{"id":66864,"date":"2017-06-12T23:19:08","date_gmt":"2017-06-13T05:19:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=66864"},"modified":"2017-06-12T15:00:38","modified_gmt":"2017-06-12T22:00:38","slug":"was-jesus-buddhist-the-man-from-earth-low-budget-movie-with-a-compelling-storyline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2017\/06\/12\/was-jesus-buddhist-the-man-from-earth-low-budget-movie-with-a-compelling-storyline\/","title":{"rendered":"WAS JESUS BUDDHIST? THE MAN FROM EARTH: LOW BUDGET MOVIE WITH A COMPELLING STORYLINE"},"content":{"rendered":"

By SAJITHA PREMATUNGE<\/a> –\u00a0Courtesy Nation<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n
\u00a0It has such huge potential as a stage play, as 12 Angry Men does. In fact, many parallels can be drawn between Jerome Bixby\u2019s 2007 movie, The Man from Earth and Reginald Rose\u2019s 1957 movie 12 Angry Men. They are both dialogue-driven movies that employ a handful of actors, set in an enclosed space. And like 12 Angry Men, The Man from Earth\u2019s 200,000 dollar budget is not to be underestimated. It\u2019s a cult classic with a sequel titled The Man from Earth: Holocene already in its post-production stage.<\/div>\n
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It begins as a hypothetical scenario posed by Professor John Oldman, at the farewell party his friends throw him; what if a Cro-Magnon lived to this day? First they think it\u2019s an idea for a science fiction that John is working on. But the conversation soon spirals out of control when the retiring scholar reveals that he is, indeed, 14,000 years old, qualifying him as a Cro-Magnon. In order to not get his cover blown by letting people discover that he doesn\u2019t age, he\u2019s forced to move on every 10 years. Although his friends \u2013 who are experts in their own fields of history, biology, archaeology and psychiatry \u2013 are taken aback at first, they play along in the spirit of the \u2018game\u2019 they think he\u2019s playing. They try to refute him and John shoots down every argument.\"15\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Set in John Oldman\u2019s living room \u2013 \u2018Oldman\u2019 itself a pun for \u2018old man\u2019 \u2013 the whole movie revolves around this discussion and the reactions it generate. The movie is somewhat akin to a television movie and it\u2019s obvious that not all the actors are professionals. The lackluster cinematography, editing and directing and the general technically inferior nature of the movie only works to heighten the superior screenplay, which in turn enhances the movie\u2019s charm as a cult classic. Bixby is a classic science fiction writer responsible for some of the \u2018Star Trek\u2019 and \u2018The Twilight Zone\u2019 episodes.<\/p>\n

One has to admit that the detailed screenplay woven around a Cro-Magnon living to this day is no doubt imaginative as it is fascinating.<\/p>\n

In the movie Bixby puts forth thought-provoking theosophical ideas. John confides that he was in India at the time of the Buddha. He refers to the Buddha as the most extraordinary man\u201d he has ever known.<\/p>\n

But the greatest and perhaps the most ingenious twist comes when Dan asks John whether he had met any biblical figure. John is visibly uneasy. The audience can literally feel the atmosphere in the living room change as the movie nears its climax, when John says, The mythical overlay is so enormous\u2026and not good. The truth is so, so simple. The New Testament in 1,00 words or less: You ready?\u201d To which Edith retorts, I don\u2019t think I wanna hear this. Harry will you take me home?\u201d<\/p>\n

Edith is so pious that she believes that entertaining John any further is sacrilegious. To cut a long story short, all present convince Edith to sit through it. Tight fisted, Edith begrudgingly agrees. And John makes the biggest revelation in human history, albeit in beguilingly simple terms.<\/p>\n

Guy met the Buddha, liked what he heard, thought about it for a while, say 500 years, while he returned to the Mediterranean, became an Etruscan and seeped into the Roman Empire. He didn\u2019t like what they had became. A giant killing machine. He went to the Near East thinking, \u2018why not pass the Buddha\u2019s teachings on in a modern form.\u2019 So he tried. One dissident against Rome. Rome won. The rest is history.\u201d<\/p>\n

This nonchalant third person narration makes the impact all the more potent. But only because Bixby\u2019s concept of Jesus is nothing novel. In fact, the time from his childhood years till the beginning of his ministry, also known as the silent or lost years, has been the subject of many speculations. Specially since the New Testament makes no mention of this 18-year period. It is said that in 1887, the Russian war correspondent, Nicolas Notovitch claimed that he found a document titled \u2018Life of Saint Issa, Best of the Sons of Men\u2019, at Hemis Monastery in Ladakh. This has serious ramifications for Christianity as Issa is the Arabic name for Jesus in Islam. Notovitch\u2019s story with a translation of the document was published in French in 1894, as \u2018Unknown Life of Jesus Christ\u2019.<\/p>\n

