 AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - "Basic Instinct" director Paul Verhoeven has written a book that contradicts biblical teaching by suggesting that Jesus might have been fathered by a Roman soldier who raped Mary.
Sure. Why not? Thulsa Doom Reverend Wright thinks he was black. Muslims say he owned a turban. The Archdruid of Canterbury thinks he was mush or soft cheese or something like that.
Too bad he didn't spend more time hanging around the student union. More people coulda gotten to know him. And, really, he shoulda spent more time discussing his hangups with his Dad. Woulda made him more human...
No. Wait. He did spend a lot of time talking about his Father, didn't he? And his Father wasn't a Roman soldier, was he? |
| There you go, getting all scriptural on us ... |
An Amsterdam publishing house said Wednesday it will publish the Dutch filmmaker's biography of Jesus, "Jesus of Nazareth: A Realistic Portrait," in September. | The clue, in any claptrap book written by a goofy Hollywood type, is the word 'realistic'. |
Verhoeven is best known as the director of blockbuster films including "Basic Instinct" and "RoboCop," but he is also a member of "Jesus Seminar," a group of scholars and authors that seeks to establish historical facts about Jesus.
| Not like one could read the Bible or anything ... |
Marianna Sterk of the publishing house J.M. Meulenhoff said the book includes several ideas that run contrary to Christian faith, including the suggestion that Jesus could be the son of a Roman soldier who raped Mary during a Jewish uprising against Roman rule in 4 B.C.
| There's no evidence to that effect, nor has the idea ever been suggested by any Christian scholar, as far as I know, in the past 2000 years, but what they hell, it's not like we're discussing Mohammad's habit of porking little girls. Nobody's gonna riot or threaten the author with death just for being stoopid. |
The book also claims that Judas Iscariot was not responsible for Jesus' betrayal, she said.
| Once you've made one silly claim, you might as well go whole hog ... |
| Oh, I never thought it was him. Everybody knows he hanged himself over... ummm... something else. |
The movie director's claims were greeted with derision razzberries flung dog turds some skepticism among those who have dedicated their careers to studying the life of Jesus.
| I mean, what the hell did Eusebius know? And St. Jerome? He wasn't nearly as smart as the guy who directed 'RoboCop.' |
One issue is that there is very little information about the life of Jesus outside of the Gospels. The Gospels as understood by Christians for nearly 2,000 years do not support Verhoeven's ideas.
| You don't say. No mention of rape in the gospel? |
| Well, they're a load of crap anyway. I mean, some of them were written by people who knew Jesus, but they hadn't been to college or anything. |
William Portier, a professor of religious studies at the University of Dayton, in Ohio, said the Jesus Seminar is known for making stupid provocative claims, but "they are real scholars you have to deal with them."
| They're real scholars in the same sense Ward Churchill is a real scholar. |
| "We deal with them okay. We nod. We smile. Seems to work, they quit whinging after a while and go play canasta." |
However, he said Verhoeven's ideas sounded crackpot psychoceramic dumb "pretty out there."
"Out where?"
"Out there!" |
John Dominic Crossan, a Jesus Seminar founder, agreed.
| "Oh, yasss. He's a real maroon!" |
He said that while Verhoeven was a member in good standing, there is little evidence for the view that Jesus was illegitimate.
| Little, as in no, evidence. |
Crossan said the claim is first reported in a polemic written in the second century against the Book of Matthew, intended for a Jewish audience. "It's an obvious first retort to claims that Mary was a virgin," Crossan said. "If you wanted to do a hatchet job on Jesus' reputation, this would be the way."
| By writing a mostly unknown polemic against the Book of Matthew in the second century or by writing an offensive book in the 21st century? |
The most likely scenario for people who don't accept that Jesus was literally the son of God and had no human father is simply that he was the son of Joseph, Crossan said.
| Occam's razor would seem to slice in that direction. |
Sterk said the book will be translated into English in 2009.
| I'm putting a mullet under my tongue so I can wait with baited breath. |
Verhoeven hopes it will be a springboard for him to raise interest in making a film along the same lines, she said.
"Mr. Gibson! That Dutchman's on the line again!"
"Tell him I'm in Skagway!" |
Verhoeven, 69, has dreamed of making a movie about Jesus' life for decades, she said. Asked whether it would be difficult to follow Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" and Martin Scorsese's "The Last Temptation of Christ," she said Verhoeven knows he may be somewhat late to market.
| Cecil B DeMille said once, "give me any two pages of the Bible and I'll give you a movie." He understood that even beyond religion, the Bible was a treasure of masterful literature. Verhoeven has decided he knows better. |
"He is painfully aware of that," she said. "However, he has quite a different angle."
| I'm thinking seriously of becoming a devout Catholic, just so I'm nothing like people like him. |
|
