Over time, many well-meaning people and institutions have reasonably argued, for the betterment of society and mankind, that the Bible be banned, and all printing and distribution of the “Good Book” be permanently halted. I completely disagree with this position, however noble the intention.

First of all, I believe in freedom of the press, which is something I think they should even put in our Constitution (and BTW, the Bible and the Constitution rank as the top two books everybody talks about and nobody reads). Secondly, the Bible is full of goodness, and great stories. It kills me every time when Jesus says, “Let he that is without sin among you cast the first stone at her.”  (The wording varies depending on which Bible you believe, but you get the idea – what a timeless lesson, right?)  Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, where would the movies be without the Bible?

Depending on your beliefs, God or Man invented sex and violence in the media, in the form of the Bible. Once Gutenberg worked out the means of mass production, there was no turning back. Four Hundred and fifty years later, as soon as movie cameras were invented, filmmakers started making Bible movies. Cecil B. DeMille made The Ten Commandments, twice (1923 and 1956). Could anyone ever get tired of watching The Ten Commandments starring Charlton Heston as Moses? Not me! There have been a ton of Jesus movies, and they are all great. Even Johnny Cash produced (and acts) in one called The Gospel Road (1973), and that shit is not to be missed.

The stage musical is in the game, too. Just a few years ago a production of The Ten Commandments was mounted as a musical extravaganza.  Val Kilmer played Moses.  I’m not kidding, I saw it at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood. They even did the special effects for the parting of the Red Sea. The show was a stink bomb, but God bless them for trying.

While the direct adaptations from Bible stories are awesome, the real debts movies owe to the Bible are subtler. The story of the Levite and his concubine (Judges 19) could very well be the source of the modern day slasher, rape-revenge, and torture porn genres. Is Lazarus not the original Zombie? Does the erotic thriller owe something to the story of Lot and his daughters? And where would the movies be without Satan?  We’d have no The Exorcist, no Rosemary’s Baby, no The Devil’s Advocate. Unthinkable. The Bible gave us the femme fatale (Delilah, Judith, and Salome didn’t give head, they got head).

Sci-fi and disaster movies (Death Rays shooting out of the Raider’s Ark, and Noah’s Ark = 2012) come from the Bible. Regarding sex, the Bible’s central contribution is the virgin/ whore dichotomy thing. Movies ate that up.

We have plenty of sex and violence in movies now, but Hollywood is in a slump as far as direct Bible adaptations are concerned (the only fresh work out there is R. Crumb’s illustrated Book of Genesis). Digital technology makes the impossible-to-film affordable again. It is time to bring back the Biblical Epic: the miracles, the sex, the destruction, the terror, and the moral lessons.  Somebody get James Cameron on the phone!

— david warfield