Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Rob Liefeld Fills Biblical Plot Hole with 'Zombie Jesus' - ComicsAlliance | Comics culture, news, humor, commentary, and reviews

I have been a fan of Rob Liefield's work as an artist and a writer ever since I first saw his work in the early 1990's. I mean he helped create Deadpool no less! The things is this article disturbed me about the an upcoming project Rob Liefield is working on centering on the 48 hours between Jesus' crucifixion and Resurrection. He imagines that the people who rise from the dead after Jesus dies are zombies who attack Jerusalem, under satanic influence, to destroy Jesus' body before He can rise Easter morning. There are several problems with this story from a Biblical stand point. But before I go into that I want to quote Liefield in his own words and the article:

However, Zombie Jesus may seem somewhat blasphemous given Liefeld's background. He is a Christian and works with his pastor, Phil Hotsenpiller, on the Armageddon Now series of graphic novels, based on biblical prophecy. But as Liefeld told ComicsAlliance, it can't be heresy if it's right there in black and white.

"I don't consider this in any way blasphemous or contradicting my faith," said Liefeld, who describes Zombie Jesus as "300 meets Dawn of the Dead with the clock from 24 running." He continued, "The fact of the matter is that the passage in 'Matthew' 27 EXISTS! It's a freaky, crazy, creepy passage. Zombies came out of the ground right after Christ's death and it's kind of glossed over like it's no big deal. I wanted to move on it a year ago when I read it, but I needed time to flesh it out. There are so many mysterious passages in the Bible, and this one may be the biggest mystery of all."

"What I've done is construct a story of how the ultimate battle between good and evil continues following the crucifixion of Christ. There are many players in the saga and everyone is racing against time to protect or devour Christ's remains. Joseph of Arimethia paid to have Jesus buried in a proper tomb and there is quite an exciting series of events as Judas and the zombie horde attempt to keep Christ and his escorts from reaching the tomb. The zombies that attack the city are at first defended by the Roman Centurions who eventually retreat and Governor Pilate decides to sacrifice the population of Judaea to the zombies.

"And then there's Lazarus, the hero of the story, who himself was risen from death by Christ's own hand. His destiny in protecting the sacred body of Christ as well as preserving the garments that touched Christ's blood is played out with the Disciples fighting alongside him. The story builds towards a confrontation at the tomb of Christ before it takes a MAJOR twist. It's Judas, possessed of the devil battling with his army of the Undead versus Lazarus and the Disciples for all the marbles. It's exciting."
My main problem with the story is that it doesn't really accurately tell the story given in the Bible. Matthew 27:51-52 does not say that people crawled out of the ground and started eating people.
At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split. The tombs broke open and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life.
Many atheists uses this passage to try to discount the whole resurrection because Zombies do not exist. I agree. The Bible does not say anything about zombies. Here are a couple of facts to keep in mind that in the first century, people were not buried in tombs indefinitely. After several years, tombs were recycled and the bones of relative were put into ossuaries. Therefore if the people who were in the tombs when they rose again, they had not been dead for very long. If you look at the art of Liefield, the people seem to look like what we think of Zombies today and they are attacking people. No where in the Bible does it describe anything like. When Lazerus was raised from the dead he wasn't raised immortal, he died again at some future point later. Also when Satan entered Judas Iscariot it was before he betrayed Jesus, not after he hung himself. Also during the days Jesus was buried his disciples were not fighting zombies...they were hiding from the authorities. It is important to remember that Jesus won the battle of good versus evil when He died. It was finished...perfectly and completely. Even the devil thought that, however he thought he won. Had he truly understood the plan of salvation he would not have worked so hard to see Jesus crucified and dead. God played him like a harp. These are important points of the events surrounding the parts that Liefield calls himself "filling in". It really irks me that people think Matthew had zombies in mind like those from our movies. He didn't. These people who were raised would have been known to the inhabitants of Jerusalem at that time.
No, we speak of God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9However, as it is written:
"No eye has seen,
no ear has heard,
no mind has conceived
what God has prepared for those who love him" - 1st Corinthians 2:7-9
Jesus rose from the dead Easter morning with all power in his hand. This is what the Gospel is. I'm all for fiction, but fiction that detracts from truth is indeed bordering on blasphemy. I hope Liefield talks to his pastor about this storyline and really prays about it. You see, I find it incomprehensible to be a Christian for more than a year and have never read Matthew 27. And no maybe we don't have as much detail as to who was raised in Matthew 27:52-52 such as what happened to them afterward? Did they go to heaven? Did they stay on earth and live a normal human lifespan? I don't know but I don't think its a good idea to make up stuff that contradict what the rest the Bible says.

