6/8/23
Newsletter #361
The Crack of Dawn
My last three writing projects have been about: Adolf Hitler, Jesus and Moses. What the hell is on my mind? Writing about historical, or mythological, characters involves research. And I just love research. Getting lost in minutia, while trying to both understand and feel what it was like to be there is fun for me. What was it like to live 2,000 years ago?
To write about Jesus I was compelled to read the New Testament Bible, which the Jews don’t accept as holy, so I hadn’t previously bothered with it. Well, the Old Testament is 1,100 pages, tells many stories about many people, and is confusing; the New Testament is 300 pages, has a strong lead character, and tells only one story, although it too is still confusing. Between the two, I found the New Testament to be a better read. The four main books of the New Testament, the prophets – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John – tell the same story, but each from a different point of view, and all four are completely out of order. The only way to make any sense of Jesus’ story is to follow his path, or his ministries, as they’re called, as he circled Israel three times, picking up followers, and always finding his way back to Jerusalem.
So, I have written a short, comic novel called, The Gospel According to Judas, which started its life as a short story that I wrote in the late 1990s while living in Santa Monica and directing Xena. If I thought it was a screenplay, I would have written it as a screenplay, but I didn’t. Most of the story was about finding the 2,00-year-old scroll, and it was only so interesting. So I just moved on.
I attempted to resurrect the idea a couple of times over the years, but never got anywhere. However, in the pages of an aborted attempt at a screenplay, I had a thirteen-page flashback to ancient Israel, from Judas Iscariot’s point of view, that was completely silly, and, I thought, pretty funny. Seeing the sermon on the mount as a kind of Woodstock, and Jesus and the apostles as a performer and his roadies scouting the location, seeing which way would be shining, then setting up and playing a venue.
Which brought me to an idea that’s much older than me. The present time is the modern world. Nobody ever thought, “Hey, I’m living in Biblical times.” “Bummer, I’m stuck in the middle of the Dark Ages.” So, don’t treat Biblical times like ancient times, treat it as the modern world.
OK, so I read the New Testament. I printed out maps from the period and put them on my wall, and I printed out maps of Jesus’ ministries, and where he picked up each apostle. Get this if you can: the entire Christian religion is based upon a crazy man from the wilderness, who is covered in animal pelts, and he eats insects, called John. He runs a kind of a Branch Dravidian, David Koresh-like cult in the wilderness outside Bethany, not too far from Jerusalem. Every now and then he comes out of the wilderness and has these happenings. Everybody gets naked, drinks wine, and pours water on each other’s head in the Jordan River. The crazy nut John points his finger at a young man — a fellow named Jesus — and says, “He’s the one!” and everyone just goes with that. It's like the guy in The Warriors, who points and says, “The Warriors did it!” and everyone goes with it, even though it wasn’t the Warriors.
My question, as a Jew reading the New Testament for the first time, is why does anybody believe this meshugenah John? It says, “John had his raiment of camel’s hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins; and his meat was locust . . .” Matthew 3:4. Raiment is clothing. How on Earth did John get any say so in who was the messiah? Who made him the boss? He’s a screwball from the wilderness, who eats bugs.
My first Bible was given to me by my Hungarian Grandma Olga, who got it in Israel on a visit to see her sister, Elsa. I was seven. Of course, I still have the Bible. It’s just the Old Testament, not the New, and it’s fully illustrated by Gustave Doré. I think this where me and Cecil B. DeMille got our early inspiration. Gustave Doré’s lithographs are epic. Gustave Doré also illustrated the New Testament. And since they’re in the Public Domain, I used them throughout The Gospel According to Judas. I put in silly captions, like Mad Magazine. Here’s one from the Old Testament that I just loved as a kid, called The Deluge.
Anyway, so I says to my buddy, Bruce, “You’ve got a publishing company, why don’t you publish my books?” And Bruce says, “Oh, yeah? Why don’t you publish them yourself?” And I said, “But you’ve got tens of thousands of fans, I don’t.” And he said, “That’s not why you publish them. What you want to do is get definitive copies out there. Who cares if they sell?”
That’s easy for him to say because his shit sells. But he does make a good point. So, I’m going to begin with my Hitler book, Hitler in the Madhouse, which is as done as it’s ever going to get. The process of having it laid out as a book is an ordeal, but what the hell. I did write it. And Judas will come next.
However, as I’ve been reading the Bible, in this case the Old Testament for Moses’ story, just like reading a script, I caught a continuity error. Bible scholars can interpret it however they want, but in the film business, this is a continuity error. Moses meets seven sisters at the well in Midian (young Yvonne DeCarlo is one of them in the movie), and it says in Exodus 2:18, “And when they came to Reuel their father.” Moses marries one of them, Zipporah, with whom he has children, then it says in Exodus 3:1, “Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father in law.” Well, is it Reuel or Jethro? Bible flubs.
Well, I’ve clearly got nothing left to say.
Have a nice day, why don’t’cha.