LOS ANGELES — In the second century, when the canonical Gospels were copied and distributed throughout Roman Empire, At the same time, another text about the life of Jesus was being circulated. Although the Infant Gospel of Thomas was not included in the New Testament, it remained popular among Christians for centuries.
When his history-loving father introduced director Lotfi Nathan to the apocryphal text about the childhood of Jesus, he immediately began studying it as a springboard for what would eventually become The Carpenter's Son, a supernatural thriller starring Nicolas Cage and opens in theaters Friday.
“The thought gave me chills,” recalled the writer and director, who grew up in a Coptic Orthodox family. “What’s new is that in some ways it’s an origin story that hasn’t been told before.”
Film they starred in FKA branches And Noah Skirt along with Cage, follows Jesus as a child who is tempted by Satan to rebel against his father Joseph (Cage). The film's source material is confirmed by the opening title sequence. “Based on the Gospel of Thomas,” it says. But Nathan admits he couldn't rely solely on the text and had to fill in gaps in the narrative, like the storyline involving Satan.
“It's like a laundry list of events. There's no story line, so to speak,” he said of the apocryphal account of Jesus' life from ages 5 to 12. “Before I wrote the first draft, I asked a historian to do a lot of research for me.”
As fate would have it, Cage had already read The Infancy Gospel of Thomas many years earlier, during a period of his life filled with deep philosophical curiosity and reflection. When Nathan approached the Oscar winner with the script, Cage said he saw a through line in a story that had long fascinated him.
“Family dramas are, no secret, one of my favorite themes and genres. I couldn't think of a more compelling family dynamic than Christmas,” Cage told The Associated Press. “When I read it and thought about it, I never thought of it as a horror film per se. I saw it as a family drama about an existential crisis.”
The Infant Gospel of Thomas may seem new and obscure to some modern viewers, but history shows both its popularity and longevity, according to Tony Burke, a professor at York University in Toronto who specializes in early Christian apocrypha.
The stories in it wove through ancient Christian lore, art, and even some medieval plays. One story from the text about how Jesus gave life to clay birds even found its way into the Koran.
The Infant Gospel of Thomas, also called the Paidika (a reference to the original Greek title Paidika Iesu, which translates to “The Acts of Jesus as a Child”), often surprises modern readers.
“This is not the Jesus they expect—the Jesus who kills a boy in the market or strikes down his teacher,” Burke said, although he argues that Christian audiences at the time would not have been bothered by such a characterization. “In the ancient world, it was not uncommon to tell stories of revered saints who cursed and blessed.”
Many Christians today reject its validity and say it contradicts the biblical Jesus.
The Paidika is one of two major children's gospels of the time (the other being the Children's Gospel of James) that were popular among early Christians. “They never became canonical in the strict sense of the word, but they were always something on the periphery,” Burke said.
Although films about Jesus are not often described as horror films or supernatural thrillers, the second-century text on which The Carpenter's Son is based is “very disturbing,” argues Joan E. Taylor, professor of early Christianity at King's College London. She recently wrote Boy Jesus: Growing Up Jewish in Turbulent Times.
“Jesus is portrayed as having these powers, but not really having a moral compass in terms of how he uses his powers, or at least not a moral compass that we would expect from, say, the Gospel of Luke,” she said of Paidika. “You have a child who has supernatural powers and punishes those who get in his way.”
The Carpenter's Son is not the only recent film to reimagine the apocryphal gospel. “Young Messiah”, a 2016 drama based on Anne Rice The novel “Christ the Lord: Exit from Egypt” is also taken from Paidik.
Both films reinterpret certain aspects of the text that allegedly contradict the image of Jesus in the canonical Gospels. For example, in The Young Messiah, Satan kills a boy in the market and then frames Jesus. This encounter is completely omitted from The Carpenter's Son.
Despite their popularity, telling any story about Jesus on screen is challenging, especially when filmmakers go beyond the canonical Gospels. Cage recalled watching The Last Temptation of Christ. Martin Scorsese the infamous 1988 drama starring Willem Dafoe like Jesus in theaters when it first came out.
“I was standing in line for tickets and I remember there were picketers and they were angry. And I said, “Well, have you seen the movie?” And they said no,” Cage recalls. “Don’t you think you should see it before you make any statements or judge it?”
However, he is aware of the fact that any film that touches on sacred topics is vulnerable to criticism. American Family Association, a conservative Christian advocacy group condemned the film and urged people sign the petition blocking its release.
“No one intended to offend anyone when making this film,” Cage said emphatically. “If anyone goes to see this film, they will see that everyone treated it with love, and not with any ridicule or contempt. It was all about love.”
___
Associated Press religion coverage receives support from the AP. cooperation in association with The Conversation US with financial support from the Lilly Endowment Inc. AP is solely responsible for this content.
