MovieChat Forums > King of Kings (1961) Discussion > Another very inaccurate yet entertaining...

Another very inaccurate yet entertaining Historical film


I was quite surprised they started with Pompey's taking Jerusalem, it put them in a spot as the historians don't tell what Pompey found in the Holy of Hollies. It's intresting to read however cause Josephus implies he knows but that he's not allowed to tell us, quite curious.

trying to make it more an ancient Political thriller/Drama was quite odd, Barabbas may or may not have lead an insurrection, but it wouldn't have been a huge one with a popular following as the whole point was Pilate didn't expect the people to choose to set him free.

The best part for me was when Herod The Great died, very inaccurate, Antipas was NOT his sole successor, he ONLY Inherited Galilee and would NOT have even sat on the exact same throne, Herod Archelaus inherited Judea, Idiumia and Samaria but was deposed in 6 A.D.

Regardless it's quite fun watching Herod rolling on the floor Dieing and his Son just watching him then sitting in his Throne. And it has cool quotes

"A King who cannot walk to his own Throne is no Longer a King."

"Please put me on my Throne, I will not Die on my Knees"
*Puts foot on his Chest and pushes him down onto his back*

Very entertaining

The depiction of Judas annoys me, I don't know people keep thinking he was a Zealot, Simon (The other Simon not Peter) was the Zealot in the group, Judas's problem with Greed.

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The reason Judas is considered a Zealot is because of the appellation, 'Iscariot.' Judas the Sicarii.

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And what does Sicarii mean? Still sounds like random speculation to me.

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Am I talking to the same Jared who owns a copy of the works of Josephus?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicarii

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I don't have everyhting memorized.

The Gospel of John refers to Judas as "son of Simon Iscariot" John 6:71. The most likely explanation derives Iscariot from Hebrew איש־קריות, Κ-Qrîyôth, that is "man of Kerioth."

Many historians maintain that the sicarii only arose in the 40s or 50s of the 1st century, in which case Judas could not have been a member.

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And since the Gospels were written long after that, it doesn't prove anything.

The author(s) of John were so far removed from the culture and history of Palestine that they no longer knew what the word meant. He made the same mistake that some of the heresy hunters made when attempting to trace the origin of a heresy: the Ebionites must have come from a man named Ebion.

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John=Eyewitness, he was there he knew Judas personality.

Nothing about Judas's personality or behavior in any of the sources would be consistent with him being a Zealot, a Zealot wouldn't have made a deal with the Roman puppet priests.

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At this point, Graham Chapman, dressed as a military officer, barges in, exclaiming, "All right - Stop it! Stop this conversation! It's gotten silly!"

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How has it gotten silly?

After doing further reading, I think the Sicarii might have been Rome's Al Qaeda for dealing with the Jews.

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John=Eyewitness, he was there he knew Judas personality.

Too silly to gainsay. Enough to make me give up talking.

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From the Wikipedia article you linked me to.

The victims of the Sicarii included Jonathan the High Priest, though it is possible that his murder was orchestrated by the Roman governor Felix. Some of their murders were met with severe retaliation by the Romans on the entire Jewish population of the country. On some occasions, they could be bribed to spare their intended victims.

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The High Priests and the Sanhedrin were considered collaborators with the Romans because they wouldn't take the extreme road. Romans retaliated broadly because they couldn't distinguish extremist from civilian, and also, because extremists have family. Retaliation against non-combatants would bring the Sicarii out of hiding.

Re: Bribery. It depended on the victim. Sicarii were not completely pure, but I'm sure that there were targets that could not be spared under any circumstances.

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There are Historian who like to blame both them and Antonius Felix for Johnathan's death, that implies a connection.

Pretty much all thier actions only made the situation worse and helped lead to their complete annihilation.

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One could say that not only of the Sicarii, but of the Zealots, and fervent Messianic expectation in general.

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The specific actions of the Sicarii appear calculated in that direction however, just liek Al Queda today.

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I believe 'sicarius' refers to the dagger carried by the rebels.

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Hmmmmm

"It's not about money.... It's about sending a Message..... Everything Burns!!!"

