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Submitted: 11 January, 2026
Accepted: 05 June, 2026
Published Online: 25 June, 2026
CITATION
Endong C. (2026). From Scriptures to Screen:
Representations of Ancient Rome in Biblical
Texts, Hollywood, and Africa’s Black Jesus
Films. EthioInquiry Journal of Humanities and
Social Sciences. Volume 5(1), 2026, 1-16.
https://doi.org/10.20372/5394na97
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EthioInq.J. Hum. and Socia. Sciences (2026), vol.5, Issue. 1, 1-16 1
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FULL LENGTH ORIGINAL ARTICLE
From Scriptures to Screen: Representations of Ancient Rome in
Biblical Texts, Hollywood, and Africa's Black Jesus Films
Floribert Patrick C. Endong1∗�
1Department of Performing Arts and Cinematography, Institute of Fine Arts, University of Dschang, Dschang, Cameroon
∗Corresponding Author’s email: oribertendong@yahoo.com
Abstract
It is hard, if not impossible, to narrate Jesus’s story without mentioning ancient Rome,
particularly its brutal imperialist culture in Israel. The gospel accounts of Jesus’s life, ministry,
and death (particularly the segment dedicated to the passion of the Christ) provide discernible
hints of Roman presence and imperialism in ancient Judea. In line with this, most literal
interpretations of the gospel story (notably Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ) make ample
allusion to this Roman domination in Israel through evocative scenes like Jesus’s trial before
Pontius Pilate and Herod, as well as scenes of the scourging and crucixion of Jesus Christ. On
their own side, symbolic lm adaptations that set Jesus’s story in African contexts tend to erase,
downplay, or semiotize the aforementioned Roman presence and imperialism in ways that often
generate contextual, technological, or historical anachronisms as well as an over-simplication
of the story of Jesus. This understudied phenomenon is examined in this paper in light of
relevant Black Jesus lms produced by African cineasts. Specically, this study uses semiotics,
textual analysis of relevant Jesus lms, and critical exploitation of secondary sources to answer
three principal research questions: how is ancient Rome’s imperialistic inuence represented
in both historical sources and biblical scriptures? How has this inuence been represented
in the literal interpretations of Jesus story? How have African radical adaptations of biblical
scriptures often portrayed or misrepresented Rome? The paper argues that through various
forms of symbolization and narrative ellipsis, African Jesus lmmakers hint at Rome’s imperial
inuence but generate various forms of cultural and technological anachronism that aect the
aesthetics and coherence of their Black Jesus lms. This implies that the application of African
Cultural Hermeneutics and Black Liberation Theology in the production of the Black African
Jesus lm is bound to work only partially and lead to controversial results.
Keywords: Black Jesus Films; Ancient Roman; Gospel Story; Literal Adaptation; Semi-
otics.
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1 INTRODUCTION
From 753 BC to the 5th century AD, Rome’s inuence fashioned many civilizations and directly shaped
various ancient Mediterranean cultures, notably the Jews. According to historical sources, the empire,
which encompassed much of Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East, annexed the land of Israel
after 63 BC through a military conquest led by Pompey the Great (Hall,1997;Ludlow,2017;Rothman,
2019). Rome started ruling its new conquest indirectly through client kings, notably Herod the Great.
These client kings owed their thrones to the Roman favor. Upon Herod’s death, the indirect system of
government gave way to direct Roman rule as Judea (the land of Israel) became a Roman province under
the rule of Pontius Pilate. This new system of administration soon bred serious tensions among the
Jewish people (Bryan,2005;Labbe,2012;Windsor,2004). The latter chaed under Roman oppression
and longed for the coming of a Messiah (Jesus) to save them. This Messianism was in line with various
divine predictions.
To maintain order and stability in Judea, the Roman authorities often deployed severe brutality marked
by cruel attitudes, such as bloody and excruciating quashing of resistance, the introduction of dreadful
punishments (notably exposure and crucixion), temporal suppression of religious freedoms, multi-
form humiliation of the Jews, and the promotion of a personality cult that often conicted with Judaist
traditions (Nadav,2017;Peters,2018;Trotter,2017). In line with this, Brohm (2011) notes that “Roman
culture was marked by power and pragmatism. Their legions were feared for their discipline and bru-
tality […] their laws provided stability but often favored the elite. Religion was pluralistic, drawing on
the pantheon of Jupiter, Mars, Venus, and countless other deities, many of whom were borrowed from
Greece. Emperor worship emerged as a unifying force, demanding loyalty that placed Christians in
direct conict with Rome’s demands.”
