| Son of God | |
|---|---|
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| Also known as |
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| Genre | Documentary Factual |
| Directed by | Jean-Claude Bragard |
| Presented by | Jeremy Bowen |
| Starring | Liron Levo |
| Narrated by |
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| Theme music composer | James Whitbourn |
| Opening theme | "Son of God Mass" |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Original language | English |
| No. of series | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 3 |
| Production | |
| Executive producer | Ruth Pitt |
| Production locations | Israel, Jordan, United States |
| Camera setup | Single-camera |
| Running time | 50 minutes per episode |
| Original release | |
| Network | BBC One |
| Release | 1 April – 15 April 2001 |
| Related | |
| Moses | |
| Infobox instructions (only shown in preview) | |
Son of God (also known as Jesus: The Complete Story and Jesus: The Real Story) is a British documentary series that chronicles the life of Jesus Christ using scientific and contemporary historical evidence. It was presented by Jeremy Bowen, and its first episode premiered in the United Kingdom on 1 April 2001. The executive producer was Ruth Pitt and it was directed by Jean-Claude Bragard—it took a total of 16 months to produce and cost £1.5 million. A full symphonic score was composed by James Whitbourn. Son of God featured interviews with 21 historians and other Biblical experts, live action reenactments of the life of Jesus with Leron Livo in the lead role, and computer-generated images of what locations from Jesus's time might have looked like. These images, created by design team Red Vision, were praised by critics and received an Outstanding Achievement Award at the 2001 Royal Television Society North Awards.
Son of God ran for a single series of three episodes, each of which focused on a different stage of Jesus's life. The first episode, "The Real Man", looked at the historical evidence for the existence of Jesus, and documented his life from his birth to his temptation. Episode two, "The Mission", discussed how Jesus became popular among Jews and Greeks, and why the Pharisees of the area might have seen him as a threat. "The Final Hours", the third and final episode of Son of God, looked at Jesus's crucifixion, and presented some ideas as to how the traditional views of the crucifixion may conflict with how it really occurred. The episode concluded with the construction of a computer-generated animation of how Jesus may have appeared.
Critical reaction to the series was mixed. While some reviewers praised the programme for being worthy of its publicity by focusing on history rather than spirituality, others remarked that it was dumbed down and went off on strange tangents. The reliability of the facial reconstruction was also questioned. Son of God first aired in the UK on BBC One during April 2001, where it received a viewership of six million and an audience share of 25%. In the United States, the series was shown on the Discovery Channel under the name Jesus: The Complete Story as a single three-hour programme, two weeks after its UK broadcast. The show was also licensed to countries including France, Denmark and New Zealand.