cover image Scripture on the Silver Screen

Scripture on the Silver Screen

Adele Reinhartz. Westminster John Knox Press, $24.95 (224pp) ISBN 978-0-664-22359-5

Religion professor Adele Reinhartz offers a thoughtful study on biblical themes in Hollywood movies with Scripture on the Silver Screen. By focusing on just a dozen key films, and by narrowing the book's examination to the ways the Bible is portrayed in those films, Reinhartz's study is clear, concise and absorbing. For some of the films, the biblical connection is explicit in the narrative itself (e.g. the role of the Book of Ruth in Fried Green Tomatoes, a story about women's friendships), while for others, the Bible's role is more subtle and symbolic (e.g. the ""Fall"" and the exile from Eden depicted in Pleasantville). Reinhartz's tone is typically full of praise for the films discussed here, but she also includes a final chapter on movies that got it wrong-those that, like Nell or Pale Rider, offer misleading or superficial understandings of scripture.