Hollywood takes Jesus to India

Sama

Hollywood Takes Action Hero Jesus to India

"Hollywood takes action hero Jesus to India
by Randeep Ramesh, The Guardian, November 19, 2007

Film based on Aquarian Gospel to cover years left out of New Testament

New Delhi, India -- Hollywood is to fill in the Bible's "missing years" with a story about Jesus as a wandering mystic who travelled across India, living in Buddhist monasteries and speaking out against the iniquities of the country's caste system.

Film producers have delved deep into revisionist scholarship to piece together what they say was Jesus's life between the ages of 13 and 30, a period untouched by the recognised gospels.

The result is the Aquarian Gospel, a $20m movie, which portrays Jesus as a holy man and teacher inspired by a myriad of eastern religions in India. The Aquarian Gospel takes its name from a century-old book that examined Christianity's eastern roots and is in its 53rd reprint.

The film's producers say the movie will be shot using actors and computer animation like 300, the retelling of the Battle of Thermopylae, and will follow the travels of Yeshua, believed to be the name for Jesus in Aramaic, from the Middle East to India. Casting for suitable Bollywood and Hollywood actors has begun....

'We are looking at new themes. In our story Jesus was loyal to the untouchables [in India] and he defended them with his life by saying that everyone could read the Vedas [Hindu holy books]," said Mr Keenan, a "lapsed Catholic'...."


hmmmmm.....I wonder if Mel Gibson is going to direct....

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capt_mahajan

Interesting. And there are those persistent rumours about Kashmir too.

Well, if he did come here overland, that would have been one way.

Be prepared for some protests by the Church when and if the movie starts getting shot in India.
If not, at the time of release.

I do wonder, almost all major religions worldwide seem to have an India connection, true or not.

Quite unusual.


PS: The 'alternative theories' at the bottom of that article is unusual, too

New-South-Welshman

What if, Mel Gibson is directing in India, gets pulled over for being drunk, and tells the cop that the Hindus are to blame for the worlds problems.

Yeah I too see alot of controversy with this movie.

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the opoponax

Remembering all the recent church-sanctioned films about the life of Christ, it wouldn't surprise me to discover that far from being offended, religious groups are actually underwriting the whole project.

I have a dear friend who is a devout Christian, and is also a little naive with regard to communal politics (in India and anywhere else, really), who is involved in a group called "Save the Dalit" which operates under the assumption that if all the "untouchables" converted to Christianity, they would be free from their caste status and fully accepted by everyone. He just doesn't get the complexities of Indian culture, and really does believe that his faith has a unique ability to help oppressed people in India.

So it wouldn't surprise me to discover that a Christian group was making this film (probably specifically to show Christianity as being more accepting and open than Hinduism), at all.

Earthling

The controversy I believe will come from the sections of Christianity that portray Jesus as a blue-eyed, blonde man.

Jesus, in some little known (but scholarly) quarters is thought to be Ethiopian. If he was descended from King Solomon, I cannot see him being anything else...Don't ask me for links..

The Pope is not going to be happy. First Dan Brown's pot boiler, now this. It truly is the information age..

edit: The movie may portray him as a wandering mystic preaching to the untouchables, but in Indian thought, Jesus was a student of yoga who travelled through Benaras and Rishikesh...when he was so adept a yogi that he was among the few who could voluntarily control his heart muscle, he left back to his lands. Indian thought takes a lot of credit for the 'enlightenment' of Jesus, rightly or wrongly. I doubt the movie will portray those sides, but who knows.

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machadinha

<cross-posted with Earthling>

I guess none of it is all that new, really. As the article describes, the movie dwells on the Aquarian Gospel, which is an older concept. Jesus is supposed to not have done very much in any religious sense for a decade or two, leading to speculation in some quarters as to what else he may have been up to in the meantime (just being a simple carpenter, according to the Bible, and who can blame him for it).

That Kashmiri story is indeed another persistent one (this time centering around his life after his supposed crucifixion).

Capt., I guess the current world religions and generally monotheistic traditions arose around the wider Mesopotamian area. With ancient trade routes, it's not hard to see how Hinduism and Buddhism would be included here (not necessarily in the same development, although I guess Harappa wouldn't have been all that far away anyway). The links between Buddhism and the Greeks in their time, to and fro, by no means one-way, philosophically and artistically, are well-established.

The Aquarian Gospel is up at http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/agjc/index.htm ;
What I believe to be the source of the Kashmir story in the West at least is at http://reluctant-messenger.com/issa.htm (the latter link thanks to KulluKid).

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the opoponax

Not to open a can of worms here, but Jesus was born a Jew in what is now known as Israel (or is Nazareth technically in Palestinian territory?).

While the bible said he was descended from Solomon via Sheba, so many generations would have passed that it's unlikely that Jesus himself would have looked African at all (as an example, I have more African blood than Jesus would have, and you'd never guess it to look at me).

This would indicate that he probably didn't look very much like someone from Ethiopia, but probably looked much like other Semitic ethnic groups from Mediterranean areas. I.E. dark eyes and dark hair, and maybe light skinned. Which is pretty much how he was portrayed in Passion of the Christ a few years ago, and it didn't bug anybody.

capt_mahajan

The Deccan Chronicle in Hyderabad has a pretty large writeup about this, today.

machadinha

Haha Opoponax! The can of worms indeed.

Some would have it all the events in the Bible took place in present-day Ethiopia, maybe that's what Earthling was referring to. Now let's place our bets as to how many pages this thread will run up to...

the opoponax

By no means do I want to get into a theological argument.

My main point (which I probably should have stuck to!) is that previous films about Jesus have NOT cast a blue eyed blond actor as Jesus, and nobody has really been concerned about it. In fact, the only films I can think of that had a blond Jesus were the especially controversial ones like Last Temptation of Christ. Which were controversial for theological reasons, NOT hair, eye, or skin color.

kristinm

Christians and complexity... not usually 2 things that appear together!!!!! And that is all this atheist will have to say on the subject! Not that I don't believe Jesus was a real person - I'm sure he existed & was a charismatic leader, and could well have travelled through India, there seems to be a lot of people who believe he did...

John Rambow

I've never heard of the Aquarian gospel til now, but it sounds much more Theosophical than Christian.

As far as the movie goes, my ascended masters tell me to look forward to an immense cheesefest, perhaps with Jesus looking a lot like George Harrison and a computer-animated Dalai Lama stand-in whispering in his ear. Folk songs will also be present.

Sama

now THAT'S funny....mug shot to follow....

well, they did make Jesus Christ Superstar....

y'all, there is a thread that discusses the idea of Jesus going to India with references to books on the subject.

I thought this was a thread about a movie!

kullukid

Some more links;
http://www.salagram.net/Jesus-Went-To-India.htm
http://www.xs4all.nl/~wichm/christmyth.html