'The Nativity Story' Movie Problematic for Catholics, "Unsuitable" for Young Children

'The Nativity Story' Movie Problematic for Catholics, "Unsuitable" for Young Children

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."

I am pinging our naive Greek speaker for quality control. Kolo your comments are welcome.

You say that the Greek Orthodox commentary was dishonest. Okay, then I ask you are you honest? Did you actually read the Greek text of Mat 1:25 when you say that the word used is "first-born?"

The Greek original uses the word uioV which means son, not firstborn, not fisrt-begotten, just son.

Frankly I don't know where KJV is getting the "firstborn" in this passage, but to me it sounds like some wild poetic license the part of the men who made KJV, for there is no "firstborn" prwtotokoV in the ORIGINAL Greek. Talk about dishonesty!

Here is the whole verse:

uion

kai ekalesen to onoma autou ihsoun

I don't see prwtotokoV. Do you?

Lesson learned: what you read in English is not necessarily what was written. I have said that on this forum many times. Bibles come in many varieties and leave equally varied impressions.

Here we are having a tug-of-war over a word that doesn't exist in the original but was fraudulently introduced in the English version 1,600 years after Christ, and we take it as authoritative "word of God." Is that not the ultimate in deceit and dishonesty?

I am pinging our naive Greek speaker for quality control. Kolo your comments are welcome.

You say that the Greek Orthodox commentary was dishonest. Okay, then I ask you are you honest? Did you actually read the Greek text of Mat 1:25 when you say that the word used is "first-born?"

The Greek original uses the word uioV which means son, not firstborn, not fisrt-begotten, just son.

Here is the whole verse:

kai ouk eginwsken authn ewV ou eteken

uion

kai ekalesen to onoma autou ihsoun

I don't see prwtotokoV. Do you?

Lesson learned: what you read in English is not necessarily what was written. I have said that on this forum many times. Bibles come in many varieties and leave equally varied impressions.

First, since we don't have the ORIGINAL Greek manuscripts but later copies, your appeal to the original should be taken in that context. Second, King James didn't "introduce the word into the text. See below (containing prwtotokoV) which was PRIOR to King James and hardly a protestant addition: ΚΑΤΑ ΜΑΤΘΑΙΟΝ 1:25 (1550 Stephanus New Testament) 1550 Stephanus New Testament (TR1550) 25και ουκ εγινωσκεν αυτην εως ου ετεκεν τον υιον αυτης τον πρωτοτοκον και εκαλεσεν το ονομα αυτου ιησουν Next see the Scrivener Text AFTER KJV ΚΑΤΑ ΜΑΤΘΑΙΟΝ 1:25 (1894 Scrivener New Testament) 1894 Scrivener New Testament (TR1894) 25και ουκ εγινωσκεν αυτην εως ου ετεκεν τον υιον αυτης τον πρωτοτοκον και εκαλεσεν το ονομα αυτου ιησουν Westcott and Hort do not use πρωτοτοκον, but it wasn't a King James invention - nor was it dishonest. It WAS dishonest to imply that a text used LOGOS when it didn't to try to make a point about an extra-biblical doctrine. Please give me a little credit for having looked to see if firstborn really meant firstborn in the Greek and to see if it is in the text itself. I have had Greek in Seminary and can read a lexicon and a little Greek just on the surface of things. I will admit I'm rusty, but the word for firstborn was there. So, now we have a question - which was the true original? And why is firstborn added or taken away? Someone it appears did so on purpose, but why? Be honest.

Some manuscripts include 'ton huion ton prwtotokon'

My search shows Byzantine text (based on the altered and unreliable Alexandrian Codex) from 1991 and 1894 Textus Receptus with prwtotokon.

Biblical texts based on the oldest versions of the Bible, the so-called unicals (Sinaiticus and Vaticanus) do not have "firstborn." These are NAS, NIV, Wycliffe, 1881 Westcott-Hort.

