Julia M. OBrien

It's a common plot of novels and movies:  while the superstitious public clings to outdated religious beliefs, people in power compete for access to ancient manuscripts which reveal the powerful, if shocking, truth about the past. Think The DaVinci Code.  Indiana Jones movies. Bart Ehrman's Misquoting Jesus. Irving Wallace's The Word.

In a recent  New York Times review of the new movie 2012, Manohla Dargis twice links the destruction-of-the-world movie with the Bible.

A recent New York Times article reports that the U.S. military has turned to a new resource  to help soldiers name and heal from the trauma of war:  the very old literature of Sophocles.

A new movie opens today.  Entitled "A Serious Man," it's the biblical story of Job told through the eyes of Joel and Ethan Cohen.  According to the New York Times review, it's one of the Coen brothers' darkest comedies-- both "hilarious and horrific."

This weekend, my husband and I saw Julie and Julia (click for a link to the official website). The film is Nora Ephron's adaptation of two books: Julia Child's memoir My Life in France; and Julie Powell's Julie and Julia, which follows Powell's quest to prepare all 524 recipes in Childs' Mastering the Art of French Cooking in 365 days and to blog about her experience.

My husband and I recently watched Connie and Carla, a 2004 comedy starring Nia Vardalos and Toni Collette.

My daughter, a college senior, saw the new Harry Potter movie at midnight last night.

A lot of folks treat the Old Testament as "background" reading for something else.  For Christians, it's treated as the prequel to the New Testament, the part you have to read in order to understand the stuff you want to read. Who is Melchizedek and why does the book of Hebrews link him to Jesus?  Why was circumcision important to Jews of the first century?  What does atonement mean?  What's a covenant? The Old Testament offers the answers for the New Testament reader who wants to know.

Columbia Pictures will release Year One on June 19th.  Starring Jack Black and Michael Cera, the comedy follows two hunter-gathers after they are kicked out of their tribe and embark on adventures throughout the ancient world.

A friend who saw the long version of the trailer noticed multiple references to the Bible and sent me the link:  http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/yearone/site/ (Look for "video")