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"When this child Jesus was five years old.... he was going through the village, and a child ran up and banged into his shoulder. Jesus was aggravated and said to him, 'You will go no further on your way.' And right away the child fell down and died.... The parents of the dead child came to Joseph and blamed him, saying 'Since you have such a child you cannot live with us in the village. Or teach him to bless and not to curse—for he is killing our children!'”[2]
What kind of Jesus is this? At first glance, this may strike readers as shocking, and seemingly at odds with the Jesus of the four canonical gospels. Where does this come from? In early Christianity, narrative gaps in circulating stories of Jesus sometimes led to the development of apocryphal texts, which filled in those gaps. The Infancy Gospel of Thomas (hereafter IGT), quoted above, is our earliest known apocryphal writing concerning the child Jesus, starting at age 5 and ending in the Temple at age 12. There are ongoing discussions among scholars as to the purpose of this text, as well as its provenance, textual history, and development over the centuries. While this post does not have the space to wade through these nuances, IGT has been covered by several scholars in recent decades, and appears to be a growing interest in academia.[3]
The debt the film owes to IGT is directly acknowledged from its initial announcement onward.[4] There are several variations of IGT over the centuries in terms of length, content, and language, but some of the more common stories / episodes from the text include a young Jesus molding birds out of clay, which come to life (perhaps echoing God's forming of Adam), multiple stories of Jesus (quite literally) schooling his Jewish instructors with his advanced knowledge (paralleled in other apocryphal works, such as the Epistle to the Apostles), a story of a boy falling off a roof and dying, only to be brought back by child Jesus to prove to the parents that Jesus had not pushed him off, another story of Jesus extending a piece of wood for Joseph that had been cut too short, and another story of Jesus carrying water in his cloak for Mary. The narrative arc of the text sees Jesus going from cursing (be it other children, townspeople, or his rabbinical teachers) to blessing and healing, again, culminating with the story from Luke's gospel of Jesus at age 12 in the Temple. The story quoted above of the child who bumps into Jesus typically appears early in the IGT manuscripts. While there are other stories that come to be associated with this tradition, many of these appear to be the core tales.
It is worth noting that The Carpenter's Son (hereafter TCS) is not the first time elements of the apocryphal text have been adapted for film in recent years: readers may recall the 2016 film The Young Messiah, which tells the story of a young boy Jesus in Egypt with Mary and Joseph, while he wrestles with his identity and his developing abilities. Brief spoilers for the first few minutes of that film follow: the above-quoted story is adapted, but instead of depicting Jesus cursing and killing the child who bumps into him, the boy's death is attributed to Satan (whom only Jesus can see), who makes the boy trip and fall on a fruit in the street. There is also a scene in which Jesus brings to life a bird on the beach that has died (echoing the clay birds story), as well as a scene where Jesus essentially teaches his teacher in Alexandria, again echoing elements from IGT. The film was based on the 2005 novel by Anne Rice (of Vampire Chronicles fame), Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt, which Rice acknowledges was itself inspired in part by IGT.[5]
While Rice and Young Messiah tended to adapt the IGT stories of Jesus cursing in a way that shifted blame to Satan, TCS will likely lean into these elements to highlight the horror. Some may recall the 2019 film Brightburn, which took the idea of Superman (a figure like him, not the character specifically), who is normally depicted as a hero or savior who uses his powers for good, and flipped the story on its head: film posters had a tagline that emphasized, "HE'S NOT HERE TO SAVE THE WORLD."[6] The upcoming TCS film sounds and looks like it will be taking a similar approach. To be fair, this is not the first film to depict horror in connection with the life of Jesus; we may argue that Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ could classify as horror (including, beyond the graphic death of Jesus, demonic jump-scares and horrific glimpses of Satan). We may also argue that The Last Temptation of Christ contains horror elements, such as (spoiler!) the scene in which Jesus rips the heart out of his chest and holds it in his hands.
What makes TCS different, and what aspects of the film will mark it as "horror?" For your patience, dear reader, here now is the film's official synopsis: "The Carpenter’s Son tells the dark story of a family hiding out in Roman Egypt. The son, known only as ‘the Boy’, is driven to doubt by another mysterious child and rebels against his guardian, the Carpenter, revealing inherent powers and a fate beyond his comprehension. As he exercises his own power, the Boy and his family become the target of horrors, natural and divine."[7] Filmed in Greece, the aforementioned cast will include Cage, "playing the Carpenter, FKA Twigs will be playing the Mother, and the young Noah Jupe (most recently seen in A Quiet Place, Part II) will be playing the role of The Boy."[8] Whether Joseph, Mary, and Jesus will be explicitly referred to by name is unknown. At the end of August 2025, the first teaser was released, and by early September, the film was rated R for "strong/bloody violent content, and brief nudity," without elaboration.[9] Even before this, the film had drawn some criticism from religious circles from its initial announcement onward.[10]
Why am I covering this film here? For three reasons. First, as the title of the blog indicates, my academic work and research involves early Christian writings, especially apocryphal texts from the 2nd century onward, in conversation with the New Testament canon as well as other forms of material culture that tell us about the ways Christianity (or early "Christianities") changed and developed in Late Antiquity and beyond. I was first introduced to the IGT text almost two decades ago by Bart D. Ehrman's Lost Scriptures, which contained excerpts (and in some cases full texts) of early apocryphal writings. My intention with this post, this blog, and my own work is not to offend or attack persons of faith (I myself hold a Christian background and continue to be a practicing Christian alongside my work as an academic), but rather to use all forms of available materials: textual, archaeological, and otherwise, to elucidate the lives of early Christians.