According to the scrolls, Jesus left Jerusalem at the age of 13. He went to the Himalayas and studied Buddhism under monks in Tibetan monasteries. Along the way he also learned Hinduism. Although uncorroborated and subsequently debunked, in 1922 a Vedanta scholar by the name of Swami Abhedananda found a similar manuscript at Hemis Gonpa, translated to Tibetan from the original Pali scrolls.<\/p>\n

At the end of John\u2019s recount Edith condescendingly says, I knew it.\u00a0 He\u2019s\u00a0 saying\u00a0 he was Christ.\u201d To which John quickly clarifies that \u2018Christ\u2019 was a title conferred upon Jesus to fulfill prophecy. When Dan questions about the crucifixion, John explains that he had learned to block the pain with Buddhist meditation he had learned in Tibet and India! This earns Bixby bonus points as he has ingeniously expanded on Notovitch\u2019s story. John goes on to recount, still in third person, that he had learned to slow his body processes down to the point that they were undetectable. They thought he was dead.\u201d But what John was not prepared for was the resurrection. He did not count on some\u00a0 devotees to see him literally rise from the dead, he tried to explain but they wouldn\u2019t have it. Thus I was resurrected,\u201d says John.<\/p>\n

When Edith points out that there is irrefutable stories about the childhood of Jesus. Dr. Will Gruber, the psychiatrist explains that history hates a vacuum. Improvisation, some of it very sincere fills most of the gaps,\u201d in fact, this is the case with most historical accounts, specifically those related to religion. It\u2019s always been a small step from a fallen leader to a God,\u201d points out Dan.<\/p>\n

While Edith makes a futile attempt to defend the integrity of the Bible, Dan points out that the philosophical teachings of Jesus are Buddhism with a Hebrew accent. Indeed, qualities such as kindness, tolerance, brotherhood and love are common traits both Buddhists and Christians are encouraged to inculcate as well as \u2018a ruthless realism acknowledging life as it is\u2019. At least that\u2019s what John tried to teach, until the talking snake that tried to make a lady eat an apple ruined everything. So we\u2019re screwed,\u201d says John. John goes on to point out follies in religion that have been the stuff of books like Da Vinci Code. Follies committed not just in the name of Christianity but most religions. John points out that priests make a living through seduction and terror, peddling heaven and hell to the common man to save their souls, souls they never lost in the first place. I threw a clean pass, they ran it out of the ballpark,\u201d says an exasperated John. This begs the question, would these be the exact sentiments of Jesus if he was privy to how his teachings have been distorted over the years. All the ceremony, rituals, processions, cookies and wine are not what John had in mind when he tried to teach Buddhism to the Mediterraneans.<\/p>\n

When William asks what he has to say to those who don\u2019t believe in Jesus, John says that they should believe in what he tried to teach, without rigmarole. Piety is not what the lessons bring to people. It\u2019s the mistake they bring to the lessons.\u201d In fact, blind faith is perhaps more dangerous than an altogether lack of faith. It was the Buddha who said that the Dhamma must be grasped thoroughly as if catching a cobra by the neck. In Alagadduupama Sutta the Buddha uses the simile of the wrong grasp of a snake to illustrate the danger of misconceiving the Dhamma. At one time John says, Fairytales build churches,\u201d meaning not truths. In fact, history is always shrouded in mystery and myth.<\/p>\n

What started as an interesting science fiction movie ends up as quite an interesting and illuminating critique of religion. All in all, The Man from Earth is a very thought-provoking movie that makes us re-evaluate our theological stance.<\/p>\n

\"13\"<\/a>\"12\"<\/a><\/p>\n

http:\/\/nation.lk\/online\/2017\/06\/03\/was-jesus-buddhist.html<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By SAJITHA PREMATUNGE –\u00a0Courtesy Nation \u00a0It has such huge potential as a stage play, as 12 Angry Men does. In fact, many parallels can be drawn between Jerome Bixby\u2019s 2007 movie, The Man from Earth and Reginald Rose\u2019s 1957 movie 12 Angry Men. They are both dialogue-driven movies that employ a handful of actors, set […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-buddhism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66864\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}