The Professor and the Madman

The film, The Professor and the Madman (2019), is based on the true story of James Murray, the editor of the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary in the 19^th century, and William Minor, who contributed over 10,000 entries. Minor, who suffered from schizophrenia, was at the time a patient at Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum for having killed Jack Merrett under the recurrent delusion of being chased. In the film, this narrative serves as the basis to explore whether even people who think they are unredeemable can nevertheless be redeemed, and thus freed, from their own guilt.

Once at the asylum, William Minor seeks to atone by making the injustice he has committed in committing the murder by making it up to the murdered man’s wife, Eliza, and her children by directing that all of his income go to them. Initially, Eliza refuses this offer, but facing crushing penury, she eventually accepts the income. Incredibly, guard Muncy of the asylum personally sees to it that the family is helped by the money. This generosity is a reflection of the goodness of Minor in spite of his unimaginable suffering from schizophrenia. Indeed, Minor even volunteers to teach Eliza how to read so she in turn could teach her children so they could escape from poverty. Although Minor is correct that he owes the widow and her kids money enough to survive, he is wrong that he also owes them the gift of reading. He is clearly going the extra mile.

Even so, he still believes he cannot be redeemed for his sordid act of murdering an innocent man, even though he has been found innocent by virtue of insanity. This verdict should be enough for Minor to let go of his guilt, for he is well aware of the role that his mental illness played in his heinous act. He is arguably too hard on himself, and Eliza comes to see this. In fact, she comes to love him for it. She writes down “If love…then what?” and hands the card to him. The open-endedness of the unknown expanse that opens up for a culprit and a victim once the latter has forgiven the former, who as gone the “extra mile” in making atonement, is, I contend, the most important message in the film. Minor’s 10,000 words that he donates to Murray pale in comparison; the matter of the heart is much more important, and I make this claim as an intellectual and scholar who loves words, especially when they are set in relation to each other.

It is ironic that a psychotic person goes so far beyond what the overwhelming number of “sane” criminals do in making amends to victims even to the point that a person who loved a victim comes to love the character and sense of obligation and contrition of the victimizer. Such atonement is so unusual that it is easy to feel empathy for Minor when he states that he still thinks he is unredeemable. It is not his mental illness that is responsible for his refusal to let himself accept that he can be free from his guilt, and thus redeemed; rather, it is the value that he places on being redeemed. No mention is made of a redeemer; Minor is faced with the heavy choice and responsibility of deciding whether he has atoned sufficiently to be redeemed. Indeed, his strength of character is such that he can be trusted, in spite of his mental illness, with the decision of redemption that God justly places on his shoulders.

So the movie ends with the open-ended question of where a victim and one’s victimizer go from hatred and fear, respectively. Where do they go in the freedom that the lack of vengeance and guilt open? In the film, Eliza even kisses William. Eventually, he is deported back to America, where he continues to supply Murray with words (through the letter v; Murray himself died when he was on the t’s). How far they get with the massive project is dwarfed by William Minor’s project of the heart by which he is redeemed even though he won’t accept it. Free-will, and what we do from using it, matters in terms of redemption, and "love thy enemy" is utterly transformative such that God, which is love, can be present even in the relationship between a murderer and the widow of the victim. This is perhaps the overriding message of the film.

Golda

In introducing a screening of Golda (2023) at Yale, Shiri Goren, a faculty member in the university’s Near Eastern Languages department, told the audience that “the non-Israeli, non-Jew Helen Mirren” plays Golda Meir in the film. Rather than evincing gratitude that the excellent actress would play an ugly character, the implication is that an actor can, or even worse, should only play characters of the actor’s own background. Goren’s basic ignorance of the craft of acting belies her credibility in teaching a course called Israeli Society in Film. That another of her courses was Israeli Identity and Culture may explain why her knowledge of film was eclipsed, namely by an ideological agenda or orientation. I contend that underlying her delusion concerning acting (and film, moreover) is a much larger problem: that of the artificial monopolization by one group identity. In actuality, each of us has more than one group-identity, so to allow one to envelop one’s very identity is problematic.

