Obsession

Brian De Palma’s film, Obsession (1976), harkens back to Hitchcock’s film, Vertigo (1958) primarily in that resemblances between a character-contrived myth, or story, and the closely related (though different in key respects) social reality in the film (i.e., what’s really going on in the film’s story-world) trigger perplexed reactions for the character being duped by other characters in the film. I thought she died, but there she is . . . or maybe that’s another woman who looks like her—so much so that I believe I can will the woman to be her. The human mind may be such that it convinces itself of even a supernatural explanation rather than admits to have been fooled by someone else’s cleverness. At the very least, doubt as to what is really going on can be stultifying. The human mind is all too willing obviate its uncertainty by either resorting to a supernatural explanation or making something so by force of will, as if believing something to be the case is sufficient to make it so.

The European philosopher, David Hume, wrote a text on the natural history of religion in which he suggests that we mere mortals have an innate tendency to add familiar ornaments onto divine simplicity; we innately anthropomorphize the wholly other so it looks human. Then we believe that our artifices are ontological, or real, and even divine. De Palma’s Obsession explicitly draws on religious iconography and even dream-like mysticism in conveying Michael’s vision of Sandra as Elizabeth brought back from the grave. Viewers may resist the religious cross-over because it is easier to accept that a distraught man believes someone is his deceased wife than that our minds are just as prone to lapses when we enter the domain of religion. This is not to suggest that religious meaning is thus invalid, or even that symbol, myth and ritual cannot be useful in enabling religious experience; rather, Obsession can, if we allow it to do so, gently show us what our minds may be up to in making metaphysical and ontological leaps in matters of religious faith. At the very least, the human mind ensconced in the religious domain regularly confounds belief with fact, whether epistemologically or ontologically. Similarly, we conflate two distinct literary genres: faith narrative and historical non-fiction as if the respective purposes were the same even to the respective writers themselves. We are much better at distinguishing films that are fictional from those that are based on a true story. Even a fictional film can hold a mirror up to human nature as it exists in us. I submit that the human mind is not as goof-proof as we think. Both in Vertigo and Obsession, the minds of the protagonists are definitely put under stress by observation of resemblances that don’t make sense yet are extremely inviting.

In Vertigo, Scottie thinks he recognizes Madeleine even though the contrived story is that she jumped to her death at a convent. In Obsession, Michael thinks Sandra, whom he sees priming for a painter in an Italian church, is his former wife, Elizabeth, whom the contrived story has as having died in a car more than a decade earlier. Whereas Madeleine really is Madeleine, Sandra is not Elizabeth, but is actually Michael’s (and Elizabeth’s) daughter, who is in on the scam that is being perpetrated by one of the kidnappers and Robert, Michael’s very patient real-estate partner.  Sometimes investments like swindling jobs can take over a decade before the returns come in.

In Obsession, it is not just the resemblance—though curiously not adjusting for the difference in ages—of Sandra and Elizabeth by which De Palma conveys isomorphic (i.e., of the same shape or form) resonances throughout the film The images shown at step-wise distances as the open credits are shown are of a church on a hill in Italy. Michael and Elizabeth first met there, and this is where Michael sees Sandra during a business trip with his business partner over a decade after Elizabeth died. The visual resonance of the church is found in the large memorial structure that Michael has erected in a park for his dead wife and daughter. That even as a real-estate developer he refuses to carve up that part is a testament to how dear that monument is to him. The church and the memorial edifice are also isomorphic with the top of the wedding cake in Michael’s dream of his wedding to Sandra, who, uncomfortably, it turns out, is really his daughter, Amy. That incest may have occurred by the time the couple return to America is left up to the audience, though that Michael has his arm around Sandra in a taxi connotes a certain physical intimacy, especially given the changed sexual mores in the 1970s. The ethics aside, any discomfort felt by viewers can be said to have its source in the obvious lapse in Michael’s will of wish-fulfillment as being sufficient, to him, to render the young Sandra as a replacement or even incarnation of Elizabeth as if from the grave. Willing it so does not make it so. Michael’s dull gaze at Sandra when she is on a painting riser in a church full of religious iconography not only shows the suspension of his rational mind, but also the implication that religious devotion is also susceptible to such a lapse.

One way in which myth touches us emotionally and even spiritually is in the resonances between symbols in myth and things in the world in which we live. The human brain makes use of such likenesses in dreams, such as the one that Michael has of his wedding to Sophie. Whether intentionally or not, De Palma converges myth with the dream in portraying Sandra as translucent and even other-worldly as if she were a goddess. Sandra is vicariously Elizabeth, who has come back from the grave to give her inattentive husband another chance. Michael believes this to be so even in his waking state, and his temporally elongated gaze at Sandra at several points in the film resembles how a person might look at a religious statue, such as that of the Virgin Mary, in adoration. Sandra gains goddess-like standing in the myth, which Michael accords as real empirically.  Therefore, myth can also touch our world in that a person thought to be real (in our world) has mythic resonances. In Christianity, both Jesus and Mary are typically believed to have existed historically and also in a distinctly religious state (i.e., heaven) while maintaining human form via the bodily resurrection of Jesus and the bodily assumption of Mary.  

I submit that the salience of Christianity in the film allows the viewers to grasp that the myth in the story-world, which Michael believes is real in his waking daily life, resembles distinctly religious myth as it is believed in as real by religionists. Of course, one big difference is that viewers find out what is really the case in the film, and this bursts the story’s credence, whereas religious people are not debriefed as to whether the characters of Jesus and the Virgin Mary in the Gospel stories are merely nominally real in the stories or actually existed historically. The debriefing in the film can be understood as giving the audience a psychic payoff in lieu of the one that never comes in religion.

Perhaps such a payoff in religion is not really what we want; after all, at the end of the Da Vinci Code (2006), Robert asks Sophie whether it is worth deflating the faith of Christians by revealing that Jesus was married and had at least one child—thus implying perhaps that Jesus was a man rather than a god-man. The religious meaning in Sophie’s spiritual, inherited qualities is not deflated, but the faith of many Christians who have not been debriefed on the relation between the myth and history could be expected to take a hit to the extent that the basis of their faith is the divinity of Jesus Christ rather than, say, compassion itself to people one doesn’t like (or don’t like the person).

