Jesus & His Times

Combining dramatic footage from The New Media Bible video series (reviewed in our October 1987 issue) with contemporary scenes from the Holy Land, Jesus & His Times is a superbly produced overview of the life and times of the most influential man to have ever lived. Comprised of three volumes (Jesus: The Story Begins, Jesus Among the People, and Jesus: The Final Days), the series is surprisingly vigorous in its speculative and investigative look at key events in the life of Christ. We watched the opening volume, which showed pictorial representations of Christ as Black, Brown, and White, and then admitted that no actual physical descriptions of Jesus exist. As the program relates the birth of Christ and his early upbringing, it detours numerous times to shed more light on prevailing practices and customs of the period. Saying that Joseph and Mary were "betrothed," the narrative explains the barter system involved; recreating Christ's birth, the program points out that he was most certainly not born in the winter month of December (we know this from the descriptions of shepherd activity we're given in the Bible). Too, the legendary star which the wise men followed could well have been a planetary conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn which occurred at the time of Christ's birth. Moving ahead to Herod's slaughter of the innocents, we learn a little bit about the Roman government of the time, and of Herod's rise to power, followed by the succession of his three sons--who were just as mean, but much more stupid. Finally, the tape visits a small village in modern Israel which has been reconstructed as a workable facsimile of a town like Nazareth during the first century. Seeing people weaving baskets, casting pottery, and making cheese, one gets a feeling for what life might have been like for the young Jesus. An excellent series, Jesus & His Times goes way beyond a rote retelling of Christ's life to immerse viewers in the social and political milieu of the times. Highly recommended. Editor's Choice. (Available from: Bridgestone Group, Inc., 1979 Palomar Oaks Way, Carlsbad, CA 92009; (800) 523-0988.)