The craft of acting lies precisely in being able to inhabit a character in spite of the fact that its background is other. Hence actors do research in advance on a character to be played, whether it is fictional or nonfictional. Such research includes, for example, the character’s occupation and even the location where the character lived or is set to live in the film. Emotional work is also involved as an actor considers what within oneself can be drawn on in playing a given character. Johnny Depp, for instance, said in an interview that he regularly draws on more than one person (or character) in coming up with how to embody a character. To claim, therefore, that an actor can only inhabit characters having the actor’s own background is to deny what acting is, namely, inhabiting someone else. No one would criticize Depp for not having grown up in a crime family in Boston in playing Whitey Bulger in Black Mass (2015). In fact, quite the contrary. That I realized that Depp was the actor playing the role only well into the film attests to the actor’s skill precisely in inhabiting a character of a personality and background so different from Depp’s own. Moreover, that Depp had such versatility as to be able to play a pirate, the owner of a chocolate company, and a serious mobster demonstrates just how wrong it is to claim that an actor can only play a certain kind of character—one in line with the actor’s own background. This is such an obvious point concerning acting that that any claims to the contrary must surely involve false-belief and even delusion: qualities that ideology can have, according to Raymond Geuss in his book, The Idea of a Critical Theory: Habermas and the Frankfurt School.

An ideology, such as one stemming from a suffocating group-identification that seeks to foist itself over a craft such as acting, can be “dependent on mistaking the epistemic status of some of [the ideology’s] apparently constituent beliefs.”[1] In other words, an ideology may hinge on a false-belief. Indeed, the human mind seems to be vulnerable to circuit-failures as an ideologically important false-belief is presumed to be true as if it could not be false. In other words, the mind doesn’t seem to do a good job at flagging its own false beliefs especially if an ideology being held is dependent on them. Hence, a group-identification ideology can get away with utterly misconstruing the craft of acting. Geuss even includes delusion as pertaining to ideology pejoratively.

I contend that delusion pertains to an ideology in which one group-identification is established monopolistically for an individual. To be sure, Geuss insists that “(h)umans have a vital need for the kind of ‘meaningful’ life and the kind of identity which is possible only for an agent who stands in relation to a culture.”[2] The kind of identity is here that which is informed by a person’s relationship to a culture. Each of us is connected to more than one cultures, and, relatedly, more than one group-identity applies.

I’m a Midwesterner; that’s my ethnicity. Identifying as an American in terms of culture is a looser or more general and even secondary ethnicity for me, whereas my group-identity as an American is foremost politically. My vocational group-identity as a scholar goes beyond vocation, and I have more than one religious group-identifications informing my religious identity. Other group-identifications apply to me as well. My racial group-identification as a Caucasian, or “White,” is actually not one that I an conscious of very often, so other people who are constantly referring to themselves and others by race strike me as unnaturally obsessed with the racial group-identification at the expense of others.

Seldom do we realize that one’s group-identification and that of another person may be different not only on the same axis (e.g., being of different racial groups), but also in emphasizing different types. One person might say, “I’m a Black person,” and the hearer might reply, “I’m a Catholic.” The types, or bases, of the two group-identifications are different: race and religion, respectively. This essentially relativizes a person’s favorite basis because others could alternatively be the person’s favorite. The choice seems arbitrary. The hearer could have replied, “I’m an American.” It is not self-evident that a Black person should view oneself primarily in terms of race rather than nationality (or religion or ethnicity, which is yet another category rather than isomorphic with race). More than one Black person has told me that only in leaving the U.S. and living in the E.U. has that person been able to de-prioritize his race-identity to other bases on which to self-identify. It seems to me, however, that a person has more control over which basis upon which to predominately group-identify, even if one basis is foisted upon oneself by a group to which one is accustomed to identifying with primarily.

