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24 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Excellent Job!, May 5, 2000
I really appreciate this video and I highly recommend it. As usual, A&E did an excellent job. I first saw it with a group of young people, ages between 13 and 15. After watching it we went through a little discussion where everyone expressed their own opinion. There were a lot of questions and we had a very exciting meeting, where everyone was trying to clear up some conceits about this great figure of mankind's History. Everyone should be interested in learning more about the life of this extraordinary man whose teachings have influenced humanity for more than two thousand years. For many centuries his life and teachings was framed by the biggest riligious groups, specially the Roman Church. Thus, whatever they used to say about him, this was what one could be able to learn, whether it was right or wrong. For long time his life and teachings was subject to a big monopoly carried out by those who thought they could own the truth. Im 1863 the renowned rationalist and scholar of religion Ernest Renan in his classic biography of Jesus "THE LIFE OF JESUS", the first one to be written, warned us: "Constantine made of the most free and spontaneous religious movement an official worship, subject to the State, and persecutor in its turn." Fortunately, this reality started changing in the middle of the eighteen century. Since then a lot of writings and researches have been undertaken in order to bring more light over this great personage of the History and the influences caused on humanity by his moral teachings. Thanks to these scholarly and scientific investigation we have today a much more accurate knowledge on Jesus' life and teachings. Everyone knows by now that even the Gospels, which are yet considered the most reliable source on the matter, suffered adultaration in order to fit the interests of the religious group in charge to proselytize. Besides all the sources available today on the subject, one must take in account the apocripha Gospels, specially St. Thomas Gospel. It does not matter if the Roman Church considers it as a reliable source or not, because only God knows the reason why they keep insisting in this position. Among the arguments stretched out by the 11 scholars who took part in this video recording, one particularly touched me. I am talking about John Dominic Crossan and his statements: "The vision of God which Jesus has is one of what can be best described of radically egalitarianism - a refusal to draw discriminations and hierachies and lines of demarcation - separating this from that one, lower from higher, pure from impure, male from female, slave from free, pagan from jews. It's a refusal to accept the basic distinctions which most people in his society accepted." "Jesus incarnates a dream, a profound and ancient dream, deeply embedded in human spirit for a world of radical justice, radical equality, for a world not of a domination, but empowerment. And above all, for the announcement that that it is what God, that is what the holly and the sacred is concerned about, not about domination but empowerment, about a world of justice. That is the permanent abiding legacy of Jesus and as long as that dream is alive, Jesus is alive." Another point of the video that also called my attention was the narrator's (Jack Perkings), who also did a wonderful job, closing words: "It is one of History's greatest ironies. The mighty Roman Empire which crucified Him, would one day come to worship the young stone cutter of the Galilee. Certainly on that day, long ago when Jesus died, no one could've foreseen that. As the centuries passed millions of people around the world would come to emprace his spiritual vision." This is a very good source of information on Jesus' life. It is definitely worth buying.
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