SUPERMAN BIBLE STUDY

Today there are superheroes for every possible stretch of the imagination. These fanciful heroes are able to do things far beyond the powers of mortal man. However, when you speak of superheroes, there is only one who can stop a speeding bullet, is faster than a locomotive and can leap tall buildings in a single bound. We are speaking, of course, of the one, the only Superman!

One of the most interesting things about Superman is his history. The term Superman is not originally an American concept. It was an idea first developed by Nazi Germany nearly a century ago. To understand this concept, we need to understand what happened in Germany and all the rest of Europe over 150 years ago. In fact, the Apostle Paul warned of the evil that would be brought about by such a system in the New Testament in…

I Timothy 6:20-21

O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called: Which some professing have erred concerning the faith. Grace be with thee. Amen.

To better understand what Paul is talking about when he mentions a “science falsely so called”, we need to travel back in time to 1850 and meet an Englishman by the name of Charles Darwin. He is the man who, although not a scientist himself, developed the so-called “scientific” theory of evolution. He became convinced that all man had not been created by God but had instead evolved from monkeys. He wrote a book entitled THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES BY MEANS OF NATURAL SELECTION, OR THE PRESERVATION OF FAVOURED RACES IN THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. This book came out at a time when much of Europe had turned from God and his study took the continent by storm. He himself said about this theory that…

"I am quite conscious that my speculations run quite beyond the bounds of true science."

Once you turn away from the God of creation, the problem is not that you don’t believe in anything anymore. Rather, you will begin to believe in anything, regardless of how ridiculous it may seem to the rest of us. For instance, Francis Galton, a disciple of Darwin, would take evolution to the next logical level and developed the science of Eugenics, the breeding of humans to improve the species. Just as farmers have for years bred better cattle, Galton decided we could breed better humans.

Friedrich Nietzche was another disciple of Darwin in Germany. He devised the term “Uberman” or Superman, who was a man who had evolved to the point that he was above all moral law. This ungodly philosophy would ultimately drive him insane and he spent his last years in a mental institution. In his own words,…

"God is dead! I teach you the superman. Man is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him?”

In 1932, another young German fell into this pit of deception also and the world would never be the same again. Adolph Hitler was a disciple of Darwin, Galton and Nietzche who wrote “MEIN KAMPF” or “MY STRUGGLE” taking his title from that of Darwin’s original work. He finally came to the conclusion that…

“Christianity is an invention of sick brains. The war will be over one day. I shall then consider that my life's final task will be to solve the religious problem.”

Hitler also took the next logical step in this line of evolutionary thought. He made it his life’s goal to create a race of German Supermen. In his own words, he decided to take evolution and apply it to world politics.

Along the way to his Nazi utopia, he came to the conclusion that he could speed up the process even more by systematically eliminating the inferior races of the world. His first target was the Jews. Thus the Nazi Holocaust was born in 1933. By the time that the Nazi Holocaust was over, he had engineered the killing of over 6 million Jews.

Rumors of the Holocaust soon reached America. There were two young Jewish men, Jerome Siegel and Joseph Schuster, who lived in Ohio and attended American public schools. They developed Superman as a comic book character in 1938 as a response to these rumors. In their first story, they made Superman a villain like Hitler, trying to take over the world. They revised their concept to make him a truly godly hero. Superman was a mixture of the Old Testament character Samson and their idea of what the Messiah would be like. Thus the concept of the American version of Superman entered the world of the printing press media.

By 1951, Hollywood took notice. They chose actor George Reeves and called the show THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN. Thus did this new hero enter the television universe. The first episode of this series was called SUPERMAN ON EARTH.

The story line of this first episode runs as follows and this particular episode could be called a study of salvation. In outer space, a father sends his son to Earth to save the child’s life, He is later saved from the burning spaceship and raised by a kindly couple. As a young man, Clark Kent gets a job at the Daily Planet. As Superman, he saves a man falling from a dirigible. In fact, in the original story, the names of Superman’s earthly parents were not Jonathan and Martha but Joseph and Mary!

Do you begin to see some parallels to the gospel story. In heaven, God sent His son to earth to save all of us. While Clark Kent is an imaginary character, Jesus Himself is the real Superman, God in the flesh, who died to save us all!

Superman adventures in the world of electronic media did not end here either. In 1978, SUPERMAN THE MOVIE, opened to rave reviews all over America, with Christopher Reeves in the lead role. The following article gives some fascinating facts about this movie. It comes from an internet website dedicated to seeking out ways to use electronic media to teach about Jesus Christ and other biblical concepts. The website is called www.hollywoodjesus.com.

