Man from Earth

Although dramatic tension is a crucial element of a narrative, the main point is not necessarily in the resolution of the tension. Dramatic tension may be used as a means by retaining viewer-interest through a film whose main points are made along the way. Such points can transcend plot and be even more important than the resolution of the narrative. Man from Earth (2007) is a case in point.

In the film, John, an anthropology professor, has just resigned from his teaching position. The entire film takes place during the send-off party at his house just before he is to move away. As the discussion ensues, John admits to his university guests that he is actually a 14,000 year-old caveman. Because he looks about 35 or 40, he explains that once he reached a certain age, he stopped aging due to a biological abnormality (i.e., a genetic mutation). That his anthropological and biological lenses cover even religious matters makes his religious interpretations interesting and even useful to the viewer. I am assuming here that coming in contact with a different perspective can enrich a person’s understanding of a phenomenon. It is in this sense that the film provides valuable information to the viewer and is entertaining even beyond viewing the film. Indeed, a method for interpreting the faith narratives of Christianity, and religion in general, can be extracted and applied outside of the film.

John’s distinctive religious method for interpretation (i.e., hermeneutic), rather than how the narrative’s tension is resolved is the key element of the film. The denouement of the plot hinges on whether John really is who he claims to be in the film’s story world. As he ratchets up his successive claims, the dramatic tension increases. This keeps the viewer engaged, but this does not mean that this narrative device, or such tactics in general, is the film’s main point. Because the viewer knows the story world is fictional, whether or not John is who he claims to be in it is of minor importance, whereas whether his method for interpreting Jesus is relevant beyond the film itself and thus its story world.

Indeed, measures intended to keep the viewer’s attention through a film beg the question: why should the viewer pay attention? The answer surely cannot be: in order to encounter the measures. To be sure, the means of something can also be the end. Kant wrote that rational beings should be treated not just as means, but also as ends in themselves. It is thus admittedly possible that a narrative’s self-sustaining devices can contain the main point of the narrative; but it is also possible that a film’s main point is not the plot. Even mystery films can use the “who done it” question as a means to hold the viewer’s attention so another, more important, point can be delivered.

In Murder on the Orient Express (pick your version), for example, the question of who commits the murder on the train sustains the viewer’s attention so the previous narrative of the Lindbergh baby’s kidnapping can be told. The solution to the murder only makes sense on the basis of that narrative of the earlier event. In other words, the narrative of the train depends on the more fundamental narrative. The question of whether the murder on the train is just or unjust depends on the baby’s kidnapping and murder having been unjust.

In Man from Earth, John claims to have studied under the Buddha. Five-hundred years later, he taught Buddhism in the Near East context. The dramatic tension regarding whether John’s claims are true (in the story world) become particularly intense when he says that he is known to the world in that teaching capacity as Jesus. Boom! John instantly encounters an angry reaction from Edith, who is a devout Christian. At this point, the viewer might be tempted to eclipse the film’s narrative as well as the hermeneutical method being presented by thinking about whether the historical Jesus could have really been a man who taught Buddhism. A reader of the Bible similarly eclipses the biblical narrative by going beyond the faith narrative to ask what the historical Jesus did. Moreover, the historical critical method in the nineteenth century, such as by David Strauss, took the point off the biblical narrative, which holds its own kind of religious truth and meaning.

Staying within the story world of The Man from Earth, the viewer can concentrate on John’s account itself. After watching the movie, such a viewer could then apply the account as a method for interpreting the New Testament. Eclipsing the film’s narrative in which John’s account is given is thus counter-productive. Even focusing on whether John’s claims are accurate in the narrative can take a viewer way from the task of ingesting the substance of John’s account. That is, the astute viewer focuses on John’s description of what he did and taught as Jesus rather than on what Jesus taught and did historically and in the faith narratives, both of which reside outside of the film’s story world. It is to this description that I now turn.

