it is a well documented fact by those of you who have known me for any great length of time, that my views on christianity are not very positive which has a lot to do with the 'dont question the dogma' attitude of organisied religion. beckford's refreshing approach to give the biblicial figures and events a historical and personal grounding immediatly makes the stories of the disciples much more understandable, believeable, and more importantly, human. it really was a rewarding two hours viewing which highlighted the vatican's often baffling approach to authenticating biblical stories because of internal politics, and offered counter evidence that showed the church's move to rome have subverted facts, even produced blantant lies to promote the catholic heirarchy's own hang ups.
there are startling facts that have been white-washed from the story of the disciples because of the prejudices of later relgious authorities - the role of jesus' brothers in establishing the first mesianic church, the importance of women in the early christian movement as scholars, priests and leaders, saint james journey to india to set up a christian church that could predate the establishment of the vatican. and this isn't church bashing by doubting thomas' either, dr beckford is a devote believer calling on centuries of ignored historical text and other religious theologeans who are desperately trying to bring buried biblical facts back into the light.
although im far from being converted, this open, intelligent and appealing presentation of a cast of pre-eminant holy figures is what modern christianity needs to embrass if it is rediscover past popularity in an increasingly agnostic society.
