Essential Films of 2006 for Theologians

Loren Rosson published his list of The Top 10 Films of 2006 a while ago over at the Busybody. I quite like his list. While I have noted some of my favourite movies of 2006 in my Third Annual Ralphies – Second Annual Codex Edition (Best of 2006) post, as well as in the commentary to Christianity Today‘s Top Ten Films of 2006, I haven’t published a full top ten list — let alone a detailed post like last year’s Essential Films of 2005 for Theologians. This negligence on my part is for a variety of reasons, including needing to catch up with a few films on DVD — like Pan’s Labyrinth — before settling on my list. Either way, seeing Loren’s list spurred me on to finally create this year’s instalment of “Essential Films for Theologians.”

I should confess a couple limitations with this list. First, and quite naturally, it only contains films that I have personally viewed. My list of “Films I should have viewed before making my list” include, critically acclaimed films like The Queen (Stephen Frears, 2006; Buy from Amazon.ca | Amazon.com), L’enfant (Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, 2006; Buy from Amazon.ca | Amazon.com), among others. Second, before anyone comments that I clearly have no sense of what makes a good film, note that these are top films “for theologians,â€? i.e., they are films that raise theological questions or issues. They are not necessarily great films or the best films of the year; they have weaknesses and shortcomings. That being said, I do think that most if not all of them are among the best of the year and are certainly worthy of thoughtful viewing.

So, drum-roll please, here is my list of “Essential Films of 2006 for Theologians” in all its glory:

  • 10. Jesus Camp (Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, 2006; IMDB; Buy from Amazon.ca or Amazon.com). A disturbing and somewhat biased documentary about fundamentalist Christianity in the United States (my Canadian sensibilities cringe when the documentary describes the Christianity in the film as “evangelical”). Not necessarily the best documentary, it raises a whole host of questions about how Christians are perceived by others as well as how to (and how not to) pass on your faith to your children. Another documentary that deserves some sort of notice is Blood of My Brother: A Story of Death in Iraq (Andrew Berends, 2005 [I watched it in 2006]; IMDB; Buy from Amazon.ca or Amazon.com). This is a low-budget film about an Iraqi family dealing with the accidental death of a son and brother by the hands of American troops. It provides a captivating glimpse into everyday life in war torn Iraq and folk Islam.
  • 9. Casino Royale (Martin Campbell, 2006; IMDB; Buy from Amazon.ca | Amazon.com). There is not much theology in this film, although it does raise some interesting ethical questions (!). Nonetheless, as a long time Bond fan, I thought it was superb and had to include it on my list. (Following the lead of an article by Umberto Eco, I do use the Bond series as an example of structural analysis of artifacts from popular culture in my religion and popular culture course)
  • an_inconvenient_truth.jpg8. An Inconvenient Truth (Davis Guggenheim, 2006; IMDB; Buy from Amazon.ca or Amazon.com). Science aside, I thought this was a well done and provocative documentary. It is too bad the issue of global warming has become so politicized — is it really such a bad thing to reduce the amount we pollute and consume non-renewable resources? I really don’t understand Christians who object to the basic message of the film, especially since we are called to tend the earth. In the end, this film generates a lot of theological discussion surrounding our stewardship of God’s creation.
  • 7. Babel (Alejandro González Iñárritu, 2006; IMDB; Buy from Amazon.ca | Amazon.com). While the concept behind this film is brilliant, the Japan story-line is weak. In the same way that last year’s Crash explored racism, this film explores the question of language, culture, and diversity in a way that will provoke meaningful discussion. Is it possible for humanity to reverse the consequences of Babel? Or is it only as part of God’s redemptive plan that the consequences of Babel will ultimately be reversed?
  • 6. Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (Larry Charles, 2006; IMDB; Buy from Amazon.ca | Amazon.com). While all parts of this movie is offensive, what is most offensive are the attitudes and behaviours of the non-actors in the film. Racism, sexism, and bigotry is alive and well on planet earth. (I also haven’t laughed so hard in the theatre in a long time, at times uncomfortably, mind you).
  • 5. The Last King of Scotland (Kevin MacDonald, 2006; IMDB; Buy from Amazon.ca | Amazon.com). Forest Whitaker deserved all of the awards he won for his brilliant and disturbing portrayal of the brutal Ugandan dictator, Idi Amin. While Amin’s character raises a number of questions, the struggles of Dr. Nicholas Garrigan (a fictional character played by James McAvoy) will likely raise more questions for thoughtful viewers. Another film based on more recent events closer to home is United 93 (Paul Greengrass, 2006; IMDB; Buy from Amazon.ca | Amazon.com). Considering viewers know the outcome of the flight, the director deserves credit for making a suspenseful and very well done film. Good discussion points about self-sacrifice and courage.
  • pans_labyrinth.jpg4. The Departed (Martin Scorsese, 2006; IMDB; Buy from Amazon.ca or Amazon.com). This is a great gangster film and all of the actors had great performances, especially Jack Nicholson. The movie raises issues of moral compromise and integrity — but in the end it raises the question of who really are the “faithfully departed.” (I had previously listed this as my number one movie of 2006)
  • 3. Pan’s Labyrinth [El Laberinto del fauno] (Guillermo Del Toro, 2006; IMDB; Buy from Amazon.ca | Amazon.com). This dark adult fairy tale is amazing in many ways. It interweaves story-lines about a girl growing up amid personal tragedies, including the horrors of the Spanish civil war, and the fantasy world which she created to cope with her life. Visually stunning and skillfully put together — especially how the line between reality and fantasy are blurred. How much is the alternate fantasy world just a creation of the girl’s imagination?

