Tuesday, August 22, 2017

Favourite Jesus Film

It's the beginning of a new academic year at Duke and this semester I am teaching my undergraduate course on Jesus in Film for a second time. I am hoping to blog about the course as I did last time.

For a first post on the topic, I have pulled up the results of a poll I took after teaching the course in Spring 2015. I simply asked the students in the class, after they had watched over twenty Jesus films, "Which is your favourite?" Here's how the vote came out:

1. Jesus of Nazareth (8 votes)
2. Passion of the Christ (6 votes)
3. Jesus Christ Superstar (5 votes)
4. Last Temptation of Christ (4 votes)

5= The Nativity (BBC) (3 votes)
5= The Miracle Maker (3 votes)
5= Jesus (CBS, 2000) (3 votes)
5= Jesus of Montreal (3 votes)

9= The Bible / Son of God (2 votes)
9= The Passion (BBC / HBO) (2 votes)

11= Life of Brian (1 vote)
11= Gospel of John (Visual Bible) (1 vote)
11= The Nativity Story (2006) (1 vote)
11= Son of Man (2006) (1 vote)
11= King of Kings (1961) (1 vote)

The following received no votes at all:

Greatest Story Ever Told
The Gospel According to St Matthew
Godspell
Killing Jesus

2 comments:

Chad Gibbons said...

No love for the Gospel According to Saint Matthew? That's a shame. That film is striking.

David said...

Mark,

Do you mind if I repost these poll results to "The Bible Geek Listener's Facebook page"? Robert M. Price is "The Bible Geek" and he has a periodic audio podcast in which he answers listeners' questions on the Bible, Early Christian history, Philosophy and Religion in general. Bob enjoys Biblical Films and especially raves about "The Last Temptation of Christ."

David Oliver Smith