Tuning into last night's CBS rendition of JESUS, I was struck by how utterly ridiculous
the dialogue seemed as the script tried to reduce myth into normal conversation. For
example, between Mary and Joseph about the virgin birth -- or later on, between Mary and
Jesus as they spoke in their casual, credulous manner about how he had ended up in her
womb without a human father.
Later, Jesus chuckled awkwardly as Simon Peter gathered in a netfull of fish --
apparently enough of a demonstration to make SP abandon ship and follow the itinerate
preacher around the desert -- where they picked up the other disciples on the fly by
simply saying "Come, follow Jesus."
In this dipiction, virtually every disciple instantly abandoned whatever life they had,
and joined the dusty trail -- but only after Jesus performed a miracle like turning water
into wine or healing a cripple. i.e., none of them budged before Jesus provided a
DEMONSTRATION of his claims to super-human power. Huh. . . . so much for original faith.
The movies ought to stay away from Biblical stories -- they cannot survive a reduction
to the pedestrian narrative of real life without revealing the inherent absurdities of
Christian mythology.