Thus, Rome’s political and cultural inuence shaped the setting in which part of Jewish history took
place. In tandem, the world of the Jewish people, as depicted in the New Testament, is under the
shadow of Rome. From the edict that sent Joseph and Mary (mother of Jesus) to Bethlehem to Pontius
Pilate’s order concerning the crucixion of Jesus and the soldiers who guarded the sepulcher of Jesus,
the specter of the Roman empire is cast across the New Testament (the Bible). Therefore, it may be
argued that Rome’s colonial inuence constitutes the backdrop for the life, ministry, and death of Jesus
Christ in the gospel story. Understanding this Roman inuence is key to grasping and adapting the
gospel story into a Jesus lm.
Therefore, it is dicult, if not impossible, to narrate Jesus’ story without mentioning ancient Rome. The
gospel accounts of Jesus’s life, ministry, and death (particularly the segment dedicated to the passion of
the Christ) provide discernible hints of this Roman presence and colonization in ancient Judea. In line
with this, most literal lmic interpretations of the gospel story (notably Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the
Christ) make ample allusion to this Roman colonization of Israel through evocative scenes like Jesus’s
trial before Pontius Pilate and Herod, as well as scenes of the scourging and crucixion of Jesus Christ.
Symbolic lm adaptations that set Jesus’s story in African contexts, on the other hand, tend to erase,
downplay, or semiotize the aforementioned Roman colonization in ways that often generate cultural,
technological, or historical anachronisms as well as an oversimplication of the story of Jesus. This
understudied phenomenon is examined in this paper in light of relevant Black Jesus lms produced by
African cineasts. Specically, this study uses semiotics, textual analysis of relevant Jesus lms, and a
critical exploitation of secondary sources to answer three principal research questions: how is ancient
Rome’s colonial inuence represented in both historical sources and biblical scriptures? How has this
inuence been represented in the (Hollywood) literal interpretations of the Jesus story? How well have
they been portrayed in Africa’s Black Jesus lms?
2 METHODOLOGY
This study is descriptive and conceptual in nature. It examines the nature of the representation of
ancient Rome in both written and lmic texts from a historico-aesthetic perspective. In particular, this
paper focuses on the nature of this representation of Rome in historical and biblical texts as well as in
some postmodern lmic interpretations of the gospels’ accounts of the life, ministry, and death of Jesus
Christ. This study relies on two main data collection methods: documentary and textual analyses. The
documentary analysis part of the methodology involved the critical exploitation of relevant secondary
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sources such as peer-reviewed journal articles, anthologies, encyclopedias, work papers, book chapters,
online materials, and published theses. The critical exploitation of these secondary sources helped set
the stage for the study and address the rst two research questions of the study, namely, how is ancient
Rome’s colonial inuence represented in both historical sources and biblical scriptures? How has this
inuence been represented in the literal interpretations of Jesus story?
The textual analysis part of the methodology was concerned with the semiotic analysis of relevant Je-
sus lms, mainly produced by African lm directors. This study considered three African Jesus lms
that adopt symbolic and metaphorical approaches in their interpretations of the gospel accounts of Je-
sus’s life, ministry, and death. The lms selected for the study include Mark Dornford’s Son of Man
(2006)(Dornford-May,2006), Tchidi Chikere’s Our Jesus’s Story (2020)(Chikere,2020) and Collins Chi-
diebe’s Cross of Jesus (2023)(Chidiebe,2023). The lms were selected based on their alignment with
African liberation and African cultural hermeneutics (which will be explained in greater detail in the
subsequent parts of this paper). The lms were selected because of the attention they subtly or clearly
accord to Roman imperialism during Jesus’s time. As mentioned earlier, the textual analysis of the
aforementioned lms was mainly driven by semiotics and inter-textuality. By denition, semiotics is
the study of signs and symbols in communication. It also refers to the use of sign systems for construct-
ing and interpreting meaning. During the study, attention was given exclusively to signs contained in
scenes that directly or subtly referred to Rome. Icons, indices, and symbols in the lms that reference
Roman presence or imperial inuence were considered. This study examined the extent to which the
use of these three signs enabled the construction of an image that reects biblical and historical texts’
representations of Rome.