Those based on the unreliable and altered Alexandrian Codex do. Apparently the Russian Synodal version, the modern Byzantine text, and KJV have the insertion "firstborn."

The Bible has been altered, added, erased, copied in error, and so on and is anything but a pristine word of God it was originally written. There are so many instances of human tempering with the originals that we cannot even conclude in some cases which versions are true and which are falsifications. Instead, the experts use "probability" and other indirect "evidence" (which hinges on existing information and can change with any new discovery).

Which only makes proof-texing, so dear to Portestants, even more delusional then simple out-of-context phrases are.

Here are some facts about KJV and various Bibles in general:

In the preface to the KJV 1611 the translators do not claim that this is an inspired perfect translation
The KJV translators were limited in the manuscripts available to them (unical Vaticanus, Sinaitucus) have been uncovered around 1860
The current KJV being printed differs in a number of details from the KJV 1611. There are also numerous printing errors in different editions of the KJV. The 1611 editions have "Then cometh Judas" instead of "Then cometh Jesus" in Matthew 26:36. There is the "Wicked Bible" edition of the KJV where "not" is omitted from the seventh commandment saying, "thou shalt commit adultery." William Kilburne in 1659 found 20,000 errors in six different KJV's
A number of Church leaders in the 19th century realized that there were numerous translation errors in the KJV and called for a new translation which resulted in American Standard Version. The KJV is about 92% the same as the Tyndale translation
The original KJV 1611 included the Apocrypha
There are a number of places especially in the Book of Revelation where there is no Greek manuscript evidence for the words. For example, no Greek text says "book of life" in Revelation 22:19. The Greek says, "tree of life." I John 5:8 is a later addition not found in Greek manuscripts before the 16th century.
The Majority Text, the Textus Receptus, and KJV all disagree
A number of words are mistranslated by the KJV. The KJV is not a perfect word for word translation. There is some paraphrasing like "God save the king" (I Samuel 10:24, II Samuel 16:16, I Kings 1:25, and II Kings 11:12). About 1,000 Greek words and particles were not translated by the KJV.
A number of words are mistranslated like John 20:17 which says, "Touch me not" should be rendered "Do not keep on holding me" (Lewis, 46; He lists a number of mistranslations). The Bible was not originally divided up into verse divisions. They did not understand Hebrew poetry. Chapter divisions are also questionable like where Genesis one ends. The use of italics is misunderstood by readers who put emphasis on it, instead of it being questionable reading like "unknown tongue" in I Corinthians 14 and the speaking in tongues movement.
A number of words have changed in meaning from the KJV 1611. Some are just the opposite in meaning. For example, "let" means "hinder," "lust" means "desire" which is not all ways bad, "fair" means "beautiful" not just average, "quick" means "living" and "nephews" means "grandchildren." "Corn" means "grain" for corn was only found in North and South America by the Indians.
There are several animals mentioned in the KJV that are mythical: unicorns, dragons, satyr There is also the mention of the cockatrice (Isaiah 11:8, 14:29, 59:5; Jeremiah 8:17) and the arrowsnake (Genesis 49:11, margin).
There are theological problems with the KJV. The translators are coming from a Anglican Church bias. Their view of Baptism and church comes through in the translation. Church terms are used for leaders. The words at the Lord's Table "the broken body of the Lord" (I Corinthians 11:24) are used. Some also say it has a Calvinistic bias.
The King James translators used the third edition of the Greek New Testament published by Stephanus in 1550. KJV was based on the third edition of the Greek New Testament issued by the Parisian publisher Stephanus (Latinized form of Estienne) in 1550 There is no Greek manuscript that agrees exactly with either of these. Both of them are conflate texts.

Something to thnk about next time we text-proof or call someone else dishonest.