Second, I am interested in the ways in which apocrypha has been adapted and used over the centuries in a variety of contexts. Interestingly, the Infancy stories that began in IGT traditions made their way into Islamic and Jewish texts from early on; a story of Jesus bringing clay birds to life from IGT, as well as stories of Mary known from another apocryphal text, the Protoevangelium of James (or Infancy Gospel of James), end up in chapters of the Qur'an, as well as in a medieval Jewish text, the Toledot Yeshu, which contains related material.[11] IGT was so popular from early Christianity onward that it grew, was edited, adapted, and took on new stories and expansions in the form of the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, the Syriac Infancy Gospel, the History of Joseph the Carpenter, Arabic Infancy Gospel, the Life of John the Baptist, and other Infancy texts from Late Antiquity on. Christian artwork over the centuries has also depicted scenes from the various Infancy traditions.
Even still today, as evidenced by this upcoming film as well as Rice's book and its 2016 adaptation, Young Messiah, the traditions are still clearly being discussed, adapted, and expanded. For a person of faith concerned about the film or the ancient text, one need not accept IGT as "Biblically accurate" to study the ways in which apocryphal stories have influenced (and clearly continue to influence) culture. It may be interesting to compare and contrast Young Messiah with The Carpenter's Son once the latter has been released.
Third, my other interest in this film is the fact that very few stories from apocryphal texts have been adapted into film (or any media). There was a 1951 film, Quo Vadis, which draws on an episode from the apocryphal Acts of Peter, in which Peter encounters the risen Jesus on the road to Rome, where Peter will be crucified. There is also a short faith-based documentary on the apocryphal Jesus and Abgar correspondence, and a graphic novel that takes partial inspiration from the Harrowing of Hell as portrayed in the Gospel of Nicodemus.[12] But beyond these, and Young Messiah (which also includes material about Mary from Inf. Gos. Jas.), there are few adaptations of Christian apocrypha. Thus, it is quite a rarity to have two films about a single apocryphal text to compare, in this case, how and in what ways Young Messiah and TCS adapt the same material.
Finally, turning back to TCS itself, for those who are not spoiler-conscious, what does the teaser trailer potentially reveal about the film, and what might it be drawing on for horror material in the IGT tradition? Will TCS just use the concept of the text (which, it should be added, has a variety of translations and editions, and no original manuscript or "autograph") without drawing from any specific stories? From the teaser trailer alone, it is hard to tell. The teaser clocks in at only 20 seconds or so, and we are only given a few glimpses of characters. The teaser shows brief shots of Joseph ("the Carpenter") in the desert, a grieving Mary ("the mother") being comforted by three other women, and what appears to be a demon or a possessed person crying out near Joseph. Inter-cut with these shots are a couple shots of a shrouded body, which itself cries out. Beyond this, the trailer reveals little.
In the process of writing this piece, however, a second teaser trailer was released. A few seconds longer than the first, it includes several of the same shots, in addition to a scene of Joseph crying out next to a donkey and a body lying face-down (wearing blue and white), a shot of what appears to be the "other boy" (evidently the film's version of Satan) influencing Jesus near a small body of water (who turns toward the camera while a snake emerges from his mouth), a shot of Roman crosses, a red sky, a mass of twisting bodies reminiscent of a scene out of Dante's Inferno, the "other boy" hitting Joseph, a crown of thorns laid at the feet of the shrouded body, and more shots from the first trailer. We do get some narration in this trailer, too. Cage says, "Pray. Find the strength to bear against Satan." A male voice (presumably Jesus) asks, "What does Satan look like?" Joseph answers, "Like people amongst us." The boy responds, "Have you ever seen it?", ending with the demon(?) wailing at Joseph.
While the trailer does not appear to depict any specific moments from IGT, the teasers and the plot summary do provide some hints at the film's trajectory. The film's summary describes it as being set while the family is "hiding out in Roman Egypt," which aligns with the context of IGT. The summary further describes another "mysterious child" who drives Jesus ("the Boy") to "doubt" as he wrestles with his "inherent powers" in the midst of the family encountering horrors. Unlike Young Messiah and TCS, Satan does not appear in IGT, nor do demons or visions, but the upcoming film appears to be bringing in those elements to further the "horror take." What the teasers also seem to show is Joseph receiving visions of Jesus' future (or perhaps Satan tempting young Jesus with visions) in the form of the burial shroud, the crown of thorns, and a grieving Mary. Unlike Brightburn, where the Superman-like figure uses his powers against humanity, Jesus in these trailers does not (yet) appear to be using his abilities for ill gain. The film may be drawing on the traditional interpretation of Jesus in IGT as a "holy terror" or a "trickster" (an image persuasively argued against by Tony Burke),[13] but this is unclear from the teasers, in which the horror aspects appear tied more-so to Satan's involvement than Jesus' own actions, but time will tell how the movie handles these elements.