This interpretive tool (semiotics) was relevant for the study, given the lms’ nature as symbolic and
metaphorical adaptations of the gospel’s account of the life, ministry, and death of Jesus Christ. In
other words. The lms’ adaptive approaches (symbolization and connotation) warranted the use of
semiotics. The semiotic analysis of the lms helped address the third and main concern of this study.
This concern bordered on showing how the symbolic representations of ancient Rome enabled the lms’
alignment with the African liberation theology but gave way to anachronistic aesthetics in the African
Jesus lms.
2.1 Theoretical Framework
This study is anchored in two theories: Black Liberation Theology and African Cultural Hermeneutics.
The former theory systemically contextualizes Christianity in an attempt to help people of African de-
scent overcome racial, political, economic, and social oppression (Barga,2023;H. J. Cone,1999;J. H.
Cone,1968,1975;Cook,2014). As Hayes (2000) puts it, “There can be no Black Theology which does
not take the black experience as a source for its starting point. Black Theology is a theology of and for
Black people, examining their stories, tales, and sayings. It is an investigation of the mind into the raw
materials of our pilgrimage, telling the story of “how we got over” (p.17). In the African context, Black
Liberation Theology seeks to give an African coloration to all aspects of Christianity. Its ultimate goal
is to make Christianity relevant to African communities. According to theologian Emmanuel Martey
(1993), the movement hopes to achieve an integrative vision for the African continent by welding to-
gether the praxis of inculturation and liberation.
Black Liberation Theology is based on two principal tenets: (i) a rm, but arguable, belief in the African
origins of Jesus and (ii) the rejection of the “whitewashing of Christianity” by Euro-centric theologians.
While Black theologians such as Cleage (1968) and DeYoung (2009) have sought to demonstrate the
black origins of Jesus in some of their writings, many Black lm directors - notably Jean Claude LaMare
- have drawn on the Black theology concept in their Jesus lms. By anchoring their Jesus lms in Black
Liberation Theology, these postmodern lm directors have sometimes provoked huge controversies.
Jean Claude LaMare in particular, drew on the Black Liberation Theology in the production of his
hugely controversial Colour on the Cross.
African Cultural Hermeneutics (the second theory considered in this study) similarly seeks to contex-
tualize Christianity. Also called “African Biblical Hermeneutics,” African Cultural Hermeneutics is an
approach to interpreting holy scriptures and ancient texts that principally considers the African context.
It insists on reading the scriptures premeditatedly from an African standpoint, to make the word of God
culturally relevant to African nations. Adamo (2015) denes this cultural hermeneutic as an approach
that “reappraises ancient biblical tradition and African world-views, cultures and life experiences, with
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the purpose of correcting the eect of the cultural [and] ideological conditioning to which Africa and
Africans have been subjected in the business of biblical interpretation (p.59)”.
Thus, African Cultural Hermeneutics aims to neutralize the excessive whitewashing of Christianity in
Africa and seeks to counter or address an old African frustration: the obligation (for Africans) to under-
stand and practice the Christian faith in foreign or Eurocentric terms. Appiah-Kubi,1981 expresses the
aforementioned frustration. Drawing on Psalms 137:4, the theologian writes: “how can I sing the Lord’s
song in a strange land, in a strange language, in a strange thought, in a strange ideology” (p. viii). It goes
without saying that the African Cultural Hermeneutics approach may enable African Jesus lmmakers
in their culturally sensitive reinterpretation of the gospel accounts of Jesus’s story as well as the latter’s
understanding of ancient texts about Rome’s imperial inuence in rst-century Judea. The two theories
considered for the study (Black African Liberation Theology and African Cultural Hermeneutics) pro-
vide tools to examine the theological orientation of the lms under study and the aesthetic choices of
the African lm directors. The two theories provide a framework for examining how the lm’s themes
and style are tailored to reect African histories, experiences, struggles, and contemporary realities.
