Story of Jesus Through Iranian Eyes

LS: Any plans for a movie that would help the dialogue between Muslims and Jews? 

NT: This film is about Jesus, who is the last Jewish prophet. The audience has to realize that Iranians have been living with Jews and Christians for centuries. Jews were saved by Iranian kings. This was always their home, and it still is their home. Also, the first Christian church was built in Iran. The first Christian tribe that became Christian, the first tribe — was the Armenians. Armenians were part of the Persian Empire ... they found comfort living with the Iranians.

LS: What is your hope for the movie?

NT: The film is an excuse to sit down and talk. Iran is so consistently demonized. Once an American visits Iran, they know it's a different story. So, how do we export our thinking? It's the movies. This is a film for students and for practicing Christians, for people to become curious, and go investigate more.

My hope for the movie was, and is, and will be, to make people think about how God sees the prophets, how God talks about Jesus in the Koran. What was the main message of Jesus? And what was censored out of history? Part of the message of Jesus was censored out, which was the coming of the next prophets.

If you listen to what Jesus said, Jesus talked about the Prophet Mohammad, many, many times. And it was eliminated in the Gospels and the Bibles that [made it through] history. In 325, the Council of Nice was out to destroy all the other Gospels. One of those Gospels was the Gospel of Barnabas, which I used in great detail.

LS: And what did that say that was left out?

NT: It had a lot of sermons of Jesus that you do not see in the Bible; miracles, and at least a hundred references to the Prophet Mohammad, about his coming. It's one of the biggest censorships of history. So, I thought somebody should say this, and then others might disagree, say, "Ahhh, this could not be! This is blasphemy!" But it's OK — this is the 21st century. It's time for information. It's time for communication. They can go check it out.