Because each of us has several group identifications, any one of which a person could perceive as primary, allowing one to monopolize one’s group-identity temporally or geographically can be seen as dogmatic in the sense of being arbitrary. In getting into character, a good actor does not ignore the subordinate group-identifications. In the case of Golda Meir, she was actually from the Ukraine in the Soviet Union, so the claim Helen Mirren’s portrayal suffers because the actress was not Israeli can be understood to be fallacious. In the film, Golda tells Henry Kissinger, the U.S. Secretary of State, that during her childhood in the Ukraine, people would beat up Jews in the streets with impunity. The character doesn’t even identify mostly as an Israeli. Furthermore, her ethnic and religious group-identity as a Jew, while salient, does not monopolize her self-identity.

In fact, the film shows actual television footage of Golda Meir and Anwar Sadat in which Golda says, “As a grandmother to a grandfather, . . .” She could have said, “As a Jew to a Muslim,” or “As an Israeli to an Egyptian,” or “As a politician to a politician,” but her group-identification as a grandmother is on top at that moment. I submit that in her depiction of Golda Meir, Mirren draws significantly from her own group-identity as a woman and a mother.

Three times in the film, Golda empathizes with the typist whose husband is fighting in the war. It is clear from her facial expressions that Mirren is having the character react as a woman to another woman’s experience. Golda is even crying when she watches her assistant inform the typist that her husband has been killed. In listening to a soldier being attacked in battle, Mirren has Golda react as a mother would: to the boy’s anguish. Even in urging Henry Kissinger to eat borscht, a Ukrainian soup, Mirren portrays Golda as a mother—admittedly, as a very Jewish mother. But even in that scene, Golda’s Jewish group-identification is not the only one in play.

To be sure, Mirren does a great job in playing Golda’s specifically Jewish group-identity.  In a scene in which Golda is talking with Ariel Sharon, then a general, she tells him that all political careers end in failure. She even adds fatalist, “huh,” at the end of the sentence. Mirren portrays Golda’s Jewish ethnicity most stridently and explicitly along with Golda’s identification as a mother in the scene in which Kissinger is eating the soup.  As an immediate context, Golda makes explicit the primacy of being Jewish in Israel to Kissinger (e.g., “In Israel, we read right to left”) and even says that her cook is a survivor (i.e., of the Holocaust. It is the posture that Mirren adopts while watching the Jewish American eat the Ukrainian soup that may be Mirren’s most Jewish statement, and, given her skill as an actress, she didn’t need to be Jewish herself.

So, the rather pedestrian, non-intellectual comment of the faculty member at Yale that the non-Israeli, non-Jewish actress would be playing Golda Meir in the film says more about the sordid motive to impose an ideology containing a false-belief (and a delusion) as a weapon than it does about the actress or her (ability to play the) role. The group-identifications of Golda Meir that Helen Mirren uses most are actually as a woman and a mother. Even in this respect, whether Mirren was a mother at time of filming is not terribly important because her craft would have included the ability to play a mother regardless. To be sure, being able to draw on a common background or group-identity is an asset for an actor, but the viability of the craft does not depend on having a common background. That any given character has more than one group-identity makes it more likely that an actor can draw on personal experience in some respect and thus have an experiential connection with the character. This is not to say, however, that such experience is necessary, and even less that experience in one of the several group-identifications of a character is necessary. Besides, the most obvious group-identification of a character to an observer may not actually be primary either to the character (or the historical person on which the character is based) or to the actor in portraying the character. Part of Mirren's talent may be to assess which of a character's group-identities really drives the character, and, relatedly, which is decisive in pulling off the role. As observers, we bring our own ideological agendas, and this is especially problematic if we allow one of our group-identities a monopoly over our self-identity.

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1. Raymond Geuss, The Idea of a Critical Theory: Habermas and the Frankfurt School (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 13.
2. Ibid., p. 22.

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.

Inside Job

Documentaries can admittedly be rather boring, particularly if technical details comprise most of the content. This applies also to a film of historical fiction based on true events, such as The Challenger Disaster (2019), which focuses so much on technical details (albeit set in arguments) that the narrative itself may not be strong enough to hold an audience's attention or interest. In contrast, the documentary, Inside Job (2010), provides such alluring "inside the beltway" (i.e., known only to U.S. Government insiders and their outside partners) information that the details themselves can capture and hold interest.  

The full essay is at "President Obama and Goldman Sachs."

