I recorded "Killing Jesus" and tried to watch it the next day, but it was so awful- truly the most horrible "bible" story I have seen in years. So horrible that I couldn't make it through the first hour, let alone watch the entire three hour debacle.
Besides all the fiction, O'Reilly rewrites the scriptures and changes the order of things and worst of all depicts our Lord as some clueless mere mortal stumbling through life not knowing anything until his cousin John the Baptist attempts to fill him in.
It was pathetic right from the beginning.
-Mary has amnesia and doesn't recall the Angel Gabriel's words to her (Luke 1:28-38). Nor does she remember the angels, shepherds or the three Kings who came to pay homage to the new born king - you'd think something like that would leave a lasting impression but not in O'Reilly's version. Nope, Mary is depicted as clueless and dull-witted as Jesus in this movie.
-Jesus is not shown presented at the Temple where Simeon takes Jesus in his arms and proclaims that salvation has come or his prophecy to Mary about the suffering she will endure because of who she gave birth to. (Luke 2)
-The escape to Egypt happened because Joseph was worried and antsy to get out of there, no angel of the Lord telling them to go and not return until they were told by God (Matt.2:13 and Matt.2:19). The return is based on a chat worry-wart Joseph had with some traveling Jews after Herod's death. Pure fiction.
-The worst is poor dumb Jesus...clueless about who he is. No one remembers the amazing facts surrounding his birth, the prophecy fulfilled, the angels, the wise men...nothing. It's all a blur as he works hard to be a carpenter like his step dad Joseph- only he's so clueless he doesn't know Joseph wasn't his real father. Mary with her amnesia forgot to mention the miraculous virginal conception of God Incarnate by the Holy Spirit. Just slipped her mind!
I gotta give it to the actor playing Jesus, he does a perfect job of looking confused, baffled and just plain old dumb as O'Reilly seems to believe Jesus was.
But I just couldn't take Jesus being depicted as dumb as a pile of rocks.
In all my life, I have never imagined Jesus as walking around confused not knowing who he was/is. I never imagined Mary forgetting everything that happened to her! Who could forget an angel telling you you've been chosen by God to carry God Incarnate in your womb? O'Reilly's Mary manages to forget it all and more.
The movie is insulting and I felt disgusted watching it- especially during Holy Week.
The movie is like an anti-Christian depiction of what an anti-Christian might portray as THEIR VERSION of the story of Jesus minus Christ's Divinity and lots of Sacred Scripture re-writes. I have to wonder if O'Reilly used a Bible at all or if he wrote this fiction from some pagan anti-Christian source. This movie is NOT in any way, shape or form something a Christian who knows the Bible and story of Jesus could ever enjoy or recommend.
It's deplorable. Even worse than the book O'Reilly's publisher asked me to review for him (HERE).
I turned it off and deleted it before I shoved my foot threw my new flat screen.
My time was better spent watching reruns of The Rockford Files on MeTV (I save Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" movie for Good Friday).
Practicing Catholics know its bad when The National Catholic Reporter likes it and declares it "remarkable"!
Remarkably bad maybe!
In my opinion, O'Reilly needs to stick with shouting at his Fox news guests and stay away from a religion he clearly knows little about.
In Christ,
Julie @ Connecticut Catholic Corner
It was painful. Aside from all you note, St. Joseph and Christ were downright nasty.
ReplyDeleteJulie, I agree. As soon as I realized O'Reilly's Christ was walking about clueless and confused on who he was, I turned off and went to sleep.
ReplyDeleteThe film was so dark, the actors looked like they never took a bath and the fake beards were horrible.
This was put on during Holy Week as a deliberate insult but it sounds like they stuck to the book.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the comments. I was truly appalled at what I was seeing on the screen. I can't believe O'Reilly thinks what he produced was good- he must be blind.
ReplyDeleteIn Christ,
Julie @ Connecticut Catholic Corner
I consider the use of atheist execrable anti-christian Ridley Scott as the Producer and a Muslim as Christ as all you really need to know about this rubbish and avoided it. The claim the Muslim Arabs look more "Jewish" than others races is a deliberate blasphemous calumny against Christ.
ReplyDeleteGo Julie Go!! I knew this was garbage from the first interview I heard - about a year ago - when O'Reilly stated that Jesus was crucified because he encouraged people not to pay their taxes. Whaaa????? Jesus said "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's!"
ReplyDeleteIt is shameful that O'Reilly graduated from CATHOLIC School. He should know better! Even worse, he is misleading the masses with this blasphemous work of fiction!
He lost me a long time ago with his constant veering to the Left. I stopped watching his show because quite often in his distasteful entertainment segment he allows the airing of immodest images and gossip. No thank you! He should be ashamed of himself.
Have a blessed Holy week,
Deb <3
www.WeAreTheSalt.blogspot.com
It was painful reading your small minded article. As a Catholic priest I find Catholics like you and your minions to be anything but a follower of Christ. I just pray that one day you people go to confession and repent. You all are pathetic.
ReplyDeleteThank you Deb and God bless!!
ReplyDelete------
To "FrJack" you're either not a priest or your one of those the devil weaseled into the Church to attack Her. Either way, a liar or the devil's minion both end up spending eternity in Hell if they don't repent. So if you are worrying about anyone repenting, look in the mirror before its too late for you!!
In Christ,
Julie @ Connecticut Catholic Corner
Julie, sorry, it is just to easy to goad your kind...my bad.
ReplyDeleteTime for Holy Week confessions! Maybe one day you'll find me on the other side of the screen when you go....
Step up to the plate "FrJack" and name your parish- I'd love to visit you in person before I visit your Bishop.
ReplyDeleteCome on, tell me which parish you belong to.
Bet you won't because you know you're wrong and your Bishop wouldn't like what you've said here.
