MovieChat Forums > Jesus Christ Superstar (1973) Discussion > Full of mistakes

Full of mistakes

posted 17 years ago by stephensfive
40 replies | jump to latest

I just saw the show for the first time and I really dig it, except that they got a lot of stuff about Jesus and the story wrong. One thing that especially bothered me was when all the folks were asking JC to heal them and he said something like "heal yourselves...there's not enough of me." That's just blatantly wrong, according to the Bible that's kind of the point; that there is enough of him and he came for the whole world. And there were lots of other theological mistakes that bugged me.
My other complaint is that Jesus isn't that great or realistic in this rock opera. He is sort of y. And he is always either singing in falsetto or shrieking. That may have just been Ted Neeley (after all, he's getting older now) but I didn't like it. And he kept floating his arms around in the air mechanically. What's that all about?
Sorry to just complain, I really did mostly like it a lot, it was visually amazing and I love the music. Any thoughts on the mistakes? Were some possibly intentional? I guess I don't really get the motives behind this show.

Would you look at that? Just call me Mr. Butterfingers...I think it's on the floor somewhere.

[–] sonic_boom1446 11 years ago

As someone who has studied the Bible, yes there are a ton of mistakes. As for somebody who works in the arts, I think a lot of this creative licensing and fun storytelling for people beyond the Christian faith. I will not rely on this movie for any religious truth. Even the Bible is not to be taken too literally. It is written via divine inspiration, and we humans cannot comprehend what God comprehends.

But yeah, when Jesus says "heal yourselves" that is totally against the Catholic (maybe protestant...) beliefs. You cannot heal yourself by yourself, you look for other resources for help, whether it be through God or other earthly resources, like a job, medicine, or other humans. People are not totally independent, we rely on the help of other beings to move us along. We all work/rely on others in order to live in a decent setting, we all need to eat from natural resources, and we all need various degrees of social support from others. If we can all just heal ourselves, then we can just sit here and do it!

A lot of the depictions of Jesus were more than likely a result of subjective emotions from the agnostic/atheist thinking directors, and the wailing and screeching this Jesus did was probably how they viewed Christianity in general. Maybe they were using that to parody the über-Christians who preach as if everyday was Sunday....?

PS-- I was backing my comment up with theology that I know, so do Not reply with counter arguments against my faith. You will be wasting our time, I will not be persuaded.

Its LeviOsa, not levioSA!