Image of Jesus in Christian art and theology

Jesus

Just Jesus? -- the image of Jesus in Jesus (2000)

Significantly, the CBS-produced the television miniseries Jesus is not entitled Jesus Christ, but merely uses the first, given name of this famous Christian religious figure, teacher, and savior. The ideological purpose of the film is to humanize Jesus, rather than to stress the godlike iconography of the passion part of the gospel narratives. This naturally shifts the philosophical focus and plot development of the film. But Jesus as a teacher and teller of parables is not at the forefront, no more than the nativity or passion. Rather, the film's narrative constructs a Jesus who is a person on a journey of self-exploration in the 20th and 21st century sense.

Jesus" (2000) does not so much retell the physical events of the gospel stories, much less recapitulate all of Jesus' sermons and stories, but introduces other elements that make Jesus into a three-dimensional character, rather than a prophet or religious teacher or rabbi. Unlike even the Moses of the 1950's MGM epics, this Jesus has profound internal conflicts, and thus does not merely function as a narrative actor but as a psychology that must be delved into, in the view of the filmmaker. For instance, in a selection from the Gospel of John, the story of the raising of Lazarus, the raised man's sister Mary seems to cause Jesus to be drawn to the woman. The tempting figure of Satan serves as a much more prominent actor in the film's plot, not simply causing Jesus to suffer for forty days and forty nights in the desert, nor show Jesus all he will have if he abandons his father, but has an abiding visual presence, offering Jesus a view of paradise that is something to be created upon earth, with human physical desires and a human, physical body that Jesus must ultimately give up to fulfill his destiny. This Satan does not tempt Jesus with visions of power, or another dark kingdom as he does in the gospels, but with the tempting nature of human life on earth as good in and of itself -- a theme that is not present in any of the gospels, perhaps because Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John took a less salutary view of earthly life, given the circumstances the Gospel assembler dwelt in, in comparison to our own age.