Bible Movie Quiz Answers

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Abraham

Journey Films

• Last of the Mohicans: a journey/quest to save his people
• Finding Nemo: a father’s only son is lost, then found
• Thelma and Louise: trying to find who you really are, what God means you to be
• Ice Age 2: a ‘tribe’ makes a long journey to find a place where they will be safe
• Lord of the Rings: a journey/quest to defeat evil and restore harmony

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Adam

Creation/Garden of Eden films

• Apocalypto: Paradise (the pristine jungle) is ruined when sin/violence enters; man and woman must fight to survive
• The Time Machine: the hero leaves an idyllic landscape to try to start the human race again
• Battlestar Galactica: exiled from the Garden of Eden (Earth) but still searching for it; the main character is Adama
• A New Leaf: a man has a perfect life, loses it, must accept reality and adapt to it
• Quest for Fire: people in prehistoric times are forced by circumstances to become creative and inventive

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Bathsheba

Power struggles/adultery/hubris of a king

• The Lion in Winter: the members of a royal family try to outmanouvre and destroy each other
• Camelot: the prettyfied re-telling of a destructive tale of adultery and betrayal
• Rashomon: this film asks the same question as the story of David and Bathsheba: whose version is true?
• Ran, a Japanese version of ‘King Lear’: the struggle for power destroys a whole kingdom
• Godfather: who succeeds the leader? the eldest? or the most competent?

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David

A complex man struggles to use power properly

• The Godfather: the corruption of power; the king is trapped by his own power
• Man For All Seasons: like David, Henry VIII unscrupulously kills anyone who gets in his way
• The Postman Always Rings Twice: lovers murder the woman’s husband, but ultimately suffer for it
• Citizen Kane: his power distances him from reality, and even from his family
• The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence– a David takes on a Goliath

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Delilah

Films about ‘Bad Women’

• Samson and Delilah– the Hollywood version of the story
• Butterfield 8: Elizabeth Taylor as the high-class mistress/call-girl who wants love and respectability
• Breakfast at Tiffany’s: Holly Golightly wants true love, not the erratic life of a successful call-girl
• Pretty Woman: the reluctant whore who wants respectability, love, marriage
• Fatal Attraction: the vengeful woman who attacks the man who has been her lover

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Deborah

Women who fight for something they believe in

• Gone With The Wind. Scarlett may wear a crinoline, but she can fight better than most of us when she wants
• A League of Their Own. Some strong determined women stand together to get the recognition they deserve
• Terminator: woman as warrior, fighting to save humanity (for ‘humanity’, read ‘the Israelites’)
• Silkwood: a woman with a cause she is ready to die for
• Alien: a woman who eventually dies (unlike Deborah) to save her people

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Esther

Royal Women, Women with Personal Power

• Elizabeth: like Esther, Elizabeth I must tread a careful path to avoid the plots and counter-plots around her – and to maintain her own power
• The Queen: this film shows the nuanced way that power can be used by those who know how
• Absolute Power explores the themes of corruption and power – a dangerous mixture
• Charlie Wilson’s War: in her way, the heroine is an American queen; she knows how to wield power and make things happen, even though her power is not official as Esther’s is
• The Slipper and the Rose: the young woman in this re-telling of Cinderella behaves just as a queen should, with honour and dignity

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Isaac

Families that Quarrel

• The Godfather: one loud boisterous brother, one quiet intelligent brother: Esau and Isaac are models for Sonny and Michael in this film; if Jacob deliberately lets himself be duped by Rebecca and Isaac as some scholars maintain, then he is as wily as Don Corleone as well
• Ordinary People: a tragedy exposes the cracks in this family’s relationships with each other
• Little Foxes: a family in which almost everyone thinks of their own self-interests and deceit is a way of life
• The Family Stone: how not to have a happy family

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Jacob

Lies, destructive lies

• Atonement: a single lie destroys the future and eventually the life of an admirable young man
• Rashomon: who is telling the real truth? do we ever know?
• Fight Club: at one level you can read the story of Esau and Jacob as a conflict between the two sides of one personality: active v. passive, the doer v. the thinker, the pragmatist v. the idealist, etc.
• Shawshank Redemption; an evil man’s motiveless lie robs an innocent man of his freedom
• The Count of Monte Cristo; the hero of the story is robbed of his beloved and his future by the lie of an envious rival

