The Young Messiah: Must See Bible Movie About Jesus. No Hollywood Bizarro World This Time.

Posted on October 16, 2015March 23, 2016 by admin

OPENS THIS FRIDAY.

Biopic of Jesus as a child becoming aware of his identity as the Son of God.

I saw an early screening of The Young Messiah that is set to release THIS FRIDAY.
Written by Betsy and Cyrus Nowrasteh, and directed by Cyrus Nowrasteh.

I’m the guy who wrote the critique of the Noah script by Aronofsky that went viral and exposed its anti-Biblical agenda. I’m not a fundamentalist, but I represent and understand a significant huge proportion of the contemporary Christian viewing public who are totally okay with creative license when it comes to Bible movies, AS LONG AS YOU DON’T SUBVERT THE ORIGINAL MESSAGE. That’s what Noah did, and that’s what Exodus did. They subverted the Biblical narrative with their own paganism and atheism. And that is why they failed in terms of audience potential (along with just being plainly bad movies). Biblical fidelity is not about petty details, but about the meaning.

Biblically Faithful

I am here to say that the new film coming out in March, The Young Messiah, is NOT one of those films. The Young Messiah is a great movie, well told, and very faithful to the spirit of the Gospel of what it may have been like for the young seven-year old Jesus to come of age as the Son of God. I highly recommend it for all Christians. It’s warm, touching and a beautiful portrayal of the chosen family struggling through extraordinary times and extraordinary difficulties with an extraordinary child. There is humor with a lovable yet rascally uncle Cleopas, and brilliant villainy with a skanky Herod Antipas, as well as a blond beautiful Robert Downey Jr.-like Satan.

It’s always tough to depict Satan. Gibson’s androgynous female with mutant baby was brilliant, but this one is great for a different reason. The New Testament describes Satan as a deceptive angel of light, so making him beautiful creates an eerie irony as he seeks to figure out what the plan of the young Messiah is, since the New Testament says the principalities and powers didn’t really know what the plan was, otherwise they wouldn’t have crucified him (1Corinthians 2:8).

And the story adds a dramatic stakes of life and death with a Roman centurion played by Sean Bean hunting down the elusive child on orders from Herod Antipas to kill him (because of the failure of his father to do so at the Slaughter of Innocents in Bethlehem years earlier). This was a brilliant addition to the story that was not in the novel, but makes the story more exciting as a movie. (Of course, it’s hard to make the danger seem real cause we know that he won’t ultimately kill Jesus, but the drama and suspense are still entertaining, as is the centurion’s own spiritual journey, since he had participated in the original Slaughter of Innocents)

Not Sectarian

It is adapted from Anne Rice’s Catholic novel, Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt, but it does not take a Catholic or Protestant view. It seeks to depict that story within its original ancient Near Eastern Jewish context rather than from a sectarian perspective. Even the title change represents that focus with its more Jewish title of “Messiah” over the Greek “Christ.” Both Catholics and Protestants will love the beautiful and strong, yet devout and submissive Mary in this movie as “blessed among women,” who “rejoices in God, her Savior.” And while there are obviously some fictional miracle scenes, they are entirely within the parameters of possibility and don’t contradict Scripture. This is doctrinally safe imagination.

Son of God, Son of Man

Admittedly, it is a controversial and difficult story to tell because of the delicate theological issue of balancing Christ’s divinity with his humanity. After all, the Gospels do reveal that Jesus was NOT omniscient. That he had to grow in knowledge and wisdom (Luke 2:52), and that means he had to learn. Heck, it even says he also “increased in favor with God.”

Now the problem is that Christians have so emphasized Christ’s divinity, that we have sometimes neglected to balance that truth with his equally fully human identity. We therefore start to think of Jesus as some kind of Greek god waiting to grow up so he can reveal what he’s known all along. But that simply isn’t the truth. The only story of young Jesus in the Gospels is the one where he is left behind at the Temple at age twelve and when his parents go back to get him, he said to them, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” (Luke 2:49). So, he understood his relationship to God the Father with some degree at age twelve. But beyond that, we simply don’t know. And if he wasn’t omniscient, as the Scriptures say he wasn’t, then there had to be a kind of realization that took place in his life in earlier years.

