Review of the Movie "Son of God"

(reposted from http://forthedayisbreaking.blogspot.com/2014/03/review-of-movie-son-of-god.html)

Now, I'm hardly a theologian nor a film critic.  Being a pastor who likes to watch movies, I feel I have enough to give an opinion and to leave it at that.  If you haven't seen the movie yet, you can always judge for yourself against my opinion; or if you have, leave a comment about what you thought.

My biggest disappointment wasn't what some are calling "hot Jesus" (although I must say, it sounds offensive) or in the fact that mashing four Gospels into one film never seems to portray an accurate retelling of the story.  My biggest complaint was the first 5 and last 5 minutes of the show, where the narrator, told to be John the beloved disciple, apparently lives long enough to also be the writer of the Gospel of John and the Revelation of John.  Albeit, the members of the congregation who have been attending the Bible study on the Revelation of John can tell you there are problems with assuming that the writer of the Gospel of John and the writer of the Revelation of John are the same person.  The biggest is the writing itself; the penmanship is different and the language is put together differently.  This can be seen in the original Greek language and comparing the two documents together.  The other difficult understanding is that the Book of Revelation was probably written around 92-96 AD, when "John" would have been sent into exile by emperor Domitian.  If you take the earlier dating, 60-70 AD, emperor Nero was in the midst of executing Christians, making "John" virtually dead by the time he would have written this document.  The Gospel of John has been dated usually between 100 AD and 120 AD, leaving it as a possibility for being a later addition than the Revelation of John.  Even thinking that these two documents could possibly be related by the same author, that would make John (as an actual disciple of Christ) somewhere in his late 70s or 80s (assuming he was in his teenage years when Jesus died) by the time he is speaking in the movie, which is a very uncommon age to live to in those days.  So, my argument is that you have to ignore the first and last part of the movie.  Now for the middle part.

Overall, I might be willing to say it was good.  However, I had to ignore certain parts of the Gospel; the Gospels first came to us through oral media (Jesus spoke and people listened).  When it was written down, I'm sure we last some things, but God directed the scribes to write what we see today.  Like any book that is turned into a movie, there are bound to be some very rough moments if you have read the book and loved it.  I had to suspend some things I knew to be true in order to see what the movie was driving at.  For example, Jesus follows more of a divine understanding than a human one.  Indeed, the Jesus in the movie follows closer to the Gospel of John's retelling than the humanness we see in the other three Gospels.  In fact, what disturbed me the most about Jesus was that he never wept over Lazarus' death, and the shortest sentence in the whole Bible is "Jesus wept".  Jesus had a human side (even in the Gospel of John, where we find this sentence) and that can't be denied.  But the only time Jesus cries (understandably for the time) was during the crucifixion scenes, where he knows what is coming.

I also had to really ignore a time in the Bible when Mary, the mother of Jesus bends over to Jesus who is on the ground.  Jesus gives Mary encouragement by saying something about God's path; however, there is a part in the Gospels where Mary cries out to Jesus to stop talking nonsense and Jesus dismisses his mother and family for the new "family" around him.  While Mary obviously doesn't understand everything, in the movie she is given hope by the omniscience of Jesus, something I had a hard time believing would really happen to her in the Gospels.

Jesus never really develops as a character.  In fact, it is his super-human quality that I felt I couldn't associate with.  This Jesus felt like a magician (this coming from a pastor).  Key sentences were left out of the story line.  For example, Jesus tells Peter to fish, but Peter resists.  After a little convincing, Peter tosses the net by the side of the boat.  Instead of Jesus telling him to cast it on the other side, Jesus touches the water and fish appear.  Likewise, in the feeding of the 5000, Jesus holds up a basket and the fish and loaves are multiplied before everyone is given anything to eat.  To me, that seems like magic.  I always thought of the feeding of the 5000 as a story about everyone taking some and the bread and fish never vanishing, like the story of Elijah and the widow whose flour never ran dry.  Instead, the food appeared before the meal even started.  It is also this super-human Jesus that carries the whole cross after being beaten, while the other two criminals just carry the supporting beam.  Even though Jesus doesn't make it the whole way by himself, it would be hard to believe that out of all the people being executed, Jesus would have received a severer punishment after being whipped and beaten such; it's more likely Jesus too carried just the supporting beam.  Of course, what then can be said about "carrying your own cross"?  Maybe we can address that in another blog.

I'm not exactly sure what to make of Jesus' resurrection.  It doesn't follow any one particular Gospel (here we get into the problems of voicing).  Take a look for yourself.

I also felt there were key stories that were missing: the hemorrhaging woman, the centurion's child, the casting out of demons (there weren't any), the wedding of Cana, the shepherds at the nativity scene, the man with the withered hand, the old man by the pool of Siloam, any of the parables.  Come to think of it, Jesus was called a rabbi but didn't do much teaching (rabbi means teacher).

As for Judas, I'm not sure why he kept going back to the Temple.  Once truly is enough.  I did appreciate the lightness they took on the matter about the betrayal.  Jesus really puts the pressure on Judas to carry out God's will (forcing him to eat the bread and telling him to go).

I did appreciate that the disciples were more than just men, although there was only one woman who followed Jesus (besides Jesus' mother coming in and out of the picture).  The connection was missing between Mary Magdalene and Martha (as sisters) and her profession was completely overlooked.  In fact, Mary just started showing up one day (unless I missed something).

Obviously, condensing 4 Gospels into a film cuts out most, and in this day and age, it's easier to disappoint than impress.  I would give the movie 3.5 out of 5 stars, mostly because it gets you thinking.  However, this movie is clearly geared towards those who are churched as it doesn't explain the baptism scene, the Jesus customs during Passover (which the movie gets wrong... the bread is during the meal, the cup is after).  I also applaud the directors for trying to be a little more cultural about Jesus, but Jesus wasn't Latin American... he was Arab.

Oh, and I should conclude by saying: this movie isn't for children.  I had a grown adult man sitting next to me that was queezey by all the blood and violence in the film.  Please leave your children at home (I saw way too many in the theater).

Let me know what you think!