【Guardian Unlimitedより、以下転載】
Film based on Aquarian Gospel to cover years left out of New Testament
Hollywood is to fill in the Bible's "missing years" with a story about Jesus as a wandering mystic who travelled across India, living in Buddhist monasteries and speaking out against the iniquities of the country's caste system.
Film producers have delved deep into revisionist scholarship to piece together what they say was Jesus's life between the ages of 13 and 30, a period untouched by the recognised gospels.
The result is the Aquarian Gospel, a $20m movie, which portrays Jesus as a holy man and teacher inspired by a myriad of eastern religions in India. The Aquarian Gospel takes its name from a century-old book that examined Christianity's eastern roots and is in its 53rd reprint.
The film's producers say the movie will be shot using actors and computer animation like 300, the retelling of the Battle of Thermopylae, and will follow the travels of Yeshua, believed to be the name for Jesus in Aramaic, from the Middle East to India. Casting for suitable Bollywood and Hollywood actors has begun.
"The Bible devotes just seven words to the most formative years of Yeshua's life saying: 'The boy grew in wisdom and stature'. The [film] will follow Christ's journey to the east where he encounters other traditions, and discovers the principles that are the bedrock of all the world's great religions," said Drew Heriot, the film's director, whose credits include the cult hit The Secret.
The film, which is due for release in 2009, sets out to be a fantasy action adventure account of Jesus's life with the three wise men as his mentors. Although the producers say the film will feature a "young and beautiful" princess, it is not clear whether Jesus is to have a love interest.
The producers say they are hoping for commercial and spiritual gains. "We think that Indian religions and Buddhism, especially with the idea of meditation, played a big part in Christ's thinking. In the film we are looking beyond the canonised gospels to the 'lost' gospels," said William Sees Keenan, the producer, who is currently making Lindsay Lohan's Poor Things.
"We are looking at new themes. In our story Jesus was loyal to the untouchables [in India] and he defended them with his life by saying that everyone could read the Vedas [Hindu holy books]," said Mr Keenan, a "lapsed Catholic".
The theory that Jesus's teachings had roots in Indian traditions has been around for more than a century. In 1894 a Russian doctor, Nicholas Notovitch, published a book called The Unknown Life of Christ, in which he claimed that while recovering from a broken leg in a Tibetan monastery in the Ladakh region, close to Kashmir, he had been shown evidence of Christ's Indian wanderings. He said he was shown a scroll recording a visit by Jesus to India and Tibet as a young man. Indian experts claim that documentary proof remains of this Himalayan visit.
"I have seen the scrolls which show Buddhist monks talking about Jesus's visits. There are also coins from that period which show Yuzu or have the legend Issa on them, referring to Jesus from that period," said Fida Hassnain, former director of archaeology at the University of Srinagar.
Hassnain, who has written books on the legend of Jesus in India, points out that there was extensive traffic between the Mediterranean and India around the time of Jesus's life. The academic pointed out that in Srinagar a tomb of Issa is still venerated. "It is the Catholic church which has closed its mind on the subject. Historians have not."
More dramatic are the claims that Buddhism had prompted the move from the "eye for an eye" ideology of the Old Testament to "love thy neighbour" in the New Testament.
In 1995 a German religious expert, Holger Kersten, claimed that Jesus had been schooled by Buddhist monks to believe in non-violence and to challenge the priesthood. Kersten's book remains a bestseller in India.
The Catholic church in India dismisses the film as just "Hollywood filmmakers in search of a new audience rather than the truth". Aware that religious passions are easily inflamed, after the Da Vinci Code film sparked protests among Indian Christians, its spokesman said that a movie about Jesus in India was plainly "fantasy and fiction".
"I have personally investigated many of these claims and they remain what they first seem: fiction," said John Dayal, president of the All India Catholic Union which represents 16 million churchgoers. "I am sure it will make money but I do not think it will displace thousands of years of biblical thought."
Alternative theories
In 1935 a Shinto priest claimed that instead of being crucified, Jesus had fled to Japan where he lived to be 112. He married a Japanese woman, had three daughters and became a respected teacher and prophet
Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code, which has sold more than 80m copies, suggests that the church suppressed Jesus's real story and that he had a family of his own. A central character in modern times discovers she is a direct descendant of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, who fled to what is now France after the crucifixion
The Lost Gospel of Judas is based on a manuscript found in the Egyptian desert in 1970 and claims Jesus enlisted a beloved and heroic Judas to betray him as part of a divine plan
Titanic director James Cameron's film about the lost tomb of Jesus in Jerusalem suggests that graves containing the remains of Jesus and Mary Magdalene were discovered in 1980
またまたハリウッドでイエスを主人公にした、『胡散臭い』お話を映画にするんだそうです。福音書では書かれていない13歳から30歳までの間、イエスがインドへ旅して仏教寺院で生活し、カースト制度の不正について語ったって・・・ハイハイ。
イエス様はインドで東洋の多数の宗教にインスパイアーされたって・・・、しかし相変わらず映画のプロデューサーって好きだね、こういうの。ソースの出所は、『水瓶座の福音書（The Aquarian Gospel）』。これwikiとかで調べると分かるけど、最近出てきたものでちゃんとした歴史的背景を持った外典とかとは全然違う、かなり怪しいものらしい。
2009年公開予定らしいが、ファンタジーアクションアドベンチャーだって。俳優とコンピュータアニメーションを使うとのこと。どんな映画なんだ？（笑）
この記事には、他にもよく分からない怪しげなことがたくさん紹介されています。「仏僧がイエスの訪問について語っている巻物を見たことがある」とか、ドイツの宗教の専門家が「イエスは仏教の僧侶によって非暴力の存在を教わった」と主張したとか・・・ハイハイ全くもってキリがありません。
インドのカトリック教会は、「ハリウッドの映画製作会社は真実よりも新しい観客を探している」と退けているそうです。そりゃそうですね、その通りでしょうし。
まあ、大変胡散臭いのですが、ダ・ヴィンチ・コード以来のキリスト教ネタはまだまだ稼げる話題みたいです。何匹目のドジョウだろうね？
もっとも映画のスポークスマンも「ファンタジーとアクション」の映画と言っているから確信犯なんでしょうけどね。
映画公開したら、DVDになってから見ようっと。わざわざ映画館行く気にはならないもん。
先日のインドのカシミールにイエスの墓があるという話題（The Rozabal Line）『日本のイエスの墓』のことでしょう。いちいちあんなネタまで挙げてるなって！ 何でもあり、ってことが分かりますね。
関連ブログ
これから読んでみたい本―「The Rozabal Line」
日本のイエスの足跡（BBCのイエスの墓の記事による）
ファンタジーアクションアドベンチャー宗教映画。
せめて予算はケチらず面白く仕上げて欲しい私は非キリスト教徒。
まあ、逆にここまでいけば、もう何でもありで面白ければ、それはそれでいいんでしょう。
ただ、これでつまらなかったから怒っちゃいますけど・・・。
ではイエスは愛の教えや奇蹟の御業をどこで会得したのかという謎は残るんだよね
７歳にして神童と言われたとしても、クムランの洞窟にこもってるだけで見聞が広がるわけもない
ただ、中世においてもたくさんのイエスのエピソードが創作されたようで、関心を惹くテーマであった点は、変わらないようです。