Jan 11 2008
New film to fill gaps in Jesus' 'missing years' [Excerpts]
The birth and death narratives of Jesus are among the best-known stories in the world, even among non-Christians or the non-religious. What Jesus was like in between, however, has always been a bit more of a mystery.
"Did he have zits? Did he have crushes? Did he play basketball?" asks Dale Martin, a religious studies professor at Yale University.
The answers are entirely unknown. From the age of about 13 until the age of about 30, Jesus is absent from the pages of the New Testament. Martin said one of the reasons so little is said about Jesus' teenage years is that he didn't really become "famous" until 100 to 200 years after his crucifixion.
"So why would anyone have even thought to record anything about his life as a teenager?" he asks.
Soon, some of those answers -- or at least Hollywood's best guess -- will be coming to a theater near you. Based on a book of the same title, "The Aquarian Gospel" plans to try to fill in the gaps of Jesus' "missing years."
Drew Heriot, whose previous credits include "The Secret," a best-selling but controversial self-help DVD that claims "to reveal the most powerful law in the universe," is set to direct, and said the film will show Jesus not only as a young man but as a traveler to the East.
The $20 million film will follow Jesus as he follows the ancient Silk Road, with stops in India, Persia and Egypt among other places. Along the way, Jesus will come to know "the world's greatest seers and sages," and will reunite with the Magi who visited his crib in Bethlehem, say producers of the film.
When asked if the movie reflects his own personal beliefs, Heriot said that though in many ways it does, he prefers "to spend more time in the question than the answer."
"I find it always opens me up to a much richer and deeper exploration as a storyteller," he said.
http://religionnews.com/ArticleofWeek010308.html
[TBC: A "richer and deeper exploration as a storyteller" can be translated as "making it up as we go." That is the modus operandi for every cult which has ever existed.]