Rome’s Imperial Rule over Judea: Insights from Historical Sources and Biblical Scriptures Rome’s mili-
tary conquest of Judea in 63 BC triggered a series of upheavals that aected the Jewish people in a mostly
negative way. The conquest brutally took away many benets the Jewish nation enjoyed as free people
and ushered in an endless continuum of hardship, servitude, humiliation, and loss of sovereignty for
the Jewish people. In fact, from Pompey’s conquest to the total destruction of the city of Jerusalem (in
70 AD), Rome interfered in the social, cultural, economic, and political aairs of Judea on a grand scale
(Bryan,2005;Cook,2014;Gambash,2023;Windsor,2004). Such interference stained Roman-Judean
relationships. The era of Roman domination was cataclysmic and gloomy for the Jewish people, so
much so that Strauss (2025) describes it as explosive. According to the Jewish historian, the aforemen-
tioned Roman domination was marked by an “explosion of creativity and destruction” that disfavored
the Jewish people (Strauss,2025). The gloominess and volatility of this period of Roman domination
could, perhaps, best be grasped after a brief comparison of the pre- and post-Roman periods (See Figure
1).
More than half a century before the Roman conquest, Judea enjoyed the status of the rst independent
Jewish state. The country prided itself on its hard-won independence from Greco-Syrian overlords.
It also prided itself on the expansionist moves of its native dynasts, the Hasmonean high priests, who
enlarged the country’s modest post-exilic borders to Solomonic proportions. Therefore, the Jewish peo-
ple resented the sudden loss caused by Rome’s expansionist policies. They responded predominantly
through various manifestations of discontent: unpredictable dissidence, constant rebellions, and Mes-
sianism. They exhibited a level of resistance that had never been observed in other provinces of the
Roman Empire (Bryan,2005;Rothman,2019) (. Under Roman rule, Judea morphed into a realm of
perpetual unrest and revolution. A succession of small uprisings culminated in an era of great wars
against Rome, three of which include the Great Revolt, also known as the Jewish War, 66–74 CE; the
Diaspora Revolt, 116–117; and the Bar Kokhba Revolt, 132–136. Apart from revolts, Messianism grew
in popularity Labbe,2012;Seeman,2013;Strauss,2025.
In a bid to maintain stability and dissuade rebellions in its Judean province, Rome deployed the stick
more than it did the carrot. The imperial power did not hesitate to respond to Jewish dissidence with
savagery never seen in its repression of revolts in other provinces of its empire. A good illustration is
Rome’s salvage crushing of the Bar Kokhba revolt. In response to this revolt, the Romans committed
mass crucixion of the rioters and changed the name of the country from Judea (land of the Jews)
to Syria-Palestinia, or simply Palestina (land of the Philistines). This savagery was unprecedented in
modern history. The Romans had never punished a rebellious province of their empire by changing its
name.
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Figure 1: Palestine during the Time of Herod the Great and His Sons.
