Posted on 12/04/2006 7:52:47 PM PST by Pyro7480
'The Nativity Story' Movie Problematic for Catholics, "Unsuitable" for Young Children
By John-Henry Westen
NEW YORK, December 4, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A review of New Line Cinema's The Nativity story by Fr. Angelo Mary Geiger of the Franciscans of the Immaculate in the United States, points out that the film, which opened December 1, misinterprets scripture from a Catholic perspective.
While Fr. Geiger admits that he found the film is "in general, to be a pious and reverential presentation of the Christmas mystery." He adds however, that "not only does the movie get the Virgin Birth wrong, it thoroughly Protestantizes its portrayal of Our Lady."
In Isaiah 7:14 the Bible predicts the coming of the Messiah saying: "Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign. Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel." Fr. Geiger, in an video blog post, explains that the Catholic Church has taught for over 2000 years that the referenced Scripture showed that Mary would not only conceive the child miraculously, but would give birth to the child miraculously - keeping her physical virginity intact during the birth.
The film, he suggests, in portraying a natural, painful birth of Christ, thus denies the truth of the virginal and miraculous birth of Christ, which, he notes, the Fathers of the Church compared to light passing through glass without breaking it. Fr. Geiger quoted the fourth century St. Augustine on the matter saying. "That same power which brought the body of the young man through closed doors, brought the body of the infant forth from the inviolate womb of the mother."
Fr. Geiger contrasts The Nativity Story with The Passion of the Christ, noting that with the latter, Catholics and Protestants could agree to support it. He suggests, however, that the latter is "a virtual coup against Catholic Mariology".
The characterization of Mary further debases her as Fr. Geiger relates in his review. "Mary in The Nativity lacks depth and stature, and becomes the subject of a treatment on teenage psychology."
Beyond the non-miraculous birth, the biggest let-down for Catholics comes from Director Catherine Hardwicke's own words. Hardwicke explains her rationale in an interview: "We wanted her [Mary] to feel accessible to a young teenager, so she wouldn't seem so far away from their life that it had no meaning for them. I wanted them to see Mary as a girl, as a teenager at first, not perfectly pious from the very first moment. So you see Mary going through stuff with her parents where they say, 'You're going to marry this guy, and these are the rules you have to follow.' Her father is telling her that she's not to have sex with Joseph for a year-and Joseph is standing right there."
Comments Fr. Geiger, "it is rather disconcerting to see Our Blessed Mother portrayed with 'attitude;' asserting herself in a rather anachronistic rebellion against an arranged marriage, choosing her words carefully with her parents, and posing meaningful silences toward those who do not understand her."
Fr. Geiger adds that the film also contains "an overly graphic scene of St. Elizabeth giving birth," which is "just not suitable, in my opinion, for young children to view."
Despite its flaws Fr. Geiger, after viewing the film, also has some good things to say about it. "Today, one must commend any sincere attempt to put Christ back into Christmas, and this film is certainly one of them," he says. "The Nativity Story in no way compares to the masterpiece which is The Passion of the Christ, but it is at least sincere, untainted by cynicism, and a worthy effort by Hollywood to end the prejudice against Christianity in the public square."
And, in addition to a good portrait of St. Joseph, the film offers "at least one cinematic and spiritual triumph" in portraying the Visitation of Mary to St. Elizabeth. "Although the Magnificat is relegated to a kind of epilogue at the movie's end, the meeting between Mary and Elizabeth is otherwise faithful to the scriptures and quite poignant. In a separate scene, the two women experience the concurrent movement of their children in utero and share deeply in each other's joy. I can't think of another piece of celluloid that illustrates the dignity of the unborn child better than this."
See Fr. Geiger's full review here:
http://airmaria.com/
Let me jump in with a big AMEN!
I didn't have the blessing of growing up in the Church, but boy oh boy am I thankful the Lord led me there.
Or it could be that forgiveness is like love, you can only realize it in measure of how you have given it.
This has you arguing that God IS partial, or else He is random? You then go on to say something about the method of impartiality. I don't think we are given the method, we just know that it is not based on human merit or deed.
