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/
If you posted this link because you agree with it, then we are in agreement. Took you a while. :)
I will get to the rest of you posts a little later.
And yet the early church found itself capable of producing works that has lasted for almost 2000 years (some even older). While I don't wish to minimize the expense, I suspect it wasn't alarmingly so. People usually spend their little money on other things, like food or shelter.
yes and that was exactly why they were producing the single copies so that as many PARISHES could at least have A copy.
It was ridiculously expensive even for those who were literate (few) to purchase coplete texts, they were LUCKY to have the oppurtunity to READ one let alone OWN one.
Hmmmm....I had to look this one up. Actually "saints" is used 96 times throughout scripture a third of which is used in the Old Testament.
Mat 27:52 And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose,
You will just have to do your own research, FTD. This is a neat trick in order to have someone else do the work for you. But, I will give you some leads. For the last 150 years of active (indeed, intense even) archaeological digging, there is no evidence of any Davidian "empire." Rather it was more like two dozen villages, with few thousand inhabitants (See Finkelstein & Silberman, The Bible Unearthed: p132, 142-143 and Marcus, The View from Nebo: p125 )
Charles Warren's (1867) (see Keller, The Bible as History: p190-191), which claimed to have discovered the water shaft purportedly used by David to attack his enemies has been debunked when it was established that it is a natural fissure that contains nothing even close to Davidian times, but rather much older Canaanite and much younger Israeli artifacts. (see Sturgis, It Ain?t Necessarily So: p143-144)
In fact, there is not a single mention of any of the surrounding settlemts and kingdoms of any powerful king by the name of David, or his "vast empire." The Tel Dan Stela fragments (late 800's BC) discovered in 1993, seem to suggest (without universal agreement, however, because of the poor match of the two fragments suggesting they were not of the same origin) the existence of Davidian offspring.
Truly, so much power and so little written about him. History has no problems recording powerful leaders great empires and significant events with utmost pedantry, except when it comes to Israeli claims.
Extensive redactions and machinations about David can be traced to the 7th c. BC Israeli king Josiah. Davidian myth grew proportionally as more time elapsed after his death. Too bad, archeology doesn't seem to be able to find anything even close to the myths we find in the Bible about David, mainly contained in Samuel, Kings and Chronicles.
All these myths, beginning with Genesis (which clashes with anthropological evidence) and Exodus (which lacks any archaeological evidence of that ever happening), are part of oral tales that were passed on from one generation to another, with obvious variations, exaggerations and alterations. As such they are man-made received text that was carefully and deliberately doctored to create a providential message.
There is a strong probability that Jerusalem did not even exist during the time of David (11th c. BC) and that it became a more prominent place some 300 years later. (see Finkelstein & Silberman, The Bible Unearthed: p132)
The first and extensive redactions and machinations about David can be traced to the 7th c. BC Israeli king Josiah. Davidian myth grew proportionally as more time elapsed after his death. Too bad, archeology doesn't seem to be able to find anything even close to the myths we find in the Bible about David, mainly contained in Samuel, Kings and Chronicles.
I wish it were otherwise, but even the Bible uses "miracles" as "proof" to make believers; taking someone's word just doesn't seem to cut it even in the Bible. An ap priori acceptance of something that has so much evidence of human tampering is only fit for the gullible who confuse their wishes as reality, and man-made traditions with divinity.
Who was it that Luke followed and Learned from?
Hebrews is also generally attributed to St Paul.
The Orthodox do not suspect the saints are actually dead, instead we acknwoeldge that the saints, even those departed from Earth, are alive in heaven, and still pray. (The notion that folks who go to heaven stop praying is crazy).
While Hebrews is believed to have written by Paul, some feel that the author was actually Barnabus. No one really knows except Christians (well, most) believes it to be inspired by God.
But all this does make one wonder why the Church doesn't view believers, living now here on earth, as saints when the evidence in scripture calls them that?
There are clear problems calling everyone who professes himself to be Christian a Saint.
Frankly even if you open it up to all true beleivers you don’t really know explicitly until they actually end up in heaven do you?
They are not the same words in original languages. The OT (Hebrew) uses the word chaciyd which translates as faithful, kind (hardly a 'saint'). The Hebrew word for 'saint' is qadowsh (holy one).
The OT Greek version (LXX) uses όσιος (hosios) without blame, pious..
the New Testament uses exclusively the word άιγιος (haigios), or most holy
Clearly the Hebrews in the OT do not refer to all the faithful as "saints" (i.e. holy ones), whether in Hebrew or Greek. That is a Pauline innovation which the Church never accepted.
The Lutherans went one step farther and called themselves the divines!. Talk about narcissism.
You are making things up, FTD.
