Providence, RI – Dr. Joan R. Branham, associate professor of art history at Providence College and director of the College’s Center for Teaching Excellence, is one of several prominent scholars who will discuss the arrest, trial, and crucifixion of Jesus Christ from a historical perspective in a History Channel production based on His final days.

The Trial of Jesus will air on Thursday, April 8, at 9:00 p.m. as part of the Time Machine series on the History Channel, which has a prime-time viewing audience of 1.6 million people.

Dr. Branham, who along Lawrence M. Wills, a professor at the Episcopal Divinity School, served as one of the documentary’s scholarly consultants, notes that the documentary uses “both historical and faith-based documents to try to reconstruct what happened in that first-century trial.” Among the questions addressed in the documentary are:

• What did Jesus do in the Jerusalem Temple that got Him arrested?
• What charges were brought against Him and by whom?
• What do we know historically about Pilate and the Jewish court, the Sanhedrin?
• How does the Passion story of Jesus Christ reverberate through history?

The History Channel contacted Dr. Branham and her husband – film producer Gary Glassman – last November, when interest in Mel Gibson’s film The Passion of the Christ was building. According to Dr. Branham, the History Channel was looking for an “unimpeachable, scholarly account” of the trial and crucifixion of Christ. Glassman and another Boston-based filmmaker produced the documentary, while Dr. Branham helped shape and write the script. They worked with a team of producers and biblical scholars from Harvard Divinity School, Yale Divinity School, and Boston University.

Because of her expertise in the history and archaeology of the Jerusalem Temple, Dr. Branham appears primarily in the section of the documentary entitled ACT 2: “The Temple: Scene of the Crime.” Scholars believe that Jesus’ arrest was prompted by some action He took in the Temple that drew the attention of the authorities, notes Dr. Branham. In this segment, she talks about the context of Jesus’ arrest and what existing religious and legal systems may have led to that event.

Dr. Branham has contributed her expertise to television networks in the past. In 2002, she appeared in two PBS documentaries, Sacred Space at Ground Zero? and Red Gold: The Epic Story of Blood. She shared her expertise in Byzantine art in American Byzantine, which aired on PBS in 2000. And in 1999, she and Glassman collaborated on the Discovery Channel documentary Hagia Sophia: Engineering Secrets.  

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