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Well, Jared, KING OF KINGS isn't the first film to portray Judas as a Zealot (1954's DAY OF TRIUMPH has that honor), nor is it the last (JESUS OF NAZARETH, LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST).
As for the political point, one has to remember that Israel and the Holocaust were major themes in the late 1950s. Both BEN-HUR (1959) and KoK carried a Zionist 'Let My People Go!' approach that reflected the times. Thus Nicholas Ray and Philip Yordan made Barabbas the voice of that view. There is a strong pro-Jewish sympathy in the film. Jesus' radical threat to jewish beliefs is omitted. There is no Pharisees trial. Caiaphas is just a flunky to the Romans. And Pilate's crowd-trial is only described, with Lucius telling Barabbas that his followers gave the majority vote, with no mention of 'Crucify him!/Let his blood be on our hands!/We have no King but Caesar!' It's the Arabs who get treated badly. Herod is erroneously described as an Arab. John the Baptist is beheaded by a Turban-wearing, scimitar wielder, etc.
Also, like George Stevens in GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD, Nicholas Ray was thinking of the Holocaust. The film is heavy on Roman brutality to the Jews. One can hardly forget about the Nazi Genocide after such scenes: Orson Welles' narrative 'The Jews went to the Slaughter' (A line he would repeat in the documentary GENOCIDE). The perfectly precisioned march of Roman soldiers killing crowds of Jews. The death march to the crucifixion hills looking like Babi Yar. The mass body burnings resembling the stacks of corpses at Dachau and Auschwitz.

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Herod's mother was an Arab so yes he was half Arab and Half Edomite.

"It's not about money.... It's about sending a Message..... Everything Burns!!!"

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What's funny about Ben-Hur and other such films is that you could view the voice of the Jews against Rome here as being analogous to the Arabs against American Occupation. Ben-Hur's point of "Withdraw your Legions" to Massala is basically exactly what Ron Paul keeps trying to point out to these stupid Neo-Cons.

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Actually I've come to be very skeptical of the traditional assumption that the Idumeans where Edomites. I've arbued here that Herod might be an ancestor of Mohammed.
http://z13.invisionfree.com/BlogMithrandirOlorin/index.php?showtopic=4 3&st=0&#last

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Iscariot means "of Kerioth", Sicarii is just the conjecture of people who want to read Zelots into everything.

"When the chips are down... these Civilized people... will Eat each Other"

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Iscariot means "of Kerioth", Sicarii is just the conjecture of people who want to read Zelots into everything.

The Zealots were there, historically speaking; they are absent from the gospels, save the reference to "Simon who was called the Zealot" (Luke 6:15). The larger Zealot movement is absent from the gospels, just as Christians are absent from Josephus. The gospels represent a pseudo- or alternate fictive history of 1st century Judea.

"Kerioth" in Hebrew simply means "city." It may well be that bible tend to render it as a proper place-name in Joshua 15:25 (it's really a hyphenated descriptor of Hazor) out of the need to have a place the New Testament character of Judas hailed from. It may be a "city that theology created" much the same as Nazareth.

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I actually think it's the Kerioth of Moab we should look too. Some of Ancient Moab was in Perea in NT times, and Judas's father was named Simon.

"When the chips are down... these Civilized people... will Eat each Other"

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That's probably not a proper-name place, either:

"I will send fire on Moab that will consume the palaces of the cities. Moab will go down in great tumult amid war cries and the blast of the trumpet" (Amos 2:2).

Claiming Judas had a father named Simon doesn't take much - do you realize how many Simons there are scattered across these accounts? It's much like the multiple Marys.

http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2007/12/did-judas-iscariot-e xist-by-bishop-john.html
http://vridar.org/2010/12/29/judas-did-not-exist/

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Yes because Simon was a common name, as was Mary and Judah and Yeshua.

"When the chips are down... these Civilized people... will Eat each Other"

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Their use and multiplicity in the New Testament is more a matter of literary processes than anything to do with how common they were.

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You see the same commonality in Josephus, and in ancient inscriptions of the period. And even the Talmud's traditions of that tie frame.

"When the chips are down... these Civilized people... will Eat each Other"

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You see the same commonality in Josephus, and in ancient inscriptions of the period. And even the Talmud's traditions of that tie frame.

