Posted on 04/09/2016 10:30:28 AM PDT by Kaslin
The Young Messiah (TYM) is a film at once entertaining and endearing. An admittedly fictionalized imagining of Jesus as a seven year-old boy, this movies treatment of its subject matter is eminently respectful.
Not everyone feels this way, however.
Dave Armstrong, a professional Catholic apologist, concedes in Pathos that there are several aspects of [the] development of the human knowledge of Jesus…that are legitimate and perfectly orthodox [.] It is, though, unorthodox and, hence, illegitimate to depict Christ as growing into… awareness of His identity, for the Church has affirmed for centuries that, from conception, Jesus knew that He was God (italics added).
Armstrong quotes Neil Madden who, writing at Conservative Review, makes the following remark:
The Young Messiah depicts Mary and Joseph as having more knowledge about Jesuss true nature than He does. This is a problem. If Jesus was always God, begotten and not made, surely wouldnt an omnipotent God know who he was as he was learning and growing in preparation for His mission here on Earth?
Though Armstrong doesnt seem to notice it, he and Madden are actually making two distinct points. Armstrongs point is that Jesus, in His humanity, knew that He was God from the time that He was conceived. Madden, on the other hand, refers to Jesus in His divinity.
Doubtless, this controversy stems from nothing less than the mystery of the uniquely Christian doctrine of the Incarnation, the doctrine that God became a human being in Jesus: Christ is true God and true man, fully divine and fully human.
Two replies to TYMs critics are in the coming.
First, if Neil Madden is correct that Jesus, being an omnipotent God must have always known His own identity as he was learning and growing in preparation for His mission here on Earth, then there wouldve been no learning and growing in preparation for that mission, for an omnipotent God wouldve had already known all that could be known about everything and anything.
On the other hand, if the omnipotence of Christ in His divinity is compatible with Christ in His humanity coming to learn and grow in some matters, then it is, in principle, compatible with Christ as fully human coming to learn and grow in all matters.
Secondly, unlike Madden, Armstrong alludes to Christ in His humanity, Christ at conception. Yet even here it is a mistake to think that if Christ knew from conception that He was God that He could not have grown into an awareness of His identity.
The two propositions do not necessarily contradict one another—as long as knowledge isnt construed in an unduly shallow sense.
From at least the time of Plato throughout the centuries until Freud and beyond, a great many thinkers (and non-thinkers alike) have been of the mind that knowledge can be explicit and implicit, conscious and unconscious. Examples abound to suggest that this position has something going for it.
Take, for instance, what is known as the principle of non-contradiction, the principle that a thing cant be and not be in the same respect and at the same time, that (A) and (non-A) must be false. Though most people outside of philosophy and logic classes have never heard of this principle, everyone knows it, for it is the most fundamental law of all thought.
Students must grow into an awareness of the principle of non-contradiction. And yet theyve known it all of their lives.
If knowing could consist in human subjects growing into an awareness of (at least some of) what they already implicitly know, then how much more fitting would such an approach be regarding the God-Man? Consider: As God, Christ would had to have known all things from eternity. As a man, Christ would have to have grown and developed like all humans—even if that knowledge was already in Him from conception.
In conclusion, TYMs portrayal of Jesus as learning His divine identity from Joseph and Mary is compatible with the position that, in His divinity, He always knew His identity. Its also compatible with the idea that Christ, in His humanity, knew His identity from conception.
The only position that the thesis of TYM obviously contradicts is the thesis that Jesus, in His humanity, or from conception, was fully conscious of his divine nature, for if this thesis was true, then it wouldve indeed been logically impossible for Jesus to have grown into a consciousness of His identity.
The Young Messiah doesnt deviate at all from theological orthodoxy when it comes to the question of Jesuss knowledge of His own divine identity.
This yearning probably reflects the fact that He identified with us by adopting humanity in the first place--so why not our particular flavor of humanity?
Old joke...Johnny, now having turned 17, driving and wanting to “borrow” Dad’s car, was getting no where because Dad wanted him to get a haircut. “Come on dad! What’s wrong with long hair? Tommy wears his long, the girls really like it, and besides, even Jesus had long hair!” “Well, son” said good ol’ Dad. “You’re right. Jesus did have long hair, and guess what? Jesus walked!”
