"Jesus of Hollywood" to be published next month

I've been following the progress of Adele Reinhartz's forthcoming book "Jesus of Hollywood" for sometime now, and was pleased to discover that some more details of the book have now been posted at the Oxford University Press website, and at Amazon. I seem to recall that at one stage this was going to be released at some point next year, but now it seems that publication has been brought forward, to December. I assume that Amazon have some reason for listing the release date as Christmas Day, although that would seem to be an unlikely date.

Reinhartz has tackled the subject of films about Jesus in lesser detail a number of times before. Her article at the Journal of Religion and Film titled "Jesus in Film: Hollywood Perspectives on the Jewishness of Jesus" was very influential on me personally when I first read it a number of years ago, and she later wrote another article for them on Mel Gibson's film called "Passion-ate Moments in the Jesus Film Genre". She has also wrote "Jesus of Hollywood: From D. W. Griffith to Mel Gibson" for The New Republic, and a chapter with the same name for the book "(Perspectives) On The Passion of the Christ". She has also written a number of books in her own right including "Scripture on the Silver Screen".

It's always difficult to tell exactly what will be covered by such a book without actually reading it. I'm encouraged by the mention of both Life of Brian and Roberto Rossellini's film (Il Messia), as these are two of my favourite films in the genre. Rossellini's film has been largely ignored, so it is good to see this book redressing the balance.