Rob Liefeld Fills Biblical Plot Hole with 'Zombie Jesus' - ComicsAlliance | Comics culture, news, humor, commentary, and reviews
Enhanced by Zemanta

34 comments:

  1. Hahahah! Awesome.

    You said "Many atheists uses this passage to try to discount the whole resurrection because Zombies do not exist."

    No, as per normal, you mischaracterize or misunderstand the argument. This passage can be used to discount Matthew's narrative because not one single other historian working at the time in that area records a mass ressurection, zombie attack or anything else similar.

    This really, really, really would have made front page news.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ryan, you may use it that way, but not all atheists use it that way. I was not writing about the uniqueness of the Matthews account. That is another post. There was no zombie attack and the people who were raised had recently died. I think the one who fails to understand the points being made is you. And using the term is an anachronistic interpolation devoid of reality.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'll go with the Matthew author just making stuff up for dramatic effect.

    ReplyDelete
  4. You have no proof that is true...beyond your own predilections.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Just as you don't have any that it is true.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I've got the fact Luke got some things true. That is more than you have.

    ReplyDelete
  7. And you can't show anything he got wrong.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I can show where he differs from the other accounts. Just because you don't accept that those conflicts aren't there, doesn't mean they aren't.

    ReplyDelete
  9. The discrepancies are not conflicts. Go ahead. Bring it.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Seriously, why even type the last four words. Do you think that adds to your argument?

    And of course the discrepancies are conflicts. By trying to reconcile them, you are basically making your own myth.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Of course It's necessary. Go ahead on show discrepancies between Luke and the other Gospels that show that they are conflicts to one another. Be my guest. This I gotta see.

    ReplyDelete
  12. We've done this already. You dedicated a whole post to a chart that tortured all four gospels.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Against my better judgement, did Simon help Jesus with the cross (Matt, Luke, Mark) or did he carry his own cross (John)?

    Let the torture begin...

    ReplyDelete
  14. We've done this already. You dedicated a whole post to a chart that tortured all four gospels.

    And you provided no meaningful response. You never explained why any of the explanations given do not work. You just seem like you assuming that each Gospel writer are saying the other writer's accounts are wrong and cannot see that all the accounts are right just vary in details.

    Against my better judgement,...

    Your judgment is the problem. You sure could use better judgment. You don't the difference between a "discrepancy" and a "conflict".

    did Simon help Jesus with the cross (Matt, Luke, Mark) or did he carry his own cross (John)?

    If John had said that no one helped Jesus carry his cross, then that would have been a conflict. John only omitted the detail that Mark, Luke, and Matthew included.

    Let the torture begin...

    You like torture, Ryan. You have chosen to live without God.

    ReplyDelete
  15. So when John said "Carrying his own cross, he went out to the place of the Skull"

    He meant "Carrying his own cross, except when he wasn't, he went out to the place of the Skull"

    Sure...

    ReplyDelete
  16. Ryan, the other Gospels all say Jesus carried his own cross for part of the way before the soldiers made Simon do it. That is more detail not a contradiction. You are trying really hard to suppress the truth. Funny, how you are just fulfilling what the Bible says, and you are justified in your own mind. So sad.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Marcus said... the other Gospels all say Jesus carried his own cross for part of the way before the soldiers made Simon do it.