If the reality is different than the myth, does the distinctly religious meaning in the latter necessarily or inherently collapse? Not so for Mary Magdalene in the film, Mary Magdalene (2018), who tries in vain to convince Peter in the last scene that the kingdom of God is within, and thus starts with the transformation of one’s own heart from compassion toward others, rather than with Jesus coming on clouds in the future to defeat the evil Romans and free Israel. Michael’s debriefing by Robert in Obsession is like wish-fulfillment writ large for an audience that is not accustomed to finding the meaning of a religious myth in the myth itself, rather than in other domains, such as history, astronomy, and even moral science.

Obsession is embellished with ornate religious settings and even meaning, especially with Sandra appearing like a goddess of sorts in Michael’s dream—his dead wife being de facto a goddess. As in the domain of religion, there are stories and there is the world in which we live out our daily lives. Resonances between the two give us pause, as we are not really sure what is going on—and what is really real of the two, or what the resemblances mean. Michael’s bubble is burst, but he comes out just fine in realizing that his daughter was still alive and that they have found each other in something more tangible, perhaps even more real, than the world of myth that Robert had foisted on Michael in order to swindle of him of his money. To be sure, the world of myth can come in handy, for surely there is some sense of reality that goes with the claim that Robert, once killed in his climatic fight with Michael, is in hell.  

The Devil’s Arithmetic

The Devil’s Arithmetic (1999) can be classified superficially as a coming-of-age film, for Hanna, the protagonist, starts out being immaturely contemptuous of her family’s ethnic and religious heritage and current practice. She tries to skip the Passover Seder at her grandparents’ house. That her aunt Eva had been a prisoner at a Nazi death camp makes no difference to Hanna—that is, until she is transported back as her aunt’s cousin (for whom Hanna was named) and experiences the camp herself. Whether she is really transported back in time (and if so, how?) or is merely dreaming is answered in the end but not so blatantly as would insult the viewers’ intelligence. Then again, it’s not every film that has allusions both to theology and The Wizard of Oz. The different ways in which that movie is incorporated and alluded to in this film are actually quite sophisticated in extending the viewers’ sense of synchronicity beyond the film’s narrative.

In the first scene, Hanna is getting a tattoo; it’s a flower; the tattoo she gets later is of something else altogether: a number at a Nazi death camp.  At the tattoo parlor, she derides Passover as “a cracker thing;” driving home, she turns the radio from a station immediately when a man starts to describe what Passover is. Been there; done that. She is so over it. At home, she asks her mother if she has to go to the Passover Seder at her grandparents’ house. Her mother replies, “We’re going because it’s important; it’s important because I say it’s important.” In other words, the ritual is important to Jews, and she is Hanna’s mother. Period. But not end of story.

Hanna does go with her parents, and once at her grandparents’ house, she asks her aunt Eva why she never talks about her experience at a death-camp. Her aunt explains that the experience at the death camp was so far from Hanna’s world that it would mean nothing to her. In other words, Hanna has no idea how good she has it, and how bad it can get—how astonishingly bad humans can treat each other out of hatred. This can be taken as the baseline for Hanna’s character arc (i.e., to measure how much she is to change).

During the Seder meal, Hanna’s grandfather says, “We would still be enslaved had God not brought us out of Egypt.” This is of course figurative; even if historical evidence were to be discovered of Moses (and that he was in Egypt), no Jews alive in the 20^th century were old enough to have lived in ancient Egypt. So it is not “they” literally who would still be enslaved. Aunt Eva’s lived-experience of being enslaved, however, is quite literal in the film’s story-world, and quite consistent with historical accounts by actual prisoners. It is important, I submit, to distinguish story from experience. This is not to deny that stories cannot have valid religious and ethical meaning; it is to say that the film goes beyond that.

During the Seder, Hanna doesn’t want to get up to open the front door to let Elijah in. Prodded to do it, she goes to the front door of the house, opens the door, looks outside, then slowly walks backwards before turning sidewise to walk down a hall that heads away from the dining room, where the people are. The hall becomes the dream, if it is a dream. After walking a bit, she is in another house. The camera doesn’t look back, so we don’t know if there is a portal that closes, or if she walked through a wall, or suddenly appears in the room. He aunt Eva is there as a teenager and is with her mother. Hanna inhabits Eva’s cousin, who also lives there, as her parents were taken away by the Nazis. Hanna is of course surprised when Eva tells her that she has been sick and that they are first cousins, and she has no idea that Eve is the same person as her aunt in New York. Hanna was named after Eve’s cousin and is said to have a similar appearance.

The two young women go to an outdoor wedding, and Eve’s mother joins them there before the Nazi SS shows up to take all of the Jews immediately to Auschwitz. “You don’t need to go home to get your things; all your needs will be provided,” the commander lies. At the camp, Eva and Hanna stay in the same bunkhouse for some time. To calm the fears of the young children, Hanna tells them stories at bedtime. Hanna tells part of the story of The Wizard of Oz, an American film released in 1939 whom Eva’s cousin could not possibly have seen; hence Eva thinks her cousin has a very active imagination in telling such a story. At one point, Hanna tells the kids that Dorothy said, “There’s no place like home.” Everyone in the room could relate. There’s no place like home. Aware of her distant “other life” in America, Hanna says out loud, “I used to think this is a dream; now, I’m not so sure.” Eva seems to question her cousin’s sanity at that point. This is an instance of excellent screenwriting, for the film not only loosely follows the framework of The Wizard of Oz in that the protagonist is transported to distant place in what might be a dream, but also has Hanna explicitly reference the earlier film in the dialogue!

Film has great potential in terms of multiple layers, or levels traversing both dialogue and a basic framework in that this gets the mind thinking beyond what the narrative itself can stir up. A sense of synchronicity can be experienced by the viewers that goes beyond the narrative because something empirically extant is being referenced. More on this later, so hold onto this idea.

Hanna’s character arc is moving while she is at the camp, and this arc does not revert when she “wakes up” back home in her bed surrounded by her relatives (which Dorothy does too!). At the camp, Hanna asks the guy who asks her out, “Will you teach me to pray?” He is not sure how to pray. This is perhaps the film’s indictment of modernity. Of course, a religious topic is not the typical dialogue one would expect from two teenagers discovering their mutual sexual attraction. The guy tells Hanna that he and some other men will try to escape. Now, Hanna’s uncle Abe, Ava’s brother, said during the Passover meal that an escape attempt had failed in the camp, so Hanna, now at the camp, makes the connection and tries to stop her new beau from going. In fact, she warns all of the guys planning to escape. They don’t believe her, just as Eva doesn’t believe that she lived in America. How the guys or Eva know any of this about Hanna? Her “previous life” could only be known to her. Similarly, in the Book of Genesis, to everyone else, God’s decree to Abraham to sacrifice Isaac is not revealed to other people, so they would naturally doubt Abraham’s theological claim; accordingly, Abraham could only be guilty of attempted murder. Hanna could hardly convince anyone in the camp what letting Elijah in led to or that the escapees would be caught and killed.  

