A manga about Jesus.

[That Dude]

Hey I found an authentic Japanese manga based off of Jesus's life. Check this out. http://www.comicsone.com/manga/jesus/ I don't know how faithful it is but from the page previews it doesn't look like they messed it up to much. But since there are barely any christians in Japan I don't expect it to be very theologically correct. But yeah I just thought it was cool that there was an actual Japanese manga about Christ.

[That Dude]

I guess BobtheDuck already made a thread about this...Oh well.

[oro!]

Well, if this could get mainstream in Japan, who knows. It looks good, but I dunno.

[Mangafanatic]

Is this a good one or is this the blasphemous one? I knew there was one "Jesus" manga that was idiotic and totally distorted everything about Jesus's life.

[That Dude]

Well from what I've read about it the guy got most of his stuff directly from the Bible. I've only read the sample pages of it but it was pretty good from what I saw. Nothing heretical or anything. But as I haven't seen all of it I don't really know. From what I've seen I view kind of as Josephus' History Of The Jews. Pretty accurate but from a different veiwpiont. (From what I gather it pretty much presents Jesus as the bible does.)

[Yamato145]

yeah i remember seeing a commercial about that in the back of Kazan

[Shao Feng-Li]

Heh. Obviously he didn't read the bible enough. A direct violation of the second commandment.

[Arnobius]

Hmm, very non-factual, non-historical etc judging by the previews. The author didn't seem to understand what he read. Of course, his book "Joan" was that way too.

Maybe it will play well for the people who believed what they read in "The DaVinci Code." I won't get it unless I need to do some research on how Christianity is portrayed in Japan.

[RoyalWing]

Oh, I know about this one, and also the one the author did on 'Jeanne'. But, I'm sorry, I didn't order.

Heh. Obviously he didn't read the bible enough. A direct violation of the second commandment.

Please, can you explain? I want to know.

[Shao Feng-Li]

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;Exodus 20: 4-5 To draw Jesus is to only draw the man side of him. You can't draw the God side, therefore you must separate the two, but that is wrong for he was both fully God and fully man. People reading that won't see God, but a man that looks like a eroupean. It's simple, do not draw figures that are meant to be worshiped. It's playing with fire. And because he said so. THose who do turn God into an image of man are fools and the bible says that very plainly:

Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Romans 1:22-23

[Mave]

I've gotta read this manga first before forming an opinion. Great art though.

[MasterDias]

[quote="Shao Feng-Li"]Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me]
Wait a second. Maybe I misunderstood you, but are you stating that it is wrong to draw any sort of manga/art/picture/etc. of Jesus Christ?

If so, I do not agree. One would think that it would depend on the purpose of said manga/art/picture and how correctly He is portrayed.
I'm not trying to start a debate or anything...to each his own convictions.

At any rate, I am rather skeptical of this manga as to whether it's an accurate portrayal. There is only a very small number of professed Christians in Japan. Much less, manga-ka...

[Warrior 4 Jesus]

I don't agree with Shao either. If the purpose of the comic/drawing/whatever is to bring people to Christ or plant a seed in their heart or even get them to think about Jesus than I see nothing wrong with drawing Him. What about all the Bible comics, children's bibles, devotion books, they all have pics of Jesus? Are they all blasphemous? I say no. Your logic Shao is laughable at best. Have you never drawn Jesus yourself? Any book written/drawn by a human is sinful in nature but because of Christ we give what we can offer to Jesus to work through us and do stuff to further the Kingdom of God.

[Arnobius]

Christianity has traditionally NOT had a problem with religious imagery. Would you call the religious Icons created by Eastern Orthodoxy blasphemous?

If making a graven image or likeness of a creature is idolatry, then technically, photos, paintings and the like of any creature is also a sin based on the phrasing of the commandment. For that matter so is anime and manga in general.

I don't believe this was how God meant it. God meant He did not want the Jews to create a physical form to worship, because this would be mimicing the behavior of the pagans: Worshipping a dead image as if it WERE God.

Christians who employ religious imagery are not worshipping the image, they use the images to bring their attention to God.

Of course, this debate is not entirely new and was debated in the early Church. Here's a couple of links that might prove helpful (one from a secular source and one from a religious source)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iconoclasm
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07620a.htm

[Shao Feng-Li]

Heh. How can we even draw Jesus if we know not what he even looks like? People draw an image of a human a say "He's Jesus!" Can I draw a picture of a random man and pretend that he looks like Jesus? Tell me of the logic that is in that. Jesus left no description of himself for a reason. No this one has never drawn Jesus... I can draw a man and call him Jesus. I can draw and draw until it almost looks like a buddha and call him Jesus.
It's awsome that people draw comics to lead people to Christ, but it doesn't make it perfect. When one finds imperfection fix it if at all posible.
And it does depend on why you draw it. If you're to draw the inside of a Roman Catholic church... then yeah go ahead for that's the way it is.

