CNSNews is discussing the fact that the movie, ‘Ten Commandments’–Made in 1956–Wins Nielsen Ratings this past Easter Sunday.
Commenting on “The Ten Commandments” ratings, Catholic League President Bill Donohue said “what was most telling was how it creamed the religious fare shown on the Travel Channel and the Science Channel.”
The Travel Channel showed “Greatest Mysteries: Holy Land,” which included a segment on the Shroud of Turin and “the audience was asked to consider whether the cloth’s impression was the face of Leonardo da Vinci,” said Donohue. In another segment, “we learned that Judas, who betrayed Jesus, was actually his best buddy,” he said.
The Science Channel showed a program on the non-canonical “Gospel of Mary,” which argued that “the male-dominated Church did not want to deal with a woman (who may have been the leader of the apostles!),” said Donohue, while a second program “called into question many Biblical accounts of Christ’s birth, death, and resurrection.”
“It is striking that a Christian-themed entertainment movie offers a more accurate historical account of the Bible than programs that purport to be scientific,” said Donohue. “It only goes to show that the average American is a lot smarter than the elites who seek to manipulate them.”
The Ten Commandments is ‘Christian themed’? I’d like to get Barry’s take on that! I suspect Bill was thinking of another Heston film, Ben Hur. Bill needs to keep his chariots straight.
Typo — of course it’s the one and only Barrie Schwortz I was referring to.
The Ten Commandments are Old Testament. Can we please associate Christianity with the New??? There’s a difference between the two, no? Or else, we would not have one called “the New”…
Bill Donohue is mixing things up.
An op-ed in the “New York Times” demonstrated very clearly why the “Gospel of Judas” says the exact opposite of what the channel/book claimed
When it comes to the “Gospel of Mary” and other spurious documents, they are being used by scholars who take the feminist approach against what they think is a “male dominated” Catholic Church. But it is just not like that, there are doctors in the Church who have been women. Pope John Paul II refused to allow the ordination of women, calling attention to Jesus’ twelve male disciples. Did that make Jesus a “male chauvinist”? Of course not, women had other roles to play
It is quite some time that Christ’s birth, death and resurrection are being questioned. It began in Germany in the nineteenth century and continues till today. However, even a liberal Protestant scholar and pastor like Helmut Koester has stated that the “quest for the historical Jesus” has got nowhere and should be laid to rest for the time being.
Did the “male-dominated” Jesus movement make Jesus learn how to cook? He at least ate and drank better than John the Baptist. After all, he needed to do so:
http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2014/04/29/jesus-knew-how-to-cook-says-italian-theologian
The breakfast cooking scene at Lake Tiberias is in John 21:4-14. The natural conclusion of John’s gospel is at 20:30-31, and ch 21 seems to be an Appendix. My JB version has the note “Possibly the words of a group of John’s disciples”. Perhaps it was added to provide a significant third post-resurrection appearance (reinforcement). Did Jesus cook? Maybe!
Your alternative could be correct. I see you use the JB, like me. I have the one edited by Dom Henry Wansbrough, OSB (Ampleforth Abbey) and use it because the project was started by Father Roland de Vaux, archaeologist, biblical scholar, first editor-in-chief of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and one who was an expert in ancient Israel.
JB is my favourite translation although I occasionally use others. Its notes are excellent. I use to argue regularly with our scholarly assistant priest, now teaching theology at an Auckland seminary about its relative merits. He preferred the recent more literal translations as being more true to content. I considered that while the language might make good Greek, their English came out rather stilted, likewise I have difficulty with the new standard English translations of the Mass. Seldom do they benefit from any poetic expertise on their translation boards, whereas the Gospel is meant to be proclaimed and the language should reflect that and be sympathetic to it.
The USCCB translation is quite good, with good notes, and is on line which makes it convenient for ‘copy and paste’;
http://www.usccb.org/bible/books-of-the-bible/