An increasingly popular area of religious studies, theology and biblical studies. Comprehensive coverage for a textbook for courses on Bible and Film. This new edition includes new pedagogy including key words, a bibliography of movies and revision questions.

An increasingly popular area of religious studies, theology and biblical studies. Comprehensive coverage for a textbook for courses on Bible and Film. This new edition includes new pedagogy including key words, a bibliography of movies and revision questions.

Movies which have drawn inspiration from the Bible, either directly or indirectly, have been extremely popular since the earliest days of cinema. "Bible and Cinema: Fifty Key Films" introduces a wide range of those movies, which are among the most important, critically-acclaimed and highest-grossing films of all time, including:

• The King of Kings
• Ben-Hur
• The Passion of the Christ
• Frankenstein
• Close Encounters of the Third Kind
• 2001: A Space Odyssey
• Apocalypse Now
• Monty Python s Life of Brian.

Written by a team of international scholars, the fifty entries discuss the Biblical stories, characters or motifs depicted in each film making this book the ideal guide for anyone interested in the long-standing relationship between the Bible and film.

Movies which have drawn inspiration from the Bible, either directly or indirectly, have been extremely popular since the earliest days of cinema. "Bible and Cinema: Fifty Key Films" introduces a wide range of those movies, which are among the most important, critically-acclaimed and highest-grossing films of all time, including:

• The King of Kings
• Ben-Hur
• The Passion of the Christ
• Frankenstein
• Close Encounters of the Third Kind
• 2001: A Space Odyssey
• Apocalypse Now
• Monty Python s Life of Brian.

Written by a team of international scholars, the fifty entries discuss the Biblical stories, characters or motifs depicted in each film making this book the ideal guide for anyone interested in the long-standing relationship between the Bible and film.

The remarkable, award-winning film, Son of Man (2005), directed by the South African Mark Dornford-May, sets the Jesus story in a contemporary, fictional southern African Judea. While news broadcasts display the political struggles and troubles of this postcolonial country, moments of magical realism point to supernatural battles between Satan and Jesus as well. Jesus' Judean struggle with Satan begins with a haunting reprise of Matthew's 'slaughter of the innocents' and moves forward in a Steve Biko-like non-violent, community-building ministry, captured in graffiti and in the video footage that Judas takes to incriminate Jesus. Satan and the powers seemingly triumph when Jesus 'disappears', but then Mary creates a community that challenges such injustice by displaying her son's dead body upon a hillside cross. The film ends with shots of Jesus among the angels and everyday life in Khayelitsha (the primary shooting location), auguring hope of a new humanity (Genesis 1.26). This book's essays situate Son of Man in its African context, exploring the film's incorporation of local customs, music, rituals, and events as it constructs an imperial and postcolonial 'world'. The film is to be seen as an expression of postcolonial agency, as a call to constructive political action, as an interpretation of the Gospels, and as a reconfiguration of the Jesus film tradition. Finally, the essays call attention to their interested, ideological interpretations by using Son of Man to raise contemporary ethical, hermeneutical, and theological questions. As the film itself concisely asks on behalf of the children featured in it and their politically active mothers, 'Whose world is this'?

Eloquently written and meticulously researched, "Scripture on the Silver Screen" offers all students of Scripture--whether in an academic classroom or at home--an inviting new way to further their biblical literacy. It questions the "Hollywoood Hermeneutic" that too often views the Bible as prop, but also recognizes the contributions of movies that successfully integrate the Bible as a plot-making device. Each chapter begins with a discussion on the focal Bible passage, placing it in its literary and historical context, followed by a summary of the film and its main themes.

Current scholarship in the study of ancient Christianity is now available to nonspecialists through this collection of essays on anti-Judaism in the New Testament and in New Testament interpretation. While academic writing can be obscure and popular writing can be uncritical, this group of experts has striven to write as simply and clearly as possible on topics that have been hotly contested. The essays are arranged around the historical figures and canonical texts that matter most to Christian communities and whose interpretation has fed the negative characterizations of Jews and Judaism. A select annotated bibliography also gives suggestions for further reading. This book should be an excellent resource for academic courses as well as adult study groups.

As the Roman-appointed high priest who had a hand in orchestrating Jesus' crucifixion, Caiaphas secured his place in infamy alongside Pontius Pilate. But who was Caiaphas really? Adele Reinhartz offers a thorough reconsideration of Caiaphas in the Gospels and other ancient texts as well as in subsequent visual arts, literature, film, and drama. The portrait that emerges challenges long-held beliefs about this New Testament figure by examining the background of the high priesthood and exploring the relationships among the high priest, the Roman leadership, and the Jewish population. Reinhartz does not seek to exonerate Caiaphas from culpability in the crucifixion, but she does expand our understanding of Caiaphas's complex religious and political roles in biblical literature and his culturally loaded depiction in ongoing Jewish-Christian dialogue.

The Gospel of John presents its readers, listeners, and interpreters with a serious problem: how can we reconcile the Gospel's exalted spirituality and deep knowledge of Judaism with its portrayal of the Jews as the children of the devil (John 8:44) who persecuted Christ and his followers? One widespread solution to this problem is the so-called "expulsion hypothesis." According to this view, the Fourth Gospel was addressed to a Jewish group of believers in Christ that had been expelled from the synagogue due to their faith. The anti-Jewish elements express their natural resentment of how they had been treated; the Jewish elements of the Gospel, on the other hand, reflect the Jewishness of this group and also soften the force of the Gospel's anti-Jewish comments. In Cast out of the Covenant, this book, Adele Reinhartz presents a detailed critique of the expulsion hypothesis on literary and historical grounds. She argues that, far from softening the Gospel's anti-Jewishness, the Gospel's Jewish elements in fact contribute to it. Focusing on the Gospel's persuasive language and intentions, Reinhartz shows that the Gospel's anti-Jewishness is evident not only in the Gospel's hostile comments about the Jews but also in its appropriation of Torah, Temple, and Covenant that were so central to first-century Jewish identity. Through its skillful use of rhetoric, the Gospel attempts to convince its audience that God's favor had turned away from the Jews to the Gentiles; that there is a deep rift between the synagogue and those who confess Christ as Messiah; and that, in the Gospel's view, this rift was initiated in Jesus' own lifetime. The Fourth Gospel, Reinhartz argues, appropriates Jewishness at the same time as it repudiates Jews. In doing so, it also promotes a "parting of the ways" between those who believe that Jesus is the messiah, the Son of God, and those who do not, that is, the Jews. This rhetorical program, she suggests, may have been used to promote outreach or even an organized mission to the Gentiles, following in the footsteps of Paul and his mid-first-century contemporaries.