The escapees are indeed caught and hanged. Hanna is distraught and the rabbi wails in Hebrew, calling out to Yahweh in existential anguish. Back in the barrack, Hanna tells Eva, “It’s too painful!” Eva tells her not to wish she were dead. “Your stories are keeping us alive; they give us hope.” Victor Frankl writes that even in such a dire, elongated circumstance, the human mind still seeks after meaning.

Three of the other prisoners are stretched to their emotional limit when the camp’s commandant comes into the barrack to take one woman’s baby away from the mother. “If you don’t let me go with my baby,” she tells the man, “I will kill you.” Another woman, Eva’s mother, tells him that he will burn in hell. He admits that he probably will, without caring much at all about that. She tries to attack him physically, but is too weak and falls into him. The Nazis take the baby, the mother, and Eva’s mother. Eva is obviously beside herself.

The next day, Hanna tells the rabbi that she wants to have a Seder later at the barrack. Hanna’s character arc is really moving! In the meantime, a Nazi guard teaches another guard how to shoot at close range to kill by having him aim his rifle at Hanna’s bent-over back at close range as she works outside. Eva talks the guard out of killing her cousin, saying, “She’s a good worker.” That night, Eva tells Hanna, “I call myself Rivka.” This is her secret name; no one else knows it. Hanna gives Eva hope, saying “You will survive; I promise you.” At her Seder that night in the bunkhouse, Hanna actually volunteers to open the door to Elijah. Before, at her grandparents’ house, she resisted going to the door because she wasn’t into the whole religion thing; at the camp, she is hesitant because she is risking her life in doing so. She is risking her life for religion. Sure enough, when she opens the door, a Nazi guard is right in front of the door and sternly tells her to shut the door.

The next day, while the prisoners are outside working, Eva is coughing. If the Nazis notice, they will assume not only that she would no longer be able to work, but also that her continued sickness could compromise the health of the workforce. Knowing this, Hanna coughs so she rather than her cousin will be taken to be gassed. Hanna even walks up to the Nazis to take their attention off Eva. The sacrifice is made; Hanna is gassed with the sick prisoners and Eva survives. The selfless compassion that Hanna feels and acts on while she is at the camp stands out, especially to Eva, whose compassion is also evident. Similar to how Gandhi’s compassion, or at least helpfulness, extended even to individual British officials even while is was strongly opposed to their policies, which included putting him in jail, the film’s screenwriter could have had Hanna and Eva extend their innate compassion to individual Nazis at the camp. The human need for meaning can be met by such inconvenient compassion and helpfulness. It would be interesting to see how such a movie would play out.

In the actual movie, Hanna wakes up as soon as she is dead in the gas chamber. Like Dorothy, Hanna is in a bed surrounded by her relatives. Black and white film is used in Hanna’s scene, just as it is when Dorothy wakes up back in Kansas. Admittedly, there are some notable differences. The scene of Hanna waking up gradually goes back to color, whereas Kansas is always in black and white in The Wizard of Oz. Also, whereas Hanna wakes up from having just experienced dying, Dorothy wakes up having just discovered that it was in her power all along to go home; she just needed to click her ruby red slippers three times and say, “There’s no place like home.” Hanna was vanquished by the Nazis, whereas Dorothy vanquished the Wicked Witch of the West.

Nevertheless, the allusion to The Wizard of Oz is conveyed—the macro “dream plot” and Hanna telling part of Dorothy’s story at the camp being the other two allusions. Being three different ways rather than only in the dialogue, the cinematic devices are more profound in terms of viewer experience. Qualitatively different modes (i.e., different in kind) expand the significance of a film to the viewer while it is in progress because the film becomes transparent in being a film and is related to “the real world.” The Wizard of Oz exists empirically, rather than just as part of The Devil’s Arithmetic. The synergy thus extends beyond evoking some of the narrative of the former film in the latter. The drawback, or cost, is that the suspension of disbelief—being in the story world psychologically—is breached.

Once back, Hanna realizes that her aunt Eva is the same person as Rivka at the camp, so Hanna reveals to her aunt the secret name that Eva only used when she was young. There is no way that Hanna could know it, and Eva knows this. Hanna provides even more proof to her aunt (and to the viewers who are trying to figure out if Hanna, like Dorothy, merely had a dream). Referring to Eva’s cousin, Hanna says, “She saved your life and went . . . “Eva interrupts with jaw-dropping astonishment, “instead of me. How do you know this?”  Hanna replies, “Maybe it’s from my imagination; maybe it’s from a dream I had. I don’t know. But what I don’t understand is how so many people could be punished: men, women and babies.” The compassion that Hanna has discovered deep within amid dire circumstances of immense suffering transcends her metaphysical curiosity—and perhaps even any curiosity she might have about whether letting Elijah in means that Elijah used a supernatural miracle to save Hanna from herself, in which case she was really at the camp, transported back in time to inhabit (or possess) another person (Eve’s cousin). Aunt Eva seems to sense something supernatural has occurred, so she asks Hanna, “Do you know how to talk to God?” Hanna answers, “So quietly that only God can hear me.” Eva says in a profound tone, “Oh yes.” Both women realize that it was no dream; that she was actually at the camp. “And I will always remember what happened. Always,” Hanna says. Her aunt admonishes her, “Yes, remember always.”

Perhaps in opening the door at her grandparents’ house to Elijah, Hanna opened the door to something supernatural, which is commonly associated with religion via myth. The film’s narrative is a story that contains a supernatural element, and this can be a powerful way of conveying deep meaning. As much as the supernatural makes for a good story, I submit that it is Hanna’s selfless compassion for the other prisoners, including Rivka, that in the end defines and differentiates Hanna not only from the other prisoners, but also from the person whom she was at the beginning of the story. In her own mind once she is back home in her grandparents’ house, her compassion transcends questions of the supernatural. To some extent, this might be because finite beings bound by the laws of nature (i.e., natural science) cannot know whether a certain event is supernatural; it may also because the point of the supernatural in stories is to inculcate compassion. It is no accident that the film ends with Hanna happily singing at the dining room table with her relatives. She may have died at the camp, but her compassion lives on.