  • 2. Little Children (Todd Field, 2006; IMDB; Buy from Amazon.ca | Amazon.com). This is an amazing film; I was so moved by it that I almost think it should be number one. The questions it raises about maturity, sexuality, fidelity, and brokenness are meaningful to contemporary society. This film is an “Eyes Wide Shut” for middle class suburbanites. Another film which I feel compelled to mention, but am not quite sure where to place it is Little Miss Sunshine (Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris; IMDB; Buy from Amazon.ca | Amazon.com). This quirky film is about acceptance and family — no matter how much you may act like “little children” (in some ways sends the opposite message as Little Children).
  • children_of_men.jpg1. Children of Men (Alfonso Cuarón, 2006; IMDB; Buy from Amazon.ca | Amazon.com). A miraculous birth with all worldly powers pursuing the woman and her child — sound familiar? Beyond the clear allusions to Jesus’ birth, the film also raises questions surrounding God’s work in the world. The film is also visually appealing and contains some amazing camera work.

Some other films I think are worth watching include Hard Candy (David Slade, 2005; IMDB; Buy from Amazon.ca | Amazon.com), The Black Dahlia (Brian De Palma, 2006; IMDB; Buy from Amazon.ca | Amazon.com), Flags of our Fathers (Clint Eastwood, 2006; IMDB; Buy from Amazon.ca | Amazon.com), A Scanner Darkly (Richard Linklater, 2006; IMDB; Buy from Amazon.ca | Amazon.com), Jason Reitman’s Thank You for Smoking (2005; IMDB; Buy from Amazon.ca | Amazon.com). Those favoring a western twang will enjoy The Proposition (John Hillcoat, 2005; IMDB; Buy from Amazon.ca | Amazon.com) and The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (Tommy Lee Jones, 2005; IMDB; Buy from Amazon.ca | Amazon.com). While I didn’t think the visually appealing 300 (Zack Snyder, 2006; IMDB; Buy from Amazon.ca | Amazon.com) was top-ten material, it is also worth seeing as long as you don’t expect a historical epic faithful to Herodotus!

I wish I could have included one of the few Bible films released last year on my list, whether The Nativity Story (Catherine Hardwicke, 2006; IMDB; Buy from Amazon.ca or Amazon.com), The Color of the Cross (Jean-Claude La Marre, 2006; IMDB; Buy from Amazon.ca or Amazon.com), or One Night with the King (Michael O. Sajbel, 2006; IMDB; Buy from Amazon.ca or Amazon.com). Unfortunately, all of these films were a disappointment. The Nativity Story was too sentimental (and as a biblical scholar I still can’t believe that in a film trying to present a certain historical verisimilitude, they had the wise men appear at the birth instead of at the house a few years later), The Color of the Cross had great potential but failed to explore racial issues in any meaningful way, and One Night With the King failed to generate any meaningful sympathy for the main characters.

All in all, I am not sure that 2006 was as good as last year for movies.

