If you missed the drama "Killing Jesus" on National Geographic Channel, you can catch the three-hour production on Fox News Channel.
And Fox News is the logical home for a film based on a book co-written by Bill O'Reilly, the channel's biggest star.
Fox News will present the film at 8 p.m. Friday and Sunday, which is Easter. The epic movie, a life of Jesus, features Kelsey Grammar as King Herod, Haaz Sleiman as Jesus and Stephen Moyer as Pontius Pilate.
This past Sunday, "Killing Jesus" drew 3.7 million viewers, the biggest audience in the history of National Geographic Channel.
The movie's cast also includes Rufus Sewell as Caiaphas; Emmanuelle Chriqui as Herodia; Eoin Macken as Antipas; John Rhys Davies as Annas; Abhin Galeya as John the Baptist; Stephanie Leonidas as Salome; Joe Doyle as Judas; Alexis Rodney as Simon (Peter); and Chris Ryman as Malchus.
The film shot in the Moroccan desert. The crew had more than 250 workers, and the cast included more than 4,500 extras.
Walon Green wrote the script, and Chris Menaul directed.
I'm sure it's well done. I have a real problem with having a muslim actor portray Jesus. Call me a bigot, I just can't see having an actor who professes to follow Mohammed the Sociopath and Allah the Moongod, and for whom central tenets of their belief system are that they need to kill or convert everyone who doesn't follow Allah and Mohammed, women are slaves and less-than-human, and children are to be used however an adult muslim male so desires.
However, I'm really impressed that a right-winger like O'Reilly is embracing diversity.
Quote: ThirstyMan wrote in post #3I guess it's like Rock Hudson playing the lead in Pillow Talk with Doris Day.
It is unfortunate that we have to think about while watching.
A reader's comment under the story: Jefferson Knight Hinderaker's point - which many seem to be missing - is that it is ABSOLUTELY IMPOSSIBLE TO IMAGINE the entire American media having precisely zero interest in the leading Republican in the United States Senate being beaten to a pulp. But that's exactly what happened in the case of the leading Democrat in the Senate. Hinderaker found out out the truth, with very little effort. If that story is not more important than a breach of the second A in AA then nothing is.
******* The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil ... but by those who watch them and do nothing. -- Albert Einstein
I have not seen "Killing Jesus" not have any intent of doing so. Ted Baxter, er, I mean O'Reilly, stated several times he would not use the Gospels as a source as they were not "historical". What he did use is beyond me but in one of the promos for the film Pontius Pilate is shown uttering the phrase it is better for one man to die than an entire nation. Not only is that from the Gospels but it was not Pilate who said it, it was the high priest Caiaphas.
Now I do not know if that appears in O'Reilly's book or was an interpolation by the film's creators, but either way, plus the fact O'Reilly kept stressing the Gospels weren't used due to their lack of historicity, the book and the film are not for me.
One more word: if I am wrong about what I think the promo showed, Pilate instead of Caiaphas, I hope someone who actually watched the film will correct me. Won't hurt my feelings as truth is of a higher value.
"This is the most lavishly funded and entirely moronic foreign ministry on the planet."~~Mark Steyn's description of the US State Dept.
Quote: Rev wrote in post #6O'Reilly is a heretic, a false prophet.
Let him be anathema.
FYI, I watched the first half of Killing Jesus. I wasn't all that impressed.
It seemed to humanize Jesus in an odd way. Jesus started out an ordinary man who one day seemed to discover his Messianic possibilities, as told by his cousin John [the Baptist].
Jesus gradually, by experimentation, began to develop and expand his ministry, finding some surprising success with various themes.
His ministry certainly wasn't cast as the Incarnation of God, Jesus coming down from heaven and becoming flesh among us. It had a human, political, anti-Rome, anti-Jewish authority tinge to it.
I stopped watching it as it neared Jesus' betrayal by Judas. I didn't want to see any more distortions.
******* The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil ... but by those who watch them and do nothing. -- Albert Einstein
I'd like to know what sources O'Reilly used for all that. He claims repeatedly his work is based on historical documentation.
He doesn't even have the sense to know that God's infallible Word is the most historically accurate document the world has ever known.
And I want to address the title of this book and movie Killing Jesus.
True, it is a biblically established fact that there were those who wanted Jesus dead, namely the Pharisees and the Sanhedrin.
But no one killed Jesus.
He went willingly to the cross:
I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine.
As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep.
And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.
Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again.
No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father. John 10:14-18 (KJV)
The very title of this book and movie are blasphemous.
"Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." - President Ronald Reagan