Fatima

The film, Fatima (2020), tells the story of the three Roman Catholic children in Fatima, Portugal, who in 2017 claimed to see and hear the Virgin Mary periodically over a period of 6 months. The film centers around Lucia, the oldest of the three children, and, moreover, the question of whether the children really encounter the Virgin, or are lying, hypnotic, or even psychotic. In the film, as well as in “real life,” a miracle is associated with the last visitation. In the story world of the film, the visitation really happens, and the multitudes watching the children come to believe this when the Virgin delivers on a miracle as promised. Historically, believers as well as nonbelievers who were present at the event have testified that the Sun moved around in the sky and even came closer. If this really happened as witnesses have described, then the empirical “proof” in the story world of the film is not the whole story, and the religious truth therein is not limited to the faith narrative, but holds in an empirical, supernatural sense. An implication is that Jesus not only resurrects in the Gospel stories, but also as an empirical event in history. But, then, why have such supernatural events been so rare since the “time” of Jesus?  And, yet, witnesses as far as 40 km away from the visitation of the Virgin reported seeing the miracle of the Sun.

Catholicism is not portrayed in the film without blemish. Lucia’s mother, Maria, which is ironic, believes that if she and Lucia suffer, then Manuel, Maria’s son, will return alive from fighting in World War I. Maria’s assumption that God wants believers to suffer ignores the point of Jesus’ suffering as a vicarious sacrifice to atone for others’ sins and thus close the gap between God and humanity, or at least the House of Israel. Neither the voluntary suffering of Lucia or her mother Maria save souls. Furthermore, Maria’s flawed sense of causation—that if she suffers, then her son will not be killed—demonstrates how superstition can take hold when the human mind enters the religious domain of thought. So in the film, Catholicism is hardly whitewashed. Moreover, the vulnerabilities of the human mind in contemplating religious ideas are not dismissed.

So the need for psychological testing of Lucia and the two other children is presented in the film as reasonable, and indeed it is. The children pass the test, but they could still be lying. So Lucia asks the Virgin to perform a miracle so the bystanders would know that the visitation is real even though only the three children can see the Virgin. The dramatic tension rises as the mayor goes so far as imprison the three children so they would miss a monthly visitation by the Virgin. Lucia’s mother, Maria, goes so far as to repeatedly hit Lucia for lying about the visitations. That a person who presumes to know how to keep her son alive at war—and indeed seems so “religious” in general—would then show her
true colors” in hitting her daughter for having a religious belief (i.e., in the visitations) is not lost on the film’s viewers. And the child shall lead them—not the bishop or the observable “devout.”

The esoteric messages of the Virgin to the children, rather than to the judgmental multitude ruining the family’s crop, the bishop, the mayor, and Lucia’s mother, is justified. “Some people will never believe," the Virgin tells the children. The mayor in particular is a good example. God is like the breeze passing by the mountain, rather than a great fire or earthquake, and it takes a religious sensibility—a sense of presence—to notice the passing of a breeze, metaphorically speaking. It is because of the hostility of the detractors, those to whom Jesus’ message and example of love and mercy has fallen like on hard stone, or hardness of heart, that Lucia asks the Virgin for a miracle.

Like a quiet breeze, the message of the Virgin, that people should stop insulting God by sinning without repentance, should not be lost as the more sensationalistic miracle gains the headlines, both in the film and after the historical event. The miracle is merely a means by which to aid in the quiet message by giving confidence to believers and convert others to not insulting God, which I contend is more important than the Virgin’s admonition to pray more as that is merely a means to the end, which is love. Even so, the miracle of the Sun, both in the film and as a historical event, arguably has momentous significance. In the film, the miracle means that the visitation was real, so Lucia and the two other children are vindicated. Even Maria comes around, though tellingly the mayor still does not. As a historical event, the movements of the Sun while the last visitation was occurring means that religious truth, or meaning, in faith narratives is not the whole story; those truths in faith narratives refer to spiritual things outside of the story world, in the empirical, historical world. It is thus extremely significant that believers and nonbelievers both testified as witnesses in 1917 to the movements of the Sun. Mass hypnosis can thus be eliminated as a possible explanation. The only alternative left is that of coincidence, or else that the reports are erroneous—that the changed colors and movements of the Sun were optical illusions after the heavy rain. The veracity of religious truth in a faith narrative is not affected either way, so I contend that such truth, like a light breeze, should be the object of faith without raising questions of historicity one way or the other.

That is to say, the veracity of religious truth in a faith narrative can be distinguished from, or even more radically does not depend on, historical events or persons. Even so, the matter of empirical events (e.g., the Resurrection) and persons (e.g., Moses, Jesus, and the Buddha) is not inconsequential, and, if answered even more definitively than either the film or the historical event of the Sun moving in the sky, then the modern conception of religion, which disavows any faith narrative correspondence with empirical or historical events and even persons, would be even more severely uprooted. It may be that the miracle of the Sun has already done that, and the film merely reminds or informs people of that, as well as the possibility that, as the Virgin says in the film, some people will never believe, even in the face of a miraculous empirical (i.e., supernatural) event.

Even so, many spurious miracles have been claimed in the history of Christianity, and so perhaps a miracle less subject to being reckoned as an optical illusion is needed before the question of whether the events and characters in the Christian faith narratives correspond to historical events and actual persons. Nothing in such narratives can confirm such correspondences because a faith narrative is not a historical account even if historical events are used (and modified to serve theological points). Fortunately, the ways to enter the Kingdom of God as described and exemplified in the Gospel faith-narratives do not depend on the question of historical correspondences of events and even characters in those narratives.

The value of helping detractors, such as Lucia tries to help her mother in the film, does not depend on whether Jesus was a historical man or merely a character in the Gospels; the truth wherein human nature is expanded, or turned on its head, does not so depend. Whether or not the correspondence holds, a person applying the example and preaching in the narratives will experience the spiritual dynamic. Faith is ultimately in the value of that dynamic. In the Gospels, Jesus says that he came to preach the mysteries of the Kingdom of God. The astute viewer of the film, Fatima, transcends the sensationalistic leitmotifs of whether the visitations have a reality outside of the children and whether the Sun really moves in the sky and comes closer to discern the innocent faith of Lucia from the dogmatic, hypocritical “faith” of her mother, who ironically has the name, Maria. Entering the Kingdom of God in humility is like the innocent faith of a child. This esoteric message of the film is, I submit, the most important thing about the film, and yet even a believer could be excused for having a burning urge to know whether the miracle (i.e., not of the laws of physics) of the Sun really happened. We are merely human, after all, and so we have an instinctual urge for finality or certainty even though the human mind can transcend the limits of cognition, perception, and sensibility (i.e., emotions). One thing is certain; the religious sphere is not an easy one for the human brain to inhabit.

