The Chosen

I haven't seen this series The Chosen so I can't vouch for it. It's supposed to be about Jesus' life "through the eyes of those who met him". The first episode (eight total) is available for free via the film's YouTube channel (below). I just thought I'd mention it in case anyone is interested. If anyone has watched it, please feel free to leave your thoughts.

Palm Sunday

A series on the last week of Jesus' earthly life. Based on the book The Final Days of Jesus by Andreas Köstenberger and Justin Taylor. Dates are based on the book too. By the way, the book is currently available for free here.

Like a dove

The accounts of Christ's baptism, reported in all four Gospels (Mt 3:13–17; Mk 1:9–11; Lk 3:21–23; Jn 1:29-33), record how the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus like a dove. If you were there, what would you see?

Perhaps that's the Shekinah. In Scripture, the Shekinah seems to be protean. Sometimes resembling a dust devil or fire devil (the "pillar of cloud/fire"). Sometimes more like a wall of fire (Exod 14:19-20). Sometimes like an electrical storm (Ezk 1). 

Maybe in this case the Shekinah assumes an avian shape, but still clearly supernatural. Incandescent or translucent. 

Miracle battery

And a great crowd followed him and thronged about him. 25 And there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years, 26 and who had suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better but rather grew worse. 27 She had heard the reports about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. 28 For she said, “If I touch even his garments, I will be made well.” 29 And immediately the flow of blood dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. 30 And Jesus, perceiving in himself that power had gone out from him, immediately turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my garments?” 31 And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say, ‘Who touched me?’” 32 And he looked around to see who had done it. 33 But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling and fell down before him and told him the whole truth. 34 And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease” (Mk 5:24-34). 

i) This is an enigmatic passage. On the face of it, this might suggest that Jesus is a supercharged miracle battery. You only have to touch him, and there's an involuntary transfer of miraculous energy, like an electrical current. 

ii) One thing to keep in mind is that Mark uses "power" (dynamis) as a synonym for "miracle". So we could translate v30, "a miracle went out from him". It's not that he contains miraculous energy, but rather, he's a source of miracles. 

iii) In the OT, some objects are "sacred" objects. They've been consecrated for sacred use, and there's an automatic cause/effect relation if they are misused. An example is the ark of the covenant. It's that's mishandled, the result is fatal (2 Sam 6:6-10). It's not because there's anything naturally special about the ark of the covenant. It's just a gilded wooden box. But God arranged a cause/effect relation.

An analogy would be the tree of life and the tree of knowledge. God has assigned a particular result if someone ate the fruit. Another example is 2 Chron 26:16-21, where King Uzziah contracts a visible, conspicuous skin disease because he makes unauthorized use of sacred objects. 

It's based on the principle of ritual purity and ritual impurity, where a person becomes defiled by profaning a sacred object. The result is automatic.

iv) Apropos (iii), I think there's an element of that in the Markan account, which views Jesus as a sacred object (so to speak). Merely touching Jesus can produce an effect without his consciously willing that effect, like contact with sacred objects in the OT. 

v) But in the Markan, that's qualified in a couple of respects. Because Jesus is thronged by the crowd, many people are touching him, yet only she is healed. The differential factor is her faith. 

vi) In addition, she is ritually impure due to chronic bleeding. Normally, ritual impurity is contagious. Someone who's ritually impure transmits that on contact. 

But in the case of Jesus, the process is reversed. She doesn't contaminate Jesus by touching him; rather, he heals her by being touched by her. So that's in studied contrast to the OT. Rather than sinners desecrating Jesus by physical contact, it has the opposite effect: they are restored. 

On Jordan's bank

A traditional crux is why Jesus underwent baptism. John's baptism symbolized repentance, yet Jesus had nothing to be penitent about.

1. There's an aspect of mutual attestation. Jesus is vouching for John's vocation, and John returns the favor. By the same token, it gives John a very public opportunity to bear witness to Christ.

2. Mt 2-4 is crisscrossed with new Exodus typology, so the baptism and temptation of Christ probably play on that theme. To some degree, he's recapitulating the history of Israel, only he succeeds where Israel fails.

3. In that regard, the location of the baptism is emblematic. Not just any body of water, but the Jordan river. That was a border of ancient Israel. Joshua and the Israelites had to cross the Jordan river to enter the promised land. By undergoing baptism, Jesus is situated on that evocative border–between Israel and the wilderness.

4. That's reinforced by the temptation, where he enters the wilderness. That triggers associations with the experience of the Exodus generation. The fact that Jesus quotes from Deuteronomy, three times in a row, bolsters allusions to the history of Israel in the Sinai desert. 

5. In addition, Christians must face trials and temptations, so Jesus is setting an example to emulate. 

6. The vicarious symbolism of his actions at the outset of his public ministry preps the reader for the vicarious atonement to come. Jesus is already acting in a representative capacity, by reprising the role of Israel. This involves the same general principle as vicarious atonement. Acting on behalf of and in lieu of another or others.  

7. Why did Satan tempt him?

i) For one thing, this indicates that Jesus got the attention of the dark side–like radar and satellite surveillance to detect inbound ICBMs. Jesus poses a threat to the dark side. His public baptism alerts the enemy to a mortal foe. 

ii) Apropos (i), the dark side sends its top gun to confront Jesus. Not a demon but the leader of the cosmic rebellion. The dark side can't afford to ignore Jesus. 

