BBC is airing a new Jesus movie, The Passion, over the Easter season in four episodes (specifically March 16, 17, 21, 23). Broadcast information may be found on the BBC website here. A TimesOnLIne article on the film, "The BBC's bold new interpretation of The Passion," may be read here.

This should be a much better film than Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, particularly because BBC sought out the advice and expertise of the New Testament Scholar, Mark Goodacre, a Brit with a real interest in Jesus films (see his page on his NTGateway website here), but who now teaches at Duke University. Mark has a brief essay posted on the BBC website here, and he describes his recent trip over to London for the première of The Passion in several blog postings, but I think the best one is here.

The reservations I have about Mel Gibson's movie may be found in the essays in the volume edited by myself and Kathleen Corley: Jesus and Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ: The Film, the Gospels, and the Claims of History (London: Contiuum, 2004). Mark Goodacre contributed one of the essays in this volume.

I do hope I am able to view these broadcasts, and I hope you are able to as well.