A zealot, a rebel, but no miracle-worker: film studios plot a secular take on life of Jesus

I don't know that any portrayal of Jesus as a "troublemaker for the Romans" is an accurate one. If anything, it was probably the exact opposite. Jesus was very much at odds with the Jewish leadership of his day, but dealt with the Romans in almost a detached manner. His discourse with Pontius Pilate is one of the most remarkable accounts from Gospels.

It's also not a coincidence that a disproportionate number of the conversion accounts from the Gospels involve Roman soldiers and leaders.

Seriously, the film will lose a ton of money, even if it is, almost certainly, hailed by film critics. The reviews on Rotten Tomatoes will likely be in the high 90% for critics, and maybe 15-20% by the public.

All that these scoundrels care about is that it bash Christians and Christianity.

If Christians ignore it enough to not even bother protesting it, the scoundrels will likely hire extras to pretend to be Christians to protest it.

Alberta's Child wrote:

"I don't know that any portrayal of Jesus as a "troublemaker for the Romans" is an accurate one."

You are correct that Jesus' trouble for the Romans did not exist directly per se, but he was trouble for the Romans in that he did exactly what you spoke of -- fomenting rebellion against the Roman puppets and the Jewish religious oligarchy who were put in place by the Romans. Remember, the Jewish leadership in Palestine during the occupation only existed at the pleasure of the Roman overseers. Jesus and His followers represented a threatening counter to their rule and the priestly class of the Temple.

I still don't understand where this is coming from.

In effect, Jesus Christ was a "rebel" only from the perspective of those elements in the Jewish leadership (primarily the Pharisees and Sadducees) who were bent on toppling the Roman rule.

Jesus Christ came into this world at a time and place that was ideal for the fulfillment of the Law because it was aided by the Roman rule of the entire Western world. There are two reasons for this:

1. Governance by a large empire ensured that His message would be carried far and wide during a very short time.

2. A powerful civil governing authority that subjugated regional religious groups actually helped reinforce the idea of a Christian worldview in a Gentile world. This could not have happened if the basic concept of a small group of "chosen people" in the Middle East had prevailed as God's instruments of human salvation.

The notion that Jesus was a "rebel" falls apart once you step past the Gospels chronologically and see how history unfolded. The Romans sacked Jerusalem in 70 A.D. and destroyed the Temple to quell the uprising by the same Jewish sects that were at odds with Jesus Christ when He was alive.

And who is on the NIAC Board? Stealth Islamic supremacist Reza Aslan is on the NIAC Board. It is no surprise in light of Aslan’s NIAC connection that he has tried to pass off Iran’s genocidally-minded President Ahmadinejad as a liberal reformer. He has called on the U.S. Government to negotiate with Ahmadinejad himself, as well as with Hamas — that is, with two of the most barbaric and murderous adherents of Sharia.

Aslan has even praised the jihad terror group Hizballah as “the most dynamic political and social organization in Lebanon,” as well as the Jew-hating, women-hating, kuffar-hating Muslim Brotherhood, which is dedicated in its own words to “eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within.” Aslan wrote: “The Muslim Brotherhood will have a significant role to play in post-Mubarak Egypt. And that is good thing.” If, in 1932, someone had written that “the National Socialist Party will have a significant role to play in post-Weimar Germany, and that is a good thing,” he would have rightly been called a Nazi sympathizer.

Aslan has also spoken at events sponsored by the Muslim Students Association, a Brotherhood group, and at an event co-sponsored by the Los Angeles chapter of the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), and moderated by the notorious Edina Lekovic, the Muslim Public Affairs Council flack whom Steve Emerson caught lying on national television, denying she was editor of a Muslim student publication that praised Osama bin Laden as a great mujahid. Emerson produced copies of the rag showing Lekovic’s name on the masthead as editor on the very same page on which the praise for Osama appeared.
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