Follow TV Tropes

Following

Context Main / CloneJesus

Go To

1%%
2%%
3%% Administrivia/ZeroContextExample entries are not allowed on wiki pages. All such entries have been commented out.
4%% Add context to the entries before un-commenting them.
5%%
6%%
7%% Image selected per Image Pickin thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1608897872047225000
8%% Please do not remove or replace without starting a new thread.
9%%
10[[quoteright:200:[[ComicBook/LoadedBible https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/loadedbible1_4.png]]]]
11[[caption-width-right:200:Cloned via blood and foreskin? Pretty sure that's not kosher.]]
12%%
13%% Caption selected per above IP thread. Please do not replace or remove without discussion in the Caption Repair thread:
14%% https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1404492079030138900
15%%
16Someone has gotten ahold of a DNA strand of UsefulNotes/{{Jesus}} or his [[CrystalDragonJesus equivalent]] and has decided, hey, let's make another! Maybe they actually want to speed along the SecondComing a little, or maybe they want to throw in a little [[ForScience Mad Science]] with Religion.
17
18If said scientists really do end up with Jesus Part Two, expect the baby to be spirited away by protagonists to be raised in a more wholesome manner, with the implication that the [[{{God}} Big Guy Upstairs]] is moving this operation to more traditional pastures.
19
20Of course, since cloning [[ClonesArePeopleToo doesn't make]] the [[ArtisticLicenseBiology same person again]] one might end up with someone who uses their powers [[DarkMessiah For Evil]] or giving a [[AntiAntiChrist "screw this."]] Alternately, they might not even ''have'' any powers.
21
22Contrast with YouClonedHitler.
23
24----
25!!Examples:
26[[foldercontrol]]
27
28[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
29%%* This is part of the plot underlying ''Anime/AmazingNurseNanako'', a six-episode series that mixed ''Series/TheXFiles'' with ''Series/ILoveLucy'' and served it with a healthy side order of {{fan service}}.
30* ''Manga/{{Bremen}}'' includes this trope as part of its climax. [[spoiler: Kasuga Romio is the Clone Jesus whose charisma is sent to others via [[ThePowerOfRock rock music]].]]
31* Whether God or just channeling him, [[spoiler:Mokona]] from ''Manga/MagicKnightRayearth'' visited Clow Reed and Yuuko of ''Manga/XxxHolic'' and ''Manga/TsubasaReservoirChronicle''. They were allowed to make copies.
32* ''Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaStrikers'': Vivio Takamachi was cloned by the villains from the genetic material of the messiah figure of the Saint Church, the Sankt Kaiser/Sei'ou Olivie Sägebrecht. The villains just wanted her so they could overcome the genetic lock on the Messiah's personal spaceship, though. After she is rescued, those in TheChurch who know about her heritage call her by her full title, which she's extremely embarrassed about. She has, by ''Manga/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaVivid'', gotten used to it, accepting it as a term of respect and affection. For their part, the Saint Church [[SaintlyChurch has lived up to their name]], treating her as her own person rather than a copy of their Jesus analogue and letting her live her life as she and her mothers see fit. Officially, they've declared Vivio to be a "descendant" of their religious figure, rather than a reincarnation. The manga also gives more information about Olivie, making it clear that while both she and Vivio are KungFuWizard heroines, they each have their own personality.
33* This was the aim of the Adam Project in ''Manga/{{NEEDLESS}}''.
34[[/folder]]
35
36[[folder:Comic Books]]
37* During Marvel's ''ComicBook/CivilWar2006'' crossover, [[ComicBook/IronMan Tony Stark]], [[ComicBook/FantasticFour Reed Richards]], and [[ComicBook/MightyAvengers Hank Pym]] use a single hair to create a clone of [[ComicBook/TheMightyThor Thor]]. He was basically a cyborg killing machine ''loosely'' under their control - one of the first things he did was kill Bill Foster. [[ComicBook/TheIncredibleHercules Hercules]] considered him an insult to the real deal, and when Thor got back he outright [[CurbStompBattle curb-stomped]] Tony for the move.
38%%* The entire point of ''ComicBook/NoGods''.
39* A DC Vertigo miniseries called ''ComicBook/PunkRockJesus'' deals with a Clone of Jesus being raised on reality television, rebelling against the show and then using his fame to form a punk rock band.