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Jephtah/Jephthah

The Tragic Hero

• Braveheart: a leader whose innate nobility cannot save him: his belief in freedom and justice leads inevitably to his sordid death
• The Natural: an extraordinarily talented young man is tempted and fails, to his great cost. Was his failing naiveté or lust?
• The Seven Samurai: freelance warriors, as Jephtah was. Violence can be used to right wrongs, but it is never the best answer
• Gladiator: the hero has lost his family, the one thing he truly loved – just as Jephtah lost his only daughter
• The Searchers: the hero of the movie, played by John Wayne, stands forever outside the family he loves. No matter what he does, he will never belong. The final scene says it all.

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Jezebel

What Power Does to People

• Jezebel: this film’s heroine is extraordinarily foolish and headstrong rather than wicked, but the result is the same, since she does great damage to herself and her family
• The Lion in Winter: power destroys the people who hold it, and ruthless rulers have children who are no better than they – perhaps even worse
• Rashomon: whose truth are we hearing in the story of
• Jezebel? whose version of the events that happened?
• Mildred Pierce: the woman who seems to have everything ends up with nothing
• The Godfather: power corrupts the whole family, through the generations

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John the Baptist

The Prophet

• Silkwood: a lone woman blowing the whistle on sloppy safety procedures at a plutonium plant
• Erin Brokevitch: a woman fighting the cover-up of contaminated water
• Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce’s fight against slavery in England
• The gospel according to St Matthew: Jesus as an uncompromising, say-it-like-it-is prophet
• Veronica Guerin: an Irish journalist fighting entrenched drug dealers

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Joseph of Egypt

Getting the Best from Yourself

• Ben Hur:  a Jewish man unjustly enslaved survives adversity and eventually makes good – just as Joseph did
• The Pursuit of Happyness: the story of Chris Gardner who like Joseph started with nothing (Joseph as a slave in gaol in Egypt) and went on to become rich and respected, as Joseph did when he became overseer of Pharaoh’s granaries
• North By Northwest: a man unjustly accused of spying and murder (in Joseph’s case, of adultery) must try to prove his innocence, and when he cannot is hunted down (Joseph was put in gaol)
• Gladiator: Maximus has a good life, but he is abruptly plunged into the brutal world of a slave/gladiator; despite the sordid world he now lives in he maintains his integrity and in a sense conquers the Roman world from within – just as Joseph rose to prominence in Egypt.
• Metropolis: asks the question what, after all, is slavery? aren’t modern workers as enslaved, as shackled to their jobs, as ancient slaves?

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Joseph of Nazareth

The Quiet Hero

• It’s a Wonderful Life: man spends his whole life in a small town and doesn’t realize what a profound impace he had on the people around him
• The Quiet Man: a man who must come to terms with his own inner struggles and doubts
• Shawshank Redemption: he is not seeking the limelight and never sets out to be a hero, but circumstances force him to be one
• The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence: he believes in the accepted way of doing things, the Law, but finds he must stand by what he believes in, whatever the cost
• High Noon: when the chips are down and the world seems to have abandoned him, he stands alone for what he believes is right

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Judith

Women with Courage

• Gone With the Wind: Scarlett will do almost anything to hold her family/tribe together and save their them from their enemies
• Terminator: Sarah Connors, the heroine of the film, is a woman who learns how to be tough so she can save her people
• Alien: the woman Ripley is prepared to give her own life in order to save mankind from a terrifying enemy

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Mary of Nazareth

If this Woman was a Tree, she’d be an Oak

• Paradise Road: Women survive a terrible situation by supporting each other – as Mary and Elizabeth did
• Starman: The wise, innocent being from another world survives with the help of a human woman
• Random Harvest: The heroine knows the identity of the man, but remains silent and allows him to find the truth himself
• Babette’s Feast: The food Babette offers these quarrelsome people calms and satisfied them and makes them better people – a symbol of Eucharist