Consider also the following facts (same lik) about the Bible in general:

twelve verses of the Gospel of Mark were not part of the original
95% of the known Greek NT manuscripts were copied after A.D. 700, more than six centuries after the NT was written.
Among manuscripts copied before A.D. 400 (three centuries after the NT was completed) there are none of the Textus Receptus type (Byzantine family)
Although we see about 100 writers using the so-called Alexandrian, Western and Caesarean text families in quotations from before A.D. 400, the first person known to have used the Byzantine type of text is John Chrysostom, who died in A.D. 407
As for Codex Alexandrinus:, somehave have speculated that the principal scribe who prepared it could not read Greek, because spaces sometimes interrupt the middle of a word!

I give you credit. This is not a personal issue, Blogger. The Orthodox commentator was not dishonest, alhtough he could have worded it differently. I think adiaireton8's answer in #1,450 is is in agreement with the Orthodox commentator, namely that Mat 1:25 cannot be used as a "proof" that Mary had more children.

I will have to re-read the commentary and see if I read it the same way, i.e. that it was misleading. But we can't say it was intentionally misleading, although I didn't find anything misleading in it, unless he explicitly says that there is a word "Logos" in Mat 1:25, which he doesn't.

Which version is more reliable? The oldest unical versions of the Bible were uncovered in 1859, Sinaiticus and Vaticanus. Westcott and Hort uses them as the source (and so does NAB, NIV, etc.). One of the reasons KJV has it because it used Alexandrinus, which is reputed to be unreliable, yet sadly it is used by the EOC. Perhaps the Vaicnaus and Sinaitucs were lost before the 5th cenutry so Alexandrinus was the only one available, who knows.

One thing perplexes me: Wycliffe is the oldest verison in English (I think), ratker "litteral," yet it doesn't have "firstborn" in it. Given that Sinaiticus/Vaticanus were not discovere until past the middle of the 19th cenutry, I wonder which source was used for te Wycliffe version. We must be very careful when we say that "something is in the Bible," precisely because an average church-goer really has no idea how complex and confusing the Christian Canon can be. It's a real miracle we still believe in one and the same thing. :)

Mary was full of Grace. That which God touched is considered holy. She was holy. Touching that which is holy would desecrate it.

Jesus taught in the Synagogues and touched them. Were they thereafter unholy places after others worshiped there? Since God never touched anything or anyone else in the way He "touched" Mary, I'm not sure what you are comparing it to. Are you thinking along the lines of the Ark of the Covenant? Those would not be comparable because God gave specific instructions not to touch the Ark. He gave no such instructions about touching Jesus and people did so all the time. The same goes for Mary, so nothing would prevent her own husband from touching her in that sense, nor would it prevent other people from hugging her, etc.

There is nothing wrong with marital sex per se, but not when the sex object is someone purified by God. Anything else that touches it will make it less pure, less holy, "damaged goods."(emphasis added)

Sex object? This Apostolic teaching is getting more and more interesting. :) Does the Bible say anywhere that martial sex is OK, ONLY IF the sex object has not been purified by God? Where does the Bible say that any husband touching the purified sex object will make it/she less pure or damaged goods? I do not understand this mindset that marital sex is somehow at odds with the concept of holiness. When married couples are together, is the woman somehow "defiled"? Is marital sex sort of a necessary "evil" for perpetuation purposes?

For God, only the pure and without blemish was to be offered. You think Mary could just have sex and bear other children in the same womb that carried Christ?

How do these two sentences relate? Jesus was pure and without blemish. He was offered as a sacrifice, Mary was not. Usually, when a womb is filled with child it is considered blessed, is it not? What sin did Mary commit that she was denied her womb ever being blessed again? :)

God is not your next door neighbor who borrows your new tool and then you continue to use it. But I am beginning to believe that some Protestants see God as just the Good Ole Old Man next door that we can be "buddies" with.

WHAT??? :) How do you arrive at that? My side is the one who harps on God's absolute sovereignty. It is we who say that God controls everything and gets whatever He wants whenever He wants it, and tramples over whatever we want if it stands in His way. Does that sound like my buddy next door? To the contrary, it is you who say that we cooperate with God, just like good neighbor buddies do. :)

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