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Havrelock walks through a sheep market while filming"Who Was Jesus?"
Biblical Scholar Rachel Havrelock Ponders "Who Was Jesus?" for the Discovery Channel
What was life like in the time of Jesus? What were the origins of Christianity?
A new Discovery Channel documentary co-hosted by Rachel Havrelock sheds new light on these questions by examining emerging research on the life of Jesus and life in the first century. The series, "Who Was Jesus?" premiered this spring, and aired in three consecutive one-hour segments that covered Jesus’ childhood, mission and last days.
Havrelock, assistant professor of English and Jewish Studies, teamed with a Harvard University theologian and a Wofford College archeologist to guide viewers on a journey through the Holy Land.
Rachel Havrelock was kind enough to give us the inside scoop about her experiences filming "Who Was Jesus?"
1. What was it like being on set and working with a film crew?
It was a real adventure filming ‘Who Was Jesus?’ Our first week of filming was in and around Jerusalem. On the first morning of shooting, I woke up at 5 a.m. and was told that we were going in search of a live sheep market in Bethlehem and the next thing I knew we were in the West Bank crossing checkpoints. I was dropped off on a hillside with men buying and selling live sheep. I was the only woman there being followed by a camera. Each day had some kind of adventure like this. There was no script and the premise is that the viewer is on the road with the hosts so the wild situations were all part of the show.
2. What was it like visiting the Jordan River?
I have spent the past ten years of my life researching and writing about the Jordan River. I spent two years living in Israel and the Palestinian West Bank doing fieldwork. I’ve crossed the Jordan border on several occasions and become familiar with most of its bends. There is an abandoned monastery dedicated to John the Baptist not far from Jericho that is inaccessible because it is in a demilitarized zone. With a camera, everything becomes possible. We first met up with fathers of the Greek Orthodox Church and then with an Israeli army detail. The Israeli soldiers opened the fence to the demilitarized zone and the fathers produced the key to the monastery. I soon found myself narrating all about the Jordan from the monastery roof and then standing on its banks with a remarkable scholar, my co-host Allen Callahan.
3. Did you have any interesting encounters that weren't directly related to the documentary?
I often rode cabs back and forth to the shoots and spoke Arabic with my cab drivers. After I passed my ability to say anything meaningful in Arabic, I would switch to Hebrew and engage in lengthy conversations, sometimes with stops for coffee. Several cab drivers were shocked that I was a Jew staying in Palestinian East Jerusalem and this fact enabled some profound conversations about the conflict and possible alternatives. I felt that in certain ways I bridged the seam, at least through my own movements.
To learn more from Rachel Havrelock about the historical Jesus, please read Discovery Channel’s interview with Havrelock.
"This is a new way of looking at it," Havrelock said of the program. "It’s a more productive way, and closer to the social context of the time, so I think the viewers will get that from the story."
The documentary also includes interviews with experts in history, archeology and theology. A particular highlight of the experience for Havrelock was her visit to a demilitarized area of the Jordan River for a segment on John the Baptist. She is completing a book, River Jordan: The Mythic History of a Dividing Line, that considers the Jordan River as a border in the Bible, Judaism, Christianity and Jewish and Palestinian national movements.
"I’ve been trying to get to it for 10 years," Havrelock said. "It’s right across from the baptismal site in Jordan." She was accompanied by Israeli border guards while Jordanian border guards monitored Christian pilgrims baptizing themselves.
Other notable moments for Havrelock included discussions of Jesus’ miracles aboard a fishing boat in the Sea of Galilee, a sacrifice at a contemporary sheep market in Bethlehem, and finding the "greatest Middle Eastern restaurant in the world" in Nazareth.
Havrelock is co-author of Women on the Biblical Road and a contributor to The Women’s Commentary on the Torah. She teaches courses on the Hebrew Bible, gender and sexuality in Judaism and Christianity, the history of Jewish biblical interpretation, the New Testament and the prophets in Judaism and Islam.
Adapted from a UIC News article by Brian Flood, April 1, 2009.
Copyright © 2009 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. All rights reserved. Complete credits.