So what would it have looked like for Jesus’ identity to dawn upon him? What would life with the Son of God as a child look like? Again, an admittedly controversial topic to take up, but I think the movie does a great job of maintaining Christ’s divine identity while exploring the dilemma of his humanity in relation to that hypostatic union.

Here is a great article by N.T. Wright about Jesus’ Self Identity as Messiah that gives orthodox scholarly weight to that consideration. (Follow up article)

This is not the sinful humanity of The Last Temptation of Christ, or the gnostic otherworldliness of Jesus of Nazareth. This is a young child becoming aware that his miraculous power comes from his identity as the god-man. One of my favorite moments is a beautiful monologue of the boy Jesus explaining his new understanding of himself as Messiah in the flesh. He needs to experience all the joys, the pains, the happiness and sadness, of being human from birth to death. Why? So that we would have a redeemer who would know what it was like to be one of us. The Incarnation (Hebrews 4:15).

The Young Messiah navigates this delicate theological issue with a faithful and reverent dexterity.

No Hollywood Insanity

I think partly the reason for this Biblical fidelity is because it is independently produced outside the studio system. A major distributor, Focus Features, was wise enough to pick it up for distribution, but studio producer Chris Columbus had to get independent funding to make it. The reality is that Cyrus and Betsy are independent filmmakers who also made the brilliant and courageous, Stoning of Soroya M. (about the evils of sharia law). It takes the ability of free thinking independents to bravely portray faithful Judeo-Christianity.

I happen to know the Nowrastehs, but I told Cyrus I would not be a shill for them in my blog post, especially when it comes to my Lord Jesus Christ. I will speak honestly and freely. And so I have. Unlike certain other Christians paid in silver by the studios to trick the Body of Christ to support the abominations of Noah and Exodus. And also, unlike Noah, the original script for The Young Messiah changed quite a bit from script to screen…

The Power of the Gospel Story

Here is the most amazing part of the story to me. The director explained in a Q and A that though his wife and co-writer was already a Christian believer when they began the project, he was not. And making the movie The Young Messiah, was the culmination of a long spiritual journey that resulted in him becoming a Christian and being baptized. Even more fascinating, he had been raised in a Muslim household, but spent most of his adult life with a more secular worldview. That shows how exploring the story of the genuine Biblical Jesus transforms a person’s life.

Go see this movie on its opening weekend and let it transform yours. Remember, you must go on the opening weekend to help the movie stay in the theaters and have real impact. And of course, social media rules, so share, share, share!

CHRISTIANS, IF YOU WANT HOLLYWOOD MOVIES TO REFLECT MORE OF YOUR VALUES AND BELIEFS, YOU MUST GO TO THE THEATER TO SUPPORT MOVIES LIKE THE YOUNG MESSIAH ON OPENING WEEKEND OR YOU WILL NOT GET ANY MORE OF THEM.

One side note of amusement. Because the writer/director is Persian, Hollywood Christophobes and Left Wing Identity Police are going to have a difficult time accusing him of racism for not casting every single actor from the Middle East like they accused Ridley Scott on Exodus. Gotcha, haters!

UPDATE: After reading concerns by well-meaning Christians questioning the fictional aspect of The Young Messiah, I wrote this:

Question: Why should Christians support a movie that tells us a fictional story about Jesus, when Scripture is silent on the matter?

BG: First off, The Young Messiah is not a perfect movie. But it’s not Scripture, so we shouldn’t place that impossible demand upon it. It doesn’t have to be perfect to be appreciated.

Secondly, all retelling of Bible stories fills in gaps with fiction. Heck, when you are reading the Bible, and you are picturing the scenes in your own mind as you read, YOU are creating fiction in your head that is not in the text. You are imagining what they look like, what they wear, what the location looks like — all things that are fiction because you don’t know what everything looked like or where everything happened. So be careful of that double standard. I caution people not to accuse others of what they do themselves when reading the Bible.