    Actually, they say no such thing.

    Mark 15:20-21 “And when they had mocked him, they took off the purple robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him out to crucify him. A certain man from Cyrene, Simon, the father of Alexander and Rufus, was passing by on his way in from the country, and they forced him to carry the cross.”

    Matthew 27:31-32 “After they had mocked him, they took off the robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him away to crucify him. As they were going out, they met a man from Cyrene, named Simon, and they forced him to carry the cross.”

    Luke 23:26 “As they led him away, they seized Simon from Cyrene, who was on his way in from the country, and put the cross on him and made him carry it behind Jesus.”

    ReplyDelete
  18. Ryan, you are right. I made a mistake. Matthew, Mark, and Luke do not give the detail of Jesus carrying the cross. However, they do not say that Jesus didn't carry the cross any part of the way. Still no conflict. Keep kicking against the pricks, if you must but you are just making it hard for you.

    ReplyDelete
  19. They also don't say that space aliens didn't teleport simon and the cross to golgotha when he became too tired to continue.

    Or for that matter, none of the gospels say Judas didn't lead an evil army of zombies to eat Jesus' corpse, but hey!

    ReplyDelete
  20. And it's not unusual at all that the Jewish and Roman historians at the time didn't mention the aliens transporting Simon and the cross because, heck, they didn't seem to notice all sorts of stuff, zombie hordes included... :)

    ReplyDelete
  21. First off...there was no "zombie hord". The folks that rose hadn't been long and they were not trying to eat people.

    You are really good at bringing up stuff that doesn't matter. Neither Gospel brings up space aliens. Why should you? The bottom line just because John left out the detail of Jesus being helped and Mark, Matthew, and Luke leave out Jesus carrying the cross is not a conflict. They are both true.

    ReplyDelete
  22. First off...there was no "zombie hord"

    Yeah, no duh.

    ReplyDelete
  23. The Bible does not say that there was a "Zombie hord." by using the very term you are talking about these things:

    http://mmcelhaney.blogspot.com/2009/07/zombies-and-bible-according-to-askegg.html

    ReplyDelete
  24. You do realize I'm aware what the bible says and am mocking it, right?

    ReplyDelete
  25. You don't know what the Bible says. You are mocking what it does not say. Try harder. You are not nearly as amusing as you think.

    ReplyDelete
  26. I knew better than you what it said about Jesus carrying his own cross.

    ReplyDelete
  27. You may have remembered exactly how Matthew, Mark, and Luke don't mention Jesus carrying his own cross, but you missed the whole point of the events. I immediately went to the understanding of what is given by combining all four accounts which you evidently missed. Your ignorance of the event is shown because you think that Jesus could not have carried his own cross and had help carrying it at different points along the path. Jesus had to go outside of Jerusalem to get crucified. It would have been a walk requiring several minutes even if he had been completely healthy and not suffering from wounds that would have killed most people.

    ReplyDelete
  28. It's possible he carried it, it's possibly simon helped. It's possible the cross was already at golgotha and no one carried it. It's also possible none of this happened at all.

    ReplyDelete
  29. First...you must be aware that even the worst heathen historians will grant at least that Jesus existed, carried on a three-year ministry, culminating in his crucifixion and death. If you want to dispute the details fine. But you have no evidence that the Gospels are wrong or that they conflict with one another.

    ReplyDelete
  30. Heathen historians? Really? Moron.

    ReplyDelete
  31. as for the silly "zombie" link - it shows exactly what I'm talking about. Jesus doesn't want to eat your flesh nor you to eat his. Coming back from the dead is not sufficient to define a zombie. And again even heathens like you who happen to be historians agree that Jesus existed.

    ReplyDelete
  32. This is a really eye-popping article about it! I bet the Bible is full of bonkers shit like ths that's been glossed over
    http://santitafarella.wordpress.com/2011/04/23/was-jesus-the-only-one-to-rise-from-the-dead-on-easter-weekend/

    ReplyDelete