40[[/folder]]
41
42[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
43* Accidentally invoked in the movie ''Film/TheFifthElement'' -- the Embodiment of Love was sent to Earth to protect us from a Big Ball of Darkness. Ended up getting vaporized, but the forensics who found the wreckage were able create a clone from the few remaining cells with all of the original's memories intact, and her capacity for badassery and {{fanservice}}. There's a HandWave for this: Leeloo's DNA is shown to have multiple helices, and one of the scientists describes it as having 200,000 "memo groups" (a made-up term) compared to the 40 in human DNA. The implication is that her DNA contains memory and acquired traits as well as basic growth instructions.
44* Used in the 2001 film ''Revelation'' (no relation to the film from the ''Film/{{Apocalypse}}'' series), where UsefulNotes/TheKnightsTemplar attempt to clone Jesus from DNA left on the four nails used to crucify the original in hopes of using the clone as a puppet messiah to rule the world. It's implied at the end of the film that the cloned Jesus is TheAntichrist while the baby born from Mira and the late Jake's union is the true messiah since Mira was Mary Magdalene's descendant and Jake was Christ's descendant via the Merovingian dynasty. As predicted by Revelation 12.4, the baby is kept a secret from the order until he can oppose them and the Grand Master's puppet Christ.
45%%* This is the main premise (and tagline) of ''The Power of Few''.
46[[/folder]]
47
48[[folder:Literature]]
49* In ''American Desert'' by Percival Everett, this doesn't quite work out, and most of the clones are horribly deformed physically and mentally. One researcher on the project appears in-story, despairing at his failure-until the main character asks how one mouthless clone can eat, and the researcher realizes that it's survived without anyone ever feeding it.
50* Bill Myers' ''Blood of Heaven'' features a lighter version, in which the dried blood on a religious artifact (a thorn preserved in a wax cube) is discovered to contain foreign chromosomes (specifically, the Y). Replicating the blood through genetic engineering and transfusing it into first animals, then humans, has... [[TheAntichrist interesting results]].
51* This is pretty much the entire point of the 1993 novel ''Literature/TheBloodOfTheLamb'', as the protagonist Peter Careza grapples with the implications that he is Christ on Earth. By the end of the book, it's fairly clear that [[spoiler:he's the AntiChrist]].
52* In "Born-Again Jesus," a short story by Robert Flynn, a secret group plans to clone Jesus so that he can preach a gospel more in line with current American values.
53* The Creator/RobertRankin novel ''The Brentford Chainstore Massacre'' had Jesus cloned from DNA found on the Turin shroud. He actually plans to clone multiple Jesuses so that every religion can have one (no, it MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext), but only does two to start with [[spoiler: who turn out to be a good Jesus and a bad Jesus]].
54* A major subplot in the Creator/ChuckPalahniuk novel ''Literature/{{Choke}}'' involves the main character discovering that he may have been created as a clone from Jesus' foreskin. Which may or may not explain why he's [[{{Pun}} such a prick]].
55* [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Obviously]] used in the ''Literature/ChristCloneTrilogy'' by James Beauseigneur, [[spoiler: except he's the Antichrist.]] Like the example above, this also uses the Shroud of Turin as the source of DNA.
56* In one story in the Church of the [=SubGenius=]'s anthology ''Three-Fisted Tales of "Bob"'', "Bob" Dobbs stops the Deroes from [[YouClonedHitler cloning Hitler]] with a little sleight of hand to replace the bloody cloth they were using as a DNA source with a scrap of the Shroud of Turin.
57* In "The Divinity Gene", a short story by Matthew J. Trafford, the DNA sequence of Jesus is used to create numerous Jesus clones or "Jesi."
58* ''Literature/TheGenesisCode'': This is the sin Dr. Ignazio Baresi confessed to that kicked off the chain of child murders committed by Umbra Domini, including that of Lassiter's nephew. [[spoiler: The end of the book says he succeeded.]]
59* In "The Gospel According to Jimmy", by French writer Didier van Cauwelaert, a 32-year old pool cleaner in L.A. finds out he's a clone of Jesus.
60* In Charles Pellegrino and George Zebrowski's novel ''Literature/TheKillingStar'', one of the few groups of humans who survived an alien attack against Earth is [[spoiler:a habitat orbiting Jupiter, led by a clone of Jesus and his best friend, a clone of the Buddha, who were created by a cult some years earlier]].
