What did he change? List one thing that is generally believed about Jesus as written in the Bible that Lewis changed. Added? Yes. Changed? Not a single thing. Think of it as the character Jesus on South Park. He’s not a Christ-figure - he’s Jesus. It’s just the “Public Access Television Adventures of Jesus in the 20th and 21st Century” Jesus.
But there’s never any third party explicitly mentioned, is there? There’s separate figures of the Emperor and Aslan, or else there’s just Aslan, right?
Oh come on… I point out that Aslan killed Jadis, and now “added” is OK?
So if I put Jesus on South Park and having him shooting people that’s still an unchanged representation of the historical figure?!
Once the fictional character acts outside the bounds of the historical facts (common held “facts” / beliefs) how can you can you claim it’s still accurate / in-line with the “real” figure?
Acting “outside of character” is not the same as “acting outside of historical/fictional facts”. If I write Harry Potter slash where he bangs MacGonnegal while casting the killing curse on the entire Weasley family, it’s still Harry Potter, not a “representation” of him.
Who said “accurate” has anything to do with it? If I write a story about a 1st century Jewish carpenter named Jesus who’s a drunken womanizer with a violent streak, but through a series of wacky coincidences ends up being hailed as the Messiah and founding a religion that lasts thousands of years, I haven’t written about a “Christ-like” figure, I’ve written about Jesus Christ. I’ve just changed things to make Jesus himself as unChristlike as possible. But in my story, the character I’m writing about is supposed to be exactly the same dude who’s worshiped in Church every Sunday.
Same deal with Lewis. Aslan isn’t a character who acts like Christ, he is literally the same person who was born in a barn in Bethlehem two thousand years ago. Lewis has added the idea that, in addition to the orthodox powers ascribed to Jesus by Christians, he can also travel to other worlds and turn himself into a lion. He is still, in the context of that story, Jesus, even though the story adds a bunch of stuff that isn’t a part of the original Jesus myth.
I like the distinction that the OP is trying to make between a Christ-figure like Neo and a Christ-representation like Aslan, and reading through the arguments is interesting. So I thought I’d throw this out there.
About 10 years ago I read a book called “Eli”. It was about a guy that was somehow transported into a parallel universe where the Messiah was born in the 70s in California (in a laundromat maybe? I seem to recall Baby Eli being put in a laundry basket instead of a manger). It led to some cute scenes, like the Gideon Bibles in the hotels were only the Old Testament, ha ha ha. (Interesting idea, decent enough book, but nothing great, if you are wondering.)
Anyway, the story paralleled the Gospels in interesting ways. Instead of water into wine at a wedding, it was water (or soda?) into beer at a barbecue. Instead of walking on water he walked through a hurricane (or tornado?) with out even the wind whipping his hair/clothes. He healed, he raised from the dead, he preached, he had both an inner circle of 12 and a larger circle of followers. I remember at the time being impressed by the way the “stoning of the adulterous woman” story was handled – something with a guy on death row in prison showing the difference between mercy and justice. Wish I could remember that part. They ended up in Atlanta, site of the largest temple in the world, and Eli even knocked over the stacks of merchandise in a rage (like the money-changers story). In the end he’s betrayed, killed, and rises again.
So is Eli a Christ-figure? Is he Christ? He’s definitely a fictional representation of Jesus, and the story follows the Bible. Within the story itself he IS the Messiah. While I did not particularly like the whole framing story of the guy getting sent into a parallel universe (I believe it was a coma from a car accident, maybe), it did highlight what was going on, as he would realize what was happening around him.
I would almost challenge there are 4 different “types” we could discuss. 1) Actual Jesus, whether it’s the Bible or even a historical fiction type book/movie that tries to follow the Bible. 2) Fictional representation of Jesus, like Aslan or Eli, which is putting Jesus, as close to real as possible, in another setting. 3) Fictional Jesus, would just be putting a Jesus-ish character into any other setting, and doing whatever you want with him, not trying to make him actually Jesus. 4) Christ-figure, and that, of course, is a character in fiction that is a Savior-type, like the aforementioned Neo, Superman, etc. Nothing to do with Christianity or even necessarily religion at all.
