The Gospel of John (2003) is my all-time favorite Bible movie. It’s a 3-hour dramatic presentation of the text of John’s Gospel almost verbatim1 from the Good News Bible (also known as the Good New Translation and Today’s English Version). It’s unusually high quality for Christian cinematic productions, and you can’t get much more faithful than the words of Scripture. It also helps that John’s Gospel is my favorite portrayal of the life of Jesus.
We used to watch it over the Good Friday / Resurrection Sunday weekend back when DVDs where still a thing. I just learned this week that it’s available for free as The Life of Jesus on YouTube. It’s also available with Amazon Prime both as The Gospel of John and as The Life of Jesus.
We watched portions of it earlier this week, and we’re planning to watch the whole thing this afternoon as a family and make it part of our annual Holy Week celebration again.
I highly recommend it to you. When you watch it, keep a Bible close by. I can guarantee you’re going to ask on multiple occasions, “Is that in the Bible?” There’s something about seeing Scripture acted out that makes details stand out you might otherwise gloss over and miss.
He is risen!
- They occasionally substitute a word for a synonym and drop the “and ______ said” before someone speaks. I don’t think they add anything that’s not in the text of John’s Gospel. [↩]