61* According to an article in "New York Magazine," (April 5, 2004), "Stories about cloned Jesuses (Jesi?) first surfaced in 1988 when the sci-fi novel ''Children of the Shroud'' was published." That novel, by Garfield Reeves-Stevens, had dozens of teenage Jesus clones being hunted by a televangelist on behalf of a U.S. president eager to start the war of Armageddon. Each clone was slightly different because of the DNA reconstruction technique used to create them, with the kicker being [[spoiler:some of them were female]].
62* The novel ''The Return'' by Joe de Mer features an apparent SecondComing investigated by the Vatican as a possible hoax and/or cloning of Jesus.
63* The ''Literature/{{Riverworld}}'' series is set on a world populated by clones of everyone who ever lived, into which their dead spirits have been transplanted. A short story based on the novels reveals what happens to the Riverworld's re-created Jesus.
64* Downplayed in Robin Cook's ''Seizure'' where a conservative U.S. senator suffering from Parkinson's disease is undergoing a therapy (which he was about to ban in the first place) in which a patient with an incurable disease is returned to health through the injection of cloned stem cells. He wants the stem cells injected into his brain to come from the Shroud of Turin. Afterwards, he indeed experiences some messianic visions but it turns out that they were temporal lobe epilepsy-seizures caused by dislocated injection, not by the origin of cells. So, no copy of Jesus in this book, only His cells.
65[[/folder]]
66
67[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
68* ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'': The episode "[[Recap/TheOuterLimits1995S5E10TheShroud The Shroud]]" has a religious zealot try to recreate Jesus via artificial conception. It's implied that he succeeds, but the surrogate mother and her husband run off with the baby in classic Mary and Joseph-style to prevent the minister, who is also the mother's father, from raising the child and twisting him to his own ends.
69* A religious cult in ''Series/ReGenesis'' tries to clone Jesus from some blood on one of the nails used to affix him to the cross.
70* ''Franchise/StarTrek'':
71** The ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS6E21RightfulHeir Rightful Heir]]" has a Klingon religious caste try to use cloning and [[FakeMemories memory construction]] to recreate their local Messiah Kahless, so that they (with Kahless as their puppet) could take over the Klingon Empire and "[[GloryDays restore it to greatness]]". When Worf finds out, the monks ask him how he knows that's not how the prophesy of Kahless' return was ''supposed'' to be fulfilled. The episode ends with the truth being revealed and a compromise being reached: Kahless II is allowed to become the figurehead Emperor (a previously vacant position).
72** Half-way into ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'', Worf figures out how powerless Kahless II ''actually'' is. The figurehead Emperor thing was also his idea.
73** One book in the ExpandedUniverse implies that history didn't go exactly as recorded, and the blood used to create the clone actually came from Kahless's brother, who survived years longer than Klingon mythology holds and dies [[TakingTheBullet taking the knife]] for Kahless. The knife from which the blood used to clone "Kahless" was extracted.
74%%* The show ''Series/ZeroHour2013'' involved cashing in the {{plot coupon}}s for this.
75[[/folder]]
76
77[[folder:Theatre]]
78* The ''Theatre/TsukinoEmpire'' universe features extremely powerful beings that are very close to gods, though they [[AGodIAmNot reject that label]]. Two of those we see are main characters who are gods in other parts of TheMultiverse. The others take the forms of the FourGods.
79** A lab exists that tried to create a copy of their Suzaku. It didn't go as they hoped, so they [[SealedEvilInACan sealed it]], only for it to break out 3000 years later as the antagonist of ''Theatre/MachineElements zwei''.
80** Of those two godlike main characters, someone, somewhere in the multiverse tried to make a copy of one of them -- Shun, the one who's a spirit of endings and death. This copy-Shun felt lonely, so he inadvertently created a world just by wishing for someone to play with him -- a post-apocalyptic video game world that the other characters, brought there in their dreams, believe to be real. This became the world of ''Theatre/{{Zanshin}}''. It has yet to be revealed whether or not these are from the same lab.
81[[/folder]]
82
83[[folder:Video Games]]
84* The ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'' DLC ''Citadel'' reveals [[spoiler:Cerberus cloned Commander-freaking-Shepard, the universe's closest thing to a MessianicArchetype, as backup/[[WalkingTransplant source of parts]] to bring them BackFromTheDead. Said clone is unhappy about this and seeks to KillAndReplace the original]].
