The Apocryphal Jesus on Film
I have been trying to catch up on some news items I’ve been sitting on for a while. I’ll begin with some information on three apocrypha-related films.
The first is “The Messiah,” an Iranian movie that looks at the life of Jesus from an Islamic perspective. One of the sources used in the film, besides the Qur’an and other Muslim traditions, is the Gospel of Barnabas, a fourteenth-century Muslim anti-gospel hailing from Italy. Of interest in this text is the story of Jesus’ crucifixion. Like several early Gnostic Christian texts (including the Apocalypse of Peter, Second Treatise of the Great Seth, and, according to Irenaeus, Basilides), Barnabas states that someone else was crucified in Jesus’ place. The full text can be read HERE, but here is an excerpt of the relevant section (ch. 216):
1. Judas entered impetuously before all into the chamber whence Jesus had been taken up. And the disciples were sleeping. Whereupon the wonderful God acted wonderfully, insomuch that Judas was so changed in speech and in face to be like Jesus that we believed him to be Jesus. And he, having awakened us, was seeking where the Master was. Whereupon we marvelled, and answered: 'You, Lord, are our master; have you now forgotten us?' And he, smiling, said: 'Now are you foolish, that know not me to be Judas Iscariot!'
2. And as he was saying this the soldiery entered, and laid their hands upon Judas, because he was in every way …