One of the ways in which we interact with the Bible is through film and this is not a new undertaking for filmmakers. As Bible and Cinema: Fifty Key Films (London and New York: Routledge, 2013), edited by Adele Reinhartz, demonstrates, filmmakers have been making biblical films almost from the beginning of the movie industry. This is one of the compelling aspects of this book: it reviews films dating back to Life of Moses (1909-1910) and up to A Serious Man (2009), with every decade in between represented. It is also a difficult book to assess as it is not always clear on what basis films have been chosen for review or how one is to understand the book as a whole.

Billy Wilder rsquo s movie The Last Weekend about the suicide of an alcoholic author won the 1946 Academy Award for Best Picture Wilder also garnered that year rsquo s Oscar for Best Director and Ray Milland won Best Actor portraying the final days of a binging alcoholic The film gained a four

Some of you may remember me from The Good Word, where I wrote for over 4 years. I decided to move on a little more than a year ago to begin my own blog Biblejunkies. At Biblejunkies I wanted to focus more on the practice of biblical studies as such and the philosophical, theological and hermeneutical questions that rest behind the practice of biblical studies, making these questions available to a wider online audience. I will continue that blog, but I will also begin blogging again at The Good Word. Some of what I do at Biblejunkies might only be posted there and the same will take place with certain The Good Word blog posts, but I hope to do a lot of cross-posting as well between the two blogs. This happy reunion took place when I was appointed The Word columnist and discussions took place as to how I might connect with the magazine audience online and what shape that online presence might take.

Sometimes the way to understand one story is by way of another The story which we rsquo d all like to understand more fully is the resignation of our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI The story the Church sets before us this First Sunday of Lent is that of Christ rsquo s Temptation Perhaps a story

nbsp Sometimes class discussions veer in a direction I don rsquo t intend For example I don rsquo t remember what aspect of the Incarnation I was trying to present in a class of freshman college students when a young man suddenly asked quot Where does Holy Water come from quot I was still t

Some of the best theology penned has been produced by novelists Take for example the figure of Jean Valjean in Victor Hugo rsquo s Les Mis rables If you haven rsquo t read the novel perhaps you rsquo ve seen the musical or recently taken in its film version In 19th century France Jean Valjea