Note: I have never seen the inside of an RC church, but I was only using it to make a point- I hope...

And Warrior I ask you to not call me by the assumed family name "Shao" but rather by "Feng- Li", which is my assumed given name. "Laughable at best"? That sounds like an insult... -_- *Sigh.* Than again, what does a child know against two adults?

[Warrior 4 Jesus]

Feng-Li: Sorry for calling you Shao, I didn't realise Feng-Li was your assumed name. I have no knowledge of these things. Please forgive me.

[Shao Feng-Li]

Heh, everybody does it. "Shao Feng- Li" is the asumed name. In places like Japan the family name comes first. I'm not really Chinese. XD
Warrior and Master Dias, might I ask the denimintion you belong to?

To be fair, I am of the RPNA: Reformed Presbitry of North America.

[Warrior 4 Jesus]

I'm an Australian Lutheran (a bit German and Polish, but mostly Australian).

Mave, I looked at the samples of the Jesus manga on the site and I appreciate your art a lot more. You've got great God-given talents!

[Arnobius]

Heh. How can we even draw Jesus if we know not what he even looks like? People draw an image of a human a say "He's Jesus!" Can I draw a picture of a random man and pretend that he looks like Jesus? Tell me of the logic that is in that. Jesus left no description of himself for a reason. No this one has never drawn Jesus... I can draw a man and call him Jesus. I can draw and draw until it almost looks like a buddha and call him Jesus.
It's awsome that people draw comics to lead people to Christ, but it doesn't make it perfect. When one finds imperfection fix it if at all posible.
And it does depend on why you draw it. If you're to draw the inside of a Roman Catholic church... then yeah go ahead for that's the way it is.

Note: I have never seen the inside of an RC church, but I was only using it to make a point- I hope...

Actually, I've seen portrayals of Jesus rendered to fit the needs of the community: An asian to an asian church, african to an african church and so on. From what I have read from missionaries, rendering Christ to have the appearance of the ethnic group of the congregation in question has enabled members of the congregation to relate to Jesus instead of think of Him as some "god of the white europeans."

Anyway, I hope nothing I posted sounded like an attack on you. This was just something that I wanted to address generally.

Anyway, concerning the manga, it sounds like there are serious reasons for concern based on the pages I saw. I suspect that this version of Christ will turn out to be very human and not very divine-- a human do-gooder and not a savior except in the sense of "message."

EDIT: (and if you're talking denomination, I'm Roman Catholic.)

[R. Zion]

Feng-Li, you have peaked my curiosity, and I would like to say, before hand, that this is meant in all serious.

According to what you have said, how would you go about producing a manga/film/any visual representation of the Gospel? What would consider an appropriate way of handling such a situation?

The only way I can figure that it could be done, besides just having an empty space where He would be standing, would be for Jesus to be offscreen the entire time.

[MasterDias]

I'm a Baptist.

No, we do not know what Jesus truly looked like. I agree with AnimeHeretic's point. Each person should generally think of him as to what they can relate to.

[Arnobius]

Feng-Li, you have peaked my curiosity, and I would like to say, before hand, that this is meant in all serious.

According to what you have said, how would you go about producing a manga/film/any visual representation of the Gospel? What would consider an appropriate way of handling such a situation?

The only way I can figure that it could be done, besides just having an empty space where He would be standing, would be for Jesus to be offscreen the entire time.

Actually, I remember recently reading about an animated Life of Muhammed movie that had to deal with it. Since they're not allowed to depict him, they had the movie shown from Muhammed's perspective (he can't see himself).

The old movies of Jesus tended to show only his back, never his face.

[Shao Feng-Li]

From my understanding, don't show his face. People don't worship a pair of hands. In Ben- Hur that was all they showed. In the Passion, they showed a man, not God nailed to a cross.

The bible calls them fools and says not to cahnge the glory of God into corruptable man. If there's a verse that states exseptions I'd like to see it. As of this moment I can only see it as a sin.

Instead of creating more images depicting him in different races, tell them instead that to create any image is wrong and that the europeans were wrong to do so.

I don't believed one is damned for drawing an image. It's seems to be a purity issue, and it's not one that's difficult to fix.

