Jesus (1979 film) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Jesus is a 1979 motion picture which depicts the life of Jesus Christ according primarily to the Gospel of Luke

Gospel of Luke

The Gospel According to Luke , commonly shortened to the Gospel of Luke or simply Luke, is the third and longest of the four canonical Gospels. This synoptic gospel is an account of the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. It details his story from the events of his birth to his Ascension.The...

in the Bible

Bible

The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

. It was co-directed

Film director

A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...

by Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n Peter Sykes, British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

John Heyman and British

United Kingdom

John Krisch and filmed in Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

History

The film's origins date back to 1945 when a young businessman named Bill Bright

Bill Bright

William R. "Bill" Bright was an American evangelist. The founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, he wrote The Four Spiritual Laws in 1952 and produced the Jesus Film in 1979.-Early life:...

wanted to privately finance a film about the life of Jesus Christ that was entertaining, Biblically

Bible

accurate, and which could be translated into non-English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

languages. Rather than making a film at that time, Bright went on to found a Christian ministry to reach college students called Campus Crusade for Christ

Campus Crusade for Christ

Campus Crusade for Christ is an interdenominational Christian organization that promotes evangelism and discipleship in more than 190 countries...

in 1951.

In 1976, with Campus Crusade's influence spreading beyond college campuses to sports, the marketplace and other aspects of society, Bright turned his attention once again to filmmaking. Hollywood's German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

-born British

United Kingdom

producer John Heyman approached Bright to fund a project to put the entire Bible on film. The project would eventually be scaled back to just one book of the Bible, the Gospel of Luke, and be financed primarily by Campus Crusade supporters Bunker and Caroline Hunt

Nelson Bunker Hunt

Nelson Bunker Hunt is an American oil company executive. He is best known as a former billionaire whose fortune collapsed after he and his brother William Herbert Hunt tried but failed to corner the world market in silver. He is also a successful thoroughbred horse breeder.-Personal:Hunt was born...

for a sum of $6 million.

A team of 500 scholars and leaders from secular

Secularism

Secularism is the principle of separation between government institutions and the persons mandated to represent the State from religious institutions and religious dignitaries...

and Christian

Christianity

Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...

organizations began to research historical elements for a film about Jesus. Filming took place over the course of several months throughout the Middle East

Middle East

The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...

.

Jesus was produced by John Heyman

John Heyman

John Heyman is a British film and TV producer, who since the mid 1980s has mainly been involved in film financing. Married to his wife Nizza since 1982, this is his second marriage. He has five children, David , Lil , Gabrielle , Dahlia and Daniel...

, a German

Germany

-born British

United Kingdom

producer. British

United Kingdom

Shakespearean

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...

actor Brian Deacon

Brian Deacon

Brian Deacon is a British actor. Born in Oxford, he trained at the Oxford Youth Theatre. He appeared with his brother Eric Deacon in the Peter Greenaway film, A Zed & Two Noughts , as Heumac in The Feathered Serpent and as Frank Miles in the TV series Lillie in 1978.He has been married twice:...

was hired to play the critical role of Jesus himself. The part of Mary

Mary (mother of Jesus)

Mary , commonly referred to as "Saint Mary", "Mother Mary", the "Virgin Mary", the "Blessed Virgin Mary", or "Mary, Mother of God", was a Jewish woman of Nazareth in Galilee...

was played by Rivka Neumann

Rivka Neumann

Rivka Neumann is an Israeli actress.Neuman started her acting career at the age of 15, when she left Kibbutz Mishmaroth, in order to pursue her desire for acting...

, and the part of Joseph

Saint Joseph

Saint Joseph is a figure in the Gospels, the husband of the Virgin Mary and the earthly father of Jesus Christ ....

by Yosef Shiloach

Yosef Shiloach

Yosef Shiloach was a Kurdish Jews film actor. Shiloach was considered by many in Israel one of the nation's most beloved actors, mostly thanks to his parts in many Bourekas Films, a series of films made primarily in the 1970s, portraying the life of Sepharadim in an exaggerated comic manner,...

