The Bible is the best-selling book of all time, followed closely by Fifty Shades of Grey and Can You Take the Heat?: The WWF Is Cooking! by Jim “J.R.” Ross and the WWF Superstars. The Bible is a book that means something to everyone, believer and non-believer alike. It’s also a book I’m sure very few people have read in its entirety, except scholars and translators. But for better or worse, most people know what’s in the Bible (or they at least think they know what’s in it).

This week, there’s a new Bible movie in town—Darren Aronofsky’s Noah, which is already steeped in controversy before it’s even been released. But Bible movies are nothing new: the Bible is in the public domain, which means Hollywood producers can take any story they want from it without having to pay God any royalties. And since the Bible is a well-known property (like comic books!), Hollywood has wasted no time in exploiting it for the entertainment industry’s own needs—they’ve been making Bible movies since 1897! The early days of Bible films featured mostly standard adaptations, only with more glitz and glam and John Wayne playing a Roman soldier. Films like Ben-Hur, The Greatest Story Ever Told, and of course The Ten Commandments. I remember The Ten Commandments airing around Easter/Passover time ever year on TV, and staying up late to watch it, and usually passing out around the time they make the golden calf (I never got to the actual commandants part, apparently). These films have their charms, but there’s nothing about them that perks up my interest. They are, for lack of a better word, safe. But every now and then, a filmmaker will come along who is willing to take risks, and these risky adaptations are usually the most controversial (like Noah) and the most rewarding—at least for me.

I was raised Catholic. By that I mean I went to Catholic school, and part of Catholic school meant going to church. In church I would sit and look up at the large mural on the vaulted ceiling, or at the huge stone columns, and I’d think, “Wow, this place looks expensive!” The priest would go on and on, the choir would sing, and the smell of the incense would hurt my sinuses. I had a clear-cut view that God existed, and so did heaven, and hell, and so on and so forth, world without end, amen. I accepted all of this as fact because an alternative was never presented to me. However, the older I got, and the more I learned and read, the less I believed. Still, religion continued to fascinated me, especially the story of Jesus—specifically, the historical Jesus, the real flesh and blood guy who lived and died and then was turned into something more by generations of stories passed down, until any trace of the original man is lost, and what we’re left with is a superhero who is both God and Man (and also really, really white; just go with it, ignore the whole Middle Eastern aspect!). These days I would say I’m an atheist with occasional agnostic leanings, if that makes any sense. Truth be told, I don’t really like to label my belief systems (or lack thereof). But when it comes to believing in the Bible and believing that the Bible is the absolute word of God—well, to that I say, “Nope.”

Yet despite my lack of faith in religion, biblical movies always hold my interest. One of my favorite musicals is Jesus Christ Superstar. The 1973 Norman Jewison film adaptation of the stage musical is not a great movie, but it has its charms. The very 70s feel of the film is both corny and endearing—there’s something enjoyable about “Roman soldiers” wearing purple tank tops and shiny silver helmets. I love how everyone piles off a bus at the beginning, as if they’re a road show traveling through the desert, randomly stopping to put on a play. And what I like most about Jesus Christ Superstar is that it’s told from the point of view of Judas, the man infamous for betraying Jesus. In Jesus Christ Superstar, Jesus (Ted Neeley) is rather boring. He’s just sort of there, smiling, looking generically handsome, sporting a glorious goatee. Judas, played by Carl Anderson, is the real star of the show. His songs are the most memorable, and his torment is the most thought out. When Jesus meets his end on the cross, we barely feel anything. But when Judas, full of regret, bellows the number “Damned for All Time,” we can’t help but feel some sympathy for one of history’s most notorious traitors. Also rather daring for this film version is that we never actually see Jesus’ resurrection. Jesus dies, and everyone (still alive) piles back into the bus they all arrived on—everyone except Jesus. Then they drive away, leaving an empty cross and a setting sun. Take what you want from that.

Monty Python’s Life of Brian, from 1979, is not, strictly speaking, a biblical film. But Monty Python brilliantly used the story of Brian Cohen (Graham Chapman), a mistaken Messiah born in a stable next door to Jesus, for some biting religious satire. Everywhere Brian goes, people seem to be convinced he’s their savior, and Brian wants no part of it. The film makes light of the way that people interpret (or misinterpret) the bible; in the words of Python member Terry Jones, the film “isn’t blasphemous because it doesn’t touch on belief.” It is, rather, “heretical, because it touches on dogma and the interpretation of belief.” The story of Brian draws to a close as Brian, despite all his best efforts to stay out of this whole business, ends up crucified. Even the horrible act of crucifixion is playfully mocked as a fellow condemned man (Eric Idle) turns to Brian and says, “See, not so bad once you’re up!” and everything gives way to a musical number.

When it comes to controversial adaptations of biblical stories, none perhaps is more infamous than Martin Scorsese’s 1988 film The Last Temptation of Christ. Based on Nikos Kazantzakis’ novel of the same name, The Last Temptation of Christ was met with an almost biblical flood’s worth of protest. Christian fundamentalist groups actually tossed Molotov cocktails into a theater showing the film in Paris. While there is no excuse for firebombing anyone, I can certainly see why some people would not take lightly to the film. After all, it features a lengthy sequence where Jesus (Willem Dafoe, who is fantastic here) literally rejects his destiny, escapes the cross, has sex with several women, has kids, and dies an old man as Jerusalem burns down around him. However, if all of the people so up in arms had actually stopped for a minute and watched the movie, they would see that this whole scenario is actually a long fever dream the dying Jesus is having on the cross. In the end, he accepts his fate and yells out, “It is accomplished!” However, it’s not just the image of Jesus bangin’ some ladies that infuriates people; Scorsese’s film dares to suggest Jesus was not just a God but a man, who had very human thoughts, and doubts, and fears.