Here is a list that suggests otherwise:
Red entries indicate the writer makes no mention of the book or has some doubt about it.
| Athanasius (b. 296) |
Origen (b. 185) |
Irenaeus (b. 130) |
Marcion* (b. 85) |
| Matthew | Matthew | Matthew | |
| Mark | Mark | Mark | |
| Luke | Luke | Luke | Luke |
| John | John | John | |
| Acts | Acts | Acts | |
| Romans | Romans | Romans | Romans |
| 1 Corinthians | 1 Corinthians | 1 Corinthians | 1 Corinthians |
| 2 Corinthians | 2 Corinthians | 2 Corinthians | 2 Corinthians |
| Galatians | Galatians | Galatians | Galatians |
| Ephesians | Ephesians | Ephesians | Ephesians |
| Philippians | Philippians | Philippians | Philippians |
| Colossians | Colossians | Colossians | Colossians |
| 1 Thessalonians | 1 Thessalonians | 1 Thessalonians | 1 Thessalonians |
| 2 Thessalonians | 2 Thessalonians | 2 Thessalonians | 2 Thessalonians |
| 1 Timothy | 1 Timothy | 1 Timothy | |
| 2 Timothy | 2 Timothy | 2 Timothy | |
| Titus | Titus | Titus | |
| Philemon | Philemon | Philemon | Philemon |
| Hebrews | Hebrews | Hebrews | |
| James* | James | James | |
| 1 Peter | 1 Peter | 1 Peter | |
| 2 Peter | 2 Peter | 2 Peter | |
| 1 John | 1 John | 1 John | |
| 2 John | 2 John | 2 John | |
| 3 John | 3 John | 3 John | |
| Jude | Jude | Jude | |
| Revelation** | Revelation | Revelation |
* Marcion's views were peculiar to his sect. He was aware of the fact that many of the other books were read as scripture in most churches.
** The Revelation of John was first received and then rejected by many churches in Asia Minor.
Marcion rejected the OT and accepted basically +Paul.
Notice how the "knowledge" of what consitutted canon grew proportionally as centuries elapsed. The longer the time period, the more complete the canon list was. Obviously, your statement that the canon was known from the beginning is nonsense.
Methinks most of those sources are misleading if not outright deceptive. But, I don’t have any priority at all to try and prove that assertion.
I don't have my Hebrew lexicon handy at the moment, so I'm not sure how often "chaciyd" versus "qadowsh" is used. However the term qadowsh (holy one) is used in a plural sense:
Psa 34:9 O fear the LORD, ye his saints: [sic: qadowsh] for [there is] no want to them that fear him.
What the Lutherans called them is immaterial. I'm not Lutheran.
You are free tom think whatever you wish, Q, but evidence shows otherwise.
The LXX uses holy angels so obviously it is not about people. Job 2:1 in Hebrew calls angels sons of God. This is a pattern throughout the Bible, conveniently ignored when it suits a particular reader.
Son of Man (in Hebrew ben Adam) simply means son of Adam (like the son of Abraham), denoting a lineage and nothing holy. It "becomes" holy in the NT (butthen the Nt was written for the Greeks who klnew nothing of Judaisn, nor did they speak Hebrew).
The same goes for the meshiyah (messiah), whose meaning in Hebrew is nothing like the NT "Christos." The anointed was any Jewish king. All Jewish kings were believed anointed and appointed by God.
The same goes for the "World to come" phrase, or the "Kingdom of heaven." This phraseology changed meaning the way English word "gay" attained different meaning over time. But they were used with specific goal (and meaning) in mind.
Which is okay, as long as we remember that this is something we could call man-made tradition, choose and preference.
And what precisely does Job 2:1 has to do what is recorded in Job 5:1 or Psalms? This isn't a pattern throughout the Bible. What is being ignored is that God calls believers, faithful or holy.
You're throwing out other words that has nothing to do with the term "saint" or "saints". I can't help it if the Church failed to read the scriptures before they decided on their classification of the term "saint".
When does Christ or God speak these specific words?
I really appreciate the honest and frank criticism, Kosta. Excellent post.
Kawaii: I'm curious Kosta. Is this when venerating icons, or just during liturgy? Which type of prostration are we talking about?
During the Divine Liturgy, involving the "waist" metania: bending at the waist (some people have to bend their knees) with the right hand open, palm facing forward, head facing forward.
A couple who always stand at the very front of the church started this practice recently. Since they are very involved in the church, others are now beginning to copy them.
The metania is made every time the priest says "Remembering our Theotokos..." but when glory is sung to the Lord, either trinitarian or individually (for instance in Trisagion) they will merely cross once or not at all.
When the choir sings "Let us fall before Christ..." they do nothing, or when the choir sings "We bow to you..." they do nothing.
I asked the lady why she and her husband started this and if there was some kind of typikon that talks about it, and she told me it was "personal devotion." Apparently, she was venerating the icon of the Theotokos at home one day and it brought "tears to her eyes." Since then she feels that she has to show 'greater reverence' to the Theotkos.
I didn't feel like polemicizing with her (as we are otherwise good friends, and she and her husband have only the purest motives in mind and probably don't — although they should — realize that this is wrong), but I will bring this up with the priest. He is fairly young, and this is his first parish.
He is still figuring out ways to do things and reach the people, making sure no one suffers spiritually first and foremost, but I am sure eventually he will organize some sort of FAQ forum where such issues will be addressed. As I said, trouble is that the priest is facing the altar when this happens so he would not notice that some half a dozen people no drop and touch the ground when Theokotoks' name is invoked.
Thank you. It is an example of mistaken worship. It is done in good intention, but you know the saying about good intentions and the road to hell being paved with them.
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