Source: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jesus/The-Jewish-religion-in-the-1st-century
Thus, the Jewish people’s constant rebellions against Rome were consequential. They led to the loss of
thousands of Jewish lives and the reduction of many survivors to slavery and exile. The rebellions also
caused the relegation of Jews to the status of second-class citizens in their own country. Strauss (2025)
arms that the many bloody revolts put the future of Jewish survival in question, as they pushed Rome
to destroy the Jewish capital of Jerusalem and its crowning glory, the Temple.Strauss (2025) writes,
“Rome ended the daily sacrices that marked the heart of Judaism and ruined the priesthood who
carried them out. Rome decimated the largest and most prestigious Jewish Diaspora community in the
Roman Empire: the Jews of Egypt. As if to add insult to injury, the Romans changed the name of the
country from Judea (‘land of the Jews’) to Syria Palaestina” (p.5). Seeman (2013) similarly observes the
brutality of Rome in the following terms:
In 70 AD, as punishment for rebellion, the Roman legions burned and razed Jerusalem’s temple,
the irreplaceable center of Jewish piety. Adding insult to injury, Jews everywhere were compelled to
transfer their yearly contributions for the defunct sanctuary to the shrine of Rome’s state god, Jupiter
Capitolinus, an annual reminder of their subjugation. In the wake of two more failed revolts, Jews
were forbidden to set foot in Jerusalem, and for some time, their religious observances became the
target of ocial repression. By the mid-2nd century AD, Rome had secured its place among Israel’s
oppressors. (Seeman,2013)
Rome’s crude approach to quenching revolts, dissuading dissent, and maintaining stability accounts for
the abysmal image it had in the Jewish popular imaginary. The specter of Rome cast a menacing shadow
over the Jewish imagination. In this imagination, most Jewish people associated Rome with crude
violence, oppression, immorality, and cultural pollution. (Seeman,2013) explains that in Midrashic
texts, Rome is constantly described in the role of Esau/Edom, Israel’s fraternal nemesis. Similarly, in
apocalyptic texts, Rome is depicted as either Babylon, the wicked city par excellence, or the fourth
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kingdom in Daniel’s interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream. This fourth kingdom is depicted as
being a power that is as strong as iron, crushing and breaking all that stand in its way.
It is against this backdrop that the story of Jesus is narrated in the Gospel. Manifestations of Rome’s op-
pressive rule appear in many articulations of the gospel story, from Jesus birth to his death. For instance,
Mary (mother of Jesus) and Joseph are compelled by an edict of Caesar Augustus, to go to Bethlehem
for the census (Luke 2: 4-7). Another order from Herod authorizes the massacre of children in the same
Bethlehem, thereby fullling Jeremiah’s prophecy of sorrow in Ramah (Mathew 2:16). Elements hint-
ing at the Roman census and oppressive taxation system are replete in the gospel story. For instance,
Jesus is on some occasions, compelled to pay taxes on entering certain cities of the province (Mathew 17:
24-27; Mathew 22: 15-12). At other points, Jesus is compelled to elude questions pertaining to Roman
taxation. Using a coin that bears the image of Caesar, Jesus teaches his followers to render to Caesar
what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s (Mark 12:17). Another illustration of the Romans’ oppres-
sive presence is subtly hinted at by Barabbas dissidence. Actually, Barabbas is the notorious prisoner
the crowd (incited by the elders and chief priests) beseeches Pontius Pilate to release instead of Jesus
during Pilate’s Passover custom of freeing a prisoner (Mathew 27: 15-26). Barabbas is known to be an
insurrectionist who wanted to overthrow the Roman government and save the Jews.
Perhaps the most obvious representation of Rome’s oppressive rule is found in the gospels’ account
of the passion of Jesus Christ (Matthew 26 to 28). The account reveals that Jesus was crucied under
the authority of Pontius Pilate, the governor of Judea. This governor nds no fault in Jesus’s actions
but succumbs to the pressure of the crowd who want Jesus crucied for perceived blasphemy. During
Jesus’s crucixion, the Roman soldiers apply Rome’s lex Puteolana (“laws of Puteoli”), which, in ancient
times, regulated how crucixions were to be carried out in the entire Roman Empire. In substance,
this lex Puteolana stipulated that anyone sentenced to death by crucixion must carry their cross (the
patibulum or horizontal beam) to the site of the execution and be scourged (with a agellum) by a four-
man squad. The victim should thereafter be nailed to their cross at a strategic, mostly public, place.
This public cruelty, humiliation, and death served as public shaming and a serious warning against
any potential rebellions to Rome’s authority (Cook,2014,2019). The representation of Roman soldiers
in all four gospels’ accounts of the passion of the Christ mention all the aforementioned aspects of the
Roman penal system. Tuningen (as cited by Cook,2019) establishes a synchrony between the Gospel of
John and historical texts on the Roman type of crucixion. He notes that: When the magistrate (“public”
crucixions) has to execute an individual by crucixion, the law mentions pitch and wax, which were
used to torture the victims with re. In classical Latin texts, incidentally, the individual to be crucied
never carried a crux (vertical beam or entire cross) but only the patibulum (horizontal piece). When a
criminal carried the patibulum, the crux (vertical beam, in this case) was already in place. This implies
that in John 19:17, Jesus only carried the horizontal member of the cross to Golgotha, since Pilate would
have followed Roman procedure (Cook,2019)
Thus, the gospel story bears various indices pointing to Rome’s brutality and oppressive rule in Judea,
as well as the Jewish people’s abysmal perceptions of this Roman oppression. Gospel accounts represent
the crucixion itself as one of the strongest symbols of Roman domination and oppression in Judea.
