From the WSJ Opinion Archives
HOUSES OF WORSHIP
The ABC of Holy Week
With "Jesus and Paul," Peter Jennings gets it right.
The days leading up to Easter seem to be the time for TV specials on Jesus. This past Sunday, after the Duke-Xavier game, CBS ran "Jesus," a made-for-TV movie. During Holy Week six years ago, PBS stretched over two evenings an ambitious four-hour series titled "From Jesus to Christ." And this Monday ABC will air a three-hour documentary, "Jesus and Paul: The Word and the Witness," narrated by Peter Jennings.
For aficionados of PBS documentaries, it will come as a surprise to discover that ABC has produced the better show.
The subtitle is significant: "The Word and the Witness." From the opening scenes Jesus is presented as an object of faith and devotion for millions of Christians today, not merely as a historical figure. There seem to be as many camera shots of Christians at worship or of paintings and icons from Christian art as there are of paving stones or weathered columns.
The show begins with a straightforward historical report spoken off-camera by an anonymous narrator: "In the 33rd year of the first century a young Jewish preacher named Jesus of Nazareth was executed at the eastern edge of the Roman Empire." But the first person on camera is Ben Witherington, a New Testament scholar. Mr. Witherington, mind you, is professor at Asbury Theological Seminary, an evangelical school in Wilmore, Ky., not at Harvard Divinity School or Princeton University. "What a silly God would it be," he says, "that got himself crucified." This is not the kind of talk one expects in a TV documentary on Jesus, and it is refreshing.
Then the camera shifts to the road leading to Nazareth. When we arrive, we find ourselves not at an archaeological site among Roman ruins guided by an expert explaining what life was like in ancient Palestine but smack in the middle of the bustling city itself, with a boy riding a bicycle, construction workers putting up a building, people going about the business of life today.
The narrator returns to the first century with the words: "Jesus was from a town called Nazareth in a lush region known as the Galilee." But the background music reminds viewers that we are living in the 21st century. Instead of the mournful sounds of ancient chant we hear the pounding of drums, the strumming of guitars and the rhythmic beat of Christian rock, with lyrics such as this: "If you were faced with Him in all his glory / What would you ask if you had just one question?" And this: "What if God was one of us?" Again the message seems clear: What began in Nazareth is very much with us today.
Of course, most of the show focuses on the past, as indeed it should, and ABC draws on an unusually broad company of scholars to tell the story of Jesus and Paul. There is an intelligent discussion about the disputed topic of "who killed Jesus" and a sharp rejoinder to critics who indict St. Paul as the source of Christian anti-Semitism. Some of the most thoughtful observations come from Jewish scholars--e.g., on the question of Jesus' appearances to his disciples after his death. We cannot know exactly what happened, says one, but clearly something did happen, and it was this that gave birth to Christianity.
We also hear from monks who tend holy places marking the sites of memorable events in biblical history (e.g., where Christian tradition believes St. Paul had the vision that led to his conversion) and from Christian clergy, some liberal, some conservative, not all, however, good choices. There is even a humorous interview with a group of Americans about what Jesus looked like. All say he had blue eyes.
Fully half the show is given over to the life and writings of St. Paul and the spread of Christianity around the Roman world, to Antioch in Syria, to Corinth in Greece, and eventually to Rome. As Paul's story unfolds, the focus shifts to his teaching, and the show begins to sound like a seminar on Paul's writings. This is not all bad, but here modern prejudices seem intrusive. Paul is portrayed as a puritanical and intolerant moralist on the wrong side of elite opinion today. All this is swept aside, however, when the camera zooms in for perhaps five seconds on a beautiful painting of Paul as an old man and Mr. Jennings begins to talk about his martyrdom in Rome.
There are a few historical blunders, the most egregious being the pronouncement of one "expert" that Jesus was "illiterate." There is also some silliness--Mr. Jennings sticking a microphone in the face of tourists in St. Peter's Squarein Rome to ask what they know about St. Paul (answer: not much)--and occasional flippancy. Paul's letters, opine several scholars, cannot be authoritative today because he thought the world would soon end.
But this is a show for serious-minded viewers, scholarly yet respectful of belief, informative yet entertaining. It tells the story of Jesus and Paul in language believers and critics alike can recognize--indeed not too differently from the way it has been told for centuries.
Mr. Wilken is a professor of the history of Christianity at the University of Virginia.