Quoth Spark240:
There’s no separate third party that I recall, but the scene I mentioned in Horse does have Aslan being Three. The main character is on a foggy road, and talking with someone beside him he can’t see (and who he doesn’t yet realize is the Lion). He asks “Who are you?”, and gets the answer “Myself. Myself. Myself.”, in three different voices.
Just to throw in another analogy from another religion, Superman could be said to be a Rama-like figure (perfect man) but Krishna is not Rama-like, he is Rama (Vishnu). Following Christian theology, if Jesus shows up again, he wont have the same body and may have a different name but it is still the same character.
Hope I didn’t mess up. I don’t follow either of these religions.
In these threads, why do people keep referring to Lewis as “Jack” (first name only)? I don’t see references to his colleague “John”(Ronald Reuel Tolkien) anywhere in the LOTR threads.
Lewis didn’t change any details? Everything he wrote came straight out of the New Testament? Including the part about Jesus being a lion named Aslan who died while fighting against an evil witch?
Now that is pretty subtle, but it does strike me as the kind of thing Lewis would do on purpose for just that reason.
If I was trying to make the OP’s point, I’d have looked to direct bits, as in Dawn Treader,
I don’t disagree with the basic idea that Aslan=Christ. I just think critics of Liam Neeson, on the basis of these remarks, are way too sensitive, and are themselves giving short shrift to the multiplicity of levels on which the story can operate.
To put it another way: a new work of fiction centered on a divine/man named “Jesus” need not be just about Christ, either.
Those are additions not contradictions.
Lewis was known to his friends as “Saint Jack.”
I have to agree with this. Being a Christ-figure is not mutually exclusive with being Christ. Christ is a member of the broader category of Christ-figure. You might argue that Christ can’t be a Christ-allegory, although that argument also treads on very thin ground when you get into alternate fictional versions of Christ.
Are you being intentionally obtuse with these questions? I and others in this thread have specifically addressed them.
Question: In the movie “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure” did they go back in time and pick up Napoleon, or did they go back in time and pick up a Napoleon-figure?
Are you unable to accept the fact that some people disagree with your opinion on this subject?
What opinion am I putting forth? I’m simply stating the factual nature of Lewis’ writing - that he took a character/figure from one historical/fictional setting, and put him in one of his own. That point is simply a fact.
An opinion could be “Lewis did it poorly - Jesus would never act that way” or “I think X, Y and Z are fair and true to Jesus as we understand him, but A, B and C are stretches”.
The alternative opinion is that for the most part there is little meaningful difference between the concept of a Christ-like figure on the one hand and an entirely fictional or fantastic depiction of a figure imbued with characteristics or imputed identity of Christ doing and saying thongs and appearing in forms and settings entirely imagined by the author.
Regarding the Trinity in Narnia:
Aslan is the Trinitarian Godhead.
God the Father: referred to in Narnia as “the Emperor-Over-the-Sea.” He reigns from the land past the edge of the world. Toward the end of Dawn Treader, the characters see this land (“Aslan’s Country”) off in the distance beyond the sunrise. At the beginning of The Silver Chair, Eustace and Jill are summoned to this country, and Aslan is there. Aslan is the Emperor-Over-the-Sea.
The Son: Aslan the lion, who sacrifices himself for the traitor and rises again to defeat evil, is the second person of the Trinity. He does not rule Narnia from beyond the sea; he walks around Narnia, encouraging and instructing. This is the Aslan who leads the Narnians in battle or guides Shasta to Archenland.
The Holy Spirit: the Holy Spirit is known as the breath of God that indwells his believers. During the creation of Narnia, Aslan breathes on the new creatures to turn them into talking animals (i.e. to ensoul them). In LWW, Aslan breathes on Narnians who have been turned to stone to restore them to life. In Silver Chair, the children ride to Narnia from the End of the World on Aslan’s breath. There are also many other intances of Aslan breathing on characters to give them comfort and encouragement. Aslan’s breath=the Holy Spirit.
So my argument is that, the more familiar you are with Trinitarian doctrine, the more obviously you see all three Persons of the trinity in the character of Aslan.
Ah, thanks, Skammer! I do see.