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/
And for teachings that are the antithesis of biblical teaching, angel worship and witchcraft taught by angels just some.
In this little diagram Blogger and I are arguing about, we talk about what proceeded from what. The Church wrote the New Testament and explained the Old. She did not find the scripture in the glove compartment and say "I got the instructions, let's fire this thing up". If you want to know if the Church can teach in material contradiction of the scriptures, of course not. She would be contradicting herself. Could she teach in contraduiction of what various communities outside of the Church believe the scripture says, sure. Why not?
I meant nothing personal about Marysecretary, who I know strictly from these posts. Nearly all Protestants, not just her, arrogate the term "saint" to themselves and ignore that the canonized saints of the Church all had remarkable lives, all had their faith tested severely and many gave their lives for it literally. This is the distinction I am drawing your attention to.
See among my recent posts for the obedience to the Church. Yes, we are well aware of the false teachers and this is precisely the reason why we beware of the Protestant teachings.
Please do. Jo Kus and I showed you what the scripture says about obeying the Church.
Believers ARE saints
Canonized saints proved their faith. Believers can call themselves whatever they like as long as they are aware of the difference.
Isn't the Catholic church made up of individual people or do you mean the buildings?
Where did the church get the information that they wrote in the New Testament?
You quote a pack of misstatements and lies exposed with regularity on FR.
Apocrypha are not the same as Deuterocanonicals.
Trent did not add the Deuterocanonicals to the Bible. Rather, Luther removed them, because they do not suit his theological fantasies. Trent then proclaimed the true Canon that has been with the Chrisitan Church since at least AD 419.
What Jews accept for their own canon is irrelevant and in fact should be taken with suspicion because of the overall nature of the Jamnia council.
The preponderance of the Septuagint as the apostolic source has been throughly proven on this thread alone. See posts 7207, 7405, 7414, 8277 here.
I particularly liked the inference that they removed Christ from the OT and now publish books to trick us.
Yeah. It seems that they missed about 300 prophecies in the Old Testament in their covert efforts.
...
Certainly the ideas expressed in the Bible are functions of the time in which it was written. The same is true of any book created by human beings - we're all a part of the culture we're raised in. I don't know about "eternal truths," but there is some valid wisdom to be found in the Bible. Once again, though, the same can be said about many other ancient works as well. The only thing that might put the Bible ahead of most ancient alternatives is the fact that it is a collection of multiple books and multiple authors,
...
But that isn’t what we find. The laws and commands from this god aren’t particularly representative of an expansive and eternal love of the god’s alleged creation, humanity. They don’t give any indication of having a divine origin. Instead, they look every bit like the attempts of typical tribe of a barbaric age doing the best they could with what they had.
If a church keeps its members cowered and fearful of their salvation, uncertain of Christ's perfect and finished sacrifice on the cross and impotent as far as proclaiming the Good News of the Gospel to all nations and races, then that church does not and will not bear good fruit.
The church is made up of all true believers and the word of God is God speaking to men, both ordained by God from before the foundation of the world. There's no need to segment the church from the word nor to order them in time. They have exsted from before time and they will exist until He returns again.
The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made... And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us" -- John 1:1-3,14
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Answering the Modern Roman Catholic Apologists
by Dr. John F. MacArthur, Jr "...It was inexcusable that tradition would be elevated to the level of Scripture in Judaism, because when God gave the law to Moses, it was in written form for a reason: to make it permanent and inviolable. The Lord made very plain that the truth He was revealing was not to be tampered with, augmented, or diminished in any way. His Word was the final authority in all matters: "You shall not add to the word which I am commanding you, nor take away from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you" (Deuteronomy 4:2). They were to observe His commandments assiduously, and neither supplement nor abrogate them by any other kind of "authority": "Whatever I command you, you shall be careful to do; you shall not add to nor take away from it" (Deuteronomy 12:32)."
I suppose misstatements and lies are in the eye of the beholder.
Nice catch.
Here is another article giving a reason, or I should say, an elaboration on the errors cited in the previous post on why the Apocryphal books are not inspired and cannot be included in the canon.
The Apocrypha Contradicts Scripture
Question: In one of your articles you claim that the apocrypha contradict the Scripture. I do not see any contradictions.
Answer: Please take a second look and judge for yourself. Let's take some examples, starting with the book of Sirach which teaches that almsgiving makes atonement for sin. “Whoso honoureth his father maketh an atonement for his sins...Water will quench a flaming fire; and alms maketh an atonement for sin” (Sirach 3:3, 30).
Now it is the constant teaching of the Law that atonement is made by a blood sacrifice. For example Leviticus 17:11 states: “For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.”
But Sirach teaches that honouring parents and giving alms atones for sin. Sirach teaches that a person can be justified by another method apart from substitutionary sacrifice.
Sirach teaches justification by the works of the law (honouring parents, etc.) which is directly refuted by the Bible: “A man is not justified by the works of the law” (Galatians 2:16). In fact, the apostle Paul goes as far as saying that “if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain” (verse 21). If we could obtain righteousness by such things as obeying the commandment and doing charity, there would have been no need for Christ dying on the cross.
Similarly Tobit 12:9 states that “alms doth deliver from death, and shall purge away all sin.” But the Bible states that “the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). Being assured by the Word of God that Christ’s blood really cleanses from all sin, we cannot accept that alms-giving is an a different way of purging sin. In fact the Bible makes it clear that ‘without the shedding of blood there is no remission’ (Hebrews 9:14). Tobit proposes an alternative way for purging sin apart from the shedding of blood.
Wisdom 8:19,20 is another contradiction between the apocrypha and Scripture. “For I was a witty child, and had a good spirit. Yea rather, being good, I came into a body undefiled.” However, the Bible teaches that all are born with original sin. "Through one man’s offense judgment came to all men... by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners" (Romans 5:18, 19). “There is none righteous, no, not one” (Romans 3:10). The author of Wisdom believes he was an exception.
Sirach 12:4-7 advices, “Give to the godly man, and help not a sinner. Do well unto him that is lowly, but give not to the ungodly; hold back thy bread, and give it not unto him... give unto the good, and help not the sinner.” This sound more like pagan philosophy rather than the teaching of God, “But I say to you who hear: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you... Give to everyone who asks of you. And from him who takes away your goods do not ask them back” (Luke 6:27,30). “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him a drink;” (Romans 12:20, Proverbs 25:21).
There are also historical errors in the apocrypha. For example, Tobit claims to have been alive when Jeroboam revolted (931 B.C.) and when Assyria conquered Israel (722 B.C.). These two events were separated by over 200 years and yet the total lifespan of Tobit was 158 years (Tobit 1:3-5; 14:11)! Judith mistakenly identifies Nebuchadnezzar as king of the Assyrians (1:1, 7) when in fact he was the king of Babylon (2 Kings 24:1).
Surely the doctrinal and historical errors in the apocrypha are clear evidence against the divine inspiration of these books.
Copyright Dr Joe Mizzi. Permission to copy and distribute this article without textual changes.
Yes, and it was not Moses who commanded the HS, it was God, just as it is not Peter or any other apostle or disciple. A great lesson.
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