| Monday, March 26, 2007 |
| THE BIBLE IN POP CULTURE |
Even our superficial pleasures are enhanced by a background in the Good Book.
BABEL
In the Bible, survivors of the Great Flood displeased God when they tried to build a tower toheaven, and he gave each one a different language so that they could no longer understand one another. The people in the four different cultures portrayed in the Oscar-nominated film share a modern-day version of undue pride and the inability to communicate.
Talking past one another, then and now
SUPERMAN
Jor-el. Did you know that el means God in biblical Hebrew? The comic about the all powerful Kryptonian's son, whose arrival on Earth coincides with a major astronomical event and is raised among men, was a fun, reductivist postwar Jesus gloss. The 2006 movie version in this saga about a man with supernatural powers who saves humanity hit the Jesus comparisons harder than its predecessors did.
No crucifixion, but certainly a brief to save the world
THE DAVINCI CODE
There are people who regard Dan Brown's story about Jesus and Mary Magdalene as Gospel. But read the Gospels, and you will know it plays off later, nonbiblical sources.
SPAMALOT
The hit Broadway musical was inspired by the 1975 film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, a satirical rendering of King Arthur and his knights' search for the cup Christ used at the Last Supper.John Cleese makes a taped appearance as the voice of God.
THE CHRONICLES OF NARIA
C.S. Lewis was a famous Christian popularizer. Asian the lion was Jesus. Grab your new testament and take it from there.
LEFT BEHIND SERIES
Supposedly a fictionalization of events in the Book of Revelation, but it's actually based only on interpretation of that text. Is it the right one?
ONE TREE HILL
Their battles may play out in calculus or at the junior prom, but sibling rivalry between half brothers Lucas and Nathan on thsi CW teen drama echo the birthright struggle of Cain and Abel.
PULP FICTION
Samuel L. Jackson's charater Jules invokes Ezekiel before killing people: "You will know I am the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you." But he undergoes a personal crisis framed in the same language. Is he the "righteous man" Ezekiel lauds? The "shepherd" who helps the weak? He fears that instead he serves what Ezekiel calls "the tyranny of evil men". When he spares another potential victim, he says, "I'm tryin real hard to be the sheperd." The Bible is real for him.
THE MATRIX
You almost have to watch trilogy with Scriture in hand to catch all the biblical resemblances in the Wachowskis' retelling of the Ressurrection, with Keanu Reeves as you-know-who. Of course, then you would have to start in on nearly as important secular source.
The more you watch, the more Christian it gets.
(Source: Abstracted from:TIMEMAG by: David Von Drehle) |
| posted by infraternam meam @ 10:23 PM |
|
|
|
|
| About Me |
|
Name: infraternam meam
Home: Chicago, United States
About Me: I am now at the prime of my life
and have been married for the past 25 years.
Sickly at times, but wants to see the elixir vita,
so that I will be able to see my grandchildren from my two boys.
See my complete profile
|
| Previous Post |
|
| Archives |
|
| Links |
|
|
| Powered by |
|
|
