If I were a director....
First of all I would take into consideration that out of 48 parables NOT A SINGLE ONE draws attention to his experience as a “carpenter”. Why so? Isn’t it strange? Not quite! Carpenter or bricklayer would’ve worked with stone in buildings at Zippori, 4 miles from modern Nazareth. Wood was scarce in Israel. This profession “carpenter” is just a tradition coming from Justin Martir at the end of 2nd Century, other translations could’ve been blacksmith. During the 5th Century, Jerome in his Vulgata version of the Bible used the Latin word “faber” meaning a manufacturer. In Latin the “carpentae” did chariots. The Greek word used in the Gospels was “tekton” and guess what? It’s the source of our modern word “architect” as in Greek “archiTEKTON” which was like a civil constructor or a MASON. Indeed, there’s an incredible revelation quoted in Matthew 6:27, the only sui generis version ever in a Greek text. What? Christ linked together a measurement of SPACE and TIME! It says “Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?” Is not linear length or formula for how to grow a 7-foot basketball star, but asking who can add one cubit of SPACE to his life span of TIME by worrying? Length equals age in this metaphor. Mason is also the definition of a master in spiritual terms. He was not a “carpenter” in the sense of the poorest of the poor in those days.
Indeed, the Roman citizens were taller than the Jews for several inches. Therefore the soldiers in my hypothetical film would be taller than Christ and the rest of Jews. Using an actor as tall as Sweden Max Von Sidow (1.91 mts.) is an error. Judas wouldn’t ever needed to betray Christ identifying him with a kiss if the Master were a giant wearing a hippy hair! There’s a long tradition Pontius Pilate was Scottish and considering the most amount of red hair people are from Scotland you can bet “my” Pilate would be red hair. the Roman Procurator of Judea at the time of the crucifixion of Christ. Curiously, one of the oldest military regiments in the British Army is the Royal Scots, who claim to be descended from Pontius Pilate’s bodyguard, thus providing another Scoto-Roman link with the Pilate Scottish enigma.
At Caesaria in Palestine is to be found an ancient stone slab which is called the Pilate Stone due to a Latin inscription inscribed upon it which appears to read “Hiberieum Pontius Pilatus”. At the time of Pilate the Gaelic northerly regions of the British Isles, including Ireland, were known to the Romans as Hibernia. Does this Latin inscription reinforce the story that Pontius Pilate originally came from Scotland according to the old Glen Lyon oral tradition? Fortingall, the land of the Yew-trees.
As an aside, could it be that Pontius Pilate was schooled in the Celtic Druid tradition so prevalent in Scotland at that time? The Druid motto was “Truth against the world”. Does this explain Pilate asking Jesus “What is truth?”, possibly a Druidic password given by one initiate to another? With His possible association with the Druids during His legendary visits to Britain, perhaps Jesus responded with a secret sign, hence His apparent non verbal reply as indicated in the Gospel of John.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9C04E5DE103EE033A25752C2A96E9C946697D6CF
If that’s the case, actor-singer David Bowie was the most accurate Pontius Pilate of the screen (The Last Temptation of Christ) and someone suggested him to talk with Scott accent but he refused and spoke as English man he is.
Yet, if Christ descended from David, the red hair king, according to 1 Samuel, is it possible Christ had red hair himself? David’s appearance is not known in great detail, however we do know that he was described as handsome, had red hair (i.e. “ruddy”), and was relatively short in stature (1 Samuel 16:12, 17:42).
2.000 years ago the clothes worn by Jews were not as colorful as we see in Mormon or Jehovah’s Witnesses’ literature. Purple, blue were used by few rich people because it was too expensive for the rest of people who usually wore brown or red sort of colors in not-so-soft clothing. There was no orange. Probably my hypothetical movie would be filmed in brown color like those photographic albums from my grandparents or like Wizard of Oz with only some parts filmed in colors, just to enhance what is relevant.
I do care the fact Catholic church selected just 4 gospels out of 20 and Protestants have followed that cannon without considering the solid evidence of at least 2 other gospels so-called apocrypha, mainly Gospel of Thomas which is very similar to the other ones but with some little utterances which are uncomfortable for the macho attitude of the elders of that time: mainly Peter and Paul. If Christians had read more the Bible than the magazines or books caressed by their own churches, they would’ve learned more about apostle Paul than ever in their lives, but it’s not my business if they think Paul’s statements were greater than Christ’s and filter everything he taught as seen by Paul’s view.
