This may be a banner summer for Hollywood at the box office, but a movie milestone of a different kind was reached last month for the evangelical association Campus Crusade, International. Their cinematic adaptation of the Gospel of Luke, titled "The Jesus Project," has now been translated into 1,000 languages--and that makes it the most translated film in history.
The original purpose of "The Jesus Film" was to create an evangelical presentation of the gospel in the native languages of different cultures around the world, to make the message more accessible. However, it is worth noting on this landmark occasion, that in spite of it’s far-reaching umbrella to win souls to Christ, not all Christinan groups have embraced "The Jesus Project." In years past, Bible literalists and others have questioned everything from the marketing to the translation accuracy of the film.
Though I have a respect for the importance--not to mention the work involved--of attempting to translate the gospel into other languages as a step toward assimilating the message into different cultures (as opposed to completely shoving a foreign language on a group of people as a means of communication), I have always had two concerns with the project: One, it has always been a relatively mediocre film in terms of production values. And let's face it, a film that is 25 years old probably needs a little refreshing after all this time.
The other concern I have had (since I spent my stint on the mission field about a decade ago) is that there is so much more that can be done--than simple translation--in presenting the gospel in a way that truly embraces an indigenous culture that has not had exposure to it. The film itself is still a very uniquely Western visual presentation of a Messiah, and I sometimes wonder how effectively that really plays in the 10/40 Window.
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I believe this was part of a documentary I watched last weekend on TV. Acually I found it pretty good. What was even better were the exerpts showing the success that was had with the film in spreading the message to countries where the missionaries were going into extremely remote areas. The power of film was overwhelming. I don't think these people minded the fact that the technology was a little out of date. They kept it simple and were able to spread the message to a multitude of languages. I commend them for a job well done, and that keeps working.
It plays very well in the 10/40 window, and it was never intended to be a sole means for presenting the message of Jesus Christ. As to its 25-year-old production values, you'd be amazed at the organizational and technological challenges involved in obtaining all those translations. To apply all that work to a new visual presentation would slow down progress for years. And if you're a member of that 1001st language group, seeing a film in your own language for the very first time ever (possibly, in a few locations, the first film you've ever seen), those production values probably won't bother you much. The message is still there.
I can comment on some of your critiques, but I am a little biased as I am on staff with CCC, though not with the Jesus Film project.
As far as the production value. Like Tom said, the JFilm people haven't run into that as an issue overseas, here it is not effective, but they are working to "translate" it visually as well, using Japanese animation style to encapsulate some of the scenes from the movie while (I believe) using the original dialog (which doesn't change any issues with the translation. Also, the JFilm has seen a lot of tribal people that they have encountered who have had dreams of the specific actor playing Jesus before the JFilm crew showed up.
Also, one of the newest things that they are doing is creating community and ethnically specific videos and films for followup in living as a Christian in the context of their culture instead of trying to impose Western Christianity™ upon them. They are also creating video and film strategies to be effective in the US including a small group discussion based around a small film festival type setting.
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