85* The main plot point in ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiII''. Aleph is [[spoiler:a fake Messiah used by the Archangels to draw everyone into Arcadia. Their actual chosen, Gimmel, is a DarkMessiah. And then there's [=YHVH=] Messiah, Zayin, who is to become Satan]]. And yes, all of them are {{Artificial Human}}s.
86[[/folder]]
87
88[[folder:Web Comics]]
89* ''Webcomic/FLEMComics'' had an arc about a mutant Jesus Clone, with many tentacles. [[spoiler:They had him have sex with a prostitute, and she used the wrong tentacle]]
90* An odd version in ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'': [[spoiler: Karkat]]'s ancestor, The Sufferer, is a CrystalDragonJesus, and while he isn't meant to be an exact clone of the Sufferer in terms of purpose (in fact, he's ''[[MyOwnGrandpa his own]]'' clone), they're genetically (and presumably physically) identical and he was heralded by the Sufferer as his second coming. However, because of how paradox cloning works, the Sufferer is ''their'' clone and also qualifies for this trope.
91* In ''Webcomic/SisterClaire'', it turns out that [[spoiler: Claire is a clone of Clementine, the "witch queen". Since many of the main cast members knew Clementine "back in the day", this has caused quite a bit of conflict and confusion. Claire's "birth" was accidental, since Catherine was just trying to give Clementine's remains a decent burial.]]
92* In ''Webcomic/{{Shortpacked}}'', one of Galasso's many inexplicable deeds was to add clones of UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan and the historical Jesus to his army, i.e., the staff of his toy store. Historical Jesus (Jeshua Ben Joseph) is shorter and darker than most people expect and is generally sullen about modern society in general and toy store customers and coworkers in particular.
93[[/folder]]
94
95[[folder:Web Original]]
96* ''Website/SCPFoundation'': [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-2782 SCP-2782]] is the aftermath of a number of religious zealots' attempt at creating a RealityWarper who has the ability to replicate all of Jesus' miracles, with the assumption that this would bring about the Second Coming.
97[[/folder]]
98
99[[folder:WesternAnimation]]
100* This trope was parodied in ''WesternAnimation/AquaTeenHungerForce'', when Frylock uses his cloner with a strand of what a museum claimed was Jesus' hair. He ended up with a very effeminate man in a too-short toga, who reveals he's actually Jesus' hairdresser.
101* Jesús Christo, a Mexican clone of Jesus, appears on ''WesternAnimation/CloneHigh'' and is a carpentry student who talks like Cheech Marin.
102** "God has a plan for all of us. A painful, painful plan."
103--->'''Julius Caesar:''' Be careful with that nailgun, Jesús!
104** For that matter, main characters Gandhi and Joan were also cloned from important religious figures.
105[[/folder]]
106
107[[folder:Real Life]]
108* The RealLife Jesus-cloning conspiracy theory is discussed [[http://www.snopes.com/religion/clone.asp here.]] and parodied [[http://web.archive.org/web/20080610025216/www.abarnett.demon.co.uk/atheism/clone.html here.]]
109* The practical difficulty with cloning Jesus of Nazareth - even if the technology was advanced enough to do this - would lie in getting a tissue sample allowing DNA to be retrieved. However, Literature/TheBible informs us that following the Resurrection, Jesus was bodily taken into Heaven and did not leave behind a body. Discounting any blood traces left behind on whips, thorns, nails, etc, which at the time would have carried no significance whatever to the Romans and which might have been cleaned or recycled for the next crucifixion (thus removing or contaminating the traces at the very least), this poses a problem. However, imaginative thinkers have pointed out that Jesus would have left ''one'' small part of his physical body on earth. As a Jewish boy, on the eighth day after birth, he would, of course, have been circumcised. On this basis, at least three churches in Europe claim to be the sole ''Eglise de la Saint Prepuce'' - the Church of the Holy Foreskin. This suggests either Jesus was not as other men (or He healed himself three times..), or else there were some genius-level pardoners peddling holy relics in mediaeval times. But if one of those three churches turns out to have the real deal... cloning may be a possibility.
110** And of course there is the fact that clones are only genetically identical, and are entirely different people from the original. So a clone of Jesus would look and sound like he did, but wouldn't actually be Jesus. He would be a brother. Then there's the issue- and we're going to assume Jesus truly is the son of God born to a virgin for the sake of the argument- that Jesus had no DNA from a human father. In fact, it's not even clear he would have DNA from Mary, given the Bible's vague description of Jesus' conception as, "the Holy Spirit came upon her, and she conceived".
111[[/folder]]

Top