In Christ,
Julie @ Connecticut Catholic Corner
Yes, I totally agree! I cringed during the scene when "Jesus" healed the boy whom they thought was dead. His reaction was reminiscent of Steve Urkel's "Did I do that?" Bill O'Reilly is blinded only by his enormous ego!
ReplyDeleteI opted not to watch.
ReplyDeleteThe approach as offered by O'Reilly was to approach the subject as a "historian" ignoring the Divinity of Christ.
That seemed to me to be incredibly stupid. How can you possibly approach the subject of Jesus Christ and completely ignore his Divinity?
O'Reilly proudly announced that there would be no miracles and so forth because he could find no record of those in the historical record. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John recounting Jesus' miracles was not enough for O'Reilly. He needed to have a second source to corroborate.
I also saw a commercial for the movie that showed Jesus saying, "The Kingdom of God shall have no thrones, or crowns, or heads of state." I'm no bible scholar but that sounded strange to me. I still can't find the source of that quote.
Those things and the fact that O'Reilly is clearly a CINO were the foundation of my decision to not bother with the movie. I'm glad I didn't.
I will watch Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" this Good Friday, as I usually do. Also, one of my favorites "The Ten Commandments" with Charlton Heston is on ABC Easter Sunday night. I will be glued to the TV for both of those.
Julie, I agree with you wholeheartedly! I watched the entire 3 hours, so I objected to things you didn't see because you turned it off after the first hour (don't blame you). The most egregious omission for me was there was no Institution Narrative at the Last Supper! Jesus washes feet, then you see a big plate of food for the Passover Meal, Jesus talks to His apostles about someone betraying Him and also His coming suffering and death, and all of a sudden, Jesus and the apostles are in the Garden of Gethsemane! There was no "This is My Body, given up for you" or "This is the Blood of the new covenant . . ." etc. So there really wasn't a Last Supper at all in O'Reilly's movie! I was appalled!
ReplyDeleteJulie
ReplyDeleteTHANK YOU
Best and bravest review on this schlock!
Forwarded this review to others!
Spot on!
Here is what I think about Bill O’Reilly’s move, KILLING JESUS:
ReplyDeleteAt the risk of violating his desire that people correspond with him briefly and to the point, I won't do so because what I have to say cannot be stated in a tweet!
I just spent 3 long hours trying to understand why on earth he bothered to have a movie made of his book, “Killing Jesus”. The commercials were plentiful, but this story was lacking on so many levels. What a colossal disappointment!
I can imagine what he will say, “I was just showing the historical events that lead up to the killing of Jesus.” But he has failed! What he has presented is not historic. Where did he come up with this convoluted depiction of Jesus Christ?
In his books, “Killing Lincoln” and “Killing Kennedy”, did he portray Honest Abe or JFK as Presidents of the United States, or merely men who were killed? I ask because he certainly did not portray Jesus Christ as the Divine Son of God; or, even as one who had a clue why He was born until others pointed it out to Him. Bill claims to be a Catholic so he must have included the Holy Bible in his research. His artistic license was sorely lacking in Truth. Any attempts to take a historical view of the events leading up to the crucifixion were shallow and sophomoric. On his TV show, he claimed that the world has never seen anything like this movie, and that might be true; but, not the way he might think. "The Last Temptation of Christ" might have been worse. In my opinion, “Killing Jesus” was uniquely misguided, incomplete, devoid of spirituality and an insult to Christians of every denomination.
In the “Gospel of Bill”, Mary clueless that her Son was the Son of God. That is absurd because she knew that before Jesus was even conceived. The film didn’t have to show the Annunciation, or Mary’s fiat, but it easily could have shown that she knew who Jesus was.
Even worse than that, why didn’t Jesus know who He was, but John the Baptist did? What theological works were consulted in researching this story? Of course, Jesus and John the Baptist both knew that Jesus was the Lamb of God.
Did he seek Wisdom in secular, scientific “in search of The Real Jesus” nonsense? Wisdom is a gift of the Holy Spirit. At this time of global crises, the world needs Hope, and, with all of the hype and promotion, this was a golden opportunity to evangelize as well as educate. This movie seemed to be more inspired by an urge to be politically correct than to tell the story of God’s Plan for our salvation, which IS History.
Perhaps the most glaring omission was the Resurrection. Shame on you, Bill! You had that 100% wrong. Pilate did not refuse to post the Roman guards at the tomb. The tomb was sealed and an angel was the one who announced that Jesus had risen. More than once, Jesus appeared PHYSICALLY to Mary and to the apostles, in the upper room, and He made a point of having Thomas, the doubter, place his fingers inside the wounds. Why would you represent the glory of the Resurrection in such an innocuous fashion, i.e. Everybody shows up to an open tomb and the only evidence is that there was no body there? Come on, Bill! Jesus ate meals with His disciples on the road to Emmaus, He ascended into Heaven in the presence of His disciples, He sent the Holy Spirit upon them in the upper room, on Pentecost! Any one of these, and other events, could have affirmed that He rose from the dead and stayed with us for another 40 days. However, in your “historically accurate” movie, the only “proof” of Jesus rising from the dead was Peter praying in a boat to catch fish, and when he had a nice catch he proclaims, “He is with us!” Shameful.
I could go on and on, but you get the point, my friends. If this movie was an attempt to show what it is like to kill Jesus, it may have succeeded. The movie has given non-believers much to disbelieve. It gave borderline believers much to question, and to doubt. And worst of all, it gave devout Christians a slap in the face.
Remember this, Mr. O’Reilly, Judas sold out Jesus for a pile of money.
Great Commentary on the movie Julie!
ReplyDeleteI was loudly grinning while reading it.
The Faith is very much alive here in Ct.
Deo Gratias