THE BIBLE - INTRODUCTORY MATERIAL
Bible Films: A question of genre
There are a remarkable number of films which are religious in nature, some of which stem from the Judeo-Christian-Islamic traditions, and others from religions outside this tradition. Those that stem from the Judeo-Christian tradition are called here "biblical" films, since they stem from a book called The Bible. Islam has another text, The Koran and is not included in The Bible, although like The Bible it is regarded as a "holy", "sacred" or "revealed text". Excluding films about non Judeo-Christian religions*, we may divide religious films into several categories:
While there are doubtless other ways to classify these films and question their statuses as genres or sub-genres, this course deals exclusively with the first category of films listed above.
*Although Islam clearly develops out of the Judeo-Christian tradition (and the three are often called together "The religions of the Book" or "The religions of the children of Abraham"), it is exclude here only because there are few films and virtually no iconography based on Islamic religious materials. Like Judaism, there is a strong (if not stronger) prohibition against idolatry in Islam which is noticeably missing in Christianity. In one sense, it is possible to regard this course as one which deals with film and literature. All the films shown this term derive from a single book, The Bible. It is important to have some knowledge about the book, its authorship and so on.
THE BIBLE
The Bible is divided into two sections: the Old and the New Testament. The Old Testament contains writings sacred to both Jews and Christians, while the New Testament is sacred to Christians. The Old Testament contains, among other things, a number of predictions about the coming of a Messiah. Although there have been many claims about who the Messiah is, Christians believe that it is Jesus.
The Old Testament
The Old Testament is written largely in Hebrew, although some passages are in Arameic. There are 39 books in these scriptures (see table below)
The New Testament
The New Testament is written in Greek between 50 and 150 CE Gospels, History, Epistles.and Apocalypse From the start of Christianity, there have been a large number of writings, which have been thought of as divinely inspired. The result was that Constantine, the first Roman emperor to have converted to Christianity, asked that an "official" set of books be decided up which would be the "canonical" text.
A committee was set up at the Council of Cartage (397) to decide which books would be included in the New Testament and which would not. Legend has it that all the books were placed on a table and left there overnight. In the morning, the "true" books were found still on the table while the "false" ones were on the floor. The Apocrypha and Pseudographia are various books that were not included in The Bible. Some of these are included in the Coptic Church version of the Bible and new books have been found more recently, such as "The ospel of Judas". Some of the other books are "The Gospel of Thomas" (a Gnostic) , "The Gospel of Mary", "The Childhood of Christ" and so on.
There are variations in The Bible as used in different churches. The Roman Catholic Church differs from the Protestant church in terms of specific books that are found in the King James Version of the Bible which is a specific translation of the original texts. It is the most commonly quoted version, but recent years have seen more and more translations.
The Protestant version uses the 39 books of the Hebrew texts plus the 27 of the New Testament. The Catholics use seven additional books in their Old Testament: Tobit, Judith, 1 Macabees, 2 Macabees, Baruch, Sirach and Wisdom.
| HEBREW | CATHOLIC | PROTESTANT | NEW TESTAMENT |
| Genesis | Genesis | Genesis | GOSPLES |
| Exodus | Exodus | Exodus | Matthew |
| Leviticus | Leviticus | Leviticus | Mark |
| Numbers | Numbers | Numbers | Luke | Deuteronomy | Deuteronomy | Deuteronomy | John |
| EARLY PROPHETS |
HISTORICAL BOOKS |
HISTORICAL BOOKS |
Acts of the Apostles |
| Joshua | Joshua | Joshua | Romans |
| Judges | Judges | Judges | I Corinthians |
| 1 Samuel | 1 Samuel | 1 Samuel | 2 Corinthians |
| 2 Samuel | 2 Samuel | 2 Samuel | Galatians |
| 1 Kings | 1 Kings | 1 Kings | Ephesians |
| 2 Kings | 2 Kings | 2 Kings | Phillipians |
| LATER PROPHETS |
Colossians | ||
| Isaiah | Isaiah | Isaiah | 1 Thessalonians |
| Jeremiah | Jeremiah | Jerimiah | 2 Thessalonians |
| Ezekiel | Ezekial | Ezekial | 1 Timothy |
| Hosea | Hosea | Hosea | 2 Timothy |
| Joel | Joel | Joel | Titus |
| Amos | Amos | Amos | Philemon |
| Obediah | Obediah | Obediah | Hebrews |
| Jonah | Jonah | Jonah | James |
| Micah | Micah | Micah | 1 Peter |
| Nahum | Nahum | Nahum | 2 Peter |
| Habakkuk | Habakkuk | Habakkuk | 1 John |
| Zephaniah | Zephaniah | Zephaniah | 2 John |
| Haggai | Haggai | Haggai | 3 John |
| Zechariah | Zechariah | Zechariah | Jude |
| Malachi | Malachi | Malachi | Revelations |
| THE WRITINGS | |||
| Psalms | Psalms | Psalms | |
| Proverbs | Proverbs | Proverbs | |
| Job | Job | Job | |
| Song of Songs | Song of Songs | Song of Solomon | |
| Ruth | Ruth | Ruth | |
| Lamentations | Lamentations | Lamentations | |
| Ecclesiastes | Ecclesiastes | Ecclesiastes | |
| Esther | Esther | Esther | |
| Daniel | Daniel | Daniel | |
| Ezra | Ezra | Ezra | |
| Nehemiah | Nehemiah | Nehemiah | |
| 1 Chronicles | 1 Chronicles | 1 Chronicles | |
| 2 Chronicles | 2 Chronicles | 2 Chronicles | |
| Tobit | |||
| Judith | |||
| 1 Maccabees | |||
| 2 Maccabees | |||
| wisdom | |||
| Sirach | |||
| Baruch |
A Note on Citation and Dates
Citations
Generally speaking The Bible is divided into "books", which are divided into numbered chapters. These are subdivided into verses. This technique is used to locate the same passage regardless of what page the passage may appear on in different versions of The Bible Thus the opening of the Bible
The story of Noah and the Flood appears in Genesis and the line "And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.", appears in chapter 7 of Genesis in verse 12. This is cited as Genesis 7:12.
The Ten Commandments are given in the book of Exodus and would be indicated as Exodus 20:1-17.
Dates
Dates used officially in the West (i.e. by European governments) were traditionally given official as either BC (before Christ) or AD (Anno Domini) In the year of the Lord. This has its own set of problems relative to the lack of a "zero" year. In addition there are culturally sensitive problems about the use of Christian events to mark the years so more recently people have used C.E. (Current era) and (B.C.E.) before the current era. This does nothing to alleviate the problems of no zero year, but at least we can all feel we are being culturally sensitive.
If there is a range of years under discussion, they are given with the higher number first if they are B.C.E. and with the lower number first if they are C.E.
Thus some parts of Genesis were written approximately 850-750 B.C.E., while
Dates are almost always approximate since there are many problems in the early calendars which result in a major change in the calendar. Earlier in Western history there was a calendar known as the Julian calendar which had a year of 365 days with a leap year every four years, While close to accurate there are some problems with this ins that specific years (centuries years) are not leap years, unless they can be divided by 400.
As a result there was an adjust made to the calendar by Pope Gregory called the Gregorian Calendar In 1752 this calendar was accepted in Britain and was readjusted so that Sept 2 was followed by Sept 14th and the year was begun on January 1.