Rome’s Image in Literal Film Adaptations of the Gospel Story
Ancient Rome has an ambivalent image in the modern world. Indeed, while admired in some quar-
ters for its military strategists and high level of administrative organization, the empire is popularly
regarded as a breeding ground for some of the cruelest popular cultures. These cultures range from a
high dependence on slavery and gladiatorial combat to tyrannical rule and expansionist policies (Cu-
furovic,2018). Thus, popular fantasy associates this ancient empire with many contradictions. Posi-
tive stereotypes suggest that ancient Rome exerted attraction because of its sage philosophers (notably
Cicero, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius), inuential poets, and cultural syncretism. The empire’s culture
was lauded for its richness and diversity. It blended elements from Greek, Etruscan, and other cultures.
Roman cultural assimilation not only enabled a diverse culture but also fostered an inclusive society.
Positive stereotypes also underline Rome’s egalitarian legal system, which codied laws applicable to
all citizens (Brunet,2002;Redonet,2019). Such positive stereotypes also laud the empire’s architecture
and road networks, which revealed the prowess of the empire’s engineers. Structures such as aqueducts
and the Colosseum (see Figure 2) attest to the genius of Roman architects and engineers. In addition,
ancient Rome is popularly praised for its urban planning pioneers, architectural innovations, military
discipline, and highly organized and ecient nature.
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Figure 2: A side view of the Colosseum. Source: https://italien.news/en/travel/lazio/rome/colosseum/
Despite these positive stereotypes, the empire is simultaneously associated with a number of nega-
tivisms, some of which are directly related to the Roman political and military systems. Gloomy stereo-
types represent Rome as tyrannical and oppressive vis-à-vis non-Roman identities and ethnicities (Ley-
mann,2012;Redonet,2019). Although credited for their discipline and ecacy, the Roman military
and judicial systems are popularly associated with authoritarianism, brutality, and cruelty. The imperi-
alist and expansionist policies of the empire have motivated critics to view ancient Romans as a people
bent on subjugating and conquering other people. Similarly, the recrudescence of military conquests,
harsh punishments (notably crucixion), and gladiatorial games in ancient Rome push today’s society
to regard ancient Romans as brutal and violent people. Other negative stereotypes are rooted in issues
such as Rome’s heavy dependence on slavery, its harsh and depersonalizing treatment of slaves, and
its religious intolerance, particularly during its persecution of early Christians. Also worth mentioning
are stereotypes that border on Rome’s sense of superiority over other cultures and those related to its
heavy taxation and rigid social hierarchy (particularly in its conquered provinces).
The aforementioned imaginary around ancient Rome is simultaneously fueled by and reected in world
cinema and television, from Mankiewicz’s Cleopatra (1963), through Scott Ridley’s Gladiator (2000), to
Flinth’s Arn: Knight Templar (2007) and Spartacus (see Koutsourakis,2021;Michelakis &Wyke,2013;
Potter &Gardner,2022;Theodorakopoulos,2010. A plethora of historical and mythological epic lms
suggests a fascination with ancient Rome. In line with this, Sam Leith notes that many Hollywood epic
lms set in ancient Rome vividly relay stereotypes about the empire’s moral decline, militaristic nature,
and adoption of cruel entertainment. He writes, “The attraction of classical antiquity to lmmakers
has never been hard to fathom: it has sex (from Theda Bara’s heavy-lidded Cleopatra in 1917, the idea
of the ancients being constantly ‘At It’ has persisted), violence (plenty of scope for gladiatorial hurly
burly and epic battles) and grand narrative. Greco-Roman antiquity oers lmmakers a giant out-of
copyright myth kitty” (as cited in Elliot,2014). Similarly, Blanshard and Shahabudin (2011) observe that
lms such as Kurbrick’s Spartacus (1960), among other things, evoke the social and political status of
the gladiator in ancient Roman society. The lm raises the issue of the marginality of the gladiator, a
“well-trained lump of meat at once revolting and alluring” Blanshard &Shahabudin,2011. The lm
also invites a two-fold focus of criticism: the gladiator as an illustration of ancient Roman entertainment
and as a slave who suers socio-political discrimination and resists oppression. Thus, Spartacus evokes
issues of social inequalities, slavery, moral decline, and oppression that plagued ancient Roman society.