. Former Jesus Film Project director Paul Eshleman, who was on location during much of the principal photography and even had a small non-speaking role as a Roman

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

soldier on horse

Horse

The horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus, or the wild horse. It is a single-hooved mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...

back, revealed in the DVD's

DVD

A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

audio commentary

Audio commentary

On disc-based video formats, an audio commentary is an additional audio track consisting of a lecture or comments by one or more speakers, that plays in real time with video...

that Deacon (the son of a Catholic

Catholicism

Catholicism is a broad term for the body of the Catholic faith, its theologies and doctrines, its liturgical, ethical, spiritual, and behavioral characteristics, as well as a religious people as a whole....

mother and a Protestant

Protestantism

Protestantism is one of the three major groupings within Christianity. It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regards to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology.The doctrines of the...

father), was so committed to the film and its message that he read several Bible translations

Bible translations

The Bible has been translated into many languages from the biblical languages of Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. Indeed, the full Bible has been translated into over 450 languages, although sections of the Bible have been translated into over 2,000 languages....

a day in order to make certain that he properly presented Christ's teachings. Because Deacon developed pneumonia

Pneumonia

Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...

during principal photography, doubles were used in certain scenes. Eshleman also said that Niko Nitai, who played Peter

Saint Peter

Saint Peter or Simon Peter was an early Christian leader, who is featured prominently in the New Testament Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. The son of John or of Jonah and from the village of Bethsaida in the province of Galilee, his brother Andrew was also an apostle...

, became a believer during filming and that the man hired to play Jesus' corpse later entered a seminary

Seminary

A seminary, theological college, or divinity school is an institution of secondary or post-secondary education for educating students in theology, generally to prepare them for ordination as clergy or for other ministry...

.

Some locations mentioned in the Bible, such as the Jordan River and what is believed to have been the home of Simon the Tanner

Simon the Tanner

Simon the Tanner , also known as Saint Simon the Shoemaker , is the Coptic Orthodox saint associated with the story of the moving the Mokattam Mountain in Cairo, Egypt, during the rule of the Muslim Fatimid Caliph al-Muizz Lideenillah while Abraham the Syrian was the Pope of the Coptic Orthodox...

, were used in the film.

After each day's filming was completed, the footage was sent to a panel of biblical scholars for review.

Instead of creating a parallel story for the film or embellishing the biblical account, as is the case with other biblical films such as The Ten Commandments or The Greatest Story Ever Told

The Greatest Story Ever Told

The Greatest Story Ever Told is a 1965 American epic film produced and directed by George Stevens and distributed by United Artists. It is a retelling of the story of Jesus Christ, from the Nativity through the Resurrection. This film is notable for its large ensemble cast and for being the last...

, the filmmakers chose to adhere as closely as possible to the Gospel of Luke

Gospel of Luke

. At the end of the film it states that the Good News Bible

Good News Bible

The Good News Bible , also called the Good News Translation , is an English language translation of the Bible by the American Bible Society, first published as the New Testament under the name Good News for Modern Man in 1966...

(Today's English Version) was used for the filming. Most of the film's dialogue comes from Luke, which was chosen after John Heyman sought advice from clergy

Clergy

Clergy is the generic term used to describe the formal religious leadership within a given religion. A clergyman, churchman or cleric is a member of the clergy, especially one who is a priest, preacher, pastor, or other religious professional....

and scholars. Many responded that the screenplay

Screenplay

A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...

should be based on just one Gospel

Gospel

A gospel is an account, often written, that describes the life of Jesus of Nazareth. In a more general sense the term "gospel" may refer to the good news message of the New Testament. It is primarily used in reference to the four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John...

, and that Luke

Gospel of Luke

should be used because of its completeness.

Jesus was released by Warner Bros.

Warner Bros.

Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...

in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. It was not a money-maker, losing approximately $2 million. While praising its "meticulous attention to authenticity", critics panned Jesus for being "painfully monotonous" and "little more than an illustrated gospel, with nothing in the way of historical and social context." The L.A. Times called it a "...dull Sunday-School treatment of the life of Christ, meticulously but unimaginatively culled from Luke 3-24."

In 1981, Bill Bright

Bill Bright

William R. "Bill" Bright was an American evangelist. The founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, he wrote The Four Spiritual Laws in 1952 and produced the Jesus Film in 1979.-Early life:...

created the Jesus Film Project organization with the goal of accurately translating Jesus into other languages and showing them around the world. The first translation was done for the Tagalog

Tagalog language

Tagalog is an Austronesian language spoken as a first language by a third of the population of the Philippines and as a second language by most of the rest. It is the first language of the Philippine region IV and of Metro Manila...

