Jesus at the Movies: A Guide to the First Hundred Years

Christianity and the Arts
This is a reader-friendly text ... Those who lack formal theological education will find it relatively easy to follow Tatum's fluid and clear prose. At the same time, he poses questions designed to stretch and challenge even the most progressive Christian. Tatum is at his best when he hints that modern filmmakers are similar to the early Christians in their struggle to understand the biblical presentation of Jesus as both divine and human. The theological reflections provide a basis for a dialogue between Christianity and modern culture. A first-rate book!


Paul Verhoeven, Director, Total Recall
A fascinating analysis of all the Jesus movies that have been made since the beginning of cinematography.


John Dominic Crossan
Magnificent ... a complete analysis of the major films about Jesus.


Marcus J. Borg
An important, fascinating and insightful book on Jesus and film.


Book Description
Since the earliest days of the movies more than a century ago, moviemakers have been intrigued by "the greatest story ever told." They have tried, with varying degrees of success, to capture the life of Jesus on film. In Jesus at the Movies Barnes Tatum has created a fascinating and exhaustively-researched viewer's guide to the movies about Jesus. Tatum guides the reader film-by-film from Sidney Olcott's silent classic "From the Manger to the Cross" through Denis Arcand's award-winning "Jesus of Montreal" to the future of Jesus movies. With his experience as author, biblical scholar, and teacher on religion and film, he presents this unique look at Jesus films in all dimensions: as cinematic art, as literature, as biblical history and as theology.


About the Author
W. Barnes Tatum is Professor of Religion and Philosophy at Greensboro College and author of In Quest of Jesus: A Guidebook and John the Baptist and Jesus.


Excerpted from Jesus at the Movies : A Guide to the First Hundred Years by W. Barnes Tatum. Copyright © 1998. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved
These positive assessments of Ben-Hur and Barabbas by representatives of leading Protestant and Catholic periodicals suggest that the theological questions raised in the 1950s and 1960s about these alternative Jesus-story films differ significantly from the questions asked of Jesus films earlier in the century. Then the theological question often expressed itself in terms of their "reverence" for Jesus and his story. Both From the Manger to the Cross (1912) and The King of Kings (1927) received high marks for exhibiting such reverence. Now, especially with Ben-Hur (1959) and Barabbas (1962), the question had become not so much one of reverence for Jesus and his story but one of meaning: What's it all about?


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An important, fascinating and insightful book on Jesus and film. — Marcus Borg


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