6. Mark mentions that Jesus was with wild animals. Some scholars think this foreshadows the experience of Christians who were martyred in the Colosseum. Torn apart by vicious beasts. 

The Risen movie

http://www.craigkeener.com/the-risen-movie/

Playing Jesus

I'm going to comment on this post:

http://reformedapologist.blogspot.com/2014/03/images-of-christ.html

Are Christians going to a Jesus movie merely to get a glimpse of the Lord’s humanity, or are they looking to be spiritually edified by a visual depiction of the God-man?

Speaking for myself, I watch a movie about Christ out of curiosity regarding the director's artistic interpretation, as well as the actor's artistic interpretation. In the respect it's not essentially different from reading a sermon about Jesus to experience the preacher's theological interpretation of Jesus. 

Added to this, an actor, no matter how good, cannot help but project his own personality (blended with a scripted personality) onto the screen. He cannot portray the personality of another perfectly - let alone the personality of the Second Person of the Trinity even approximately! Therefore, the actor who would dare play the Christ cannot but project a false image of God even if he sticks to the written script of Scripture. It’s not as though verbal tone and body language do not proceed from personality. 

As far as that goes, the gospel writer is, to some extent, projecting his own personality. That's part of the organic theory of inspiration, championed by Warfield. Commentators have often noted how the voice of the narrator blends with the voice of Jesus in the Gospel of John. Sometimes they're indistinguishable. 

Also, to say it's "false" is misleading. There's no reasonable expectation that an actor's portrayal of a historical figure will be identical with figure he portrays. We make that mental distinction at the outset. At least we ought to. 

What possibly intrigues me most in all of this is that when I watch a good movie I have no problem suspending my beliefs so that the actor may “become” for me the character. So, Al Pacino becomes The Don and Anthony Hopkins becomes C.S. Lewis. No sin there I trust. Do Christians do the same when watching Jesus movies? I would think not. I certainly hope not! Christians are to be on their guard because they should realize that the actor will not be faithful to the Second Person. We don’t know Jesus’ facial expressions, etc. but such expressions often speak a thousand words. Are those words consistent with the Son of God? More to the point, are they His words? If not, then how are movies such as this not putting words in God’s mouth?

That raises a number of issues which demand further distinctions:

i) Great actors find themselves in an ironic position. Once you gain a reputation as a great actor, people watch you to see what you will do with the character. It's harder to forget the actor and get into the character. 

ii) We need to distinguish between playing fictional characters and historical figures. And that requires further distinctions:

iii) Sometimes a director will film a fictional book. Say, film the Chronicles of Narnia. If you read the book first, then you have a preconception of the characters. You already imagined the characters in your own head. And you compare your preconception with the film. Often, you will judge the cinematic adaptation to be a success or failure depending on how it jives with your preconception. So we frequently bring that critical detachment to viewing a fictional character.

iv) Then you have fictional characters who only exist in film. The screenwriter created the character. The viewer's first introduction to the character is through the actor. In that respect we make less mental separation between the actor and the character, because we have no independent frame of reference. Of course, if the actor has done other memorable performances, then we don't exclusively associate the actor with that particular part. But some actors become typecast when, early in their career, their performance of a particular character is iconic or unforgettable. 

v) Then you have historical figures. That ranges along a continuum. In some cases it's difficult to distinguish between fact and legend. And many of them lived before the advent of photography. We don't know what they looked like or sounded like. In that respect they have a more fictional quality, because our imagination fills in so many biographical details. 

Then you have historical figures whose lives were in some degree captured on news reels, talk shows, &c. Their voice was recorded. They were photographed. 

That creates more potential to compare and contrast the actor with the historical figure he portrays. The extent to which the viewer draws that comparison depends on other factors. If, say, you're old enough to remember Eisenhower, then you can mentally compare Tom Selleck's performance with your personal recollection of Eisenhower from televised speeches, press conferences, &c. Or, if you're a presidential history buff, you may have watched news footage of Ike.

On the other hand, many viewers who were born after the historical figure passed from the scene don't have that frame of reference. 

vi) Jesus has been portrayed by so many different actors that we don't associate Jesus with any one actor's performance the way we associate Patton with Scott's performance. Speaking for myself, when I think of George S. Patton, I think of George C. Scott. But when I think of Jesus, I don't think of Max von Sydow, Enrique Irazoqui, Robert Powell, Willem Dafoe, Jim Caviezel, Henry Ian Cusick et al. That's not the first thing that pops into my head. 

vii) Finally, when we read the Gospels, isn't there a sense in which all of us sit in the director's chair? Isn't there a sense in which we play all the parts? By that I mean, isn't it natural for reader's to visualize narrative descriptions? When you read about Jesus cleansing the temple or feeding the multitudes, do you never imagine that scene?

Likewise, take silent reading (subvocalization, inner vocalization, implicit speech). There's a simulated voice in my head reciting the lines. An inner actor who's voicing what Jesus says. And it's in my own voice. I supply the accent, the inflections, the tone. In that sense, every Christian plays Jesus when he reads the Gospels. Every Christian is hearing Jesus, in his own mind, speak those words, as the Christian himself would speak them if he were reading aloud.     

Likewise, what about the public reading of the Gospels in church? The lector will supply the verbal tone and facial expressions. And if he's a skilled reader, it will be a vivid enactment.