After decades of listening superficial pseudo explanations of Christ’s parables I have to confess all of them from several churches were filtered by the brain and none touched my heart. The only one who explained Christ’s utterances in a way that made my cry for the first time (and curiously had the same effect on my dad and brother) was a Hindu guy who was recorded in his teachings and never wrote a book himself. But I won’t say his identity. He was poisoned little by little by the agents of USA who banned him out of the country and they even threatened other countries which could give him shelter. So much “damage” created a peaceful man who received people from all over the world in his ashrams and never created a church nor wanted followers.
The Bible mentions Christ stared the people so in a movie I’d focus on his penetrating eyes. Mystic like Hindu gurus can stare as if passing through your body and people feel like being sucked by a magnetic presence due to the gravitational effect of the very presence of the man. You either love them or hate them. In that sense, having observed people with all sort of eyes (and for that matter other alternative would be to film a black Messiah with blue eyes, just not to fit in the same stereotypes!)
I think the most striking are the green, hazel or almost yellow eyes of people in Afghanistan with Semitic features sometimes enhanced by dark skin because of the contrast. But I would like an actor with the features of Japanese, Arabian, Jewish, Hindu, Black Africans in order to make him “universal” as I imagine Adam himself. This is specially true because there are people who believe the tomb of Jesus is in Shingo Village (Herai) in Japan while others imagine it at Khanyar Rozabal in Kashmir, India. My would-be Christ could be a black Japanese with hazel-yellow eyes and brown-red hair or any other combo!It would be like Hindu actor Kabir Bedi (though his features reveal everything but merciful attitude!)
Not like digital brown eyes (and prosthetic nose) of the actor Jim Caviezel (J.C.) in Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ...neither blue eyes like Jeffrey Hunter in King of Kings...nor like English actor Robert Powell in Zefirelli’s version, nor as Sweden actor, Max Von Sidow in The Longest Story Ever Told. Actually Powell was gonna play Judas but they put him a wig and looked like the image we all know (blue eyeliner on the eyelids and white under his eyes -without winking for 5 minutes- enhance the supernatural effect).
There’s another film with a Peruvian-Scottish actor Henry Ian Cusick who is like a tall version of Dustin Hoffman. Could be, but we have already seen him. Jeremy Sisto in the tv version looks nice but his eyes are surrounded by a kind of darkness as if he were playing someone on drugs IMHO. It’s because his eyes seem to be plugged deep in the orbits within the skull. Certainly I wouldn’t hire a blonde actor (like we see William Defoe in Last Temptation of the Christ) unless I want to recreate the transfiguration vision (when Christ appears with Moses and Elijah and his face turns into a bright feature like the Sun) we seldom watch in movies, adding some incredible special FXs. Perhaps rather than a blonde actor I would use an ALBINO or the same actor with white contact lens and wig.
Now, Christ wouldn’t have a long hair forbidden by Law unless he was an Essenian. I doubt he was one of them though he maybe related with their mysticism. Only they wore white tunics, therefore forget all films showing people wearing white unless you want to portray the burying of a dead body because for the Jews white was equivalent to our black clothes when mourning the dead!
In a famous Italian movie Passion According to Mathew, we see an aggressive Messiah played by Basque-Jewish actor Enrique Irazoqui who has a unique eyebrow which reminds an ancient document describing Christ like that (but the Jews and specially a Rabbi, wouldn’t wear a one-week beard but one which was forbidden to be cut or untreated, not to mention his hair looked like Roman’s style which wasn’t really the case because though the hair wouldn’t be as long as a woman’s it wouldn’t be as short as Roman’s either) :
Thus, the so-called recreation of the Jews (like Christ) from ancient times with wider, heavier and more robust skulls is also rendering the artists’ (or forensic) personal views (with a wrong too short haircut and assuming all Jews had curly hair). That Jesus looks like Brutus from Popey cartoon! Compare them:
http://new.rejesus.co.uk/images/area_uploads/faces/faces_bbc.jpg
http://100grana.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/theshinning_brutus01_100grana.jpg
If the writers of the Gospels allowed themselves to “edit” Christ’s quotes, as a director I would allow myself to gather some of Christ teachings in the proper context but not exactly as people imagine they were spoken. There was no tape recorder at that time, see? The writers used their memory of the accounts as seen from different angles.
