Latest News #276 – World
April 1, 2004

Bible Societies take wide-ranging initiatives tying in with The Passion of the Christ

The cover of the special edition of Matthew’s Gospel published by the Bible Society of Spain, which includes full-colour stills from the film plus a leaflet explaining Christ’s sacrifice.

WORLD — The staggering success of Mel Gibson’s film The Passion of the Christ has caused a great deal of activity among Bible Societies across the world keen to capitalise on the evangelistic opportunities represented by the huge audiences the film is drawing wherever it is shown. 

Some, like the Bible Society in Australia, are well down the road with a comprehensive and evidently successful project involving an official agreement with Gibson’s company, Icon Distribution, which led to the production of tie-in evangelistic publications for the Church [More...].

In other places, such as Thailand, the film has still to open. Representatives from the Thailand Bible Society were due to preview it last week before detailing the nature of their plans.

The American Bible Society (ABS) has hailed the film on its website as a “landmark tool for education and outreach about the importance of Jesus and the power of the Gospel stories to impact lives.”

The film opened in the US a month ago amid intense media interest and ABS gave away 8,000 free tickets to churches, para-church organisations and community groups in New York City. Its advertising campaign on Christian radio stations generated more demand than there were tickets to meet it. Resources given away with the free tickets included a Scripture Portion entitled The Life of Christ, featuring Luke’s Gospel, a reading plan, review questions, a glossary of terms and background articles. 

ABS also arranged to take more than a hundred young people and social workers from within New York’s Juvenile Justice System to see the film and, in conjunction with Campus Crusade for Christ, is also inviting students from “troubled” high schools to see it.

The services of the Society’s Senior Translation Officer are being provided free to the committee charged by Icon with supervising the subtitling of the film for international release. 

The ABS website says that it does not find the film anti-Semitic. “The Bible Society scholars affirm that [the film] is historically accurate in showing that, ultimately, the Roman authorities bore responsibility for putting Jesus to death,” it says.

Meanwhile ABS is also creating print and web-based resources, including reviews of and reflections on the film, accessible via http://www.forministry.com/authentic/thepassion.dsp, to address questions and concerns people may have after seeing it. An online resource is being prepared with all four passion and resurrection narratives from the New Testament because of concerns that the film blends the four Gospels into a single story and because the film does not deal in a significant way with the events of Easter. The portion The Life of Christ can also be downloaded from the ABS website.

The Society’s President, Dr Eugene Habecker, said he was “personally and profoundly affected” by watching The Passion of the Christ. “It enabled me to encounter Scripture and the life of Jesus in palpable new ways,” he added.

In Europe, the Bible Society of Spain is publishing a special edition of Matthew’s Gospel including full-colour stills from The Passion of the Christ plus a leaflet explaining Christ’s sacrifice – again with illustrations from the film.

In Lebanon the film opened on March 18 and is showing in a dozen cinemas all over the country. Mike Bassous, the Deputy General Secretary of the Bible Society in Lebanon, reports that each person going to see the film has received a copy of John’s Gospel. Last week (March 25) some 52,000 copies had been distributed and a further 10,000 had been shipped to Jordan for distribution there.

In Egypt, too, Mel Gibson’s film has been the subject of extensive media attention, prior to its opening this week (March 31). A Selection prepared by the Bible Society of Egypt (BSE) entitled He Suffered for Us, has an introduction describing the various reactions to the film, followed by biblical passages and prophecies concerning Christ’s suffering.

The Society has also booked around 40 slots during Holy Week for a television commercial positioning the Jesus film as the story of the whole of Jesus’ life – whereas Mel Gibson’s film depicts his final 12 hours– and offering it for £E6.00 (less than US $1.00).

The BSE is also hoping to run a front-page advertisement in one of Egypt’s main newspapers and, in an unusual approach, has commissioned a poem about the Crucifixion as seen by Peter which it plans to package with the Jesus film videos.