With Easter Sunday a month away, it’s not surprising that a cable network is giving us another series about Jesus Christ.
What more can you say, though?
In “Jesus: His Life,” premiering Monday night at 8 on History, the creators devote each of the eight episodes to a key figure in the religious leader’s life. We start with Joseph and then move the narrative forward with subsequent episodes devoted to John the Baptist, Mary (Houda Echouafni), Caiphas, Judas, Pontius Pilate, Mary Magdalene and St. Peter.
Fortunately, the producers have stocked the hours with commentary from scholars and members of the clergy that either illuminate what we remember from the Bible or refute widely accepted notions.
One big misconception that Robert Cargill, assistant professor of Judaism, Christianity and classics at University of Iowa, is adamant about clearing up: “The traditional Christmas card of Jesus being born in a barn outside of town is just wrong!”
In reality, Jesus (played by Greg Barnett) was likely born on the first floor of a house where the animals were kept.
The Magi — or Three Kings — were not present at Jesus’ birth. Identified by Cargill as astrologers, they likely didn’t get to Bethlehem until a few weeks later.
Another famous biblical tale — that of the massacre of the Holy Innocents — does not appear to be historical (though Herod was spooked by rumors of a new Messiah coming, but more because he was half-Arab). It’s more likely that the writer of the gospel of St. Matthew was intent on drawing parallels between Jesus’ flight from King Herod to Egypt and Moses being hidden from the Pharaoh.
It goes without saying that “Jesus: His Life” is not for those who take as gospel truth anything said or written about the Kardashian sisters or the “Real Housewives,” but viewers interested in the history of the Middle East are bound to find something to talk about. At the time of the birth of Christ, the Roman Empire covered three continents — the equivalent of 30 modern countries — and housed 20 percent of the world’s population. Judea, in Palestine, was in constant danger of being swallowed up by Roman rule so Mary and Joseph would have naturally gravitated from Bethlehem to Jewish communities in Alexandria, Egypt, when Herod became too hard to take. Some of their destinations were dictated by something as mundane as census law requirements.
The series also devotes a fair amount of time to delineating the relationship between Jesus and John the Baptist. Cargill identifies the fiery preacher as the “link between the Old and the New Testament” who “set the stage” for Jesus’ rise. It was after Salome had him beheaded that Jesus created the Lord’s Prayer.
As provocative as some of the history is, “Jesus: His Life” is often undercut by the lightweight re-enactments of scenes from his life, with Joseph (Ramin Karimloo) saying to Mary, when she shows up pregnant after meeting the angel Gabriel one night, “You expect me to believe this?” Trying to make biblical figures sound contemporary doesn’t mean they have to talk like they are auditioning for an episode of “This Is Us.” But in a big improvement over most biblical renditions, the actors look like they might hail from the Middle East.
As the historians in this show attest, the story of Jesus is “the greatest” in the world, one that has fascinated scholars and the faithful for over 2,000 years.
For the most part, “Jesus: His Life” tells you why by revealing the facts that inspired that story.