That said, I have retold my share of Bible stories, and the main moral question to ask when creating those fictional elements is: Does this fit the spirit of the text, if not the letter? Does it maintain the meaning and the message? God did not give us a word formula to recite as the only means of salvation. He gave us our imaginations to retell that Good News in many different ways.

Q: How can biblical fiction movies such as The Young Messiah benefit Christians and the church?

BG: The power of theater and drama is the power of making the abstract concrete, of incarnation. I don’t mean the doctrine of Incarnation, but the power of embodiment through story. By seeing Bible stories dramatically acted out, we come into contact with truth in an existential and emotional way. It makes those doctrinal affirmations more rooted in our soul than mere mental assent. By seeing the young Jesus dramatically wrestling with his own incarnation in a movie, we can understand the depth of that doctrinal truth in a way that mere abstract rational contemplation cannot achieve.

Dead Reckoning TV Interviews Godawa on Jesus Triumphant and Demons

Posted on October 12, 2015November 3, 2015 by admin

I have great respect for these guys. They are funny, smart and creative.

They do some comedy skits about current issues with sharp wit.
And I LOVE Jay’s News Bulletin in Haiku. Brilliant and Funny.

And one of the best interviews on my series Chronicles of the Nephilim and the new novel, Jesus Triumphant. We talk about the Cosmic War of the Seed, the Watchers, and how the gods of the nations are real beings who battle the messianic bloodline ending in Jesus, who then disinherits those gods and takes back the earth. Jesus demon exorcism was not a mere display of power over spirits, it was a very specific action that is related to the Nephilim of Genesis 6. Listen and you’ll see why. We talked a little about self publishing novels as well.

Watch them online here.

Gavlak: Poetic Punk Rock Band with Heart, Soul & Mind – & Plenty of Screaming.

Posted on October 8, 2015 by admin

Wild at the California Institute of Abnormalarts

Wild punk band Gavlak at the California Institute of Abnormalarts

I saw GAVLAK recently at the California Institute of Abnormalarts, a fascinating venue that feels like a museum of creepy dark mortality. A huge stone sculpture of a skull looks down upon the outer courtyard that wraps around the building for mingling amidst bizarre artifacts like mummified human remains and Carnivale-like statues and paintings. It’s a refreshing truthful change of pace from the delusionary world of immortal youth in LA.

Which is why it was the perfect place to see the EP Release of the punk rock band, Gavlak, a gritty, gutsy performance with Michael Lee bellowing beautifully on lead vocals, Ben Stelle plucking away clearly on bass (and cowriter of the music with Lee), Steve Watson playing a mean guitar, John Steward banging away gloriously on drums (He plays for Fishbone, and was helping them out). The drummer on the EP album is Fredo Ortiz, a previous Beastie Boys drummer, who was on tour with Gogol Bordello at the time of this show.

Full disclosure, Michael Lee is my friend. But also full disclosure, I don’t like loud banging music and I especially do not like live performances, I am a studio music lover. AND I have no problem telling Michael if I don’t like his stuff. We critique each other’s art all the time. But in this case, I truly enjoyed the experience. Yes, I wore ear plugs to stave off deafness, and yes, I was too damned tired to hang around after the gig, since I want my sleep and late hours for rock and roll are not a mid-life crisis of temptation for this boy.

But the performance was really quite amazing. These guys were real pros. The playing was tight, and Lee’s performance as the lead vocalist was truly entertaining. The guy knows how to scream with passion, move with the music and interact with the crowd. And he really does have a great voice for this stuff, and he has the persona of a star up there, which of course makes his wife and me laugh and shake our heads with amusement, since we know he’s just dust.

And that’s the point of the band that makes it transcend your typical punk rock band. Their music feels the pain of existence with a true honesty, but hints at redemption, unlike the nihilism of so many other punks. The lyrics are poetic and gutsy, and there is melody that keeps you humming the tunes. No clashing dissonance of absurdity here. This music is more the ancient text of Ecclesiastes set to catchy music. Wisdom wrapped in suffering.

