The Other Jesus Movie

When I told my wife that Peter Richardson had asked if I could help make movies, we had a good laugh: I'm famously bad with a home video camera.

Professor Richardson, who taught New Testament at the University of Toronto for many years, had invited me to join eight other Old and New Testament scholars on the Advisory Board of Visual Bible International, a company that makes Bible spectaculars. VBI had already made a few word-for-word films of New Testament books, but recently the company had brought in a new team headed by Garth Drabinsky, producer of the Broadway shows "Ragtime," "Show Boat," and "Kiss of the Spider Woman."

In May 2002, Garth, the creative team and the advisory board met in Toronto to make lists of books of the Bible that could readily be adapted to the screen. The Gospels got first priority, since they are so beloved and have narrative unity. Exodus, too, seemed a natural, but we realized the end of the book, with its laws and provisions for the tabernacle would be hard to film, and we postponed it for later. Filming Paul's Corinthian correspondence intrigued us, but the screenplay would be very tricky. In the end, we put two less often depicted Gospels-Mark and John-at the top of our list, followed by 1 and 2 Samuel. We still revisit the question frequently in our meetings.

The Gospel of John was chosen to be made first. A year and a fraction after that first meeting, a large number of very creative people had produced a professional retelling of the Fourth Gospel. Garth's experience and his drive for perfection was behind not only the amazing speed but the high production values. He had hired well-known professionals who in turn lured a superb cast. The set designers had found excellent locations in Spain (computer graphics fill in the shots of ancient Jerusalem) and built sets on giant soundstages back in Toronto.

In the planning period, we had assumed we'd be producing mostly for churches and synagogues, with an occasional commercial release eventually. Now we knew we had our first commercial release.

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