The Execution of Jesus (History Channel)
The History Channel'sThe Execution of Jesustakes a level, inquisitive approach to sorting out facts from assumptions about the final, heady days of Christ's life. The program asks a handful of biblical scholars if we should accept as truth events that followed popular Galilee prophet Jesus' provocative entry into Jerusalem, a center of power where he attacked the social order on a number of fronts, declared himself the Messiah, and was subsequently condemned and killed. One of the intriguing questions concerns how much of the gospels--written long after Christ's life--are acts of artistic license. Other historians wonder what it was, exactly, that Christ did to so rile Jerusalem's leaders they engineered his elaborate sufferings and crucifixion. This interesting documentary doesn't shed any new light, but it provides some tantalizing details (the discovery of the possible burial place of Jewish high priest Caiaphas) and alternative views of the Resurrection.--Tom Keogh