Film Director: Jesus Was Son of a Roman Rapist

According to The Hollywood Reporter, film director Paul Verhoeven is soon to release a book that is claimed to be a new "biography" of Jesus Christ. In this new publication, Verhoeven feels that he successfully proves that Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ, was raped by a Roman soldier during the Jewish uprising in Galilee and the boy Jesus was the result of that attack. No virgin birth for Christ, but instead a rape.

Verhoeven is best known as the director of the films "Basic Instinct," the Arnold Schwarzenegger film "Total Recall," as well as the spectacular flop "Showgirls." The Dutch director reports that he's had a "lifelong ambition" to make a movie about Jesus and hopes this book will spur interest in his film ideas. Verhoeven spent 20 years writing the tome and this has led Catholic League President Bill Donohue to scoff at the claims as being overwrought and unproven even with 20 years of research. Donohue says they are "laughable" claims and wonders why 20 years of research only led to a claim that Christ is "probably" descended from a rapist.

"Here we go again with idle speculation grounded in absolutely nothing," Donohue told FOXNews.com. "He has no empirical evidence to support his claim, which is why they say 'may have.'"

"He's been working 20 years trying to sell this argument and hasn't come up with anything. This won't make a dent with Christians, nor with scholars somewhat wary of the biblical account. It's a European version of Hollywood. He should go back to Sharon Stone's legs."

Verhoeven has been known to haunt several conferences and seminars, one called The Jesus Seminar, that have been put on since the 1980's that call into question Jesus' divinity and the legitimacy of any miracles traditionally connected to him.

As Donohue told FoxNews:

"The Jesus Seminar was big in the '80s and somewhat in the '90s," Donohue said. "They have been very controversial in challenging the accepted biblical account of Jesus. The goal is to question the divinity of Christ -- to say he was nothing but a happy carpenter who worked at Lowe's or Home Depot."

But the claims that Jesus was the product of a Roman rapist is not new and have been around since the 1st or 2nd century. So, Verhoeven's claims are hardly new. In fact, this old-news aspect of this Jesus claim causes one to more easily accept the idea that the film world has run out of new ideas. And they aren't just looking to some other country or a 20-year-old TV show to do a re-make on, now they're reaching back centuries!

(Photo credit: senseofcinema.com)