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Mary Magdalene

The First Apostle

• Random Harvest: the competent woman behind the Great Man
• Paradise Road: A group of women support each other through thick and thin
• The Passion of the Christ – Mary Magdalene as a desperate young woman unable to stop the carnage
• Electric Horseman: honest man depends on a woman, a journalist, to carry his message to the world

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Moses

‘Let My People Go’ – the Reluctant Leader

• Norma Rae: there are similarities between the stories of ‘Norma Rae’ and Moses. Both feel inadequate to the task, and struggle against terrible odds to unite a group of ‘slaves’ and lead them to a better world
• Poseidon Adventure: An oldie but a goodie, ‘Poseidon’ steals many of its themes from the Moses story: the people are in the wrong place, and must escape by going through water, facing many dangers; their leader is reluctant to take on the task and does not make it out of the ship; the people who climb up through the Christmas tree are saved; some decide not to go
• The Truman Show: Truman lives in a false world; he must cross the water, even though he is uncertain and afraid, to get to the real world where he is meant to be, to freedom
• Shawshank Redemption: Andy is a convicted murderer and prisoner who fights his way to freedom and shows his friend the way to a Promised Land

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Noah

Saving the World

• Lord of the Rings: the ring is the source of Evil and has brought Evil into the world; only by destroying it can the world be saved and renewed
• Battlestar Galactica: a spaceship transports a select group of people from a dying planet to a new world
• War of the Worlds: a man struggles to save his family in a world-wide catastrophe
• Ironman: fighting Evil, saving the world; only by using his ingenuity can the man build something that will help him save humanity

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Rachel

Making the Best of a Bad Deal

• Random Harvest: they are in love, they marry and have a child, everything looks perfect just as it did for Rachel and Jacob – then everything changes
• The Blind Side: knowing you’ve been give a raw deal, but getting on with it, making the most of the good things rather than dwelling on the bad
• Big Love: the problems of a family with multiple wives
• Shrek: the two main characters genuinely love each, but things do not turn out as they expected; they must be patient if they are to achieve happiness together
• Forrest Gump: love between a boy/girl or man/woman can be enduring, even when there is no conventional ‘happy ending’

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Ruth

Courage and Loyalty

• As Good As It Gets: an over-burdened young woman finds love with a wealthy older man; she is advised and helped by her unglamourous but sensible mother, who tells her that the ‘perfect man’ simply does not exist
• Norma Rae: two women, mother and daughter, argue with and support each other when the going gets tough; both are fighting for a better life, using the weapons they have
• Mrs Miniver: a woman and her daughter-in-law must make the best of things when the men in their lives are absent; they develop loyalty and affection for each other

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Solomon

Guiding the Ship of State

• Saving Private Ryan: an educated, intelligent man trying to lead and protect his soldiers (his nation) in a world full of pitfalls; diplomacy and politics (Solomon) as a form of war
• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: what is true wisdom? see the scene where the hero must choose ‘Holy Grail’, the chalice of Jesus
• Rain: a good man destroyed by a ‘wicked woman’

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Samson

Flawed Heroes

• Rocky: a violent, flawed hero who is nevertheless an indomitable hero
• The Searchers: a deeply flawed hero whose relationships with women are problematic; he tries to kill his niece because she has been polluted by the embrace of an enemy
• The Unforgiven: a violent hero who enjoys the company of ‘fallen women’
• Stagecoach: the hero loves a woman with a past – but can he trust her?
• Dirty Harry: like Samson, Harry feels completely justified in killing his enemy
• Absolute Power: Clint Eastwood’s character is an unrepentent criminal, yet he is the hero of the story. Like Samson, he is an avenger.

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Tamar

Adapting to the Situation

• Hobson’s Choice: the head of a family is not what he should be, so his daughter takes the law into her own hands, doing his job for him; it’s a comedy, but the message is clear
• The Family Stone: a young woman battles against the hostility of the family she want to marry into; she does all the normal things and they do not work, so she resorts to an innovative solution

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