From Moses to DeMille: Adapting the Bible to the Big Screen

Abstract

The genre of historical and contemporary cinema, which takes as its source of plot and characters the Bible has long enjoyed a welcome from the viewing public (whether in theaters or streaming on the Internet). In both the silent and sound film eras, the “Biblical epic” offered a new channel for the communication of religious values and familiar scriptural tales to mass audiences. As research subjects they have been (and continue to be) explored by fields as diverse as film history, musicology, and traditional Biblical studies. This article reviews both the major Biblical films produced in both Europe and the United States during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries and the research and reference works written about them.