John claims that when he was known as Jesus, he did not perform miracles; rather, he healed using natural remedies from South Asia. I am resisting the temptation here to think about whether natural remedies could have, historically speaking, brought Lazarus back to life. Such a question eclipses not only the film narrative, but also the biblical narrative. Instead, I am returning to John’s account just as a viewer of the film should do.

John claims that he was not resurrected; he was crucified, but the nails and crown were subsequently added as religious art. While on the Cross, he used Buddhist meditation to slow his body functions such that he would appear to be dead. Rather than being resurrected, he left the tomb to escape to Central Asia, where he was no longer known as Jesus.

It should come as no surprise that John denies being the Son of God. Even that label would not be uniquely applied to him if he were God incarnate born of a virgin. Hercules, the son of Zeus and a mortal woman who is a virgin in the Greek faith narrative, is the only begotten, a savior, the good shepherd, the prince of peace, and divinely wise. After he dies, he joins Zeus on Mount Olympus. Although I am tempted to consider how this information on Hercules reflects on my assumptions regarding the uniqueness of how Jesus is described in the Gospels, I am postponing going in this direction so I can stay with John’s claims in the film’s narrative. An uninterrupted account aids in the comprehension.

Philosophically, according to John, Christian teachings are “Buddhism with a Hebrew accent.” Kindness, tolerance, love, and brotherhood (as well as compassion), for example are highly valued by both the Buddha and Christ. The Kingdom of God is here in this world; the meaning is that goodness is right here, as wel live our lives, or at least it should be. In Buddhist terms, “I am what I am becoming.” This, John instructs, is “what the Buddha brought in” to what is commonly thought to be Christian. Goodness is possible in this life because original sin does not exist.

Lastly, there is no Creator; energy and matter have always been around. Here I am resisting the temptation to conflate cosmology with astronomy. This view also is consistent with Buddhist teachings, which a Christian might take as atheist precisely because a Creator is denied. Yet John insists that Jesus’ preaching not only is consistent with Buddhism, but also comes from that religion. Jesus of the Gospels is a Buddhist preacher who puts the teachings in a Hebrew context. He brings a “ruthless realism” to the Hebrews. In short, he is a Buddhist missionary.

Reacting to historical Christianity, John claims that it unwittingly incorporated idolatry in the veneration of “cookies and wine.” He laments, “That’s not what I had in mind.” Moreover, religions do wrong in purging the enjoyment of life as if this were sinful. Again, I’m tempted to stray by noticing that Nietzsche makes the same criticism of Christianity and especially its life-deprived priests, but I will stay the course just as the movie viewers should. John adds that anthropology has provided solid evidence for the contention that religions have castigated the enjoyment of life, whether by preferring a life to come or labeling enjoyment in this life as sinful. Augustine, for instance, insists that it is sinful to enjoy sexual intercourse even when the sole purpose is to reproduce. John is also critical of religion in its assumption that the simple path to virtue needs a supernatural justification, such as that the value of the virtues in the Sermon on the Mount depend on Jesus being the incarnate Son of God, crucified and resurrected.

Having completed my description of John’s claims without having gotten in the way, I can now reflect on the uneclipsed contents of John’s claims. The questions of whether they are valid in the film’s story world, which keeps the viewer engaged in the narrative, and have validity historically are not useful for analyzing the coherence of John’s claims as a hermeneutical method for interpreting Christianity’s faith narratives. That is, neither the film’s story nor historical events get us to the story-world of a faith narrative; so, John’s claims, if taken together as an interpretation (and method for further interpretation) of the Gospels, should be analyzed with respect to the faith narratives.