On transcending even the ethical, see: Spiritual Leadership

The Case for Christ

A film narrative oriented to an investigation of Christianity is tailor-made to illustrate the potential of film as a medium to convey abstract ideas and theories. In The Case for Christ (2017), a skeptical journalist—Lee Strobel—takes on the contention that Jesus’ resurrection in the Gospels was also a historical event (i.e., happened historically). Lee states the proposition that he will investigate as follows: “The entire Christian faith hinges on the resurrection of Jesus. If it didn’t happen, it’s a house of cards. He’s reduced to a misunderstood rabbi at best; at worst, he was a lunatic who was martyred.” The journalist’s initial position is that the resurrection didn’t happen historically; it is just part of a faith narrative (i.e., the Gospels). Lee wants to test the proposition by interviewing experts. The dialogues between the journalist unschooled in theology and the scholars of religion provide a way in which complex ideas and arguments can be broken down for the viewer and digested. The journalist stands as a translator of sorts similar to a teacher’s function in breaking down knowledge new to students so they can grasp and digest it.

The journalist attends a debate between two scholars of religion, Singer and Habermas, on the historical Jesus movement in Biblical hermeneutics—that is, on what the Gospels, as faith narratives, can tell us about Jesus as a historical person. Singer denies that information in a faith narrative, or myth, can be taken as historical evidence. Logically, to treat a religious text as a historical account is to commit a category mistake (i.e., ignoring the distinction between two categories). For one thing, the incorporation of history into a faith narrative serves religious points, which are of a higher priority than historical accuracy. In writing a religious narrative, the writer’s intent is not to provide a historical account; historians do that.

For example, the synoptic Gospels differ on when the Last Supper takes place relative to Passover. Different theological points are being made. Jesus being crucified during Passover likens him to the animals sacrificed in Exodus. Jesus is the Lamb of God. Were the authorial intent to provide a historical account, this theological point could not be made if the historical Jesus was crucified after Passover. It makes sense that a writer who is religious would be more faithful to his theology than to history. The Gospel writers selectively appropriated historical accounts without verifying them as historians would have done. In fact, the writers would even have been inclined, given how important their faith was to them, to take sayings passed on orally as unfettered (i.e., unbiased) historical accounts.

A Gospel writer (and Paul) could have written things as if they were historical to make theological points. Paul’s miraculous experience on the road to Damascus provides the man who had prosecuted Christians with status in Jesus’ inner circle. The historical nomenclature tends to crystalize over centuries as the historical “fact” eclipses Paul’s religious reason for portraying the miracle as having really happened (i.e., as an event in empirical history). That is, the authorial intent in making an event seem historical by using historical nomenclature is often overlooked by faith-readers, especially in an era in which empirical facts are the gold standard covering even religion. Therefore, Singer’s position is that the Gospels cannot be assumed to be reliable sources of historical information.

Habermas answers Singer by claiming that the Gospels are indeed reliable sources of historical events. As a public event, the crucifixion would have had witnesses—sympathizers and critics. Habermas points out that an atheist school of thought “now believes that the earliest known report of the resurrection was formed no later than three years after the Cross.” Habermas cites a book by Gurd Luderman, which discusses the report. Unlike Singer, Habermas believes that the obvious faith-interest of the sympathetic witnesses in the resurrection having really occurred would not cause them to lie. That many witnesses saw Jesus after he resurrected adds to Habermas’ confidence.

It is interesting that in using the word, really, to refer to history, I have just committed a common error wherein even in religious matters, the historical criteria trumps, or is more real, than religious truth, whose reality comes to us by symbol, myth, and ritual. The religious truth of the resurrection is contained in the Gospels, whose theological truths transcend history, just as the Creator transcends Creation.  

Implicit in Habermas’ position is the rhetorical question: why would people of faith lie? Why would people deeply motivated by religious truth violate truth itself by fabricating their historical accounts of Jesus after his resurrection? Habermas would likely dismiss the “ends justify the means” rationale for doing bad things for a good outcome. Fundamentalists may be particularly susceptible to this way of justifying doing bad things in service to a faith even though an objective observer would see the hypocrisy. The two scholars may thus be debating, at least in part, how human nature interacts with religion.

The journalist’s initial position rephrased is that if the resurrection did not happen historically (rather than only in the faith narratives), then religious truth in the faith narratives would have no value. In other words, faith serves history rather than vice versa in the religious domain. To be sure, it can be argued that if the historical Jesus did not “really” resurrect in physical body and spirit, then his true followers will not resurrect after their physical death. The religious truth necessitates the historical event, yet no reliable (i.e., independent of the faith narratives) historical account exists. The journalist and Habermas are thus diametrically opposed.

Historians overwhelming contend that the Jesus passage in Jewish Antiquities, written by Flavius Josephus, a Jewish historian who covered Jesus’ period in Judaea, was actually added subsequently in order to include Christian faith claims that go beyond what a historian would include in writing history, and what a Jew would believe and thus proselytize through writing “history.” The journalist would strongly agree that historical accounts that are separate from faith narratives can be susceptible to interpolated (i.e., injected) faith material that is portrayed as historical. Josephus mentions Jesus and his followers, though “close in style and content to the creeds that were composed two or three centuries after Josephus.”[1] Specifically, Josephus’ uses of “the Greek verb forms such as aorists and participles are distinct in the passage on Jesus.” They are “different than the forms that Josephus uses in other [Pontius] Pilate episodes, and these differences amount to a difference in genre.”[2] The passage on Jesus is close to the Gospels, which are faith narratives, whereas the other events involving Pilate are written in verb forms used by historians to write histories.

A Jewish historian such as Josephus would not have been inclined to include Christian faith-claims, especially as part of a historical account. For example, the parenthetical () “if indeed one ought to call him a man” is not a historical fact and not something to which a Jew would subscribe. Furthermore, Josephus did not use the literary device of parentheticals except in his passage on Jesus. This suggests that a later Christian editor or copyist may have inserted material within sentences to include elements of the Christian faith (even inserting phrases within sentences distinct from the sentences’ contents) morphed into historical content by means of historical nomenclature (i.e., using words that make something seem historical). That is, the interlarded additions in the passage on Jesus conflate two distinct genres, faith narratives and historical accounts.