Forsaken

In an interview on the film, Forsaken (2015), Kiefer Sutherland remarks that the film is black and white in terms of the bad and the good guys. In other words, the film is a classic western. James McCurdy wears the “black” hat, while Rev. Samuel Clayton, played by Donald Sutherland, wears the “white” one (even though his clergy-wear is entirely black).  However, Samuel is hardly very nice, or forgiving, to his son at first. On the other side of the dichotomy, Brian Cox, who played McCurdy, said in an interview that his character has the virtue of business sense in that the man buys up area farms, albeit by ruthless means, because he anticipates that the anticipated railroad would drive up land prices. Nevertheless, that McCurdy is willing to take the risk does not justify killing farmers who refuse to be bought out. Michael Wincott, who played Dave Turner—McCurdy’s hired hand, said in an interview that he didn’t see McCurdy as at all grey; rather, his own character and John Henry Clayton, the reverend’s son, are grey in that both try to resist killing; they both know better and attempt to resist the temptation. Even such nuances from the traditional “black and white” western do not go far enough in describing the de facto religious complexity in John Henry. In fact, the screenwriters did not go far enough to capture a truly Christian response to even one’s enemies. Hence I submit that the film gives a superficial gloss that belies just how far a Christian much go to follow the teachings of Jesus.

John Henry Clayton admits to atheism to his father, who of course is a Christian minister. The latter explodes at the statement, which is made on the assumption that a benevolent God could not have allowed for the horrendous suffering in the U.S.A.-C.S.A. “civil” war in which John Henry fought. Why does God allow the innocent to suffer? Perhaps because they were fighting? Perhaps the very question is faulty in that it anthropomorphizes God. Soon it is apparent in the film that John Henry does believe in God and values Jesus’s advocacy of “turning the other cheek.”

John Henry does indeed resist the taunts and then physical attack by Frank Tillman, who works under McCurdy and Turner. John even does as Tillman orders in the midst of the one-sided fight. Viewers might harken back to the scene in Gandhi (1982) in which Gandhi continues to throw Indian-identity cards into a fire even as South African policemen repeatedly beat him for doing so. In both instances, the resistance is active rather than passive because of the restraint needed not to hit back. This sort of restraint can be considered a moral sort of strength. In terms of Jesus’s teaching and example, it doesn’t go far enough, and in this regard the screenwriters of Forsaken fell short in terms of their knowledge of Christian teachings.

In Paul: Apostle of Christ (2018), both Paul and Luke (with Paul’s urging) agree to help the sick daughter of Mauritius Gallas, head of the prison in which Paul is being held prior to execution. Gallas has had Paul whipped repeatedly, and yet when Paul hears of the worsening health of Gallas’ daughter, the apostle urges Luke, a physician, to heal her. Luke is at first very reluctant (to put it mildly), but Paul tells him of Jesus’ teaching that God’s love is for everyone, and a follower of Jesus is called to this even in cases of helping enemies (or even just one’s detractors and rude people). Whereas self-restraint from hitting someone back is admirable ethically, Gallas’ reaction to Paul and Luke having cured the daughter is something else—something more than mere respect of their morals. Gallas begins to ask them about their faith. That is to say, going a step further here crosses from morality into the domain of spirituality. Jesus’ teaching to help even those people who have caused much suffering and harm is so far from the dictates of the world that something more than moral force must be involved. Such is the Kingdom of God, according to Jesus; it turns the world on its head, rather than merely being more moral strength in the world. Turning the world up-side-down is so radical that it implies an orientation beyond our realm; that is, a transcendent orientation that relativizes the world. Herein lies the difference between “merely” turning the other cheek and proactively helping one’s enemies or detractors. In the latter, it is not sufficient for one hand not to know what the other hand is doing, for the full intention must be to help in spite of the hurt felt and the injury incurred.