Don't you think that humans are tempted to worship what they see? Why else would people have pictures of men, that are supposed to be Christ, hanging on their wall?

[Ingemar]

Actually, I've seen portrayals of Jesus rendered to fit the needs of the community: An asian to an asian church, african to an african church and so on. From what I have read from missionaries, rendering Christ to have the appearance of the ethnic group of the congregation in question has enabled members of the congregation to relate to Jesus instead of think of Him as some "god of the white europeans."

That's right. In the cover art of Philip Jenkins' The Next Christendom, there is a metallic figurine of a crucified Chinese Jesus and a portrait of a black Jesus juxtaposed next to old Orthodox and Catholic portraits of a white Jesus.

Perhaps because I wasn't raised in a colonial context, but I, a non-white, am not offended by Jesus being portrayed as a white. I wouldn't be offended by a black Jesus in an African church, either. But most reasonable people (even Africans) know that Jesus must have had Semitic features. (There are of course the unreasonable ones, like an Indian tribe in Mexico who believe that God is the father of the Indians, and the rest of humanity is the offspring of the Devil).

[R. Zion]

Again, I meant no offense, I was just curious. I didn't know if you meant any figure or representation or, as you said, simply not seeing his face.

Now I know, and knowing is half the battle....

[Shao Feng-Li]

Don't worry, no offense has been taken at all. And, if anybody here sees I'm making any glaring mystakes, please let me know. I'm no John Calvin.

[Arnobius]

From my understanding, don't show his face. People don't worship a pair of hands. In Ben- Hur that was all they showed. In the Passion, they showed a man, not God nailed to a cross.

The bible calls them fools and says not to cahnge the glory of God into corruptable man. If there's a verse that states exseptions I'd like to see it. As of this moment I can only see it as a sin.

Instead of creating more images depicting him in different races, tell them instead that to create any image is wrong and that the europeans were wrong to do so.

I don't believed one is damned for drawing an image. It's seems to be a purity issue, and it's not one that's difficult to fix.

Don't you think that humans are tempted to worship what they see? Why else would people have pictures of men, that are supposed to be Christ, hanging on their wall?

I don't believe that people are tempted to worship what they see. The Judaeo-Christian tradition is quite aware of the difference between creature and creator. Are you sure that you're not misunderstanding the intentions of the person who prays using a picture to keep his or her mind focussed on Jesus?

Who says you can't worship a pair of hands? One could accuse Christians of practicing Palmistry if we focussed on the hands. They'd be wrong, but it's the same false association that comes with equating religious imagery with idols.

Early Christians never felt that they were forbidden to make pictures of Christ, as there were even images found in the catacombs. It wasn't until the encroachment of Islam that it even became an issue.

All the Old Testament writings on idols were in the context of the neighboring pagans. God was not to be diminished to being "just another God," nor to be associated to the perverse rituals they used.

The use of images in Christianity are only used as reminders of Christ's presence.

You say it is a sin. Did Mel Gibson sin in portraying Jesus' crucifixion in The Passion of the Christ? Millions of viewers were deeply moved by the portrayal that showed what Jesus' sacrifice meant. Did all the early Christians sin in making images to honor God?

God gave us sight among our senses and it is not wrong to make use of the eyes in the worship of God. Historically, to condemn it as evil *was* iconoclasm.

You are free to believe what you want but consider that by your posts, you could be interpreted as accusing the majority of Christians from the entire history of Christianity of deliberately disobeying God. Do you really intend that?

[Warrior 4 Jesus]

Pretty wacked out I'd say. I don't see a picture of Jesus and go I should worship that picture. I don't see your point Feng.

[Ingemar]

To play Devil's Advocate (how ironic), I can think of at least one other person who held a beyond Puritanical view of 2Com. One of our member (who will remain nameless) boycotted The Passion because he believed it was idolatry. Now, I myself believe that kind of view is wholly irrational, as I don't think anyone is devoting shrines and cults to Jim Caviezel as a result of that movie. But do be sensitive of these positions.

[uc pseudonym]

On that note, I would officially ask that this debate stop. It's been rather friendly, and I believe real information may have been exchanged, but it is decidedly theological. The administration has its own views, of course, but we believe this issue to fall under the heading of personal convictions, and hence should not be debated, even in such a good context.

As to the real topic of this thread, I find it interesting, but I'd decline true comment until I saw the actual product. At the moment I believe what I have seen is basically meaningless, as I do not know if it is created from respect for the person of Jesus, or from the generally accepting belief in all religions.