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Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, both Jewish, invented Superman in the late 1930's as a typically Jewish mythical hero. Jews were being oppressed by Adolph Hitler at that time and Superman or Super-Jew was their answer to Hitler. The "S" on Superman's shirt also stands for the last names of his creators. Superman comes from the planet Krypton -which sounds like "Tikkum olam" a Hebrew concept of restoring the world's wrongs.

Joanne, the wife of the late Jerry Siegel, says she had often heard about the Jewish connection to Superman. Jerry Siegel is listed in the book Jewish 100 as one of the 100 most influential Jews of all time. He is listed along with Moses, Henry Kissinger and Steven Spielberg.

The Jerusalem Post quotes Daniel Schifrin of the US National Federation for Jewish Culture as saying, "The older I got the more I saw there was something profoundly Jewish about Superman, that he was one of us."  He further states, "Like Clark Kent we've been Diaspora Jews for so long, being viewed as timid and bookish when underneath there are fierce Hebrew warriors doing God's work."

The 1978 movie was an 80 million dollar blockbuster - a phenomenon in its day. It was written by Mario Puzo (The God Father) and David Newman (Shena) and, of course, based on the comic book series by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. Jor-El is Superman’s father. (played by Marlon Brando, the God Father himself)

The movie Superman essentially retells the life of Jesus Christ-the ultimate Super Jew.  Richard Donner, the director of Superman, had just completed filming The Omen (1976) which was a film about the Antichrist.

When Superman was released in Communist China in 1985 the Worker's Daily called Superman "a brave hero of incomparable strength who clearly distinguishes what to love and hate and culls strength from weakness."  Sounds very Christ-like to me.

It is interesting to note that the Hebrew word for God is EL and both Superman and his father have EL in their names. In the comic books "Kal-El" is Kryptonian for "Star Child" -which ties into the Child of the Christmas Star.

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Superman would return to the small screen in 1993 in a new series entitled LOIS AND CLARK, THE NEW ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN starring Dean Cane. This series was followed by another show in 2001, SMALLVILLE, with Tom Welling in the title role. There is not a young person out there who does not know whom Superman is. This can be a natural bridge to sharing the gospel and other biblical concepts with young people all around us. For instance…

Mark 15:33-35

And when the sixth hour was come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And some of them that stood by, when they heard it, said, Behold, he calleth Elias.

The word “Eli” in this verse means “my God”. As we have already seen, the Hebrew word for God is “El”. The Kryptonian name for Superman’s father is “Jor-El”. If you check the Hebrew dictionary of any Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, you will see that the nearest word to this is “Joel”, which means “Jehovah is God”. Superman’s Kryptonian name is “Ka-El”. In the Strong’s, your nearest word to this is “Kadmel”, which means “The presence of God”. Superman’s arch enemy is Lex Luthor and the nearest name to this one in the Bible is Lucifer. Armed with all this knowledge, anyone can use this media hero to teach the concept of Christ to anyone they meet!

In fact, many years ago I heard a sermon called the Sanctified Superman. This preacher explained that we Christians are all like Clark Kent. We have a secret identity that we maintain all through our lives. However, whenever Clark Kent encounters evil, he rushes into a closet and out comes Superman. When we Christians encounter evil, we also need to rush into our prayer closets.

When we come out, we are Sanctified Supermen. We have a big S on our chests. That S stands for Saved. That S stands for Sanctified and we have this S on our chest because we are filled with the Holy Spirit. In fact, when we are in God’s will, nothing can harm us but that big, ugly green S called the kryptonite of Sin!

There’s another aspect to this we need to consider also. While today we may not be a “strange visitor from another planet with powers and abilities far beyond mortal men”, one day we will be. One day soon, we will shed this mortal shell and become immortal ourselves. Jesus Himself said that one day all of his followers would be like the angels.

On that day, we will not have this evil kryptonite of Sin to deal with anymore. On that day, we will no longer have to deal with this weak fleshly body we now abide in. On that day, sickness and death will be but a fleeting memory. On that day, when we finally leave our native planet and enter our new heavenly home, we will be the ones who are “stronger than a locomotive, faster than a speeding bullet, and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound”!

Yes, Superman is indeed a Christ like super hero and we should all be more like that ourselves. In fact, just last year, the Entertainment Ministry developed the SUPERMAN BIBLE STUDIES, just to use this media hero as a tool to draw people closer to God. Keep in mind that Superman is not Jesus Christ. In fact, the Apostle Matthew warned us about this very thing in…

Matthew 24:25-27

Behold, I have told you before. Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not. For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

One day soon, we will be able to lift our heads and say, “Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s Jesus Christ!”