Their cover songs were truly fun and memorable. Sedated (Ramones), All Day and All of the Night (Kinks), Paint It Black (Rolling Stones), Seven Nation Army (White Stripes). But my personal favorite was Come Together (The Beatles). What can I say, Beatles Bias.

But to be honest, their original material was easily of equal calibre.

And since I have the recorded EP, I will comment more on that because the lyrics are clearer, the music sharper and tighter to my studio loving ears.

1. In the Pain. This is the one I can’t get out of my head. My personal favorite. Singing Gavlak’s crooning coolness as I drive in my car. But it’s also the one I most relate to. It’s a gutsy lament of how we try to hide our internal suffering, yet that is precisely the thing that may wake us up to our true need and hope. It is within that pain that we can actually meet our Maker. “In my pain. I feel you.” Like I said, baby, a musical Ecclesiastes. Damn. This is my friend. But he’s actually got a great voice that I like to listen to along with my few other hard rock songs (I’m an old timer: Zeppelin, Queen, Aerosmith) In fact, in some ways this music reminds of that spirit.

2. Nothing I can do. A song about free will, and how we can’t make someone see what they don’t want to see or understand. It’s really a ballad-like lament of resignation to our inevitable finite humility. Simple, yet profound.

3. Bag O’ Tricks. This one is my favorite for lyrics because it really addresses the futility of the atheist worldview of materialism. It’s philosophical, clever and passionately pure, all in one. The atheist worldview reduces the human experience to meaninglessness, which is self-evidentially absurd to the soul that longs for transcendence.

You’re a skin sack full of bones.
You’re a meat rack on a stick,
a bucket full of oozing sludge,
a biochemical bag of tricks.
You’ve never really made a choice
and you’ve never really had a thought.
That’s not how the whole thing works.
Isn’t that what you’ve been taught?

But he doesn’t leave us wallowing in such insane irrationality. He screams his hint toward redemption as loud as his mockery of godlessness.

You think you know who you are?
I tell you, you better think again.
Not a waste of time and space.
You’ve got something within.

4. Monster. The music begins with an eerie impending doom, as he sings of the “monster in your head,” a revelation of the original sin of human nature. Man is basically bad, not basically good, as delusional humanism keeps repeating to its hollow-souled adherents. It’s only by facing our own depravity that we can begin to find our way out of the bondage to that creature of the dark residing in all our souls.

The things you say and all the things you do
they come from somewhere, somewhere deep inside of you.
What’s hidden there is a fright to see.
It’s just your monster. It looks just like you and me.

5. My Demon. This song is just cool. It’s a catchy riff about being haunted by the demon of our own choices that lead to the consequences of our suffering. We face our comeuppance if we fail to conquer that demon. Because it is coming for us…

Lunatic ahead is aiming straight for me.
Where did he escape? Am I the same as he?
See my demon seething in his cold pale skin.
Eyes of darkness gaze from sorrow deep within.

There is “only one that can make us whole.”

6. Deluded. This is another song of resignation and regret reminiscent of “Nothing I Can Do.” But in this case, it sounds like a deeply personal experience that the writer is somewhat haunted by, trying to sing his justification to cleanse himself. The guttural painful screaming of “I did not backstab you!” carries this home.

The Gavlak EP has strong catchy music, vocals full of passion and character, and a powerful combination of gritty gutsy honesty wrapped in a poetic redemptive hope.

You can hear some of their songs and buy them here at ReverbNation. (At this point, there is Bag O’ Tricks and Deluded. I assume there will be more available eventually.

Their Facebook Page is here. Like it and find out when they will have their songs available for purchase.

AND FINALLY, they are currently running a Kickstarter campaign to raise money for a music video they are making of “Monster.” Go here to pledge.

I just did.

The Glory of Story: Genesis 1 and the Art of Storytelling

Posted on October 6, 2015November 3, 2015 by admin

I am posting this playlist of clips from my friend, Jim Womer’s class on The Glory of Story. It was a powerful influence on my understanding of story from the Bible.

Watch the complete playlist of all segments on YouTube here.

