Bobtheduck wrote:In my opinion... Maybe it's because the Old Testament makes for better action stories... So, for the NT stuff, they had to make up more to fill in Gaps and keep people's attention...
Although not quite related to this Anime (I wouldn't know about it, as I've only been a Christian a couple of years, and didn't have much knowledge of the Bible), I think the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles would make for a better movie if you fleshed out the other characters and scenes (first century Judea for example) using external sources like Jospephus and Philo. For example, besides the accounts of the events of the crucifiction of Christ, the only data you get about Pontius Pilate is a one-liner insult about his cruelty]"Moreover, I have it in my power to relate one act of ambition on his part, though I suffered an infinite number of evils when he was alive; but nevertheless the truth is considered dear, and much to be honoured by you. Pilate was one of the emperor's lieutenants, having been appointed governor of Judaea. He, not more with the object of doing honour to Tiberius than with that of vexing the multitude, dedicated some gilt shields in the palace of Herod, in the holy city; which had no form nor any other forbidden thing represented on them except some necessary inscription, which mentioned these two facts, the name of the person who had placed them there, and the person in whose honour they were so placed there. But when the multitude heard what had been done, and when the circumstance became notorious, then the people, putting forward the four sons of the king, who were in no respect inferior to the kings themselves, in fortune or in rank, and his other descendants, and those magistrates who were among them at the time, entreated him to alter and to rectify the innovation which he had committed in respect of the shields; and not to make any alteration in their national customs, which had hitherto been preserved without any interruption, without being in the least degree changed by any king of emperor. "But when he steadfastly refused this petition (for he was a man of a very inflexible disposition, and very merciless as well as very obstinate), they cried out: 'Do not cause a sedition; do not make war upon us; do not destroy the peace which exists. The honour of the emperor is not identical with dishonour to the ancient laws; let it not be to you a pretence for heaping insult on our nation. Tiberius is not desirous that any of our laws or customs shall be destroyed. And if you yourself say that he is, show us either some command from him, or some letter, or something of the kind, that we, who have been sent to you as ambassadors, may cease to trouble you, and may address our supplications to your master.' "But this last sentence exasperated him in the greatest possible degree, as he feared least they might in reality go on an embassy to the emperor, and might impeach him with respect to other particulars of his government, in respect of his corruption, and his acts of insolence, and his rapine, and his habit of insulting people, and his cruelty, and his continual murders of people untried and uncondemned, and his never ending, and gratuitous, and most grievous inhumanity. Therefore, being exceedingly angry, and being at all times a man of most ferocious passions, he was in great perplexity, neither venturing to take down what he had once set up, nor wishing to do any thing which could be acceptable to his subjects, and at the same time being sufficiently acquainted with the firmness of Tiberius on these points. And those who were in power in our nation, seeing this, and perceiving that he was inclined to change his mind as to what he had done, but that he was not willing to be thought to do so, wrote a most supplicatory letter to Tiberius. And he, when he had read it, what did he say of Pilate, and what threats did he utter against him! But it is beside our purpose at present to relate to you how very angry he was, although he was not very liable to sudden anger; since the facts speak for themselves; for immediately, without putting any thing off till the next day, he wrote a letter, reproaching and reviling him in the most bitter manner for his act of unprecedented audacity and wickedness, and commanding him immediately to take down the shields and to convey them away from the metropolis of Judaea to Caesarea, on the sea which had been named Caesarea Augusta, after his grandfather, in order that they might be set up in the temple of Augustus. And accordingly, they were set up in that edifice. And in this way he provided for two matters: both for the honour due to the emperor, and for the preservation of the ancient customs of the city.[/QUOTE] This would fit seemlessly in the Gospels, when they threaten Pilate's efforts to release Yeshua Christ with
John 19:12 wrote:From then on Pilate sought to release him, but the Jews cried out, "If you release this man, you are not Caesar's friend. Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar."
In other words, they will send an embassy to the already ticked off Tiberius stating that he refused to execute an opposer of Caesar who claimed to be king, and while they're at it they just might inform him of all his other abominable crimes and misjustices. I would have the Pilate that steals from the Temple treasury to "bring a current of water to Jerusalem", and when indignant but unarmed Jews protest this, he has them slaughtered by his pre-stationed soldiers armed with daggers (Josephus, Antiquities 18:3:2, notably just before his famous passage about Yeshua Christ in 18:3:3). I would also do something similar with the Herods, who play an even more prominent role in the Gospels. And on the flip side of the coin, you would have those of "the fourth philosophy" (to use Josephus' description), who "have an ininviolable attatchment to liberty; and say that God is to be their only Ruler and Lord" (Josephus, Antiquities 18:2:6), and to accomplish this ideal take to violent efforts at revolution. And through it all comes Rabbi Yeshua, a "prophet mighty in word and deed" (Luke 24:19), who enacts mighty works over nature and against the satan, and announces that at last that the kingdom of God, that anxiously waited hope of Israel, has arrived. Whose total message, although nonviolent and quite the opposite, has earned Him opposition from a number of fronts, often violent. And if the nation does not accept His way of peace and life, it will mean disaster for the nation both in this life and the next (Luke 19:41-44, Matthew 8:10-13 for example).