Some of John’s claims are also applicable to religion as a phenomenon (i.e., phenomenology of religion). For example, the salience of virtues in John’s perspective on Jesus’ preaching begs the question of whether John’s perspective is religious as distinct from ethical. Humanists can easily subscribe to virtue ethics while eschewing religion. Kierkegaard, a nineteenth-century European philosopher, makes the point that religious truth transcends ethics, and thus virtue. Ethically, Abraham almost murders his son Isaac. In religious terms, Abraham is willing to sacrifice his son. Abraham’s religious duty to obey a divine command is absurd to other people because they do not have access to the command so as to believe that it is valid. Even to Abraham, whose only offspring is Isaac, it is absurd that Yahweh would make such a command, given the deity’s promise that Abraham’s descendants will multiply. Kierkegaard’s main point is that the religious level is incomprehensible, and even absurd, from the vantage-point of the ethical level. Only the latter is universally accessible; anyone could say that ethically, Abraham would be guilty of murder, but only Abraham can say that Yahweh commanded the sacrifice. Religion and ethics are thus distinct. In the film, John may be seeking to impose the ethical level on what is typically taken to be the religious level.

On the other hand, ethics plays a salient role in Judaism and Christianity, given five of the Ten Commandments and the importance of compassion in Jesus’ preaching. Even in terms of entering the Kingdom of God, Jesus stresses the ethic of turning the other cheek and doing good even to one’s enemies. Such ethics are valid on the religious level because they have religious significance in reuniting our species with God. If an ethics-focus in Christianity does not need the supernatural trappings to succeed in people entering the kingdom, then such a focus could include humanists/atheists without compromising either the humanists’ beliefs or Jesus’ mission to preach on the mysteries of the Kingdom of God (including how to get in). Whether or not such trappings are necessary as matters of true belief, the ethics of turning the other cheek and helping one’s detractors have intrinsic value—assent to which being an alternative litmus test for whether a person is indeed a Christian. Yet such a litmus test could be criticized as ethical only, and thus not fit for use on the religious level; but what if a focus on the supernatural beliefs detracts Christians from ingesting and acting on the basis of Jesus’ ethic of universal benevolence? Such doctrinal Christians would be nominal Christians whereas authentic Christians (including anonymous Christians) could include humanists. In other words, the gulf between theists and humanists could be bridged while Jesus’ mission is closer to being accomplished. This is not to say that the religion would be reduced to ethics; were such the case generally, Abraham could only be an attempted murderer. The linchpin may be that by valuing and acting on Jesus’ ethic, a follower—even if a humanist—has a spiritual experience because the ethic is so far removed from the ways of the world and human nature. Such a person might have an “other-worldly” sense of being in a spiritual state without assenting to the supernatural belief that another world exists.

Nevertheless, Jesus’ ethic is  founded on the theological level. Universal benevolence, Augustine wrote, is based on theological love manifesting through human nature (i.e., caritas). For Jean Calvin, that love is self-emptying (i.e., agape) without the taint of a person’s self-interest. God is love, and that love is found in universal benevolence. A humanist can value selfless love without believing that God is self-emptying love. Helping detractors and enemies can be viewed as a particular kind of love, which is selfless. So here too, the theological level may be more open than is typically supposed. Whereas for Abraham opening up the religious level would mean that ethics trumps that level, here the theological buttresses the ethical because the two are in sync. Selfless love issues out in universal benevolence, especially when it is most difficult. Love transcends ethics yet it does not necessarily depend on supernatural trappings. This is a way of reconciling theism with humanism. This could be gained from analyzing John’s claims without bringing in the film’s story world or empirical history.

In conclusion, a viewer can better grasp the deep substance in a film’s narrative and even transcend that story ironically by not breaking the suspension of disbelief by going outside the story and its deep content that can later be extracted from the story and otherwise applied. That is, ethical, philosophical, and theological content can have value apart from the film narrative, as in analyzing how the ethical and religious levels relate for human beings. Therefore, film as a medium can deliver informational and even entertainment results beyond the particular film being viewed. Moreover, deep substance need not be a stranger to screenwriters and movie audiences. Substantial principles and lessons derived from films can be valued even apart from the vehicle (i.e., the films). From this wider perspective, film narrative itself is of subordinate value; as a means, narrative, including its dramatic tension, can succumb to its extractible content, which the viewer can hold on to even long after viewing a film. So too in religion, a narrative (i.e., myth) can be transcended with the aim of the particular religion ironically being more fully realized. Paradox may point to or reside in truth, but awareness of this point is not necessary for a person to instantiate truth.