Rarely has so much attention been lavished on the life and death of Jesus. Thanks to The Passion of the Christ and the ensuing media blitz, people are talking about, reading about and wondering about Jesus. On Monday night, in a three-hour primetime event, ABC News will do its part to explore the story of Jesus and the founding of Christianity, including an in-depth look at Paul.
Targeted to those not yet familiar with the Christian faith, "Peter Jennings Reporting: Jesus and Paul – The Word and the Witness" will air Monday, April 5 from 8 –11 p.m. ET on the ABC Television Network.
ABCNEWS.com will feature companion programming, including a comprehensive interactive map and timeline of Paul’s journey, a gallery of images, Web exclusive articles, more about the scholars interviewed in the program, and a message board for viewers to debate ideas. The broadcast will also appear on ABC News Live, the 24/7 Internet news channel for a broadband audience available to subscribers at ABCNEWS.com
In recent years, ABC News has taken steps to focus attention on the complex, "sometimes controversial, issues surrounding religious history and personal faith." And while some evangelical Christians may disagree with the choice of scholars and the research findings, the special at least will generate lively discussion and hopefully, propel viewers to do their own studies.
"After the death and resurrection of Jesus, Paul becomes the main character in the Bible story about the birth of Christianity," notes a press release from ABC. "Jesus and Paul were two men of remarkable faith, iron will, and radical vision. Without them the religion we know today as Christianity would not exist. Both sacrificed everything for the belief that God had chosen them to change the world. They did."
When Jesus died on the cross, he left behind a small and frightened group of followers struggling to make sense of his death. Scholar and author Karen Armstrong tells Jennings: "If anyone had said this is a great idea for a new religion, a man who died a disgraceful death of a common criminal in an obscure province of the Roman Empire who is in some way divine, people would have laughed in your face!"
Yet within a few decades, against all odds, the tiny Jesus movement began to spread and in spite of ridicule, suspicion and persecution it would ultimately displace the Caesars as well as the mystery religions and pagan cults that crowded the Roman world.
If it weren’t for Paul says Armstrong, "Christianity probably would have remained a small sect within Judaism."
Both conservative and liberal scholars say it was Paul who first articulated the ideas we have about the Jesus who was sent by God to die to redeem the world’s sin. The letters Paul wrote as he traveled the Roman Empire formed the basis of the religion that today we call Christianity.
The special will explore the "controversy" surrounding Paul. Scholars tell Jennings that in Paul’s own day, "he fought bitterly with the closest friends and family of Jesus, who had a different vision for their fledgling movement."
According to ABC, Paul is described by some as a "madman and by many as a genius. He is also the man blamed for centuries of anti-Semitism." The program looks at whether that is fair as it traces Paul’s role in turning Christianity into a religion that was separate from Judaism.