Back to Mac

Readers will know that at heart I am a Macintosh enthusiast, but I had been drawn over to the dark side because of work compatibility issues, among other things. As it turns out, my Dell Inspiron 8500 has died (and it has been a slow painful death) and consequently I just placed an order for a brand-spanking new 15″ 2.2 GHz MacBook Pro. I am coming home, Steve!

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Technically, I never left Apple since my home office sports both a Windows tower as well as a dual G4 tower. But the computer that I worked on day in and day out has been my Inspiron. What precipitated my return to my Mac roots? Three things: Intel chips, Boot Camp, and Parallels. The world in which I live requires that I have the ability to run some Windows programs. Now I can have the best of both worlds – the class of a MacBook plus the added windows functionality. Sweet.

I can’t wait until it arrives!


The Gospel According to the Sopranos

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Tonight the series finale of the award-winning HBO series, The Sopranos, is airing. I have been a fan of the series from the very beginning and am looking forward to watching episode 86, “Made in America.” I can’t help but think that the finale will be somewhat of a letdown, but that is perhaps to be expected for a long-running successful television series. I don’t think Tony will get whacked and I can’t see him cooperating with the FBI, so I’m not sure what will happen. (If you haven’t been following the series, check out the amusing video “7 Seven Minute Sopranos – A ‘Whacked Out’ Refresher” on YouTube).

gospel_soprano.jpgAs with many artifacts from popular culture, there has been some interesting philosophical and theological reflection on the series. One of my favourite series of “light” philosophy books has a volume entitled The Sopranos and Philosophy: I Kill Therefore I Am, edited by Richard Greene and Peter Vernezze (Popular Culture and Philosophy; Open Court, 2004; Buy from Amazon.ca | Amazon.com). I also liked the book on The Sopranos by Chris Seay, The Gospel According to Tony Soprano: An Unauthorized Look Into the Soul of TV’s Top Mob Boss and His Family (Relevant Books, 2002; Buy from Amazon.ca | Amazon.com). While I don’t think this volume is as strong as other “The Gospel According to…” books (not that all of the others are that strong either), it is an engaging examination of the first three seasons of The Sopranos from a Christian perspective. Seay treats the mob show as a modern parable that “provokes us, excites us, and pries back the exterior to peek into the darkest parts of our souls.” While Seay’s analyses of the show and popular culture are at times superficial, the book is fun and informative.

Will Tony Soprano be sleeping with the fishes after tonight’s episode? We’ll all have to wait and see.


Once Again… What’s in a Name?

No sooner than I go out of town to a conference than an interesting debate begins in the blogosphere. It appears that the question of the appropriate label for what Christians traditionally have referred to as the “Old Testament” is being debated.  This is not a new debate among bibliobloggers; back in January 2006 I started a similar debate. This time around Claude Mariottini got the ball rolling and Richie (at a blog called “Ecclesiastical Mutt”), Chris Heard, and Chris Weimer have all responded.

My position hasn’t changed since my previous post, so I thought I would reprint it here for you all.

Old Testament/First Testament/Hebrew Bible/Tanak: What’s in a Name? Quite a Bit Actually!

Labels don’t really matter that much, do they? A rose by any other name would still smell as sweet — or so they say. A little while ago there was a discussion on the biblical studies email list about different names for the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible/Tanak. This discussion highlighted the significance that each of the different monikers has as well as potential problems with pretty much all of the terms. When it comes right down to it, it does make a difference what label you do use since each of the names relate to a particular community of faith and audience. That being said, I don’t think there is anything wrong with employing the various labels at different times depending on your intended audience.

From the get go, it should be noted that all of the different terms are, in fact, external labels. The collection of books that make up the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible/Tanak do not have any self-referential label. The closest you get to a self-referential title are the references to parts of the canon by the terms such as “Torah,” the “Torah of Moses” (Ezra 3:2; 7:6; Neh 8:1), the “Torah of the LORD” (Ezra 7:10), or the “book/scroll of Moses” (2Chron 25:4; 35:12; Neh 13:1).

Once you get outside the books of the Hebrew Bible you find references to “the law of the Most High,” “the wisdom of all of the ancients,” and “prophecies” in Sirach 38:34-39:1. Similarly, in the Greek translation of Sirach (completed around 132 BCE), you find reference to the Law, Prophets, and the “other books” — the last phrase being a disputed reference to the third division of the Hebrew Bible. A similar (disputed) reference to the tripartite Hebrew canon are found in 4QMMT, while there are a few reference to a bipartite canon in other DSS such as the Community Rule (1QS) and the Damascus Document (CD).

