The Young Messiah

The Young Messiah

a review by John Haynes

I went to see the film The Young Messiah. Honestly, it was quite a disappointing movie. The movie opens with the words that it is based on Scripture and history. Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth.

The film is beautifully filmed, and the acting is quite good. Many will recognize Sean Bean (The Lord of the Rings) as Severus, the Roman centurion who is hunting the boy Jesus.

The movie is about when Jesus was seven years old. Joseph and Mary and Jesus are in Alexandria, Egypt when the film opens. It is true that they did spend some time in Egypt (Matt. 2:13-15). But we do not know where in Egypt they were. We also know that they were not there until Jesus was seven. They were there until Herod the Great died. It is a known fact that Herod the Great died in 4 b.c. That is not in dispute. Jesus was probably born around 5 or 4 b.c. So they were there at most for two years. But that is not the biggest problem with the film. I found it also odd that Joseph and Mary had no other children. The Bible makes clear that Jesus had several brothers and sisters (Matt. 13:55-56; Mark 6:3; John 7:3; Acts 1:14; 1 Cor. 9:5), and by age seven, he probably had at least three or four. Maybe five. More on why there were no other children later.

At the outset of the film, Jesus is playing with a little girl. A bully comes up and teases him for playing with a girl. A man nearby is eating an apple, and throws down the core. That man later appears to be Satan, and only Jesus can see him. As the bully is leaving, he trips over the apple core and falls down. Somehow, he dies. The girl tries to convince Jesus to do something to help. Like what you did with the bird, she reminds him. They then show a flashback where Jesus is on the seashore and picks up a dead bird. He holds it, and suddenly the bird flies away. This did not happen. Jesus did no miracles on animals. He performed his miracles on humanity.

So Jesus goes to the home of the boy who died. He is lying on a bed. Why I don’t know. The Jews always buried people right away. He holds the boy’s face. The father of the boy comes into the room, and he is upset with Jesus for being there. Then the bully wakes up. Then Joseph and Mary are there too to take Jesus home. Jesus did not raise this or any other boy from the dead before he was 30.

Jesus performs four miracles before the movie is halfway done. The problem is that none of this is true. John 2:11 makes clear that “Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee” (NLT). Scripture is clear that Jesus first miracle was changing the water into wine. That is inarguable. If the Bible says so, it is true.

Later, Joseph decided to take his family back to Israel because of a dream he had. This too is true (Matt. 2:19:21). They finally make it to Nazareth, but not before Jesus does a third miracle. His uncle Cleopas has been very sick, and it was thought he would die soon. He is in a river, and Jesus goes in with him. They both go under water, and when they come up, Cleopas is healed. Didn’t happen.

Jesus has many questions, but his father Joseph will not answer them (yes, I know Joseph was not his actual father, but he raised him as a father). Finally, he talks to his mother, and she answers some of his questions. She tells him about the time he was born. She mentions that the three wise men came to worship him. This is mostly true, but we don’t know if there were three. There were three gifts, but there might have been only two or as many as ten. As she is recounting this, it is clear from what the movie shows that the wise men came to the manger in Bethlehem. Also not true. The Bible says that when the wise men came, Joseph and Mary were living in a house (Matt. 2:11). They were not in the stable.

The last “miracle” that Jesus did was at the Temple. There is a blind rabbi there. As Jesus talks with him, it is clear that he is a very sharp boy and knows the Scripture. That is true, but what follows is not true. Jesus touches the rabbi’s face and then leaves. The rabbi then tells everyone around that he can now see! Didn’t happen.

The screenplay was based on a novel written by Anne Rice, Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt. She became famous for her novels about vampires. She lost her faith at one point in her career, but she came back to the Roman Catholic Church in the last few years. Since she is a Roman Catholic, I believe that is why Mary and Joseph had no other children in the film. The Roman Church teaches that Mary was a virgin all her life. That is simply not true as has been evidenced by what the Scripture teaches (Matt. 13:55-56, et al.). Does Scripture mean what it says? I believe it does.

I think it would be interesting to see what Jesus was like at age seven. Did he know he was the Messiah and that he would one day suffer and die for sins? Perhaps. We know that at some point before he began his ministry at age 30 he became self-aware of this. Jesus was and is God. He did die on that cross to pay for my sins and for the sins of all who believe. Hallelujah!