Forsaken aptly depicts the moral strength of resisting to hit an attacker back, but no hint is given of going a step further that would evince spiritual strength in line with Jesus’ teaching, which is more difficult to put into practice. Interesting, Rev. Samuel Clayton makes no mention of this teaching in preaching at church even though he does advocate resisting the temptation to kill the bad guys. Hence I look toward the screenwriters as having fallen short. The problem here is that viewers can come away from the film with the misunderstanding that Jesus’ teaching is less than what it really is. Moreover, the teaching and thus the religion could be viewed as moral in its essence. Rather than transcending our relations with others, the religion is thought to be of conduct between people. Is God the referent point, or is conduct between people? I submit that having a referent that transcends the human realm—beyond even the limits of human cognition, sensibility, and perception—distinguishes a religion from a moral principle.

On transcendent experience applied to human relations, see Spiritual Leadership in Business, available at Amazon.

Paul: Apostle of Christ

The film carries great weight, theologically, in that Paul describes a very particular kind of love that Jesus preaches and lives out in the Gospels. In so doing, Paul: The Apostle of Christ (2018) shows an overlooked criterion by which people who claim to be Christian can be ascertained as such or not. One implication from the film is that Christianity has contained (and still contains) a number of nominal Christians who are not in fact Christian. A related implication is that the historically (and modern) criteria by which people are considered (and consider themselves) Christian is not as useful (and valid) as the overlooked criterion that is so salient in the film.

In the film, Aquila heads a small Christian enclave in Rome at the time of Nero’s persecution of Christians (and Paul, who is arrested and sentenced to death) for being responsible for burning half of Rome. Never mind that Nero set the fire to have something other than refusals to sacrifice to the Roman gods, including the emperor with which to go after the Christians. When Cassius’s nephew is fatally beaten by Roman guards as the boy was voluntarily on an errand that had been arranged by Aquila, Cassius explodes in anger, insisting that he would extol revenge on Roman guards and then instigate a coup (supposing that Christian rulers would be better). “If any of you take up arms, you have no place within this community,” Aquila tells him. A woman then reminds the irate Cassius that Christians “are to care for the world, not rule it.” Luke reminds the young, passionate Cassius that “Paul has not raised a finger against his oppressors. Let peace be with you,” Luke advises, “for we live in the world but do not wage war as the world does. Peace begins with you, Cassius. Love is the only way.” Paul will tell Luke, “We cannot repay evil with evil; it can only be overcome with good.” The overcoming of the world’s evil is something that Jesus’s real followers, the anonymous Christians, do by valuing and putting into practice Jesus’s dictum to love your enemies, which translates into more than turning the other cheek (i.e., refusing to fight back); a proactive desire to help is also part of Jesus' conception of the Kingdom of God. 
In Luke 6:27, Jesus says, "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you." To be sure, he also goes on to say, "If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also." The Golden Rule, "Do to others as you would have them do to you," encompasses both; don't fight back and try and help those who insult, hit, and steal from you. Further in the passage in Luke, Jesus points out, "If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? for even sinners do the same." Doing good to those who piss you off, or even just annoy you, talk behind your back to take you down, or assault you is so hard to do--so contrary to the default in human nature--that a holiness attaches to the person who takes this leap in faith to do what the world says is weakness. Strength in the kingdom typically stands as weakness according to human reckoning. In fact, where you come out on whether not only turning the other cheek, but also helping, such as Jesus does when he heals the ear of the guard whose ear Peter has cut off, is strength or foolishness determines whether you value Jesus' way into the Kingdom of God, and thus the latter as well. Jesus says he came to preach the mysteries of the Kingdom of God. You cannot disvalue the latter and still worship the means, which is the distinctive holy-rendering that goes with not only not fighting, but also not refusing to help. This could even be the litmus test in whether a person is a follower of Jesus.
In the film, Cassius is unyielding, and he goes on to storm the prison when both Paul and Luke are being held in Paul’s cell. It is extremely important theologically that Aquila tells the Christians living in the enclave that taking up arms, including to kill even enemies including the persecuting Romans, is enough to get them kicked out of the enclave. The implication is startling, for even having the cognitive belief that Jesus is the Son of God is not enough to counter or outweigh the criterion of valuing and practicing the kind of love taught by Jesus. Abstractly, valuing and practice are here more important than belief. Though this too is in the mix, is not valuing and doing something closer to love than is a cognitive belief? Aquila's criterion serves in the film as the litmus test for whether a person is a Christian or not because Aquila tells Cassius that he must leave the enclave if he insists on raising the sword to return evil for evil rather than good for evil. That Cassius believes that Jesus is a certain thing does not get Cassius a pass from Aquila; Cassius still gets the boot if he does not value and practice the particular kind of love valued and exampled by Jesus in the Gospels.

