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The next film in the series was Samson and Delilah (1997). The series, which explored the Book of Genesis in warts-and-all detail, jumps from the period of Israel’s oppression under the Egyptians straight to the period of Israel’s oppression under the Philistines, omitting anything that would make the Israelites look like oppressors themselves.
Previous films in the series depicted the lives of the patriarchs; one, Joseph (1995), won an Emmy for outstanding miniseries. However, ratings on subsequent installments have slipped, and as of this writing, executive producer Lorenzo Minoli has not found a network for the episodes on Solomon, Jeremiah and Esther, though CBS has expressed interest in an as-yet-unproduced film on Jesus (John Dempsey, “‘Jesus’ Won’t Bless TNT,” Daily Variety, July 20, 1998).
There have been a few theatrical films too, but they remain obscure and difficult to find. These would include Wholly Moses (1980), a comedy starring Dudley Moore, and Moses und Aron (1975), a German adaptation of Arnold Schoenberg’s three-act opera, which was first performed in the 1950s (Campbell and Pitts, The Bible on Film, pp. 64–65).
One early scene, in which Moses presents the Ethiopian king to Pharaoh’s court as an ally rather than as a humiliated foe is open to a number of interpretations. Forshey (Spectaculars, p. 132) notes that Moses’ graciousness to Ethiopia parallels America’s graciousness to former enemies such as Germany and Japan. Babington and Evans (Biblical Epics, p. 55), however, suggest that the scene reflects American concerns over Soviet influence in the Third World.