Well, the Bible compares them to sheep. Calling them children is implying the same essence. Only those who become Christ-like become His adopted children.
This sounds like you are saying that God's adopted children have the same essence as God. I don't think you believe that. ....... Yes, the Bible compares them to sheep, and I think that choice is by no means an accident. Sheep have the reputation for being among the dumbest animals, and they certainly are among the most dependent. Sheep need to be led, more so than other animals. A sheep alone in a field is easy pickings for almost any predator. The early Christians would have easily understood the comparison. People are helpless and need God's leadership.
We believe God gives everyone a ticket. There are also many false trains, trying to get you to climb aboard. You must believe the One who gave you the ticket to board only His train no matter what others may say.
Under this, what distinguishes the person who uses his ticket for God's train from the others who choose the trains for hell? It seems like a no-brainer to me, so is it a matter of intelligence? Are we just smarter than everyone else? :)
Not only that, but our train makes frequent stops! At those stops you can decide to change trains or wait for a faster one or even get off the train altogether! Whether you stay on the right train will depend on your faith in the One who gave you the ticket.
That sounds pretty frightening to me. Since God "could" have a non-stop trip, why do you suppose He chooses to make frequent stops? With the stops, all we can do is lose in comparison. In addition, I suppose that all Jesus' sacrifice was good for was to give us the original ticket. According to your analogy, satan gave us tickets too.
Yet not with God. God's forgiveness is complete. Without variation. Our forgiveness is not. I can forgive someone. Truly forgive them. Then they do something or say something and what I truly forgave and released them from will flood back into my memory banks and I may experience some of the same feelings as before and have to forgive all over again. God forgives and forgets. Their sins and iniquities I will remember no more. As far as the east is from the west. THAT is forgiveness!
I don't believe Erasmus had any sinister motives; tradition and honest (mis)judgment — yes.
Unfortunately, his good intentions resulted in errors which were then multiplied across the Latin-speaking world, as you said.
The idea is not to condmen his good intentions, his honest work, but the unfortunate result of it, correct it as best as we can and move on. KJV sould be retired for all those reasons resulting in unintentional errors.
Scholars today prefer the Alexandrian-type text for obvious reasons.
Only in the Reformed paradigm. In the Apostolic paradigm, God gives men grace (objective salvation), but those under grace are still judged based on their deeds in faith, disposition and intent (subjective salvation).
God has already judged all of us for the latter, not because He forced us to do anything, but because He sees what we have done at the end of our lives.
Thus He chooses not at random or by being partial, but by foreknowledge of what we will do with our blessings and how Christ-like we have become under grace.
This sounds like you are saying that God's adopted children have the same essence as God,/I.
We can become like God by grace, but not in essence.
But this REALLY isn't God making any sort of choice at all, is it? Rather, this is God being a rubber-stamp yes-man to the power of men to dictate to God who will be saved. Here, God just signs the bill of lading for goods received. If He graces all equally, then He makes no choices, only men do. God just makes the delivery to Heaven. We believe that God has much greater power than this, and is strong enough in will to make independent choices for Himself. We don't believe in a God who passes the buck.
What if the 'someone' is yourself?
Is that why recent edition of Nestles had to backtrack and put back into its text many TR readings?
The TR is the pure textual line, and any edition (Erasmus, Eliezer, Beza etc) is better then any and every edition of the Critical Text.
We know that by the Bible that comes from each text and the fruit that they bear.
Not any more than saying He allows evil.
And yet the EO still clings to the Byzantine Text in the Gospels, ala Codex A, and when Challoner revised the Douay-Rheims for the RCC, he made it read more like the King James with all of its Byzantine text, and every time those Alexandrian text type bibles are revised, they add more Byzantine readings because they know that they are the correct ones.
And all those great Greek scholars and scribes from Lucian of Antioch forward were reproducing Byzantine/Antiochian text type manuscripts not Alexandrian type texts. Those Alexandrian type texts sat on shelves like Vaticanus and were dumped in waste baskets like Siniaticus, but the Byzantine texts were used to make the Old Latin that the West used before Jerome, and the Syrian Bible, and the Lectionaries which the EO read from in their services, and all those cursive miniscules that dominate the extant manuscript tradition of the East.
