c. 2000 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) For two hours Monday (June 26), Jesus will be commercial television news.

The founder of Christianity is the focus of a documentary on ABC called “Peter Jennings Reporting: The Search for Jesus,” airing at 9 p.m. EDT on the network.

Early in the program, Jennings acknowledges the trickiness inherent in telling the story of Jesus in a news format. “We cannot tell you whether or not Jesus is the son of God,” he said. “That is a matter of faith.”

The documentary features Jennings reviewing well-known passages of Scripture about Jesus _ from his birth to his resurrection _ and juxtaposes the text with the views of biblical scholars, historians, archaeologists and grass-roots believers.

Accented by a range of religious art and music and footage of popular Holy Land sites, it touches on how people have divergent perspectives on everything from the parables of Jesus to what he looked like.

“What’s fascinating about biblical historians or Jesus historians … is how they can so often look at the same evidence and come to different conclusions,” Jennings said in an interview with Religion News Service.

In some cases, the scholars tie some of the popular stories to mythology or views espoused by pagan religions.

Jennings said the “supernatural feats” of Jesus _ such as walking on water and turning water into wine _ are viewed as inventions of the gospel writers that served as “advertisements for Christianity in its early years.”

Said Marvin Meyer, chair of the religious studies department at Chapman University in Orange, Calif.: “Jesus walks on the water just as the Greek god Poseidon rides his chariot over water.”

In other cases, the scholars affirm Jesus’ miraculous acts recorded in the Bible. For instance, the Rev. N.T. Wright, canon theologian of Westminster Abbey in England, said Jesus’ followers had to have a good reason for believing in the resurrection.

“If Jesus had died and stayed dead, they would either have given up the movement or they would have found another messiah,” Wright told Jennings. “Something extraordinary happened, which convinced them that Jesus was the Messiah.”

Some of the scholars interviewed have had prominent roles in the Jesus Seminar, the controversial scholarly gatherings that have concluded, among other things, that the resurrection was not a physical reality.

Robert W. Funk, founder of the seminar and director of the Westar Institute in Santa Rosa, Calif., tells Jennings that biblical accounts of Judas betraying Jesus are probably fictional.

“Judas looks to many of us like the representation of Judaism or the Jews as responsible for his death,” said Funk. “If it is a fiction, it was one of the most cruel fictions that was ever invented.”

John Dominic Crossan, a professor emeritus of religious studies at DePaul University in Chicago, and a former co-chair of the Jesus Seminar, questions whether Jesus’ speech about his body and blood at the Last Supper was a creation of the gospel writers.

“It doesn’t happen in the Gospel of John, for example,” he tells Jennings. “If it was so important, how can he leave it out?”

Jennings, in his interview with RNS, said he expects some viewers, particularly those who believe the Bible is the literal word of God, will object to some of the comments aired in the broadcast.

“Even though they take exception to the notion of historians questioning some aspects of the New Testament, I hope because they are evangelicals they will appreciate the wider exposure that we give to Jesus,” he said.

Besides the scholars, Jennings also talks to grass-roots believers, from a man on the street of Bethlehem to members of a Pentecostal choir from Louisiana.

“Even though historians study Jesus and study the Bible, it doesn’t give them an exclusive lock on knowledge or understanding or appreciation,” Jennings told RNS.

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Jennings, who was raised an Anglican in his native Canada, said the documentary fits into his network’s dedication to covering religion as a regular part of American life.

“It’s an issue which is dear to my heart as a subject,” he said, noting his network is the only commercial network with a full-time religion reporter.

Jennings, who says he’s not a biblical literalist, said he found the depth of scholarship concerning the Gospels to be compelling.

“Like a lot of people who grew up in the Christian faith, I don’t think I thought as much about the Gospels as I might have,” he said. “Coming upon people of all political and spiritual persuasions who study the gospel is just fascinating.”

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Jennings said he thinks the program will enhance viewers’ understanding of Jesus, but he doesn’t expect the program to influence people of faith.

“I think people who believe believe,” he said.

But he hopes nonbelievers may find it interesting as well.

“People will find in some ways that the story is irresistible,” he said. “If you weren’t a believer in Jesus and the notion that he was the son of God, I still think you’d be fascinated by the story.”

(Editors: The program will also be simulcast in Spanish on the Secondary Audio Program (SAP) audio subcarrier in more than 30 markets and be the topic of Internet discussions on Beliefnet.com.)

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