The Jesus Accounts

Examining biblical accounts of the life of Jesus Christ, The Jesus Accounts looks at the communications revolution that carried the Good News. Filmmaker Ronald Clements shows how early Christians produced the papyrus scrolls that were eventually compiled into the Bible—the first book to be published on Gutenberg's printing press. The intervening years between papyrus and book saw an unprecedented development in written communication, driven in part by the desire of believers to spread the Word. Supplanting fragile papyrus, parchment offered the advantage of enabling the assembly of separate documents into one volume. What emerges from studying various “copies” of the Bible (going back nearly 1,800 years, with examples here from each century), as well as writings from scholars around A.D. 260, is the consistency of the message across the different formats. The writing contained in the earliest surviving fragments (some dating to only a few decades after the original accounts were created by the apostles) is essentially the same (with allowances for different translations, from the Greek to King James and other versions) as in Bibles used today. Narration by Nick Page accompanies dramatic re-creations and footage showing the existing documents (or pieces thereof), while commentary is provided by noted New Testament scholars, including Peter Head and Simon Gathercole of Cambridge University, and Michael James Nazir-Ali, former Bishop of Rochester of the Church of England. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (C. Block)