It appears to even the unlearned that the Tradition of the EO was the Byzantine Text and that Tradition is maintained in the King James Bible.
Textus Receptus is based on unreliable sources of the Byzantine-type text, contains flaws and errors of judgment.
I have no idea which portions of Nestles edition had to revised, and what those revisions included, but Alexandrian-type text is the preferred source of modern-day scholars because it is less 'doctored.'
My point is that despite the evidence to the contrary, the offspirng of TR (such as the KJV) persist in keeping Comma Johanneum and Erasmus's own retro-translated (Latin to Greek) section of the Revelation, among other things.
Codex A is not pure Byzantine-type text. After the Gospels, it is mostly Alexnadrian-type. But you are correct in that the EO favored and still favor the Byzantine-type text, and that the KJV is an extension of that tradition, although far from a pure reproduction of the same.
As I mentioned earlier, no Church will ever admit to being wrong.
If God adopted some from before the foundation of the world, what point — if any — would there be in Baptism? An empty ritual?
Every man's life is like riding a bicycle on board a train. We think we're peddling to our destination all on our own, but the train is heading where God intends
Agreed. Our final destination is not affected by what we do; it's where we go from there that is, because "it is "appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment." [Heb 9:27], for "the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and will then repay every man according to his deeds." [Mat 16:27]
But God ordained from before the foundation of the world to freely give some men a ticket bought with the blood of Christ and that ticket will take them all the way home
We believe that Christ's sacrifice made it possible for all men to be saved, as God is not partial. The train we are on is not taking us to paradise, dear lady, but to our death. It isn at that last station that God decides what will be our eternal home. According to Scriptures, that decision is based on how we behave on the train.
We firmly believe that those who are Christ-like in their hearts will be with God for all eternity.
I think the same applies. That's what I'm saying. Our forgiveness is not perfect, because we still remember. Plus, we always have Satan there to remind us as well. It is at those times that we have to remind ourselves to not hold on to that which God has already forgiven. We are not greater than He is. If He says that He will not hold it to our charge, who are we to do otherwise?
Yes He does. After we die. Based on our deeds. God pardons all because He is not partial. That free every human to be saved. Christ died not only for the Jews but for the Gentiles as well. What determines our ultimate fate is how Christ-like we are at the moment of our death. Those who die in the likeness of God will be with God.
Proof?
I have no idea which portions of Nestles edition had to revised, and what those revisions included, but Alexandrian-type text is the preferred source of modern-day scholars because it is less 'doctored.'
Well, you are behind the times.
The latest edition of Nestles made hundreds of changes back to the TR.
As for the Alexandrian text type being 'less doctored', please do not make me laugh too hard in the morning.
Aleph and 'B' (the two major manuscripts for the Alexandrian Text) disagree with each other in at 3,000 places in the Gospels alone, and are a textual mess with numerous scribal errors and additions.
There was no doctoring of the TR, which is the pure textual line, unless you still hold to the Westcott/Hort myth of a Lucian conflate theory?
My point is that despite the evidence to the contrary, the offspirng of TR (such as the KJV) persist in keeping Comma Johanneum and Erasmus's own retro-translated (Latin to Greek) section of the Revelation, among other things.
First, everything in the King James should be there.
Second, nothing that Erasmus translated in Revelation that has ever been proven to be wrong.
There are some who believe that Erasmus may have had, in fact, a Greek text to work with in Revelation.
But even if he didn't, the Old Latin is at least a hundred year old earlier witness to the correct readings then any Alexanderian readings.
How do the Greek Orthodox interpret or explain the word "ordained" in this verse? Does it imply a previous selection by God or is there some other explanation?
How very Jewish of you. ;-)
It sure is depressing and worrisome, one day all is good and the next day our Saviour sacrificed himself for nothing, because it all depends on the works you do, or don't do.
In all our discussions about translations (which I find open new avenues of study for me) has anyone said that it was a mistranslation when Jesus said "it is finished"?
You'll just have to revisit my exhange with Uncle Chip. I am not doing this every time someone jumps in, in the middle of a thread.
As for the rest of your post — now you are making me laugh.
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