Jesus man/myth portfolio exercise 1

Revised commentary.

In the video documentary “Son of God” many questions are raised with regards to the difference between peoples perceived ideas as to Jesus’ identity and the identity of the historical Jesus. Using a team of scientists and specialists in the subject, we were able to see a reconstruction of what the historical Jesus would have been much more likely to look like as a person, and this was quite different to the preconceived ideas of the general public. The general perception of Jesus as a person can be dated back to renaissance, whereupon an image of Jesus as a Caucasian male with a beard, long flowing hair and gentle features was created. In fact the historical Jesus was completely different to this however, in the film following the results of the reconstruction I think that it would have been a lot harder for people to identify with the more historically correct Jesus and also engage with the developments on screen because of this afore mentioned difficulty.
By using a representation of the preconceived Jesus, people are more easily able to identify the character on screen as Jesus and follow the proceedings of the film.
In the film, the “historical Jesus” is wearing clean white clothes throughout, even when performing tasks that would leave anyone else’s clothes dirty and or bloody or torn. In my opinion the purpose of this is again to enable the audience to identify with the character as Jesus is often associated with wholeness and purity, which is often symbolised by the colour white. Personally, I think that often his clothes stay spotlessly clean in order to convey almost subconsciously the idea that Jesus is ‘different’ to the other people in the film.
Overall, I found the documentary interesting to watch and see the differences between the preconceived ideas of who Jesus was and the more historically accurate ideas. I found it quite odd however, that in the second part of the documentary the person chosen to play the character of Jesus was someone who reflected the more general idea of Jesus as a person as opposed to the more historically accurate reflection. In my opinion it would have made more sense to have the second part of the documentary at the beginning as from this there would have been a valid point for both using a preconceived idea of Jesus and as a result of that, opening up a discussion which would give cause to investigate what the “historical Jesus” would have actually looked like.
I was also quite intrigued by the tension that existed between faith and science and how scientific evidence was used to prove things which some people believed by faith, for example, where they investigated the likelihood that Jesus sweated blood as he was crucified, which was consequently proven to be something which could have quite feasibly happened.
This then also created a slightly paradoxical situation for me, as while the conclusions in both faith and science were the same, by using the science to prove what was previously believed by faith, the need for faith was then eliminated as science could prove it, which to me showed that a lot of people feel the need of having a back up to aid them in their ‘belief’, which challenged me personally as to my stance on that particular point of debate.