I am currently working on editing the Stephen Mansfield interviews for The Real Jesus. His comments on “Was Jesus a Myth?” were suitable for YouTube. I put one Mansfield clip up on YouTube last night and already it has a lot of views. This may end up in an “extras” assortment on the DVD. An entire video on “Jesus as Myth” might be a good seller. This idea is gaining momemtum among militant atheists and there isn’t a lot out there to refute it simply because it is so ridiculous.
I am not going to use this clip in the Real Jesus because it’s a can of worms. The old saying applies here, “He who frames he question wins the debate.” In my next post, I’ll frame a few such questions for the Jesus Mythists.
Strangely, I discovered how popular the Jesus Mythist position is among young postmodernists when I posted my refutation of the liberal critics on YouTube. The Jesus Mythist position is not covered in The Real Jesus simply because in refuting liberalism, the more extreme position of the Mythists just appears to be silly.
Besides Mansfield’s sound bite, I don’t have any other material on the “Jesus as Myth” position, so it seems out of place. I think there is one possible place it fits in, but I think it breaks the flow of ideas no matter where I would put it. Mansfield’s other quotes will make up two good clips on the DVD and I will use a lot of B-Roll to cover it. His topic was to critique the sudden popularity of the Gnostic Gospels as a popular writer and historian.
I am having some difficulty knowing how expansive The Real Jesus DVD should be. With the added interviews and all the extra materials, part one is now well over 90 minutes up from about 60 minutes just a month ago. I’ll see just how long when I finish the next section. I am constantly coming up with more material to add to part one and what I need to do is get this project in the can and move on to the next one. It’s taken more than two years since I started editing the video, but several times I didn’t work on it for a month or longer and I am doing this as a part time effort.
The YouTube cultural phenomenon rescued the project last year when I redid the entire series as a video podcast. From that I began to get a lot of interest in the project. It’s now due out in November with Eric Holmberg as the narrator and host. There is a lot more to cover. There will likely be a Real Jesus parts 2 and 3. Judging just by the reaction to the YouTube videos, this is a powerful ministry for years to come. I’ll soon have 100,000 views of the various parts. Even if this doesn’t translate into a bestseller on DVD, it’s something that can be done inexpensively and will remain relevant for years to come. I eventually forsee a three to four hour series in three parts. The remaining script is better and more interesting than part one. The main problem is going to be cutting it down to about half of what I have now. Otherwise, we are talking about at least four more hours.
There has been a special “podcast edition” of part one available since last spring. But I am not going to sell this DVD because the new version is going to be far superior. If you want a review copy however, contact me. I have several copies on hand.
The entire script for parts one, two and three are at http://therealjesus.com/. If you ever want to critique what is coming up, I am open to suggestions.