These are edited segments of a 2.5 hour lecture

To buy the full 2.5 hour lecture, The Glory of Story:
(includes movie film clips not shown on YouTube version)
https://godawa.com/Store/#GloryofStory

Discover the hidden treasures within the biblical “creation model” found in the book of Genesis. Decode the”seven days of creation” as an organic template for story structure.

• You will learn how to organically generate dimensional back stories and characters from a simple logline.
• Identify and address story problems in any stage of the writing process from outline to finished draft.
• Identify characters that are out of balance with the story, why they are out of balance, and what must be done to realign them or omit them.
• Identify the true motivations behind any character’s dialogue and actions.

CONTENTS:
Introduction: The WHY vs. the WHAT of story
Act One: Born Identity vs. False Identity and Hero’s Departure
Act Two A: Hero’s Descent, Plan A, Point of No Return, and Bonding
Act Two B: Hero’s Eclipse and Ascent
Act Three: Abyss, Gauntlet, Hidden Truth, Deliverance, and Return

“I heartily recommend this series on storytelling structure based on Genesis One. I use it myself. If you buy it in combination with my “Screenwriting for Christians,” you will have an unbeatable combination to help you write stories with an incarnate Christian worldview.”
— Brian Godawa

Aaron Judkins Interviews Godawa on Nephilim, Noah’s Ark and the Watchers

Posted on October 5, 2015 by admin

Listen to Epic Voyages Radio Interview of Godawa here.We talk about the rise and fall of the Nephilim in the Biblical Cosmic War of the Seed. Watchers, giants, and other bizarre phenomena of the Bible as it appears in the novel series, Chronicles of the Nephilim.
The host of the show, Dr. Aaron Judkins aka “Maverick” is an author, explorer, & archaeologist from Texas. He has a passion for searching for the truth about the mysteries of the past- exposing forbidden archaeology & forbidden history. He appears in the new documentary “Finding Noah,” about the current search for Noah’s Ark.

See his website, Man Vs. Archaeology, here.

Christ’s Descent into Hell (Part 2)

Posted on September 29, 2015August 1, 2019 by admin

In a previous post, we started looking at one of the most difficult and strange passages in the New Testament, 1 Peter 3:18-22. Many Christians avoid passages like this because they are difficult and hint at content that doesn’t fit well with their own theological views.

Let’s take another look at it with an attempt to clarify its meaning.

1 Peter 3:18–22
For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.

In the previous post, I explained the two main views that Christ either “went” somewhere in his spirit body during his death on the cross or he “went” after he resurrected BEFORE he ascended into heaven. Then I proved that the “spirits in prison” were not humans but the angelic powers who had fallen during the days of Noah, and were imprisoned much like the book of 1Enoch says. (And Peter is borrowing from 1Enoch)

The last two questions we now want to address are:
Where did he go to proclaim to the spirits? (v. 19)
What did he proclaim? (v. 19)

Where is the “Prison”?

One interpretation of the prison is that it is a metaphor for human beings on earth who are “imprisoned” in their sin. But the context of the passage mitigates against this view.

When the New Testament refers to preaching the Gospel to people on earth, the Greek term for “soul,” is used (psyche). But this is not a term about a ghost in a machine, but rather an expression of the life of an individual human, their inner being, their “person,” or their “self.” Thus, Peter writes in 3:20 that “eight persons (psyche) were brought safely through the waters” in the ark during the Flood.

When Peter preaches the Gospel in Acts 2, it says that “those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls [psyche]… and awe came upon every soul [psyche]” (Acts 2:42-43). “Soul” could be used synonymously with “individuals” or “persons.”

But in 1 Peter 3, the distinct Greek term for “spirit” (pneuma), not “soul” (psyche), is used in contrast to the physical flesh. And these “spirits” are those who were disobedient in the days of Noah (v. 20), so they could not be people on earth at the time of Christ. Christ was proclaiming to spirits.

During the time of Christ, those who were around in the days of Noah could only be in one place according to the Old Testament: The underworld of Hades or Sheol.

What was Hades?