As a Jew and a historian, Josephus would not likely have written that Jesus was a teacher to people willing to “accept the truth.” This is not a historical statement, for truth is not a historical event. This applies also to the statement, “He was the Messiah.” Finally, the statement that after three days, Jesus was “restored to life” (i.e., resurrected) is not something that a Jew would take as a historical event.[3] Interestingly, not even Habermas sites Josephus; rather, the religious scholar relies on witnesses in the Gospels, thus conflating the two genres: myth (i.e., faith narratives) and history.[4] Singer points out that taking witnesses in a faith narrative as providing historical evidence is invalid by the criteria of history.

In short, Josephus would indeed have been a very unusual Jew had he believed these faith claims to be valid; he would have been a deficient historian had he viewed them as historical accounts rather than faith claims.

Justus of Tiberius, a rival historian, did not include Jesus even though this historian “wrote in great detail about the exact period of Tiberius’s reign that coincided with Jesus’s ministry.”[5] Therefore, even the validity of Josephus’ mention of Jesus as a historical person living in the Middle East can be contested. Perhaps the entire passage of Jesus was implanted by a later editor or copyist sympathetic to Jesus. If so, then no historical record exists to support the claim that Jesus existed historically rather than only in the faith narratives. We could not know whether Jesus’ resurrection really happened by appealing to historical evidence (e.g., witness accounts separate from those in the Gospels).

After the debate, Habermas and the journalist sit down for a coffee. “How can anyone talk about historical evidence for a resurrection when the resurrection is by its very nature a miracle?” the journalist asks. “We all know miracles can’t be proven scientifically.” The source of a miracle is outside of Creation, and thus its natural laws and processes. “We don’t have to prove a miracle in order to prove the resurrection, Habermas replies. “You just have to show that Jesus died and was seen afterwards.” Interestingly, Habermas uses the word show rather than prove. This may suggest that he has already ceded some ground on how difficult it is to prove that an event happened empirically two thousand years ago. The journalist seizes on this vulnerability of historical studies. “Right,” he says, “but the very people who claimed that they saw him are religious zealots. In my line of work, we call those biased sources.” We are back to the problem of the selective use of history in faith narratives, and in taking Josephus’ historical account as valid historically.

Habermas dismisses the problem of biased sources and declares, “I care about the facts.” The journalist cleverly hinges on the problem of what constitutes a fact. “So what are the facts, Dr. Habermas? The resurrection narrative is more legend than it is history.” To be sure, that the resurrection is in a myth does not in itself mean that Jesus did not resurrect historically (i.e., it was a historical event). Even if neither the witnesses in the Gospels nor even Josephus’ historical account suffices under historical criteria, historical events have surely gone unreported by historians. In effect, the journalist is using his stance in the discussion as a fact. Habermas spots this fallacy and replies, “Really? Not according to historical records. Did you know that we have a report of the resurrection from specific eye-witnesses that dates all the way back within months of the resurrection itself? That source also adds that five hundred people saw Jesus at the same time.” However, because Habermas is relying on witnesses in a faith narrative, or myth, we cannot count them as historical witnesses. In other words, he is conflating the two genres and not offering a counterargument to the problem of biased sources. Even the journalist falls victim to conflating the two genres.

Replying to Habermas, the journalist says, “That’s still just one historical source—the Bible.” Habermas replies, “Wrong, there are at least nine ancient sources both inside and outside the Bible confirming that disciples and others encountered Jesus after the Crucifixion.” Notice that Habermas refers to ancient sources inside the Bible. The word ancient is a historical term. Habermas is likely invoking Josephus’ historical account, which as discussed above is problematic in itself as a historical source. If the scholar is counting other historical accounts, he would have to confront the consensus among historians that Josephus provides the only mention of Jesus in a historical account (as well as the consensus that Josephus’ account is problematic as a historical source). It would be presumptuous of Habermas as a religious scholar to claim superiority over historians in deciding what constitutes a valid historical account (i.e., by criteria in the discipline of history). Would the historians then have superiority over scholars of religion on religious questions?

Pointing to the problem of biases sources, the journalist claims that the disciples and others who encountered Jesus after the Crucifixion “were already followers of Jesus.” This gives us an idea of what would be needed to have a valid historical source. Such a witness would have be verified as independent of Jesus and his followers, and mentioned in a historical account, which itself would have to be authenticated. This is not to say that Jesus’ followers could not have witnessed an event such as the resurrection and reported it orally to others. A historical account would need more support; however, as such witnesses would have had a faith-interest in reporting the event as empirical even though the resurrection has religious truth-value in the faith narratives alone.

Strangely, Habermas uses Paul, a zealot for Christ. “Think of Saul of Tsaris,” Habermas says. “He originally was a persecutor of Christians.” However, Paul’s letters are from the perspective of Paul as a devoted follower of Jesus. How could Habermas possibly think that because Paul as Saul had been against the Jesus movement that he would be unbiased after his conversion? Indeed, Paul’s own written account of his conversion experience is subject to the point that he could have added in his miraculous vision to legitimize himself as an apostle even though he had not met Jesus. Also, just because Paul’s letters are historical artifacts does not mean that their contents report historical events. Paul was not writing historical accounts, and so his religious messages and religious-interest could have used historical events selectively and even invented some. The warping effects of religious ideology on cognition (and ethics) can be significant.

Habermas next accepts the journalist’s initial premise that if Jesus’ resurrection is not a historical event, then the Christian faith would collapse. This is so because it depends on that historical event. Nevertheless, that faith has not collapsed, or been discredited, and in fact Christians have even been willing to die in its service. “If the early church fathers knew that the resurrection was a hoax, then why would they willingly die for it?” Habermas’ assumption can be critiqued.

Firstly, that Christianity has not collapsed does not necessarily mean that the theological resurrection in the faith narratives happened historically. Christianity could have endured due to the intrinsic value of the religious truth that is in the faith narratives (and Paul’s letters). It may have been enough that those narratives depict the resurrection as a historical event without the event having taken place empirically (i.e., outside of the narratives).

