The Japanese Anime Bible SeriesTezuka Osamu no Kyuuyaku Seisho Monogatari/In the Beginning (1993)

Despite doing this for 20 years, somehow I'd been unaware of Tezuka Productions' animated Bible series In the Beginning only recently registered with me. The series is discussed in passing in Fumi Ogura and N. Frances Hioki's chapter on "Anime and the Bible" in "The Bible in Motion". I guess this is because there are so many hand-drawn animated series and so much else to write about I've never looked that closely.

Anyway, the series was actually commissioned by Italian TV network RAI to be primarily marketed towards children. Whilst Osamu Tezuka, the "Father of Manga", was the creative genius behind the studio,¹ the company's CEO at the time was Takayuki Matsutani who later recalled RAI's producer telling them "There are a few restrictions, but you are free to do what you want".² However, later there were disagreements with the series' biblical advisers.

The pilot, The Story of Noah, was finished around 1986 and although Tezuka continued to work on the other episodes, he died in 1989 and the series had to be completed without him. Director Dezaki Osamu is credited with the remaining episodes. Ogura & Hioki say that the series debuted on RAI in 1993, though various online sources cite 1997, including this one which also gives airing dates and a crew list. You can read what Ogura & Hioki say about it at Google Books and view all the entries on this convenient YouTube playlist.

The full list of titles in this series is as follows:

1 - The Creation
2 - Cain and Abel
3 - The Story of Noah
4 - The Tower of Babel
5 - Abraham, the Forefather
6 - Sodom and Gomorrah
7 - Isaac and Ishmael
8 - Isaac's Destiny
9 - Jacob's Children
10 - Joseph's Triumph
11 - Moses, The Egyptian
12 - The Fire in the Desert
13 - Moses and the Pharaoh
14 - The Exodus
15 - Laws Carved in Stone
16 - Israel's Treachery
17 - New Alliance
18 - Jericho
19 - One king for Israel
20 - King Saul
21 - King David
22 - King Solomon
23 - The Exile of Israel
24 - Release from Bondage
25 - Prophets in the Desert
26 - The Birth of Jesus

I'm going to watch some of these episodes and report back. Judging by the comments on YouTube they inspired a strong connection in some of those who watched them when they were young.

Incidentally this webpage also mentions a Brasilian anime series called "Superbook".
======
1 - Osamu Tezuka is perhaps best known for his 1965-66 anime Kimba the White Lion which seems to have formed some of the inspiration behind The Lion King (1995).
2 - Ogura and Hioki give the following citation for this, but I've been unable to locate it - perhaps due to the anglicisation of the original Japanese title and my lack of Japanese:
Matsutani, Takayuki. 1994. "Seisho terebi shirizu-ka ni atatte." in Tenchi Sōzō. Ed Osamu Tezuka. Tezuka Osamu no Kyūyaku Seisho Monogatari Series 1. Tokyo: Shūeisha. Pp 284-286.