to Peter Chattaway this head-shaker.

And thanks to Michael Leary for pointing out this equally exciting development:

A German filmmaker is planning a fictional film on twin brother of Jesus Christ which will take shape once he gets a Indian co-producer for the film that would be shot in Indian background.

Germany production company fieber.film is working on a decade old project which was abandoned after death of a producer in an accident.

Robert Sigl’s “The 13th disciple”, a fiction based on a story about Jesus’s twin evil brother and their re-incarnation in the current age, is participating in the international film festival of India (IFFI) scouting for Indian co-producers.

“Film is about two archeologists touring India to research about Jesus lifespan in India. The story reveals about Jesus’ evil twin brother who used to practice some different sect,” fieber.film’s producer Mario Stefan stated narrating the story at film bazaar of International film festival of India organized by national films division corporation (NFDC).

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