That's certainly an answer, one that is validated by His verbal response to His mother at Cana. However, one could posit additional reasons with respect to knowing and implementing the Father's will, which was after all the key reason for His ministry in the first place. If He determined that God wanted Joseph dead, He wouldn't intervene. In that sense, He couldn't raise Joseph because, as He claimed explicitly, He only did what the Father told Him.
At age 12, in the Temple, Jesus rhetorically asked His human parents, “Did you now know that I must be in my Father’s house?” or “... doing my Father’s business?” (same Greek root, “oikos.”)
Up to that point, the Bible says nothing regarding His self-understanding, so anything we might believe is largely speculative.
Whatever a sinless person would experience, Jesus would have. This could have included some kind of infant consciousness at a level that sinners do not possess.
Sounds interesting to talk about, though I’d class this movie as more of a theological proposition for debate than as a rendering of a bible story.
“I’m sure Mary and Joseph knew of His uniqueness because they were visited by angels and told who He was. When Jesus went to Canaan for the wedding, when asked to make wine, He said it was not yet His time. His life was planned out to the letter in the OT and this wasn’t covered.”
BUT - Jesus DID perform the miracle. I’ve always like that story. I know how my mom made me do stuff that was right, and pushed me, even if I didn’t want to. I wonder if Jesus, being a man, was a bit afraid of setting everything in motion. Or as God, even though it wasn’t God’s wish to do the miracle, he was requested by a human and so he did it. Sort of like the prayers we offer today. And in the OT God did listen and change things sometimes. Like Lot (iirc) haggling with God about “okay if I can find 100 rightous men...okay, how about 50.....okay, how about just one!?”
Although God, already knowing that he would not find even one righteous, it wasn’t so much haggling as trying to prove a point to Lot. So a bad example I guess.
And why didn’t Jesus help this or that or the other person? Again, not in scope for His earthly ministry. God has an overall plan. From character witness of God, the plan does not fail to offer salvation to any soul that would be willing, though the offer is very widely refused among humanity.
A simpler explanation is Jesus has always known God’s plan and followed it. Several incidents in the Gospel support this, not the least where he “undid” the cut-off ear because it would have interfered with God’s plan.
We know very little of his early life. But nothing says he was not without knowledge. Fact is he was in constant contact with God until the moment he took on our sins on the cross.
So its very possible he did miracles when young and did not do others according to God’s plan.
Sometimes God will grant a prayer for blessing to someone who isn’t quite ready to use the blessing constructively. Also to prove that He is gracious always and the problem isn’t on His end. The formal ministry of Christ hadn’t begun. He wasn’t preaching to crowds assembled to hear or watch.
Or, because it would have interfered with God’s plan.
LOL! Me too!
Well at one level that is a nonsensical statement.
But on another level we could speak of a formal plan and an informal plan, and something in line with the second might not be in line with the first. God might have conducted His affairs in that way to show the difference between intentions and results.
My son told the joke about the Last Supper. Jesus gets the bill, looks at it and says “This bill is huge. Okay - which one of you guys ordered the wine!?”
And then Judas came back breathlessly and said here, don’t worry, we have 30 pieces of silver more now.
(One bad joke deserves another)
Diabolical crap.
Yes, agreed. His human nature however his physical features would be Jewish.
“I haven’t seen the movie but think it may come from a group of books called “The Lost Books of the Bible. “
I’ve heard that as well.
It’s apostasy.
Movies about Jesus are inherently problematic. When the script is based on made up stuff, even more so.
Next they will do the New Age Jesus who went to India as a youngster.
It is inevitable as the religious movies are shown to be profitable that the more typical film-types will move in to get their hand in the pie.
This movie us based on a book by Satanic author Anne Rice.
Let’s get real, people.
I found the portrayal of Jesus in Ben Hur, 1959 version, to be one of the most moving ever in a movie. I could never quite see Max von Sydow or Jeffrey Hunter as my Savior. IMHO, Ben Hur is the best movie ever made, with Lawrence of Arabia a close second. The sixties produced a few worthy mentions, but it’s been pretty much a wasteland ever since. IMHO.
I thought Mel Gibson’s portrayal pretty good. The Passion of the Christ.
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