Within the Christian New Testament the books of the OT are referred to variously as “the Law and the Prophets” (Matt 7:12; 22:40; Luke 16:16; Acts 13:15; Rom 3:21) or “Moses and the Prophets” (Luke 16:29, 31; 24:44) or the like. One of the most common ways the NT refers to the books of the OT is by the generic term “scripture” (Gk. γÏ?αφὴ; usually in the plural, “scriptures”). So for instance, in 2 Timothy 3:16 the books of the OT are referred to as “Scripture” that is “God breathed” (Gk. θεόπνευστος).

The point of this survey is to illustrate that there was no uniform way that Jewish or later Christian communities referred to the collection of books that make up the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible prior to the second century CE.

The traditional Christian label is the Old Testament. This label for the books otherwise known as the Hebrew Bible or Tanak (note that in some traditions it also includes additional apocryphal/deuterocaonical books) is probably the most common label used overall. Its first known usage appears near the end of the second century CE. Melito of Sardis reportedly went to Palestine and “learned accurately the books of the Old Testament/Covenant” (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 4.26.14). Irenaeus also employed the term, though it is only after him that you find undisputed uses the labels “Old Testament” and “New Testament” for the two collections of books in early Christian writings (e.g., Clement, Tertullian, Hippolytus, etc.).

Since this term arose within a Christian context, it isn’t surprising that it is tied to a Christian understanding of these books being only one part of the two part Christian Bible: The Old and New Testaments. Historically, however, there is some difference of opinion within Christian circles what books actually make up the “Old Testament.” The early history of the debate over certain books is quite complex. It ended up that the Protestant tradition limited the term to refer to the books of the Hebrew Bible, while other Christian traditions, e.g., Catholic and Orthodox, include the books commonly referred to as apocryphal or deuterocanonical.

One of the main objections for using this term in biblical scholarship is that it clearly presupposes a Christian understanding of the Bible, which not everyone in biblical studies (obviously) shares. But even within Christian circles, this label is considered misleading by some since it may be interpreted as unnecessarily devaluing one section of the Christian Bible by calling it “old” or by implying that the “new” testament supersedes the “old” testament (the different understandings of the relationships between the testaments is beyond the scope of this post). This dissatisfaction spawned the use of the terms First and Second Testament. These terms are an attempt to recognize the two parts of the Christian Bible without some of the negative baggage associated with “Old” and “New Testament.” I believe this term was coined by James Sanders and has been adopted by the Biblical Theology Bulliten and a growing number of Christian scholars. Even John Goldingay employs it throughout his recent book Old Testament Theology: Israel’s Gospel (IVP, 2003; he only uses the term after the first chapter).

The label Hebrew Bible originates within the Jewish community and is gaining ground in academic biblical studies. It is considered less ideologically loaded than OT, though it has its share of problems. Perhaps the most obvious problem is that it is imprecise, since some of the books are actually written in or contain Aramaic portions. It still conveys religious overtones by including the term “Bible,” while Christians may object because it obscures the connection between the Hebrew Bible and the Christian New Testament. It also doesn’t take into consideration traditions that hold to the expanded Christian canon including the apocryphal books.

Another popular Jewish term for the Old Testament is the Tanak. This term is an acronym for the three major divisions of the Hebrew Bible: Torah, Nebe’im, and Ketubim — TaNaK (תורה נבי×?×™×? וכתובי×? in Hebrew). This is perhaps one of the most common terms used within the Jewish community. Since the label is tied to the contents and order of the Jewish Hebrew Bible, it has the same, if not more, limitations as the term Hebrew Bible. Of course, this traditional Jewish division and ordering of the books appears to be quite old and even reflected in some of the NT passages noted above (also see Matt 23:35).

Other terms have been suggested, but none have really gained widespread usage. Perhaps the traditional labels, albeit problematic, are the best we have. As long as they are used with charity and understanding, I don’t see much of a problem. I have never been offended by any of my Jewish friends referring to the Old Testament as the Hebrew Bible or the Tanak, nor do I think they have been offended when I or other Christians refer to the Old Testament. I probably use the awkward “Old Testament/Hebrew Bible” the most, and reserve “Old Testament” when engaging specifically Christian theological topics and concerns. And I’m still not sure what I think of “First and Second Testament.”

What label(s) do you use and why?