have you heard/seen the :"Superman and jesus" comparisons?

I watched the 1979(?) version again the other day and was stunned to hear Marlon Brando speak of sending his "only son" to the earth and his wife objecting that humans would worship him as a god.

I had not noticed that before.

 

I'd be careful trying to get Christian meanings out of any mass audience movies. I think we downsize the Lord Jesus when we liken the man of steel to Him.

Christians love to read subliminal meanings into culture. Sometimes i think it's so we don't feel so, to use a KJV word, peculiar.

 

In the early 80's I attended a private, Baptist run, Christian school for 9th and 10th grade. It was the opinion of the staff there that Superman was the devil and was created all those years ago to lead us all to hell Superman can fly, the devil is the prince of the air.... SuperDevil. Now you tell me he's Jesus? We have to get on the same page folks.

 

It's quite well-known that Superman was a creation of 2 Jewish teenagers in the late 30's. With what was beginning to take place in central Europe, and still much antisemitism in the US, the idea of Messiah would have had a great deal of appeal. Accepting Jesus Christ would mean ejection from their families and communities-- supposing they ever began to consider that. Since comics are counterfeit anything anyway, and that was a talent they were developing, why not? They wouldn't be turning their back on Judaism and/or their Jewish roots by thinking up a new 'testament' that could not be taken seriously by anyone old enough to read it; and with fantasy being the longings within us coming to some type of expression, the idea was there. The right idea, the right time and the right place were all there to create a symbolic character of messianic power to right wrongs and use that power for good-- and, of course, for them to make some money doing it. As to whether they considered the story of Jesus, I don't now if Siegel or Schuster ever said, but I tend to doubt it. Yet since the basic idea was Messiah, it would seem there's no way to avoid some parallels, even if they had known nothing at all about Him.