Sherlock Holmes

It seems weird to me that my first post here is a movie post, but it is to tie into the gospel, so bear with me.

I saw this movie the other day, and thought parts of the supernatural element were overdone. Don't get me wrong, I liked the movie; but just because a movie involves the supernatural doesn't mean it has to make explicit bible references. There were a few, and they were weak and unsubstantiated. Lord Blackwood, the villain of the movie, is compared several times to Jesus (not a spoiler); when Holmes first finds that he has been ressurected after his execution (not a spoiler), he makes the comment "and on the third day he rose again", and at another point Lord Blackwood associates himself with Revelation 1:18 (Revelation, not Revelations): "I am the living one".

The likeness between Lord Blackwood and Jesus is minimal, but these comparisons didn't bother me too much. What did bother me was when Holmes said: "I may well have reconciled thousands of years of theological disparity". When I first heard this in the movie I thought, what is he talking about? I developed a theory but it's weak, so I tried to find out what other people thought. First stop: imdb. Nobody's discussing it; it's not on the quotes page. Either nobody noticed it (there were lots of complaints about Holmes's accent...), nobody has any idea what he was talking about, or everybody understood exactly what disparity he was talking about and how he solved it and I'm the odd one out. I googled it; all that came up was a link to the script and a Christian blogger who writes from movies: but he didn't analyse it, as far as I could tell; just used it to introduce his theological analysis of the movie.

Here's my interpretation of what Holmes said, and why I think it's shallow and would have been better left out of the text. I have to give you a big warning: this is where the spoilers come in.

I believe that at this point of the movie, Holmes has just realised that Blackwood was never ressurected because he never actually died. The hanging was fake. This is consistent with the fact that Holmes claims to be enlightened, and after this the movie is action packed: he doesn't really get another chance to sit down and try and figure out what is going on. So if he solved the mystery, which we know he did, this is when it happened.

So when he says that he has solved thousands of years of theological disparity, I fear he is making another comparison between Jesus and Blackwood. He knows at this point that Blackwood was never ressurected because he didn't die; I fear he is claiming the same about Jesus.

Too many holes. I don't want to believe he means that. But here is my rebuttal.

1) Faking a crucifixion must be very different to faking a hanging. You figured out how the harness stopped Blackwood from being harmed; if you are going to claim that Jesus also didn't die, it would be nice if you could tell us a) how the guards *didn't really* drive nails through Jesus wrists b) and they *didn't really* flog him (many people died at this point, even before their crucifixion...) c) and the soldier *didn't really* thrust a spear through Jesus's side, and water and blood *didn't really* come out (John 19:34), and thus we can know that he *wasn't really* dead. Swoon theory? Unconvincing due to the water that came from Jesus side. Substitution theory? Oh dear, Sherlock Holmes must be highly influenced by the Koran: but still unconvincing. After all, many disciples and people who personally knew Jesus were present. I think they would have noticed if they got the wrong man. So there you go. All evidence seems to point to the fact that he died. Remember that many eyewitnesses died claiming these things; I will not concede that this is fabrication.

2) So really, all you have left to claim is that he wasn't ressurected--he definitely did die. But so many people died claiming they had seen the ressurected Jesus, and saw him ascend to heaven. Then there's the conversion of Saul/Paul of Tarsus: what motivation could there have been for him to adopt a life of suffering and imprisonment, if he was not truly convinced that he saw the ressurected Messiah?

Really, Holmes, I am not convinced. Please do not make such lofty claims without substantiation. Lord Blackwood and Jesus have nothing to do with each other.

I was going to write comparisons about how the two lived (Jesus didn't sacrifice women and try to usurp world power....), but now this seems unnecessary.

If anyone has any alternative explanations of what he could have possibly meant by solving thousands of years of theological disparity, I'd love to know. It's clear that my understanding is flawed, and I dread to think that is what the screenwriter intended. Maybe it was something so vague as "the supernatural doesn't exist", but can that really be claimed from a single incident of one man manipulating peoples belief in the supernatural?

Maybe I should just write to the screenwriter and ask them.