c. 1999 Religion News Service

UNDATED _ In biblical terms, the number 40 is full of significance.

The flood lasted for 40 days and 40 nights. The Israelites wandered in the wilderness for 40 years. Jesus was tempted for 40 days. And now Hollywood biographer Donald Spoto has written the book that’s been knocking around in his head for 40 years.”The Hidden Jesus: A New Life”(St. Martin’s Press) is the latest offering by the author of 17 celebrity biographies on the likes of Marlene Dietrich, Marilyn Monroe and James Dean. It is less a departure from his usual work, Spoto says, than a return to his roots.

Before he began sifting through the lives of Elizabeth Taylor and Tennessee Williams, Spoto was a theologian and biblical scholar.

He spent six years as a monk in a Roman Catholic teaching order before leaving to pursue graduate studies in the New Testament. He worked with two titans of biblical studies, Myles M. Bourke and Raymond E. Brown, earned his doctorate by the time he was 29 and taught theology for about 20 years before he began work as a biographer.

He gave up teaching, but he never gave up biblical studies. While he took notes on Laurence Olivier and Ingrid Bergman, he continued to study Scripture and nurture his religious life.

As he worked to illuminate the lives of Alfred Hitchcock and the House of Windsor, Spoto saw clouds gathering over the life of Jesus of Nazareth. He saw debunkers chipping away at the divinity of Jesus while zealots stripped him of his humanity. And finally Spoto had enough.

“Jesus is getting pretty bad press these days,” Spoto said by phone from his home in Los Angeles, “and there are two reasons for that.

“The first is the so-called political Christian right, which uses the word `Christian’ like a bludgeon to intimidate people into a moral posture. The second is a sort of sad observation, really, of what mainstream churches are not doing.

“Both of those camps are quick to talk about the moral and political issues, but no one is talking about Jesus of Nazareth. No one is talking about making oneself available to grace, no one is talking about prayer, about the risen Lord.

“Of course, there are people talking about these things,” he amended, “but it doesn’t get the press. I decided to use my forum as a popular writer to set forth the things that are of ultimate concern.”

What he sets forth are 250-odd pages of critical but faith-infused thinking about Jesus. Two important premises underlie his work and may be, for some readers, stumbling blocks. The first is his approach to Scripture, that it is, as he puts it, “the word of God in the words of men.” Spoto argues eloquently that language has its limits, especially in the best-intentioned attempts to describe the divine.

“Every time we write and speak, we are engaging in a symbolic activity,” he writes. “It is useless, therefore, to pretend that when we discuss the ultimately important things in human life and destiny, we can speak literally about what is exactly true or that one word or phrase or sentence accurately represents the full truth of what cannot be finally and forever expressed.”

The belief that all language is, by nature, metaphor, allows Spoto to embrace the work of leading biblical scholars who have concluded, among other things, that the virgin birth of Jesus is not to be literally understood and that he was most likely the eldest of seven children; that many details of the stories of Jesus’ birth impart more meaning than literal truth; that sexual matters should not be seen as the principal gauge of morality because Jesus had greater concerns and counted prostitutes among his friends; and that there is no legitimate barrier to women being priests.

Spoto’s second underlying premise is that Jesus of Nazareth, the historical person of then and there, is essential but not the essence of Jesus Christ, the saving presence of here and now.

“For the believer, the facts of Jesus’ past are not nearly so important as the reality of Jesus’ present _ and presence _ to, in and among us,” Spoto writes. And Spoto is a believer. His faith infuses this book; the reader is never left wondering what the author makes of any particular academic insight. This is true of all Spoto’s books, and he makes no apologies.

“People have read my biographies of Alfred Hitchcock or Ingrid Bergman, for example, and they say, `Oh, your love for your subject is so plain!’ Well, how could it not be? Why undertake a book except to praise?” he said.

“I think of the words of Saint Thomas More, when his friends said, `Be reasonable. Sign the paper.’ And he said, `It isn’t a matter of reason. Finally, it is a matter of love.”’

Spoto acknowledged his decisions to write a book about Jesus and to spell out so clearly his personal devotion to his subject have raised more than a few eyebrows in his regular circles.

“We live in a very strange time,” he said. “It is entirely acceptable for people on TV, on the news and talk shows, at polite dinner parties to discuss the most intimate details of anatomy, sexual conduct and misconduct. We cannot believe our ears when we turn on the television.

“But if someone introduces the idea that faith is the garment we must wear everywhere, or as I put it, that faith is the soul’s true country and prayer is its native language, people get very edgy, very embarrassed.”

As long as he was going to put people on edge, he decided to go all the way with frank discussions condemning capital punishment and the anti-Semitism present in parts of the New Testament.

“To be blunt about it,” he said, “I have to put the best of me, whatever gifts God has given me as a writer, I’ve got to put those at the service of speaking plainly and directly about what matters.”

DEA END HAUGHT