Secondly, Habermas assumes that if the resurrection did not occur as a historical account, then the early Church fathers would have known that the resurrection as a historical event was a hoax. This assumption too does not hold, for the fathers could have erroneously assumed that the historical nomenclature (i.e., wording) used in the faith narratives is sufficient to guarantee that the resurrection was also a historical event (i.e., apart from its mention as such in the Gospels). That is, the portrayal in the Gospels of the resurrection as a historical event does not mean that the resurrection “really” happened. Furthermore, to put so much emphasis on whether the resurrection really happened eclipses the value of the resurrection’s religious truth-value in the faith narratives. Lastly, Habermas assumes that if the resurrection were not a historical event, then the church fathers would have known it. They were not omniscient, so it is possible that the historical event did not occur and yet the fathers assumed from the historical nomenclature in the faith narratives, casting it in a historical light, that the resurrection must have happened as a historical event.

Habermas then brings up the Christian assumption that Jesus’ resurrection must have “really” happened (i.e., historically) for Christian souls to subsequently be able to enter heaven. Without that empirical event having taken place, no souls could go to heaven. “I know that I’m going to see my wife again someday,” Habermas says. He is committing a category misstate, however, in claiming that knowledge rather than belief pertains to faith. The religious studies scholar Joseph Campbell once asked why faith would be needed at all if were knew that heaven exists and that we would go there. Empirical knowledge, unlike belief, requires the certainty that scientific evidence can make more likely than can faith-claims. Such claims are true in a religious sense, and thus provide certainty as to religious truth, but not to empirical facts. The hold of Habermas’ religious ideology on his epistemological knowledge (i.e., what counts as knowledge) is responsible for his embellishment of religious belief as knowledge. The added certainty that knowledge provides is without merit, but this is of no concern to Habermas as the assumption of certainty conveniently aids his religious ideology.

Habermas nonetheless declares, “What I want and what I don’t want has no impact on truth. That said, if Christ’s resurrection means that I get to be with Debbie again, then I have no problem being happy with that. Sometimes truth reminds of us of what is really important.”

I submit that what a person wants does have a bending impact on one’s hold on truth. That is, even though religious truth itself is changeless, by definition, concepts of religious truth in a human mind can wittingly or unwittingly serve the ideological interests of a mind (i.e., person). Habermas assumes that his desire to be with his wife in heaven has no impact on his belief that Jesus’ resurrection in the faith narratives refers to a historical event, and, furthermore, that the historical resurrection made it possible for souls to go to heaven. In other words, a historical event made possible a spiritual (i.e., nonempirical) state that is outside of history. This belief is based on an underlying belief: that of the Incarnation (i.e., God made flesh in Jesus).

Putting aside the matters of people who had died before the historical resurrection and non-Christians thereafter that challenge Habermas’ belief-claims, Christian theology contends that the Crucifixion in the Gospels, as also a historical event, makes it possible for souls to enter heaven. Jesus’ vicarious atonement made possible by his willingly sacrificing himself even though he is innocent makes possible the reunification of a human being with God. Specifically, Jesus’ death pays the price of original sin. In contrast, Jesus’ resurrection as “first fruits” means that the saved souls that are in heaven will someday be bodily resurrected. Therefore, even though Habermas claims to know that Jesus’ historical resurrection made going to heaven possible, Christian theology begs to differ; the historical resurrection made bodily resurrection possible. Habermas is thus overstating the importance of a historical resurrection in regard to him being able to be with his dead wife again. Put another way, even from the standpoint of theology, we can see that embellishment can result from self-interest, which includes the matter of the veracity (i.e., truth) of a religious ideology even hyperextended to cover historical empirical facts.

After speaking with Habermas, the journalist makes an appointment to speak with a Roman Catholic priest whose specialty is biblical manuscripts. Especially because Christians rely so much on the faith narratives in believing that the resurrection was also a historical event, the question of the manuscripts’ authenticity is highly relevant. Specifically, the question can be raised as to whether the manuscripts we have are accurate copies of the originals. Just as a Christian copyist may have added the non-historical faith claims to Josephus’ reference to Jesus and his followers, copyists may have embellished the biblical manuscripts by adding miracles and even claiming that they “really” happened. That is, copyists may have used history as a justifying basis for religious truth rather than in sufficing to treat the latter as being intrinsically valid in its own domain, and thus as needing no validation from other domains.

The journalist first points out to the priest, “Just because I write something down and bury it in dirt, it doesn’t make it true. How can we be sure of the reliability of these manuscripts?” The priest answers, “The same way we authenticate any historical document—by comparing and contrasting the copies that have been recovered. It’s called textual criticism. The more copies we have, the better we can cross-reference, and determine if the original was historically accurate, and the earlier they come in history, the better.” If a biblical passage is in all of the extant copies—and even better, word for word—then the chances is higher that a copyist did not tamper with the passage. It would still be possible, however, for changes to have been made by a copyist that are reflected in all of the extant copies available now. This would be increasingly possible the earlier the copyist. It should be noted that the historical accuracy of a copy of a manuscript refers back to its original manuscript, rather than to whether the events in that original really (i.e., empirically) happened. Even if a Gospel’s original writer used historical nomenclature to describe an event in the narrative as being a historical event does not mean that the event in the narrative corresponds to a historical event outside of the narrative. Historical nomenclature itself is a narrative device in service of the narrative’s theme or point.

The writers would have known themselves to be writing faith narratives rather than historical accounts because the writers wrote primarily of religious belief-claims that go beyond history, and thus the writing of historical accounts. The proof of the genre is in the writing itself (i.e., what is written). Writers of religious belief-claims rather than historical accounts would not have felt obliged to record only historical events. In fact, the latter could be selectively appropriated and even invented to suit the construction of the faith-narratives. A major drawback of this device is that readers may assume that religious truth needs historical verification to be valid. This fallacy is especially possible in an empirical-fact, or scientific era. Therefore, cross-referencing manuscripts to get as close as possible to the original manuscript can only get us so far if our aim is to ascertain the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection outside of the faith-narratives.

For example, the Gospels do not have the same women discover Jesus’ tomb. To be sure, the Gospel writers may not have had access to the same information. Even the accuracy of historians’ accounts can suffer from this problem. Alternatively, in writing faith narratives, the Gospel writers may not have been motivated to obtain the information and verify it as historians are. Instead, the writers of the faith narratives may have chosen characters to make theological or ecclesiastical points.

Because women in ancient Jewish culture (i.e., historically) were deemed to be unreliable witnesses—as a religious studies scholar tells the journalist—the Gospel writers’ decision to specify that the witnesses at the tomb are women has been taken as support for the historical veracity not only for the witnesses, but also the resurrection itself. “Why else, the religious scholar from Jerusalem asks the journalist, would “all four Gospel writers record that it was women who discovered the empty tomb?” But were the writers recording? Historians do that, whereas the writers of faith narratives make religious points to serve a religious theme, or faith.