Zeffirelli was based on the paintings of Renascence (and perhaps in Dane C. Bloch’s art) and Gibson in the darkness of Caravaggio’s art (which is why almost half of the film was filmed at night). But I prefer the likeness of the Italian movie, The Gospel According to Matthew. I hate Deacon’s wig (or is it a haircut?) in a tv film. POWELL WAS TO PLAY JUDAS, wanna see him like that?
http://fotolog.terra.com.mx/inca:166
In the TRANSLATIONS there are things that should be corrected. For example, in Greek we read in Mark 10: 25 the word “camel” which is “kauNlov” and was confused with the word “rope” which is “kauIlov”. Thus the famous dictum that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God should be translated more in the sense of being easier for a rope to go through the eye of a needle.... In John 18 Christ must not say simply the equivalent of Greek “ego eimi” (I am) but indeed he was mentioning God’s forbidden name and we know this because of the reaction of the ones who listened him withdrawing and kneeling before him and the very context of John 17 when Christ reveals at least a fistful of times that he taught God’s name to his disciples.
We have not seen the scene in which the chained and possessed one with extraordinary strength is exorcised by the Messiah and the demons enter the body of pigs to be thrown into the abyss. This kind of thing was known since ancient times. In Egypt, demons were connected to the black pig. I’ve known a family who were not lying when they told me they saw the hand of a possessed person being twisted like the head of the girl in the film The Exorcist. Those special effects would be more impressive than others.
In that sense, the film The Greatest Story Ever Told is more akin to what the Gospels teach because the miracles are not done in a fantastic manner but usually triggered by the faith of the cured ones. There’s a text in Mark admitting Christ couldn’t perform miracles in his town due to the lack of faith of the people suggesting the miracle (like the woman who touched Christ’s garment when he was not even aware of it among the crowd or the Roman who was convinced just by the saying his slave was going to be cured) the faith was always involved and if there was no faith the placebo Tai Chi magic wouldn’t work. But churches HATE using that text. Faith in Greek is linked to “metanoia” which is also a change of mind attitude but you won’t listen this explanation in your church too often.
They don’t say either the word in Aramaic for “repent” (teshuva) has nothing to do with that feeling of sadness which is like a burden but gaining AWARENESS (like the prodigal son) and going inward. Consciousness not just about a single act of momentary stupidity which you can repeat and repeat ad infinitum but awareness of the whole life living like a zombie! Let the dead ones bury their dead. For the same reason churches like Jehovah’s Witness awfully explain that statement “the kingdom of God is among you” when actually the Greek was saying something totally different: “entos humoon” meaning the kingdom is within you and me, all of us. Therefore the parables talking about the tiny seed of mustard, the pearl of good price in the sea, the seeds in good soil are all reference to ourselves, with the help of angels. Spirituality is not becoming a member of a club listening speeches twice a week for decades or giving speeches. Christians love to count the millions in their flock and seem to forget the path to the kingdom is narrow indeed and a privilege for a few ones, not the mass.
Christ message is Hindu Vedanta but most of the Christians never learned that. For the Jews the admission he was one with God was blasphemy but this is not as sensational statement in India because whomever saying that left out the “self” or ego, hence is not an act of cockiness or selfishness. It’s not a preaching but a state of the person. Only few ones have had this experience and I have just seen a reflection of that which allows me to believe but I’m not a chosen one. I’m not a “bride” in that sense. There was no fusion with the unnamable or unspeakable experience in my case.
Even God’s name meaning is suggesting that and all translations are wrong because the Hebrew is complex in that sense. I’m not naïve. If Christians failed to comprehend the very Bible message due to wrong translations of Hebrew and Greek or just caressing their own dogmas because they already have too much involved in the new revelations-package, it’s doubtful they would care to study Hindu or any other culture assuming everything is pagan and coming from the demon. Moses learned the “wisdom of Egyptians” says the New Testament but usually people think all aspect of Egyptians was devil worshipping. The devil is quoted too often in Christian churches as a curtain of their own ignorance. Devil exists without doubt but not everything is polluted by him and sometimes the pollution is inside the very churches.
Hence this would-be film could focus in texts never too-often explained, like when Christ says to pray to the HIDDEN FATHER, not to worry about tomorrow (pay attention to NOW), etc. “My” Christ on the screen wouldn’t talk like a Mormon or Jehovah’s Witness or any other evangelist EVER but very slowly, almost unbearable. People would really have to shut up and pay attention or get off. All films go in the other direction: they want to convince us with superficial parrot-repetition of things they never understood; trying to make us digest in 2 hours statements he did in 3 years like a memorabilia or collection of fairy tales. Not at all, folks!
Do you really think the writers of the Bible were counting the pieces of fish or bread as leftovers from the miracles? Or was a hidden code of another sort? After all “fish” in Greek was almost exactly like saying Christ (anointed one). and Christ taught they were Fisher of men! That could be a code of people “fished” in the congregation, new ones baptized as Christians in times of persecution. Ishta — a variant of the name of Christ as the Ichthus (or “Fish”, in Greek) — means “the Sacrificed One”. That’s the real source of the Catholic ritual of eating fish rather than lamb or red meat during Eastern Passover.
Last but not least, the Christ of this would-be movie couldn’t ever be called “Jesus” with a letter “j” (jota) invented by a French humanist (de la Ramée) about 1.600 years after Christ due to the Medieval habit of curving the “i” (iota) to the left. Jews altered the names of the people consider blasphemer in order to hide it forever as a cursed one. The name was to be forgotten. Christ’s name began with the same letters “I” and “S” like Israel and Isaiah (I bet you never asked yourself or to the linguists why Israel and Isaiah sound like EE while Egyptian Isis sounds like AY and I won’t do homework for your ignorance) and the short version is ISA (sounds EEsa) just as Muslim remember it in their Arabic language so close to Hebrew and Aramaic but without the alterations of the controvert “Hebrew” which is Aramaic from Babylon. If you never asked yourself why both so-called Hebrew names Yeshua and Yehoshua end with “A” while Jesus adds a second “S” at the end is your problem.
In Zeffirelli we see Christ curing a blind man making mud in his hand but we should see the hypnotizer and miracle man doing at least 2 miracles with mud that was made WITH HIS OWN SALIVA and that is something the audience could be shocked but it's part of the Scripture many people are unaware 'cos they simply haven't read!!!!!! It would be good if writers take a look at the Bible, when Eliyah and other prophet rose people from the dead: there was a rite like walking several times spinning around the corpse and lay down upon their bodies, touching lips and eyes. Perhaps Christ did the same after he closed the door and resurrected a girl only in the presence of some of his disciples and the parents. Gospel of John with that Peruvian/Scottish actor Ian Cusick, Jeremy Sisto Jesus tv series and Genesis, Project Luke and Gospel According to Matthew with Enrique Irazoqui, all 4 show Christ walking on water but it's a good scene to repeat again.
When Christ wrote something on the ground (when the woman was going to be stoned) it's needed to reveal to the audience it was forbidden even to write 2 letters UNLESS they were made with dust meaning Christ knew their traditions and defied them. One Pharisee or scribe should mention that in a scene like that and it has to be written by script writer who knows. At least in a couple of films we watch he is drawing a fish (equivalent of his name in Greek). He was probably writing the magic name of God and the pronunciation which is the biggest secret of Judaism! He could write the name in vertical manner in Hebrew or Paleo-Hebrew Phoenician better.
When Christ is talking about Pharisees clothes (which used at least 18 pieces) we have never seen the revelation of all those things which Christians usually ignore. Maybe Christ could actually point them out to his audience (and the viewers of a film): the box they enlarged with the scriptures, the ropes they tied to the arms or maybe holding the schawl in purple or blue. It's more dramatic if those words go along with showing them because it will remember the Protestants wearing necktie and suits or Catholic & Greek Orthodox priests (not to mention modern religious Jews) who wear those things NOW to give an likeness of neatness, false morality façade or dedication.
The BAPTISM had to be shown as it was, not just a rite but a process to rise again after dying, that is John the Baptist almost DROWNING the receiver of the Holy Ghost like in the scene of the schizophrenic guy in THE CELL