When Luke visits Paul in his prison cell after the incident with Cassius, Luke admits that Cassius’s reaction is sensible given what the Roman guards on the Palatine had done to the boy. Paul immediate chastises Luke by accusing him of not having accepted Christ, by which Paul means, the particular kind of love preached and exampled by Jesus. It is THE WAY into the Kingdom of God—Jesus’s mission being to preach the mysteries (i.e., the unknown) of the Kingdom. Both the means and the end must be valued, or else the Christian believer is only nominal rather than genuine.

It may be common for Christians to say like Augustine did that God is love without knowing that the love being invoked is actually of a particular sort (i.e., a particular concept of love, rather than just love broadly construed). In what I take to be the highlight of the film (without a doubt in terms of acting), Paul gives Luke a description of the love that had been so hard and yet achievable for Paul. 
“Love is the only way,” Paul says. “A love that suffers long, does not envy, is not proud, does not dishonor or seek for itself, is not easily angered, rejoices in truth, never delights in evil, protects, trusts, hopes, and endures all things. That kind of love sets us free and answers evil with good.” Cassius wants to answer the Roman guards’ evil deed with anger and destruction (killing). In a Gnostic vein wherein knowledge plays a vital role, Paul admits he had to “learn how to love”—meaning he had to know this particular form of love and how make the metric of his conduct toward other people, even the Romans. “This power,” Paul says at one point, “is strewn in weakness”—meaning human nature. The desire for vengeance can even be second nature to a person, whereas compassion and aid to enemies is anything but. 
So the suffering that is long in this kind of love goes further than "turning the cheek" when persecuted, attacked, or even insulted. Besides, relative to when the Romans persecuted Christians, not many modern-day Christians face persecution because of the Christian faith. Even the suffering that Paul and Luke face in the film as they face the Perfect's persecution goes further to include an even richer suffering--namely, that which is experienced from resisting the sort of instinctual urge that anger fuels in returning evil for evil. Luke and Paul are disgusted with the Roman guards and their superiors, and yet both of these Christians suffer through helping the Prefect's ill daughter rather than engaging in passive aggression by omission. 
The sort of suffering that goes beyond suffering persecution is distinctively Christian, whereas anyone could suffer persecution voluntarily. In fact, "carrying your cross" may refer not only to the suffering that goes with the pain in being persecuted, but also, and even more so, to the pain of resisting the urge to hit back and going on to help, even with compassion, those people who have taken from you, attacked you, or even just insulted you. Answering good for evil may itself be painful, whereas satisfying the urge to retaliate can be quite satisfying. Even though the pain of being stolen from, attacked, or insulted is significant, the more subtle pain of resisting the temptation to inflict pain in return and then actually being nice and feeling it may really get at what Jesus of the Gospels wants from his followers. Such suffering does not depend on the particular case of being persecuted for one's faith. Given Jesus' emphasis on internal feeling, and that the way to his Father's Kingdom turns the way of the world (i.e, human nature) upside down, the suffering that goes beyond turning the other cheek to actually loving rather than retaliating may actually be more important.

The film shows us an example of Paul putting the distinctive love into practice when he tells the Roman Prefect of the prison, who has had Paul whipped several times, that he knows a good physician (namely, Luke), who can heal the Prefect’s severely ill daughter. Although Luke asks Paul, “How can I bring healing when [the Prefect] and Rome bring so much suffering,” Paul replies that “God’s mercy, and thus his kingdom, are open to all,” and “Where sin abounds, grace abounds more.” Luke is convinced and volunteers to heal the daughter. The Prefect’s reaction is interesting—something more than puzzlement suggesting that something odd from the standpoint of human nature has just been witnessed. A similar facial expression is evinced by Pontius Pilot as he sees the strength of the whipped Jesus walking closer through a hallway in The Greatest Story Ever Told. Of course, that Paul and Luke can accomplish in their human nature a skewed human nature suggests that our own nature is pliable enough to incorporate such love, which, as Augustine wrote, is God. 

