I think its really important to note, that Scripture only gives us a very minute glimpse of Jesus' earthly life. He was here for 33 years, and the last 3 were in ministry...but there's many long stretches of time between His various parables and miracles in the Gospels. The only consistent thing time-wise, is that His final entry into Jerusalem, mock trial, and execution all happened within a week, leaving so much room for earlier things to happen beforehand. To paraphrase John 21:25, "If all His actions were written, I suppose that even the whole world wouldn't contain all the books for them."
The concept of Jesus' supposed descent into darkness between His death and resurrection, is something many believe was first sourced from Matthew 12:40: "For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so for three days and three nights the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth." The notion was later popularized as part of the Apostles' Creed, a 4th-century document which contains both "ta katotata" (Greek for "the lowest") and "inferos" (Latin for "those below"). Both may also be loosely translated as "underworld", similar to the ancient "sheol" or "hades", terms which have served as a partial inspiration for the modern English word "hell". You can obviously make up your own mind about what you want to believe, but there is at least minor support for some kind of spiritual activity that possibly occurred, while our Savior's body was buried in that tomb. We'll probably never know for sure this side of Heaven, but I'm still curious to see Mel Gibson's take on it.
So imagine if somebody made up a story about what happened to you for three days when others thought you went missing in a forest. What if your time in the forest was a personal and growing life experience that was really important to you. What if that fictional story others promote about you during those three days does not come close to representing the truth of what happened to you and is actually an insult to your experience. This is the problem with turning the Scriptures into fables as the Bible warns us about. Anyway, just because Scripture says that there are not enough books in the world to write all the actions of Jesus does not mean we get to just fill in the blank with our imaginations. One is making fantasy and art an idol god over the truth.
It’s like saying, “Hey, I don’t care that 2 + 2 = 4.“ “My reimagining of 2 + 2 = 5 or something else.”
Another problem is that no actor or picture can accurately convey the actual appearance of Jesus Christ. That would be like somebody promoting an image of you as a black person or Chinese person with different colored hair and claiming that is you. Then they make a whole movie about you based on this false image of you and they make up ridiculous things in the story that insults the truth of your life. Surely you would not be happy because that is not how you actually look, and how you actually lived precisely. Imagine how God feels seeing we are to worship Him in spirit, and in TRUTH (according to the words of Jesus). After the Passion came out, it was either Billy Graham or another Christian who said that when they prayed, they imagined an image of Jim Caviezel in their minds as Jesus when they prayed. Such films can make people think that is the truth of the Bible, when in reality it is not.
Side Note:
Matthew 12:40 says “whale” in the KJV and not “sea monster.” I trust the KJV because the Modern Bible Movement started by Westcott and Hort has its influenced by Unitarians, liberals, and Catholics. George Vance Smith was a Unitarian and he was on the Revised Version committee of Westcott and Hort. Smith wrote of his success in changing “God” to “He” in 1 Timothy 3:16 in the Revised Version. Plus, Westcott and Hort employed deception with the Revised Version. It was supposed to be a KJV update, but it wasn’t one. It says in the half title page of the Revised Version that this is the version set forth in 1611, but it isn’t because they based it off of the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus NT Greek texts. 1 John 5:7, and many other verses went missing. Others were changed. Plus, the Vaticanus and Sinaitus have corrections all over them and they disagree with each other in thousands of places. Speaking of Catholics: Why would I want to see a film that comes from the spirit that is behind the whore of Babylon mentioned in Revelation 17? I wouldn’t. The Catholic Church has killed and martyred more Christians in history than any other religious organization. That is why the whore is drunk with the blood of the saints. No thanks.
Side Note 2:
1 John 2 talks about how we are not to love the world, and neither the things in this world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in them.
So this was a hard truth for me to accept in the Scriptures because I used to love worldly movies a lot. But my soul used to be grieved by all the sins being pushed upon me when I used to watch them. When I gave these films up, and only watched Christian films and educational documentaries, etcetera, I noticed that a spiritual veil was lifted from my eyes. I was able to see how many worship these films and make them into idols even though they may claim they worship Jesus Christ. But that is my journey, and I hope it to be the same for you (if you are truly concerned with worshiping the Lord in spirit, and in truth as Jesus said).