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Although the very first depictions of Jesus were textual, pictorial representations of him were not far behind. At the turn of the 20th century, Jesus rose on the silver screen, first as simple recordings of theatrical “passion plays” and then as full-blown features depicting a wide variety of “Jesuses”. This course introduces students to the range of textual and cinematic depictions of Jesus by a close examination of a number of canonical and non-canonical gospels as well as of a number of major “Jesus movies”.
Texts
- Tatum, Jesus at the Movies: A Guide to the First Hundred Years
- Hebrew Bible
- New Testament
- Ehrman, Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture & the Faiths We Never Knew
- Ehrman, Lost Scriptures: Books that Did Not Make It into the New Testament
- Akenson, Surpassing Wonder: The Invention of the Bible and the Talmuds
Films
- From the Manger to the Cross (Olcott, 1912, 71 min, Silent)
- The King of Kings (De Mille, 1927, 115 min, Silent)
- The Greatest Story Ever Told (Stevens, 1965, 197 min, English)
- The Visual Bible: Matthew (van den Bergh, 1993, 265 min, English)
- The Gospel According to St. Matthew (Pasolini, 1964, 136 min, Italian)
- Godspell: A Musical Based on the Gospel According to St. Matthew (Greene, 1973, 101 min, English)
- The Last Temptation of Christ (Scorsese, 1988, 164 min, English)
- The Passion of the Christ (Gibson, 2004, 127 min, Aramaic & Latin)
Archive
TAUGHT: SPRING 2011, SPRING 2013