Hades was well known in the Greco-Roman world as the holding cell of the spirits of the dead until the judgment. Sheol was the Hebrew equivalent for Hades so the two could be used interchangeably.[1] Prisons in that time period were exactly that, holding cells for punishment. So when Peter refers to a prison for spirits, this view concludes that he is referring to Hades, just as he did in 2 Peter 2:4 when he said that the disobedient angels were cast into Tartarus, the lowest prison region in Hades.

There are orthodox traditions of Christian scholars who have supported this passage as referring to Christ’s proclamation as occurring at his physical ascension into heaven and others as referring to Christ’s spiritual descent into Hades. I take the position in Jesus Triumphant that Christ spiritually descended into Hades. So did early church fathers like Tertullian, Augustine, Jerome, Clement of Alexandria, Irenaeus, Cyril, and Origen, as well as Medieval scholastics like Robert Bellarmine, John Calvin, Thomas Aquinas, and modern scholars like Charles B. Cranfield, and Bo Reicke.[2] But I also incorporate the post-resurrection interpretation as well, with its fascinating possibilities.

1 Enoch, which seems to be the source of the Biblical text, does in fact depict Enoch as visiting the place of the condemned Watchers who were “formerly in heaven” (1 Enoch 16:2), and that place is described as a “deep pit,” in the bottom of a mountain, just like Tartarus of Hades (Sheol), “an empty place with neither heaven above nor an earth below” (1 Enoch 21:1-2).[5]

The descent of Christ in 1 Pet. 3:19 is poetically structured to counterbalance the ascent of Christ into heaven in verse 22. In the same way that Christ went down into Sheol, he later ascended up into heaven. But more importantly, if Christ makes a proclamation to the spirits in prison, those dead and bound prisoners are certainly not in heaven. They are most likely in Sheol.

Another passage, Ephesians 4:8 quotes Psalms 68:18 about Christ “ascending on high and leading a host of captives.” Paul then adds a parenthetical,

Ephesians 4:9-10
“In saying, ‘He ascended,’ what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth? He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.”

Christ “descending into the lower regions, the earth” can legitimately be interpreted as referring to Christ’s incarnation or even his descent in the Spirit on Pentecost.[6] But other scholarship argues that the phrase is better translated as “descending into the lowest parts of the earth,” in other words into Sheol.[7]

This underworld (Sheol) interpretation would seem to coincide with the memes presented in 1 Peter 3. The contrast of the heights of heaven with the depths of Sheol, and the tying of Christ’s death, descent into Sheol, resurrection, and ascension into the totality of his victory over the angelic principalities and powers.[8]

Psalm 68 says that after leading the host of captives, God “received gifts from men,” a reference to the notion of ancient victors receiving tribute from their conquered foes. Paul changes that “receiving of gifts” into “giving of gifts” as a expansion of that victory over foes into a sharing of victory with his army, the people of God. Perhaps this is the meaning of the Old Testament saints resurrected at the time of Christ’s resurrection (Matt. 27:52-53). They too were sharing in the long awaited victory train of Messiah to free them from Hades and ascend into heaven.

The context of conquest over the angelic powers is also apparent in Eph. 1:20-21, “when he raised [Jesus] from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named.”

Christ’s death on the Cross becomes the apparent defeat by God’s enemies, led by angelic principalities and powers. But it turns around and becomes a disarming of those spiritual powers and the beginning of his triumph over them (Col. 2:15). In this view, Christ goes down into Sheol (in his spirit or later, in his resurrected body) to make a proclamation to the original minions of evil, now held captive. After he raises from the dead, he ascends into heaven to be coronated as king over all authority and powers of heaven and earth (Eph. 1:20-21). And that victory over spiritual powers brings us to the next element of 1 Peter 3:18-22.

What was the Proclamation?

Continue reading →

Kuyperian Commentary Interviews Godawa on Jesus Triumphant and the Nephilim

Posted on September 28, 2015 by admin

Listen to it here.

Uri is a great interviewer. We talk about the storyline of the Cosmic War of the Seed in the Bible, which could also be referred to as the “Christus Victor” motif. We speak of the Tower of Babel, and the Alottment of the nations under the Watcher Sons of God. And how Jesus disinherits the nations from the gods and has victory over the heavenly principalities and powers. We talked about the Divine Council, and the Nephilim throughout the entire Bible, and how they even show up in the Gospels. I’m not kidding. It’s all orthodox and affirms a high view of the Bible as God’s Word.