For implications for leadership, see "Christianized Ethical Leadership, a booklet available at Amazon.

The Young Messiah

The 2016 film, The Young Messiah, admits to being an imagined year in Jesus’s childhood. To be sure, history and even Biblical passages are drawn on, but the genre of the film is fiction. This label seems too harsh, for Josephus, an ancient Jewish historian, mentions Jesus, “the so-called Christ, and his brother James." Josephus was not a believer; he did not believe that Jesus Christ was (or is) the Son of God. So, given Josephus's intent to record history rather than write scriptures or, more specifically, faith narratives, scholars can conclude that at least one historical mention is made of Jesus and his brother as having lived. To be sure, the historian could have been wrong; he may have heard secondhand that Jesus and James did exist, and the teller might have had an agenda unknown to the historian. Even so, Jesus and James are mentioned in one historical account, just as the Hebrews having been in Egypt is mentioned on a historical tablet. We must be careful to distinguish these records from that which is in faith narratives concerning Jesus and Moses. We simply do not know whether that material has any bearing on the historical, as no historical accounts are (as of yet) extant. 
Very little from Jesus's childhood is in the Gospels, so the screenwriter had to use imagination to fill out the gaping holes. Crucially, they were filled with content consistent with, though not in, the Gospels. In other words, the film contains religious meanfulness that is admittedly from imagination in large part, and yet that meaningfulness is strong even so, and can be readily associated with Jesus's ministry. In other words, the film enables the viewer to see that religious meaningfulness need not be from faith narratives directly, and, furthermore, that they need not be conflated with historical accounts--something even the writers of faith and of history would not have done. How, then, can we override their intents, which are clear from their writings. Even today, theologians, for instance, do not regard themselves as historians, and vice versa.

In short, a distinctive religious meaningfulness can be separated from the domain of history without any loss, and history need not be used as a crutch. Human imagination, being informed by both, can produce valid religious meaning. 

What religious meaningfulness can be taken from a film that admits to be an imaginary year in the life of young Jesus? I contend that the medium of film pulls this off wonderfully. The story takes off when Joseph, Mary, Jesus, James, and a few other relatives leave Egypt to return to Nazareth. Herod has just died, as told by one of Joseph’s dreams, but Herod’s son is intent on catching and killing the future king. Of course, Herod jr. is misunderstanding the sense in which the Kingdom of God is qualitatively different than any extant on Earth. While the search for Jesus is going on. Jesus himself is trying to figure out why he can heal people. He is different, but why? He goes ahead of his parents to the Temple in Jerusalem at Passover to ask the rabbis. Ironically, he asks a blind rabbi, who helps the seven-year old, who in turn heals the man’s blindness. 
Even so, Jesus must get to the bottom of the matter of why he is different, so he asks his mother Mary, who reveals that the spirit of God came onto her and impregnated her. Jesus is God’s son, or God is Jesus’s father. At this point, Jesus has the insight, which can neither have been put into the film from historical or Biblical research, that God had a son at least in part to be able to feel life, for without having become flesh, God can’t know what it like to feel the sun and water, as well as sadness and human happiness. God so loves the world that God wanted to experience life here. Based on this insight, Jesus has a stronger zest of life; he believes God is experiencing life through him. The meaningfulness of this subtle point dwarfs the value of the chase scenes, in my opinion, but a film must have dramatic tension even, interestingly, when the audience knows how the tension will end (i.e., Jesus will survive into adulthood). That film is able to siphon off the status-quo default of the hegemony of the historical in Christianity and yet distill religious meaningfulness as distinct and surprisingly nonetheless as also of value is a testament to the value of film as well as religion as sui generis. In other, more understandable words, the viewer can isolate religious meaning even knowing the film was written as fiction, drawing from history and Biblical studies. The latter two have become so dominant that it can scarcely be believed that religious meaningfulness can not only exist, but also thrive, on its own with only some contextual help from history and what is in the Bible.