As of mid-late September 2025, TCS does not yet have a firm release date, with trailers only specifying "Fall 2025 A.D.". Sometime after the film's premiere, it may be worth returning to the text to take a closer look at exactly what it adapts from the apocryphal traditions, and perhaps from the canonical New Testament as well. Bear in mind that the burial shroud and crown of thorns, for instance, do not appear in IGT, as they are part of Jesus' later life. Thus, what the teaser trailers appear to show is a blending of the apocryphal with the canonical, as well as common horror elements of films today. Undoubtedly, the film will draw both criticism and praise from a variety of different circles. For the purposes of this blog, however, the interest lies in how the film is using and adapting the Infancy tradition(s), as well as how it furthers the conversations about early Christian texts and early Christianity as a whole. The Jesus of IGT moves from cursing to blessing; will "the Boy" of TCS go and do likewise?
Endnotes
[1] Nathan’s ‘The Carpenter’s Son’; Black Bear Launching Sales On Christian Horror Title At Cannes,” Deadline, May 7, 2024, https://deadline.com/2024/05/nicolas-cage-fka-twigs-noah-jupe-holy-family-lotfy-nathan-the-carpenters-son-1235905229/.
[2] The Infancy Gospel of Thomas 1, 4 in Bart D. Ehrman, Lost Scriptures: Books That Did Not Make It into the New Testament (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 58.
[3] See Tony Burke, The Infancy Gospel of Thomas: The Text, its Origins, and its Transmission (PhD diss., University of Toronto, 2001); Tony Burke, De Infantia Iesu Evangelium Thomae Graecae (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010); Mgr. Jeroným Klimeš, “Was Pseudo-Thomas a Child? Psychological Profile of the Author of the Pseudo-Thomas’s Apocryphal Gospel” (Charles University, 2010), https://www.klimes.us/mojeprace/pseudothomas/pseudothomas.pdf; Reidar Aasgaard, The Childhood of Jesus: Decoding the Apocryphal Infancy Gospel of Thomas (Cambridge: James Clarke & Co., 2010); Stephen J. Davis, Christ Child: Cultural Memories of a Young Jesus (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2014); Tony Burke, The Syriac Tradition of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas: A Critical Edition and English Translation (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2017); Jonah Bissell, “School Buildings in Mediterranean Antiquity: Notes on the Provenance of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas,” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 43, no. 3 (2020): 303–320; The Infancy Gospel of Thomas, eds. D. Cielontko, T. Nicklas, and J. N. Bremmer (Leuven: Peeters, 2025).
[4] Grobar, “Nicolas Cage, FKA Twigs, Noah Jupe & Souheila Yacoub To Star.”
[5] Anne Rice, Christ the Lord Out of Egypt: A Novel (New York: Knopf, 2005), 226–27 (PDF).
[6] Brightburn (2019) poster, IMDb, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7752126/mediaviewer/rm4105201408/?ref_=tt_ov_i.
[7] Grobar, “Nicolas Cage, FKA Twigs, Noah Jupe & Souheila Yacoub To Star.”
[8] Philip Chrysopoulos, “Nicolas Cage’s ‘The Carpenter’s Son’ to Be Filmed in Greece,” Greek Reporter, September 9, 2024, https://greekreporter.com/2024/09/09/nicolas-cage-carpenters-son-greece-filming/.
[9] John Squires, “‘The Carpenter’s Son’ Starring Nicolas Cage Rated ‘R’ for Bloody Violent Content and Nudity,” Bloody Disgusting, September 11, 2024, https://bloody-disgusting.com/movie/3899669/the-carpenters-son-starring-nicolas-cage-rated-r-for-bloody-violent-content-nudity/.
[10] Reddit user u/[username], “The Carpenter’s Son, Regardless of Faith, Is an Incredible Film,” r/movies, September 2025, https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/1ndcjcj/the_carpenters_son_regardless_of_faith_is_an/; Matthew J. Milliner, “Nic Cage’s The Carpenter’s Son: Bible Horror or Blasphemy?” The Bible Artist, September 2025, https://www.thebibleartist.com/post/nic-cage-s-the-carpenter-s-son-bible-horror-or-blasphemy.
[11] See, for instance, Sura 3:49, 5:110, 19:29–34, and elsewhere in the Qur’an. For a rough translation of the Toledot Yeshu, see “Translation: Story of Jesus,” Wikisource, https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Translation:Story_of_Jesus.
[12] Creative Orthodox, Anastasis: The Harrowing of Hades (North Haven, CT: Creative Orthodox, 2017).
[13] Burke, The Infancy Gospel of Thomas: The Text, its Origins, and its Transmission.