Buy Jesus Triumphant on Kindle and paperback at Amazon here.

The Young Messiah Trailer: A Promising Positive Portrayal of Jesus

Posted on September 25, 2015 by admin

I have not seen this movie yet, but I know the writer/director, Cyrus Nowrasteh, and I believe it will be a positive portrayal of Jesus.

Aronofsky and Scott get behind thee!

Cyrus is a great filmmaker with a rich worldview and courage. He made The Stoning of Soroya M. That took GUTS and a heart for justice (It was a movie about the evil of Sharia Law).

Disclose Truth TV Interviews Godawa on Nephilim, Watchers, & Bizarre Bible Passages

Posted on September 24, 2015 by admin

This interview was lively. I talk with James Swagger and Susan Kornacki about the Biblical and ancient historical and mythical research of the Nephilim.

The Nephilim in the Bible is controversial. But Genesis 6 is not the only place they show up. This interview explores everywhere giants appear in the Bible, and there are many of them. Nephilim and demons. Satan’s place as “god of this world.” The Transfiguration of Christ as a declaration of war on the Watchers.

Watch YouTube link here

Capricorn Radio website (The website of James Swagger)

The Unseen Realm: This Book is a Game-Changer for Evangelical Christianity

Posted on September 22, 2015 by admin

Psalm 82
God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment.

That was the Bible chapter that started the journey for author and scholar, Michael Heiser. He describes in his book that he had come from a traditional Evangelical background, so the notion of there being other “gods” beside Yahweh was anathema. Monotheism means there is only one God, right?

But as he sought to understand what it all meant, it opened up a whole new world of theological messaging that reveals the supernatural worldview of the Bible.

And that is what this book did for me. I dedicated my bestselling Biblical Fantasy series first novel, Noah Primeval to Michael Heiser because this theological messaging helped open my eyes to my own modern Christian ignorance of the ancient Near Eastern background of the Bible. Like Elisha’s servant opening his eyes to see the myriad of heavenly host surrounding the valley, so I now saw God’s heavenly host as part of a storyline of redemption that traditional Evangelicalism has missed or misunderstood because of its obsession with modern categories and hermeneutics when interpreting the Bible. (Full disclosure: I now know Michael Heiser personally after reading an early draft of the book)

Heiser lays out a Biblically strong argument that can be read and understood by laity. What is so cool is that it is not just an argument, it is a story. He is clear, concise, and very readable without falling into that trap of abstraction and dry prose that many scholars fall into.

But make no mistake, Heiser is a scholar. His emphasis is in the fields of Biblical Studies and the Ancient Near East. He is published widely in scholarly journals and even has online courses in Hebrew, Greek, Ugaritic (the language of ancient Canaan) Akkadian, Egyptian and Aramaic. This scholarly dude has academic bona fides and he cannot be dismissed. Which is why I think this book will be a game-changer in Evangelical theology. Read it, and you’ll be on the crest of an exciting wave of fresh understanding of the Scriptures.

Heiser avoids both extremes of conservative hyper-literalism and liberal critical demythologizing. He seeks to interpret the text within its ancient Near Eastern context rather than the modern one, which is where both conservative and liberal scholars fail.

Here are just a few of the amazing discoveries you will encounter when reading the book…

The Divine Council

Psalm 89:6–7
For who in the skies can be compared to the Lord? Who among the gods is like the Lord, a God greatly to be feared in the council of the holy ones, and awesome above all who are around him?

God is surrounded by a myriad of heavenly host who are called by many names, like, “gods, “Sons of God,” “Holy Ones,” and “divine council.” They are not merely “angels” floating around his throne, they are divine beings. Yes, divinity in the Bible is not the exclusive prerogative of Yahweh, and it isn’t the same thing as Mormons think either. And these heavenly host have more to do than merely singing “glory” and shining up the place with their bronze-like brightness. They counsel with God (Job 1, 2) and perform tasks appointed by God (1Kings 22), they mediate the Law of God to man (Galatians 3:19 ), perform as witnesses to God’s covenants and curses (Deut 33:1-4; Zech 2-3), and engage in heavenly wars (Daniel 10). There is so much more to these divine beings than meets the casual Bible reader’s eye.

