“discover where your strength and your power are needed. But always hold in your heart the pride of your special heritage.”
These are part of the final words of Jor-El to his son Kal-El in the 1978 iteration of Superman. Jor-El charges this beloved son to be a “light” to the world he is being sent.
Sent for a Chosen People
You will notice the daily Mass readings this week draw heavily from the life of Moses. Moses serves as one of the primary figures in the entire Hebrew Scriptures and in Israelite history.
Moses figures prominently as a character and primary author of the first five books of the Bible. If you are reading this blog I probably do not need to give you any more background into the importance of Moses to Jews or Christians.
In fact, if you are reading this blog then you probably don’t need a lot of convincing of the connections between Moses and Superman or between Superman and Jesus.
You will find places that describe Jewish origins of Superman. You will also find posts noting that Superman is more of a Moses figure than a Jesus one (here’s one, and here’s one too), but this misses the point.
It is not a co-opting of Superman from these “Jewish roots” to compare him to Jesus. Jesus has Jewish roots himself, so it’s a pretty organic comparison.
Pitting the Moses connection against the Jesus one misses the point from both a Christian or Jewish perspective. This is because to say Superman is a Moses figure is to say he is a Jesus figure.
Jesus is the Source of all truth, beauty and goodness. To say anyone is true, good or beautiful is to call that person a Jesus figure (sorry, not sorry).
Reading Comics Like You Read the Bible
The allegorical reading of Scripture cannot betray the literal interpretation of the text. This means that whatever applies to the common, perfectly orthodox and historically sound connection between Moses and Jesus can be extended when one connects the fictional character of Superman with Moses.
There is a 2,000 year history of connecting Moses explicitly to Jesus. Preceding this is a longer history of recognizing the long-awaited Messiah as a “new Moses.”
It seems natural that connecting a character to Moses is connecting a character to the Jewish Messiah. This Jewish Messiah just happens to be recognized by Christians as Jesus. One can imagine a sort of transitive process that takes place here.
Shadows of a Deeper Reality
This does not water down the Superman to Moses connection by incorporating another connection in Jesus. Christians would say the exact opposite when connecting Moses to Jesus in the first place.
Nothing that is true or good in Moses is taken away by saying he was fulfilled in the Jewish Messiah. Moses is enhanced by this Christian affirmation.
Moses in Deuteronomy 18:15-19 looks forward to a prophet that would succeed him in office and in works. This has an immediate fulfillment in Joshua, which just so happens to be a cognate of the name Jesus (*looks directly at camera*). The Jewish people had always considered this an important prophecy for the Messiah.
The Samaritan woman at the well in John 4:25, used this same line in her examination of Jesus. The Samaritans shared the Torah with the Jewish people of Jesus’s day and would have been handed down similar traditions from it.
Seeing Moses as a heavily allegorical figure is common to both the Jewish people and first Christians, many of whom shared this Israelite heritage. While Romans 5:14 is much more famous for seeing Adam as a type of Christ, Moses is also mentioned in connection to Adam with numerous parallels. Moses is a partial fulfillment of the first Adam. Though an incomplete one, it acts as a precursor to the New Adam in Jesus.
There is also one of the most famous works of Christian spirituality in The Life of Moses by St. Gregory of Nyssa. This unique “biography” sees the spiritual, allegorical side to many of the events in Moses’s life in light of Jesus.
Does Superman Resemble Jesus Anyway?
While imperfect and dosed with 1990s gen-x cynicism, The Death of Superman comic, with its powerful sacrifice and resurrection-ish narratives, projects some very strong Jesus vibes. Another, arguably heavy-handed, example with its Jesus parallels was the 2013 Man of Steel.
In Man of Steel, Superman has an emotionally taxing moment in a church. Behind him stands a stained glass window depicting the, you guessed it, Agony in the Garden scene. Later, he floats into space with his arms outstretched cruciform right after he is told “you can save all of them.”
You can roll your eyes or pump your fist at these, I won’t judge. The point remains that in just these examples there lies the Messianic relationship we modern, Christ-haunted viewers recognize in Superman.
It is with a certain imagination in seeing the first Moses that Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster were able to create their “new Moses” figure in Kal-El (which in Hebrew means “voice of God”). It is this imagination that Christians must incorporate when reading the Scriptures, or even comics, to get the bigger picture about every individual story inside of it. It is also with this imagination that they will recognize the voice of God in the new Moses of Jesus.
Mike Schramm teaches theology and philosophy at the high school and college level in La Crosse, Wisconsin. He earned his MA in theology from St. Joseph's College in Maine and an MA in philosophy from Holy Apostles College. He co-hosts the Voyage Podcast with Jacob Klatte.