Batman and Jesus

[GakuseiDon]

I saw on Richard Carrier's blog a link to a 4 min Youtube clip by the Mythicist Milwaukee team. Mythicist Milwaukee have launched a fundraiser to create a movie called "Batman and Jesus". They will be interviewing Dr Carrier, Dr Price, David Fitzgerald among many others. They are inspired by the Zeitgeist movie, but recognised that it was flawed. So they plan to make a movie with "improved scholarship on films of its kind".

The idea seems to be that the evolution of fictional characters of Batman and Superman can be used to shed light on the development of the myth of Jesus. That in itself might be interesting and even relevant to the development of the Christ myth.

But at the end of the clip, one of them states: "I'm going to make a movie about how there almost certainly wasn't a historical Jesus, and I'm going to use Batman to make that point." Not a promising start, though probably a hook to get attention, I hope. It'll be interesting to see how this pans out.

Link is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLnNOJnf7OU

Editted to add: The fundraiser was for $12,000. According to Dr Carrier's blog, this has already been achieved.

More information on the documentary below from here: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/batm ... -as-a-myth#/

• Batman & Jesus is a documentary film investigating the historicity of a Jesus of Nazareth. By tracing the origins of Jewish and Christian mythology and using the contemporary example of Batman, among other pop culture heroes, the film will illustrate the evolution of mythology over time, as well as demonstrate how canonizing the gospels of the Bible would have been comparable to trying to canonize the Batman series today.

And:

• Does it matter if Jesus was a historical person or not? Absolutely, and this film will have the opportunity to point out the difference between the connotation of the Bible and the implications of Christianity depending on whether it's one or the other.

And:

• This is a difficult subject to tackle that will upset many people. Presenting the information thoroughly and clearly, without completely overwhelming, is key. A certain sensitivity is also needed in the film's presentation, and in spite of the raucous title and sense of humor (present as well in Jozef's web series "Holy Shit"), it truly needs to come from a place of love, with a certain heart shining through the kicking and squirming; calming, it's going to be ok. Jozef's experience in mixing his emotions with his humor in his films and web series, and his Catholic school upbringing, give him an advantage in minding this delicate balance.
  
  Here again the idea is not to convert people away from Christianity or condemn its practitioners, but rather open a more honest discussion of the source of many of their beliefs: was it a real man they wrote about? Or was it their imagination writing with a different purpose? And if so, then what?
  
  Secondly, it is important to be able to present the very best information, research, and evidence available today to verify and support the claims being made.
  
  To achieve this, filmmaker Jozef is working with the organization, Mythicist Milwaukee, to bring together some of the many diverse leading voices and scholars in the secular community to speak in the film about what we truly know about the life of Jesus, including Dr. Richard Carrier, author David Fitzgerald, and hiphop artist Killah Priest.

[perseusomega9]

Good lord.

[Secret Alias]

And perhaps because we live in this country (at least most of us) the Americanisms in mythicism might not appear so jarring. I think if someone just peddled a 'soft' form of mythicism - one which said that SOME or MOST of the gospel was mythical, it wouldn't be so annoying. It's just that most of the stuff in religious studies is so delicate and deserves to be treated thoughtfully. Then along comes this American style marketing with all the bombast (which is typical of Carrier's approach generally). It's too much to bear. Above all else, we need to be quiet and thoughtful. There is something inherently suspicious about bombast.