Perhaps the Gospel writers, who differed in their choice of which women are at the tomb, made their respective choices to support different theological or ecclesiastical points. There were, after all, factions in the early church. For example, Paul is said to have differed from the Jerusalem church on whether converts must be circumcised. Whether or not to include Mary Magdalene as a witness at the tomb (all four Gospels do, but Paul does not) and whether she is first among the women has ecclesiastical implications both concerning her status as an apostle and whether women should hold leadership positions in the church. Considering Paul’s opposition to this and the fact that he excludes women at the tomb, we cannot conclude that he was oriented to providing a historical account; his agenda was ecclesiastical.  Similarly, rather than recording an account from historical research, the Gospel writers could have been pushing back against Paul by providing a basis on which women could have legitimate authority in the early church.  All this is in line with the point that the Gospel writers were writing faith narratives rather than historical accounts, and that Paul’s letters are not historical accounts, but, rather, preachments.

In fact, given the clear difference between the two genres, the writers of the faith narratives would have known that their readers not assume that they were reading historical accounts. Yet many evangelical Christians in the twentieth century disregarded both the authorial intent and the early reader response—both being in the faith-narrative genre—in assuming that the Gospel writers were operating as historians as well as men of faith. A further assumption is that the faith role does not have any impact on the historian role, so the Gospels can be taken literally.

In biblical hermeneutics (i.e., methods of interpretation) until the twentieth century, figurative, symbolic, analogical, and literal interpretations were generally understood as equally valid and thus as useful—the objective being to use the one that fits best for a given biblical passage in deriving religious truth. With science propelling technological advancement, and thus dominating Western society by the mid-twentieth century, the literal (i.e., “historical fact”) kind of interpretation enjoyed a presumptive place for any biblical passage that could be taken as historical. This new predominance would have been unknown both to the Gospel writers and to interpreters prior to the twentieth century. That is, the Gospel writers could scarcely have anticipated the overarching role for literal interpretation even when they were using historical nomenclature to make religious points in their faith narratives.

Distant culturally and through oceans of time from the writers’ world and literary context, we can unwittingly reflect our culture in approaching the Gospels. Of course, we do not know how the writers would react were they alive today because much of their intents, especially for particular verses, are lost to us today. Instead, we supply our own intents onto the page and presume that the authors had the same intents. In our era, empirical facts are hegemonic (i.e., on top), so we naturally assume that history plays a salient role in the construction of a faith narrative. We even subordinate religious truth in a faith narrative to the extent that it is not supported by empirical, historical facts. By implication, we are of little faith in scarcely believing that  religious truth has its own intrinsic value and is therefore not in need of historical justification and sanctification.

Perhaps we cannot help remaking an ancient religion in our own societal image. Perhaps religious ideology bends space and time to reflect what is acceptable to us. The medium of film, being in our era rather than that of the founding of an ancient religion, can operate as a facilitator. Helped by the suspension of disbelief, we believe that we are “in” Jesus’ world, and thus closer to his story and its religious meaning. What we see of ancient Judaea on the screen only reflects what the filmmakers construct, based on the faith narratives and what historians have uncovered of that locale back then. Film viewers are not in Judaea as it was. They are not in the garden and at the crucifixion. Yet the viewers naturally feel that they have never been closer to them. Furthermore, the illusion and related suspension of disbelief that the medium of film has can lead the viewers to assume the historicity as factual rather than conjectured. For example, seeing the dramatic coming of dark clouds as Jesus dies on a cross can result in a false sense of historical accuracy as in, so that’s what it was really like. Future Good Fridays that are sunny may not even feel like Good Fridays.

Additionally, what conjecture that film can give us of the story world as historical too combines with the religious interpretation or ideology (i.e., a set of aligned interpretations) driving the film to present the narrative’s point, or theme. This can uplift the faithful or give them reason to subject their faith to critique. These are not necessarily mutually exclusive. A faith pruned of bad assumptions can become a healthier mature tree. What need of childish things does an adult faith have? A film can aid in this process.

I contend that The Case for Christ falls short because the pruning tools provided are not strong enough. The character arc of Lee, the journalist—that is, his transformation or inner journey over the course of the film narrative—goes from an atheist stance to an affirmation of evangelical Christianity. In spite of this protagonist having a critical stance toward religion (and Christianity) through most of the story, he suddenly decides that the resurrection was indeed a historical event. This can be taken as the filmmakers’ desired stance, at least as far as the movie goes. I have emphasized the critique of this stance precisely because the film does not give the arguments enough credit. In other words, the film makes a “straw man” argument against the resurrection being a historical event. The case against Christ is too easily pushed aside by the case for Christ. So I lean here in the other direction, not because I personally take the anti-historical-event side, but, rather, because moviemakers and viewers alike would benefit by understanding that the dialogue on Christianity could have been better written, with better arguments on the skeptic’s side, so that the viewers, whether atheist or theist, could have a better grasp of the difficulties involved in using faith narratives to make historical claims. 

For Christian viewers, a more realistic stance could prompt a realization that religious meaning or truth is inherently or intrinsically of great value. For example, the spiritual value of turning the other cheek, or, even better, helping people who have insulted or even attacked you does not depend on historical facts. In other words, such value need not stand on the stilts of history. In fact, religious truth transcends history. The means that Jesus teaches, such as turning the other cheek or loving enemies, are so foreign to human nature and history that the source of the value can be viewed as being beyond human nature and history, and thus divine. If the medium of film can facilitate a recognition of the sui generis (i.e., unique) nature of religious value (of religious truth or meaning) as distinct from and independent of historical facts, the medium is indeed more valuable than perhaps we realize in handling deep meaning.

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[1]   Paul Hopper, “A Narrative Anomaly in Josephus: Jewish Antiquities xviii: 63, In Linguistics and Literary Studies, Monika Fludernik and Daniel Jacob, Eds. (Walter de Gruyter, 2014), pp. 147-170.

[2] Ibid.

[3] The Testimonium Flavianum, in Flavius Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 18.3.3, section 63, translated by Louis Feldman (The Loeb Classical Library).

[4] On this distinction in Judaism, see Von Rad’s two-volume History of Israel.

[5] Paul Hopper, “A Narrative Anomaly in Josephus.

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.