How Can This Be?

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth,and be turned aside to fables.
2 Timothy 4: 3-4 NKJV

I am always leary of any Hollywood adaptation of a biblical storyline.  Akin to tasking Adolf Hitler to write a history of the holocaust, they always seem to take their share of liberties with the truths of the bible.  And why not?  Americans seem to be hungering for stories of the scriptures, so there is obviously money there to be made.  Of course, this would be the wrong motivation for anyone making a major film on a biblical story, but this is Hollywood, where cash is king.  So, it was with these reservations in mind that I took in a viewing of the new faith based film Young Messiah.  Now, despite Hollywoods history of taking liberties with the bible, I thought it was a decent adaptation of the early life of Jesus.  Of course, there were a few embelishments, but this is to be expected.  For one cannot create a story of the early life of Jesus without taking a few liberties.

And having come in, the angel said to her, "Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!"  But when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and considered what matter of greeting this was.  Then the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.  And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name JESUS.  He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David.  And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end."  Then Mary said to the angel, "How can this be, since I do not know a man?"
Luke 1: 28-34 NKJV

In my mind, to make a film on the early life of Jesus is difficult as we have very little information available in scriptures about this period in His life.  It is against this backdrop that the producers of Young Messiah had to create a strong biblical story.  In my opinion, I feel that they did a good job with the information that we have of this tme in the life of Jesus.  However, I still feel that scripture lacks this important element in its description of the very life of Christ.  Yes, we have plenty of insight of that part of His life when He walked in His ministry throughout Isreal, but I feel a bit more insight into His childhood would have been beneficial.  We know that a portion of the gospels must have been written not long after Jesus' crucifiction, so His family would have been available to fill in information.  However, with hindsight being 20/20, we are left to fill in the blanks on our own as to just what the formative years of young Jesus must have been like.  We must not downplay the traditions of generations of Jewish culture, for it is here where we get a glimpse of just what life for the Young Messiah must have been like.  He must have played, laughed and run through the countryside of Judea with other children His age.  We know from our own experience that children are the same wherever they grow up.  However, this one was definately different.
In the end, I thought that the producers of Young Messiah did a fair job in depicting that part  of the life of Jesus.  Did they take a few liberties?  Of course.  As a young man growing up, Jesus must have had questions about His heavenly Father.  As Joseph asks in the film, "How do you explain God to His own Son?"

~Scott~