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Literal adaptations of the gospel story – from Nicholas Ray’s The King of Kings (1961), and Stevens’s The
Greatest Story ever Told (1965) to Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ (2004) – similarly relay many of
the anti-Roman stereotypes mentioned above. Gibson’s lm dwells on the oppressive, depersonalizing,
and cruel facets of ancient Rome’s judicial system as well as the Romans’ sense of cultural superiority.
Indeed, much of the excruciating violence depicted in the lm goes a long way to evoke the many myths
about Roman moral decadence, cruel punishment, and tyrannical rule in Judea. This can be illustrated
using at least four narrative and aesthetic resources from the lm.
First, Gibson deploys a series of uprisings imagery in his lm that is reminiscent of the historical Roman-
Jewish tense relations. The uprisings are depicted in the scenes of Jesus’s trial before Pontius Pilate and
Herod. When Jesus is brought before the Roman governor (Pontius Pilate) for judgement, a college of
Jewish priests and the crowd intensely pressure the Roman administrators to crucify Jesus. To the Jews,
Pilate’s acceptance of Jesus’ crucixion will serve as a sign of Rome’s respect for Judaist traditions. Pi-
late’s hesitation and attempt to release Jesus after scouraging irritate the crowd and cause immediate
Jewish agitation, which in turn warrants muscular intervention from Roman soldiers. The violent re-
pression of Jewish uprisings in these trial scenes is reminiscent of the tense Roman-Jewish relations in
ancient times. As many historians have underlined, these relations range from non-violent protests to
muscular rejection of Roman rule (Bryan,2005;Seeman,2013) . Thus, the inclusion of Jewish uprisings
in The Passion of the Christ follows more from Gibson’s interpretation of historical sources than from
his understanding of scriptural evidence. In eect, the gospel accounts of Jesus’s trial before Pontius
Pilate and Herod do not mention the outbreak of Jewish uprisings.
Figure 3: Jesus’s Trial before Pontius Pilate (Extract from Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ). Source: https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=UqGqfXksv7A
Second, Gibson alludes to stereotypes pointing to Roman moral decadence. This allusion is again made
in the scene depicting Jesus’s trial before Herod. In fact, the Roman ruler in this scene is depicted as an
eeminate person and a lover of sensual pleasures. His court is dominantly homosexual and engrossed
in the same sensual pleasures. Through these indexes of voluptuousness, Gibson points to ancient
Jewish perceptions of Rome as a purveyor of sexual immorality and as Babylon par excellence. Through
this scene, Gibson perpetuates the age-old Hollywood tradition of juxtaposing Rome’s sinfulness with
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Jewish/Christian purity. A similar approach had earlier been observed in De Milles’s The Sign of the
Cross (1936), a lm that represents ancient Rome dominantly through sex(ualized) imageries.
