I always thought the film Turks Fruit (Turkish Delight – Paul Verhoeven, 1973) wasn’t all that! This of course could never been said out loud in certain company. De Vierde Man (The Fourth Man, 1983) is another one of those films that really didn’t quite do it for me. Soldaat van Oranje (Soldier of Orange, 1977) on the other hand is one of my alltime favorites and therefore a film I can quote from in multiple situations. (both Rutger Hauer and Jeroen Krabbé in a Dutch W.W.II epic underground resistance drama). Other mentionable Paul Verhoeven films are made in his Hollywood days and include classics such as Robocop (’87, – I saw a piece of it on TV the other day and it must have a scene I had never given that much attention when I was young, but which actually was quite beautiful. Furthermore I think its cult value is pretty strongly underlined -), Total Recall (’90, when Art School kids around me still thought they had to be like Joseph Beuys, guys like Paul Verhoeven and Oliver Stone (because of Wild Palms) were slowly making me see the light.), Basic Instinct (’92, that film’s so fucking great I’m not even going to explain why) and Starship Troopers (’97) about which I will only say this: Hell yeah!

Now my ‘oldest’ friend Vincent van D. gave me this book ‘Jezus van Nazaret’ (Jesus of Nazaret) by the great Paul Verhoeven for my birthday last year and took me to see the man debating with a handful of theologists and preachers in the Remonstrantse Kerk (of which I have told earlier on this blog) and it was just great to see how friendly everyone was, still a bit sceptic but pretty open minded and not at all judgemental. Now this last august I went on holidays and —finally—read the thing and it’s ace!

Now if you, like me, don’t need all the magic and hocus pocus to be all for a beautiful Godly kingdom and have always been looking for a truthful, human Jesus ‘Christ’ of Nazareth, this is your kind of book. Apart from making fucktastic films, Verhoeven was the sole non theologist allowed in the so called Jesus Seminar, a highly respected think tank of around seventy theologists, linguists and bible experts led by one Robert Funk (!), whose main aim was to free the historical figure Jesus of N. from the mythological biblical hero. Or, as Verhoeven likes to call it, free the bible from biblical-political spin added in (mainly) the years just after Jesus’ death by amongst many others Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. It’s fun to read how Verhoeven uses nothing but common sense (combined with a whole lot of knowledge of the sacred book, which he first gained as an adolescent intrigued by all kinds of forms of the supernatural) and is sort of a Hercule Poirot, or Lieutenant Columbo in search of the truth behind two thousand years of people taking a run with ancient texts. What is even more important is that once Paul has stripped the New Testament of its lies, slanter and ludicrous magical mumbo jumbo it leaves him with first a pretty exciting book on an underground revolutionary running from large scale opression and second the image of a man/god who is mostly nothing but pure love. A loving ‘god’ supporting a loving message. Not too bad for a religious book now is it?

Especially when you’re brought up in a slightly christian fashion and never knew where to exactly put your mixed feelings on the whole ‘godly’ aspect of Christianity (good – evil, guilt – forgiveness, love – hate, life – death), this is one hell of a read! Peter de K., I just KNOW you’re going to love this!!!