The Carpenter’s Son: A New Testament Scholar Discusses Controversial Depiction of Jesus
When I first saw the trailer for The Carpenter’s Son, the new film loosely based on Apocryphal Gospel of Thomas, I confess my heart sank a little. I am old enough to have lived through the furor surrounding The Last Temptation of Christ and far enough removed from that experience to believe Christian reactions to that film provided more heat than light. At least four people were burned badly in a terrorist attack at the Saint-Michel theater in Paris, and even though director Martin Scorsese, himself a Roman Catholic, professed sincere intentions in making the film, its script, adapted from a novel rather than the canonical gospels, triggered many viewers who had not even seen the film but were sufficiently horrified by summaries and descriptions of particular scenes to make death threats, boycott studios, and clutch all kinds of pearls.
A small but important difference between Last Temptation and The Carpenter’s Son is that the former was an adaptation of a novel while the latter is a loose adaptation of the Apocryphal Infancy Gospel of Thomas. I asked Dr. Jennifer Bashaw, Associate Professor of New Testament and Christian Ministry at Campbell University about the source material and why Christians have been interested throughout history in apocryphal depictions of Jesus. She likened the apocryphal gospels to modern day “fan fiction,” tales that depart from the established characters or plot of a known work in order to imaginatively investigate gaps in the narrative. Through the apocryphal gospels, Christian scholars and historians have been able to “trace theological development” or simply “see what different Christians were thinking and writing about” when Christianity was in its infancy.
I asked Dr. Bashaw, who is also an ordained American Baptist minister if she recommended the film for Christians and she was careful to qualify her answer by saying she recommended it for “certain kinds of Christian audiences,” recognizing that those only familiar with canonical representations of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph could find the film “disturbing” or “upsetting.” Despite the possibility of their triggering viewers, Dr. Bashaw sometimes shows selected scenes from films like Last Temptation to undergraduates in her Jesus in Film class. When she does so, she has students start by reading the canonical gospels so they have a basis for comparing a film’s representation. If a viewer does report to her being upset or disturbed by a depiction she offers to help them explore why they find the depiction triggering and what teachings about Jesus the film appears to question or contradict.
Is The Carpenter’s Son blasphemous? Dr. Bashaw declined to label it so, suggesting that there is no single, agreed-upon New Testament definition of blasphemy. Christians normally use the phrase to claim someone or something is saying something about God that is “not true.” From such a perspective, I suggested that it would be hard to label any artistic work “blasphemous,” since the artist is rarely claiming that what he is writing or filming is “true” in the same way the historian or theologian uses the word.
Some Christian viewers may also struggle with what Dr. Bashaw calls the “horror elements.” While she found fascinating the film’s portrait of Satan (the adversary) she also acknowledged that it would be easier to watch for those accustomed to supernatural horror tropes such as demonic possession. According to the MPAA, the film is rated “R” for “strong/bloody violent content and brief nudity.” The film is scheduled to be released in theaters November 14, 2025.
Watch the full interview with Dr. Bashaw at:
