A Hands-on Experiment
Religion scholar thrilled to serve on advisory committee for The Gospel of Mark.
from news releases | posted 3/02/2004
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Now that The Gospel of John is out on video (click here to read the review), the project's creators, The Visual Bible International, Inc. (VBI), turn their attention to making The Gospel of Mark.
The new film will feature input from Robert Fowler, Ph.D., chair of the religion department at Baldwin-Wallace College in Berea, Ohio. Fowler is on the advisory committee for Mark, and in that role will help the producer, director and screenwriter to better understand the biblical text and to help them avoid errors.
Fowler is "delighted" to be on the advisory committee, "because the transformation of the biblical traditions in the Electronic Age has been my major teaching and research interest for the past decade or so. Working with VBI brings me into the laboratory, so to speak, where an important hands-on experiment is taking place."
Here is an interview with Fowler, as provided by Baldwin-Wallace College:
What is the significance of The Gospel of John and The Gospel of Mark films?
Fowler: "In the church and in the academic world, the tendency has been to disintegrate the Scriptures into bite-sized pieces. The result is that seldom do the lay people in the pews have a grasp of an entire biblical book, only bits and pieces.
"The gospels were probably intended to be experienced at a single sitting, in their entirety, in oral performance. Not since the earliest days of the church have they been experienced this way. However, many people today are beginning to recover the experience of the Gospels as whole, complete stories, to be taken in at a single sitting. This is one of the big accomplishments of the film of The Gospel of John: it gives us all of the Gospel of John, from beginning to end. To many people who have never read or never sat through a complete performance of any biblical book from beginning to end, this will be a revelation."
Other reasons why these films are important?
Fowler: "Movies and television are the primary ways that people experience lengthy stories today. We are undergoing a shift in the dominant communication medium of our culture, from a print culture to an electronic, digital culture
"Once upon a time, much of the material in the Bible would have been performed orally. Then came the days when it began to be written by hand. With the invention of the printing press, we began to have printed Bibles. Today, the next great transformation is taking place, the mutation of the biblical traditions from the printed page to electronic, digital media. It is exciting to be involved in the work of the VBI, because it's like being a midwife present at the birth of the next major media form of the biblical traditions.
"VBI and other organizations are pioneering in the production of the earliest experimental forms of the Bible in the new media. Working with VBI is like being present for the invention of the alphabet, or the invention of the printing press, or at Kitty Hawk, where the Wright brothers first flew, or at Cape Canaveral, when the first Americans were sent into space."
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