No, you don't - none of those extra-biblical sources use the same small handful of names over and over again. Many are names midrashed from the Tanakh - Joshua, Miriam, Joseph - specifically chosen for who they were in those works, as the gospels were intended as replacements for the Torah. James and John are the sons of Zeus, the Twins, Castor and Pollux. Some, like Jairus ('He Shall Awaken') and Bar-Timaeus ('Son of Poverty') come directly from the roles they're to play in the narrative. Still others are the result of interpretive hermeneutics aimed at reconciling contradictions or rough spots (such difficulties result in splitting characters into multiples, like the Marys, Jameses, and Johns) or harmonizing ("Matthew the Tax-Collector" is a harmonization of two characters from Mark, Levi the Tax-Collector [Mk.2:14] and Matthew the Disciple [Mk.3:18]. The various names used are derived in a number of ways, all of them literary/storytelling tropes, and not from recollected or factual history.

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You know darn well that is all B.S.

Kerioth has a much more clear etymological connection to Iscaiort then Sicarii, that is pretty obvious.

"When the chips are down... these Civilized people... will Eat each Other"

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I was quite surprised they started with Pompey's taking Jerusalem, it put them in a spot as the historians don't tell what Pompey found in the Holy of Hollies.
Some years ago I encountered this version of the story:
In the Holy of Holies within the Jews' Temple, Pompey found The Ark of the Covenant.

The stated point of this version was to point up the continued rise of Pompey's career until then — and the continued fall afterward. (I think someone was trying to make a case for God's wrath against Pompey for having entered the Jews' Holy of Holies.)

It is an interesting idea. However, I've not yet found any further evidence supporting this version than for any other. I'm still looking; but, as you said, the historians never told what he really found.

---
"The time has come," the Walrus said, "To talk of many things,"
Of atoms, stars and nebulæ, of entropy and genes.
---

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The Original Ark was long gone, but a recreation may have been there.

It's interesting how many significant things happened in 63 BC, in addition to this, Julius Caesar become the Pope, Cicero and an Uncle of Mark Antony are Consuls, the Calatine Conspiracy, the Birth of Octavian and allegedly (According to later historian reporting it in hindsight) signs that someone born that year would become master of the world.

Josephus is deliberately cryptic, implying he knows (He was of a Priestly family) what Pompey would have found, but isn't going to tell us. Essential there wasn't anything, not big Golden Idol like the Pagan world would expect a Temple to Have, which the Prologue here essential gets right.

I found the Narrator a little annoying, I knew what they where going for, but ti didn't work.

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To each his own. I personally liked Orson Welles' narration.

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That was Orson Wells?

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Not only that, but Ray Bradbury wrote his lines.

Of your previous comments about BEN-HUR's view of the Roman occupation resembling America, you could say Judah Ben-Hur's desire to learn from Rome and use that knowledge against it sorta makes him like Osama Bin Laden, who also worked in the US and used that knowledge against it.

And the original BEN-HUR novel also talked about Pompey and the Temple. It mentions that a King went into the Holy of Holies and came out a leper, but nothing happened to Pompey.

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The Novel Ben-Hur had Reconstruction in mind. It show show these same basic scenarios happen repeatedly, one could make any number of analogies, I learn towards what is most contemporaneously relevant.

Pompey, all things consider handling his taking of Jerusalem very wisely, like Alexander The Great did, he certainly didn't Slaughter any priests, that incident reminds me of Saul.

Crassus pillaged the Temple a little while latter, and died almost immediately after that, I think that's a better case study for Genesis 12.

Another little criticism I have of this film, allot of the Dialogue seemed obviously looped or dubbed in latter, I hate that especially in this Genre, I love how in for example Becket you can tell none of it was.

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«The Original Ark was long gone, but a recreation may have been there.»

That's quite possible. I'd also heard that the Ark had been sneaked out and hidden to save it from possible desecration at the hands of the Romans. — But I'd heard the same thing in three different ages and conflicts.

So, almost anything is possible — especially given the number of conflicting and ambiguous and purposely cryptic histories out there.

Makes you wonder: Did each historian tell his own truth? — from his own point of view? If that is so, then what would we have seen? Our own time and culture is so far removed from this era, we'd be like alien observers out of some science-fiction story. Makes you want to grab your camcorder and hop in a time machine to see what really happened.

Observations are relative to the observer.
— Albert Einstein
We don't see things as they are; we see things as we are.
— Anaïs Nin
"The time has come," the Walrus said, "To talk of many things,...."
— Lewis Carroll

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I believe the Ark was removed durring the Reign of Manasseh, was taken to Elephantine until the time of Camayses, and is now in Ethiopia.

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historical?

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