Please answer the following question: Build a movie plot around this: How does the plot begin? with the portrayal of the Massacre of the Innocents in the Nativity
Answer:
The plot begins with the portrayal of the Massacre of the Innocents in the Nativity. The remainder of the movie portrays the annunciation (conception) and birth of Jesus Christ to explain why King Herod the Great (Ciaran Hinds) ordered the murder.The film then goes back one year before the massacre, to Jerusalem where Zachariah is a rabbi and making an offering, when he gets told by the Archangel Gabriel that his wife will bear a son by a vision. He states that he is too old, and is told by Gabriel that he will be unable to speak until the boy is born. It then goes to the town of Nazareth, where a teenaged girl named Mary (Keisha Castle-Hughes) is farming, and soldiers come to collect taxes, one man, who is unable to pay, has a third of his land seized and his daughter pressed into debt slavery to pay his debt. Mary is then, betrothed to marry Joseph of Judaea (Oscar Isaac), is visited by the Angel Gabriel and told that she will become pregnant with God's son, whom she is to name "Jesus". He then tells that her God has blessed her cousin Elizabeth (Shohreh Aghdashloo) with a child despite her old age. Mary asks her parents and Joseph could she visit with Elizabeth before the harvest, where she witnesses the birth of John the Baptist to Elizabeth and her husband the priest Zachariah (Stanley Townsend), who regains his speech after he refused to believe the Angel Gabriel's news that he would have a son. Mary returns from the visit pregnant, to the shock of Joseph and her parents, who fear that Joseph will accuse her of fornication, a sin punishable with death by stoning according to the Mosaic Law. At first Joseph does not believe Mary's explanation that she was visited by the angel Gabriel, but decides not to accuse her. Although he is still shocked and angry, Joseph is later visited in a dream by the Angel Gabriel, who tells him of God's plan for Mary's son. Joseph then believes Mary, and is ashamed for his earlier doubts.Meanwhile, Caesar Augustus, the Roman emperor, has demanded that every man and his...