This is an incredibly flawed Jesus; as a carpenter, he actually builds crosses for the Romans. He’s filled with doubt, and he lusts after Mary Magdalene (Barbara Hershey). The first hour of the film is pretty much Jesus literally kicking and screaming, rejecting God. Scorsese’s film isn’t without its flaws; we are faced once again with the problem that these are very white actors playing Middle Eastern people, and some may take issue with Harvey Keitel’s very Brooklyn-sounding Judas (not I, though; Keitel is solid in this film, even with the accent). I will go out on a limb and say this is the best movie made about Jesus to date. I, a non-believer, can totally accept this version of Jesus: a doubtful, frightened man who transcends into a mythical, powerful figure. Dafoe’s performance is epic and, honestly, any movie that has David Bowie as Pontius Pilate is top notch in my book. There is also a fantastic scene in which Jesus, after his “death,” encounters Paul (Harry Dean Stanton), and the film gives a pretty realistic version of how Christianity really got started. As Paul says to Jesus: “I created the truth, out of what people needed and what they believed. If I have to crucify you to save the world, I’ll crucify you…MY Jesus is much more important, and much more powerful.”

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaUuSJx-VDA&w=560&h=315]

It’s easy to shrug off Mel Gibson’s 2004 The Passion of the Christ. For one thing, Gibson is kind of crazy, as we all know now. For another, the film could very easily be classified as “torture porn,” as we spend most of the 126 minutes of this film watching Jesus (Jim Caviezel) being brutally tortured and killed. Gibson clearly was working through his own personal issues and demons with the film, and there is a touch of the sadist in his work. But it’s also important to remember that the point of the Passion Narrative is to fully display all the torture and suffering Jesus supposedly went through (Passion is a translation of the Greek word meaning “to suffer”). Gibson wasn’t setting out to put Jesus’ life on film, because aside for a few random flashbacks (we get to see Jesus build a really tall table, much to the amazement of his mother!), Gibson isn’t interested in Jesus’ life—he’s interested in his terrible death — the death that, if you’re a believer, absolved the sins of everyone already dead and those who had yet to even be born or die for generations. And it’s pretty apparent Mel Gibson is a fairly large “sinner,” so of course he’s going be most interested in the symbolic act that purifies all the nasty shit he might have said or done.

The Passion of the Christ was met with a plethora of controversy, not just for its incredibly graphic violence but also for its rather blatant antisemitism. Do I think Gibson set out for his film to be antisemitic? I honestly don’t know; a part of me thinks he just didn’t really realize it at first, because a lot of the antisemitic stuff in the film is taken right from the bible. The Gospel of John, which is the most widely known Gospel, is also the most antisemitic of all four canonical gospels of the New Testament. This is because The Gospel of John was the last of the four gospels to be written, sometime during the second century. At the time it was written, Jesus had morphed from a Jewish preacher into something more acceptable to non-Jewish people, thus enabling Christianity to spread to a wider audience. To distance itself from the earlier gospels, the author of John took extra care to insert antisemitic statements; in a sense, the author was saying, “Don’t be afraid of Jesus, he’s not Jewish anymore! To prove it, I’ll show you how much I dislike Jews with my writing!”

For all The Passion of the Christ does wrong (honestly, the film feels, to me at least, more like a horror movie than a religious one—it has a spooky androgynous Satan, demons with scary Halloween mask faces, and more gore than all of the terrible Saw movies combined), it also does a lot right. Even though Jim Caviezel is a pretty white fellow, Gibson (and the make-up department) went to great lengths to make him look suitably Middle Eastern. Sure, Gibson could’ve actually cast a real-deal Middle-Eastern actor, but I think we’re a long way off before Hollywood is going to let that happen.

Also, the film is not in English. This is a pretty big deal, because—and forgive me for generalizing here—a lot of people hate subtitles. “I don’t go to the movies to read,” someone might cry, before perhaps eating an entire bag of cheese chips. Instead, Gibson had his screenplay translated into Aramaic (with a little Hebrew and Latin thrown in as well, although he completely ignores Greek, which was also spoken at the time).

Despite all the controversy, or perhaps because of it, The Passion of the Christ was a gigantic success, and Gibson literally built a giant castle made out of gold (citation needed?).

And now it occurs to me that the films I’ve singled out are all New Testament based. Maybe I’m more focused on these films because I was brought up Catholic, but honestly, Hollywood hasn’t taken many chances with Old Testament works. This is slightly ironic seeing as the Old Testament is overseen by a more Fire-and-Brimstone God than the one of the New, and we all know that can make for some good entertainment.

Darren Aronofsky’s Noah might change all of that. The film tested poorly with “religious audiences,” and Paramount has attached a disclaimer in the front of the film:

“The film is inspired by the story of Noah. While artistic license has been taken, we believe that this film is true to the essence, values and integrity of a story that is a cornerstone of faith for millions of people worldwide. The biblical story of Noah can be found in the book of Genesis.”

This December, Ridley Scott’s Exodus will be released, retelling the story of Moses (played by Patrick Bateman/Batman himself, Christian Bale). I somehow doubt the film will be as controversial as Noah; if it’s anything like Ridley Scott’s recent efforts, it’ll more than likely just be lifeless (although I’d love a good Ridley Scott movie again).

I try not to scoff at anyone’s beliefs (except super fundamentalists and Scientologists, because, c’mon, that’s crazy) nor force my own (or lack thereof) on anyone else, because I wouldn’t want anyone else’s beliefs forced on me. When it comes to adapting biblical stories, Hollywood itself doesn’t seem particularly interested in the faith or belief aspect either. It’s more about the spectacle; the pageantry; the special effects. And that’s why I enjoy these particular films. I don’t need religion in my life—I have movies.