-speaking people of the Philippines

Philippines

The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...

. The organization works with thousands of missionaries around the world to show the film, sometimes to audiences who have never seen a motion picture. Distribution in the United States has included direct mail campaigns sponsored by churches to deliver a copy of the film to every address in select zip codes across the country. In 2004, the organization made the film available for viewing on its website in over 300 languages. Both Jesus and The Story of Jesus for Children are available in DVD

DVD

and VHS

VHS

The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....

formats. Audio dramatizations in a number of languages are also available.

New versions

To make the film more relevant for younger viewers, new footage for The Story of Jesus for Children was filmed in 1999. It was then seamlessly interwoven into an edited version of the original film Jesus and released in 2000.

In 2001, a new opening sequence depicting the creation of man

Creationism

Creationism is the religious beliefthat humanity, life, the Earth, and the universe are the creation of a supernatural being, most often referring to the Abrahamic god. As science developed from the 18th century onwards, various views developed which aimed to reconcile science with the Genesis...

, the expulsion from Eden

Garden of Eden

The Garden of Eden is in the Bible's Book of Genesis as being the place where the first man, Adam, and his wife, Eve, lived after they were created by God. Literally, the Bible speaks about a garden in Eden...

, Abraham's

Abraham

Abraham , whose birth name was Abram, is the eponym of the Abrahamic religions, among which are Judaism, Christianity and Islam...

aborted sacrifice

Human sacrifice

Human sacrifice is the act of killing one or more human beings as part of a religious ritual . Its typology closely parallels the various practices of ritual slaughter of animals and of religious sacrifice in general. Human sacrifice has been practised in various cultures throughout history...

of his son, and the prophesies of Isaiah

Book of Isaiah

The Book of Isaiah is the first of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible, preceding the books of Ezekiel, Jeremiah and the Book of the Twelve...

was filmed to show, as Paul Eshleman states in the audio commentary, how Jesus' life fits into the span of history.

In 2002 a special edition of Jesus commemorating the September 11 attacks was distributed in the VHS

VHS

The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....

format. It contains introductions by New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

firefighters

New York City Fire Department

The New York City Fire Department or the Fire Department of the City of New York has the responsibility for protecting the citizens and property of New York City's five boroughs from fires and fire hazards, providing emergency medical services, technical rescue as well as providing first response...

and police officers and has a running time of 83 minutes.

An edited DVD

DVD

version of Jesus was also packaged with Jesus: Fact or Fiction, which was produced in 2003 by Inspirational Films. This features a section called the "Journey of Spiritual Discovery." Biblical scholars, historians, philosophers, authors and ministers answer specific questions relating to God, Jesus, Christianity, the archaeological, scientific, and historical accuracy of the Bible, and testimony from many Christian men and women. Viewers can browse the numerous topics individually, or they can watch the film and, when prompted by a "discovery glass" icon, can access relevant comments. After they are finished, the viewer is returned to the scene they were watching.

Statistics

According to The New York Times, Jesus is likely the most-watched motion picture of all time. The Jesus Film Project states that Jesus has been viewed more than 6 billion times (including repeat viewings). Some additional statistics:

The 1,114 DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

, VHS
VHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....

, and audio-only translations of Jesus;
Over 200 million people have indicated a decision to follow Christ after viewing the film.

However, Vinay Samuel, executive director of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Mission Theologians, is critical of these numbers. Samuel told the New York Times that in his opinion, these statistics are "to say the least, not gathered in a social-scientific way."

External links

Jesus Film Project
Jesus: Fact or Fiction?
Jesus at the Internet Movie Database
Internet Movie Database
Internet Movie Database is an online database of information related to movies, television shows, actors, production crew personnel, video games and fictional characters featured in visual entertainment media. It is one of the most popular online entertainment destinations, with over 100 million...
Inspirational Films website
Detailed maps of Jesus translation for each country of the world
Article about Jesus status of being the most-translated film in history
Watch Jesus online
Audio bible recordings partnership to provide follow up to each showing of Jesus

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

History

New versions

Statistics

See also

External links