Sons of God and the Nephilim

Genesis 6:4
The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.

Okay, this is where a lot of popular Bible teaching gets goofy. But not Heiser. He deftly proves that the Sons of God were not human, but supernatural divine beings from God’s heavenly host, who fell to earth in rebellion and produced diabolical progeny of giants called Nephilim. Yes, giants, NOT merely human “fallen ones.”

This is not some Ancient Aliens mythology, nor is it the sensationalist version that many Christian Nephilim Nuts are teaching. There is a reason for it all, and it has to do with the war between the Seed of the Serpent and the messianic Seed of Eve (Gen. 3:15). And it comes into play many other times in the Old Testament. Many western readers miss it because of our modernist cultural prejudice.

The Divine Allotment

Deuteronomy 32:8–9
When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he divided mankind, he fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God. But the Lord’s portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage.

At the Tower of Babel, God “gave over” the godless to their idols (Romans 1). he placed them under the authority of fallen Sons of God. They are allotted as an inheritance. Each pagan nation is ruled over by these territorial “principalities and powers” who own the deeds to their lands (Daniel 10; Col 2:15; Eph. 6:12). It’s like these fallen gods of the nations are linked to their earthly counterparts of authority, so that whatever happens on earth happens in heaven (Matt 6:10; Dan 10).

When Messiah came, he disinherited the gods and took all the “land deeds” to the nations back, drawing people into the Kingdom of God from every tribe and nation.

Return of the Giants

Joshua 11:21–22
And Joshua came at that time and cut off the Anakim [giants] from all the hill country of Israel. Joshua devoted them to destruction with their cities. There was none of the Anakim [giants] left in the land of the people of Israel.

So, those giants of Genesis 6 were not a myth or a strange anomaly. They were part of the war of the Seed of the Serpent with the Seed of Eve. And Joshua’s Holy Wars now make more sense because the Anakim giants in the land of Israel (as well as other giant clans) came from the original Nephilim giants of Genesis 6 (Numbers 13:32-33). There is more going on here than merely strange beings showing up arbitrarily in the Bible. And by the way, it says Joshua actually left some in the land of Philistia, you know, that place from whence came the most famous giant of all, Goliath, whom the Messiah King David would slay, along with the last of the Rephaim giant warriors in the land. But there is so much more to it than that. More giants, more Nephilim. We’ve just missed them because we didn’t read the text closely enough, or in it’s original context.

The New Sons of God

Galatians 4:4–7
But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.

Christians are “in Christ,” and as such, we have been legally adopted as sons of God, to be one day historically glorified or transformed to be like Christ, the Unique Son of God (1John 3:2). And we will inherit the earth, that which the fallen Sons of God had lost through their failure to rule (Psalm 82). Christ now inherits all the earth, and we inherit with Him and in Him — in place of those original Sons of God.

So Much More

Wow, and believe me, that is only the tip of the ziggurat of all the amazing spiritual truths and theological storyline that Heiser uncovers in Scripture. This Divine Council worldview finally makes sense of so many of the bizarre passages in the Bible that used to seem like strange oddities we would never understand, relics of an ancient world. The Unseen Realm makes the storyline of God’s family inheritance and victory over evil come alive like nothing I’ve read before.

The Unseen Realm is not your mamby pamby “Christian Living” book with six steps to success and how to live a happy talk Christian walk. It’s not a Pietistic book of formulas to manufacture subjective spiritual experiences. It’s not an alternative Christian conspiracy theory to pull you away from the Gospel. This is gritty in-depth Biblical study that opens up the work of God to your mind, heart and soul with fresh excitement and wonder of His glorious mysterious ways.

But it here at Amazon. Buy it now. You won’t regret it. You’ll thank me.