In this episode we’re beginning a short series on Palestinian Liberation Theology, starting with a discussion on Zionism and the Nakba with Yousef AlKhouri, who is a Christian Arab Palestinian residing in Bethlehem, Palestine, where he is a lecturer in Biblical Studies and Mission at Bethlehem Bible College, and he is currently working on his doctorate in contextual interpretation at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Over the course of our conversation, Yousef provides helpful historical context for Zionism and the traumatic experience of the Nakba, when Palestinians were forcefully displaced from their homes. As he articulates this, he shares many gut-wrenching stories of his personal and familial experiences of occupation, and also conveys his heart for constructive theological reflection on the contested issue of the land. Team members on the episode from The Two Cities include: Dr. John Anthony Dunne, Dr. Brandon Hurlbert, Rev. Daniel Parham, and Dr. Nico Catman. Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode we talk about the role of art and the imagination in shaping empathy with Dr. Mary McCampbell, Associate Professor of Humanities at Lee University in Tennessee and the author of Imagining our Neighbors as Ourselves: How Art Shapes Empathy (published by Fortress). As Dr. McCampbell explains, the origin for the idea of the book is the quote by Graham Greene, “Hate was just a failure of imagination.” Over the course of our conversation she unpacks for us why she felt that this book was necessary now, in our current moment, and we discuss both the ways that art can open us up to empathy and also how bad art, like the God’s Not Dead franchise, can constrict our imagination. Since Dr. McCampbell’s book addresses several artistic examples from literature, TV, film, and music, we look closely at a few examples, including: Sufjan Stevens’s albums, The Age of Adz and Carrie and Lowell, and the recent backlash against the casting decision for the new Little Mermaid live action film. Team members on the episode from The Two Cities include: Dr. Amber Bowen and Dr. John Anthony Dunne.Dr. Mary McCampbell’s website is https://marywmccampbell.com/and her substack is https://marymccampbell.substack.com/ Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode we are joined by Rev. Dr. Amy Peeler, associate professor of New Testament at Wheaton College, to talk about her forthcoming book, Women and the Gender of God (published by Eerdmans on October 4th). Over the course of our conversation, Rev. Dr. Peeler explains that this book is trying to address where women fit in the family of God by looking primarily to Mary, the Mother of God. Furthermore, Rev. Dr. Peeler describes how thinking through Mary’s role in the incarnation helps her address the role of women in ministry as well as the difficult issues related to the gender of God, including the language of Father and Son for the persons of the Trinity and even the question of God’s “preferred pronouns” in Scripture. Team members on the episode from The Two Cities include: Dr. Amber Bowen and Dr. John Anthony Dunne.You can pre-order the book from Amazon or, preferably, from the publisher’s website:https://www.eerdmans.com/Products/7909/women-and-the-gender-of-god.aspx Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode we turn to discuss the intertextual relationship of Disaster Films and the Bible as an epilogue to our series on Jesus films with Dr. Michelle Fletcher, who used film theory to analyze citations of the Hebrew Bible in Revelation in her book, Reading Revelation as Pastiche: Imitating the Past (with Bloomsbury T&T Clark). Dr. Fletcher is Research Fellow at King’s College, London on the Visual Commentary on Scripture. Over the course of our conversation we discuss a number of disaster films, which function like secular apocalypses ripe for consideration alongside ancient apocalypticism, including: Don’t Look Up, 2012, Moonfall, Greenland, San Andreas, and more. We discuss, among other things, the way that the Bible’s own pronouncements of disaster have influenced this niche sub-genre of movies with its tropes and themes. Team members on the episode from The Two Cities include: Dr. John Anthony Dunne and Dr. Brandon Hurlbert. Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode we close out our Jesus film series with a discussion on the pedagogical value of films generally in teaching the Gospels with the Rev. Canon Dr. Robert Derrenbacker, who is Frank Woods Associate Professor in New Testament at Trinity College, Melbourne. Over the course of our discussion, we talk broadly about Christ figures in film in addition to proper Jesus films. Dr. Derrenbacker talks with us about the way that film helps to make the familiar unfamiliar for our students. Dr. Derrenbacker explains why he prefers the Jesus films that are intentionally anachronistic, or recontextualized, precisely because they are the ones that best defamiliarize the Jesus story so that we can experience it in a fresh new way. He points to films like Son of Man and Jesus of Montreal, among others. Team members on the episode from The Two Cities include: Dr. John Anthony Dunne and Rev. Dr. Chris Porter. Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this penultimate episode of our Jesus film series, we talk about the enemies of Jesus in Jesus films with Prof. Adele Reinhartz, who is Professor in the Department of Classics and Religious Studies at the University of Ottawa, and the author of a number of important studies on Jesus films and Bible films, including: Jesus of Hollywood (Oxford University Press) and Bible and Cinema (Routledge). Over the course of our conversation we talk especially about the portrayal of Judas, the Pharisees, and Satan in Jesus films. Some of the films discussed include: Godspell (1973), The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), Intolerance (1916), Jesus (1999), Jesus of Montreal (1989), Jesus Christ Superstar (1973), The King of Kings (1927), King of Kings (1961), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), Mary Magdalene (2018), The Passion of the Christ (2004), Son of God (2014), and Son of Man (2006). Team members on the episode from The Two Cities include: Dr. John Anthony Dunne and Dr. Brandon Hurlbert. Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of our Jesus Film series, we’re talking about costuming with Dr. Katie Turner. Dr. Turner is an independent scholar who completed her PhD at King’s College, London and has a forthcoming monograph, entitled, Costuming Christ (with T&T Clark). Over the course of our conversation we discussed the difference between ancient clothing and modern costuming in Jesus films, what evidence we have for ancient dress in the second temple period and the Greco-Roman world, and how Christian art informs costuming decisions in Jesus films and communicates certain exegetical decisions, some of which have harmful consequences. Team members on the episode from The Two Cities include: Dr. John Anthony Dunne and Brandon Hurlbert. Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Continuing our series on Jesus films, we are joined in this episode by Dr. Siobhán Jolley to discuss the representation of Mary Magdalene. Dr. Jolley recently completed her PhD at the University of Manchester with a thesis entitled, “Reimaging the Magdalene: Liberative Reception Criticism and the Counter-Reformation Magdalene.” In our conversation Dr. Jolley talks to us about how little we actually know about Mary Magdalene from the Gospels themselves, and how her legend and myth evolves in art history and church history to present her as a sex worker, among other things. We review some of the films that reflect this tradition, esp. The Last Temptation of Christ (1988; dir. Martin Scorsese), and talk about how this portrayal is developed further than anywhere in Jesus films in the series, The Chosen (2017; dir. Dallas Jenkins). We also discuss the romantic relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene that develops in various aspects of Mary Magdalene’s reception, most notably in The Da Vinci Code (by Dan Brown), and we address the significance of that for the interest in the modern forgery of “The Gospel of Jesus’s Wife.” Among other things we also chat about the rehabilitation of Mary’s character in the recent film simply entitled, Mary Magdalene (2018; dir. Garth Davis), starring Rooney Mara and Joaquin Phoenix. Team members on the episode from The Two Cities include: Dr. John Anthony Dunne and Brandon Hurlbert. Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode we discuss the relationship of scholarship on the Gospels and the historical Jesus with Dr. Mark Goodacre, who is Frances Hill Fox professor of Religious Studies at Duke University, the author of a number of important studies on the historical Jesus, the Gospels, particularly the Synoptic Problem, and the Gospel of Thomas, and the creator of one of the original biblioblogs, called NTBlog, as well as one of the original biblical studies podcasts, called the NTPod. Over the course of our conversation we discuss a number of aspects of Jesus films and how those relate to contemporary Gospels scholarship, including, the role of the imagination in historical reconstruction, the nature of Jesus’ self-understanding, first-century crucifixion, and the composition of the Gospels from earlier sources. Some of the Jesus films that we address at length include: Pasolini’s The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964), The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), Jesus Christ Superstar (1973), Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), Arcand’s Jesus of Montreal (1989), and Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ (2004). Team members on the episode from The Two Cities: Dr. Josh Carroll, Dr. John Anthony Dunne, Brandon Hurlbert, Rev. Daniel Parham, and Dr. Chris Porter. Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of our Jesus film series, we turn to discuss the art and theology that informs depictions of Jesus with Dr. Richard Walsh, who is Womack Professor of Philosophy and Religion and the Co-Director of the Honors Program at Methodist University. He’s also the author of a number of books on Jesus films, including Reading the Gospels in the Dark (Trinity Press International) and, more recently with Jeffrey Staley, Jesus, The Gospels, and Cinematic Imagination (T&T Clark). Other the course of our conversation, Dr. Walsh addresses some of the historic tensions behind depicting Jesus throughout cinematic history between depicting Jesus as more divine versus more human, more historically accurate versus more artistically resonant, more stoic versus more personable, etc. We also discuss this topic briefly in relation to iconoclastic concerns as well as Orthodox iconography. Most notably, Dr. Walsh situates Jesus in the place of the “Monster” in horror films, which leads to some fascinating discussion. Team members on the episode from The Two Cities include: Dr. John Anthony Dunne, Stephanie Kate Judd, and Rev. Daniel Parham. Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.