Third, Gibson emphasizes the cruelty of ancient Roman punishment (see Figure 3). The lm director
does this through a horrifying depiction of Jesus’s agellation and ultimate execution. This depiction
shows the Roman soldiers’ savagery and quasi-animalistic attitude towards the physical body of Jesus
Christ. Such savagery is particularly seen in the soldiers’ tearing and lamination of Jesus’s esh, their
repetitive insults, their spilling of innocent blood, and nally, their gruesome nailing of Christ to his
cross. Thus, Gibson’s execution of Jesus graphically calls to mind the excruciating nature of the Ro-
man institution of crucixion. The lm director’s resort to horror porn as an aesthetic resource helps
depict the gloomy aspects of the ancient Roman legal system. This aesthetic choice is, in itself, aimed
at foregrounding the negative social representations of Rome. Gibson’s lm thus deconstructs his pre-
decessors’ reductionist and euphemistic representations of ancient Roman punishment on one hand
and draws audiences’ attention to the signicance of Jesus’s sacrice on the way to Calvary. As noted
by Gaye (2013), much artwork of Jesus’s crucixion tends to portray a fairly sanitized version of the
crucixion, even though its cruelty was well known in the ancient world. Jesephus (as cited in Finney,
2013) highlights such cruelty when he associates crucixion with the “most miserable of death.” Seneca
similarly evokes the gore of crucixion as follows:
Tell me, is death so wretched? He asks for the climax of suering; what does he gain thereby? It is
merely the boon of a longer existence. But what sort of life is a lingering death? Can anyone be found
who would prefer wasting away in pain, dying limb by limb, or letting out his life drop by drop, rather
than expiring once and for all? Can any man be found willing to be fastened to the accursed tree, long
sickly, already deformed, swelling with ugly tumors on his chest and shoulders, and draw the breath
of life amid long-drawn-out agony? I think he would have had many excuses for dying even before
mounting the cross! (as cited in Gaye,2013 , p.360)
In the same line of thought, Welborn (2013) provides a summary of the barbarism and terror involved
in the Roman form of crucixion. The summary hints at ways in which the culture of crucixion not
only perpetrated a gloomy system of racial marginalization, as it mostly targeted slaves and non-Roman
citizens, but also contributed to tarnishing the image of ancient Rome. Welborn (2013) states:
Just outside the Esquiline Gate at Rome, on the road to Tibur, was a horric place where crosses were
routinely set up for the punishment of slaves. There a torture and execution service was operated by a
group of funeral contractors, who were open to business from private citizens and public authorities
alike. There slaves were ogged and crucied at a charge to their masters of 4 sesterces per person
[…] Varro mentions rotting corpses; Horace speaks of whitened bones; Juvenal describes the way in
which the Esquiline vulture disposed of the bodies […] An inscription from Puteoli conrms that such
places of execution, with crosses and other instruments of torture, were found throughout Italy and
probably outside the gates of every large city in the Roman Empire. At these places of execution, it is
impossible not to recognize the real reason for the silence of the upper class with respect to crucixion:
crucixion was the “slaves’ punishment” (Welborn,2013, p.136)
It could therefore be argued that through his graphic portrayal of Jesus’s execution, Gibson questions
the usual sanitized representations of crucixion that do not fully capture the weight of Jesus’s sacrice
for, the eternal salvation of humanity. The lm director favorably responds to historical sources that
present the crucixion practice as one of Rome’s depersonalizing institutions and barbarism. Thus,
critics who associate Gibson’s use of horror porn in The Passion of the Christ exclusively with an urge to
follow post-9/11 aesthetic currents and with antisemitism (Godowa,2025;Hammer &Douglass,2007;
Ludemann,2004) , are losing sight of the lm director’s attempts to vividly depict the cruel cultures of
ancient Rome. However, it should be emphasized that although punctuated with violence porn that
symbolizes Rome’s brutality, Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ does not romanticize the suering of
Jesus or the cruelty of Rome.
Fourth, Gibson raises the issue of the Romans’ sense of superiority over other races. This is suciently
evident in the crucixion scene where the Roman soldiers charged with the duty of executing Jesus,
despise the Jewish crowd of onlookers and at some point, use the term “Jew” as insult against Simon
of Cyrene, a bystander who, upon request, volunteers to help Jesus carry his cross to Golgotha. The
insult scene points not only to Rome’s consideration of Jewish culture (particularly religious traditions)
as strange, but also to its habit of viewing its culture as superior to that of other peoples. Gibson’s
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aesthetic choice here is therefore in line with many historical sources contending that, from Cicero to
Julius Caesar, the Romans tended to portray foreign cultures through a lens of superiority and bias.
They tended to disregard the humanity and worth of other cultures and likely considered stereotypes
to promote Roman superiority. For instance, Cicero believed that the Jews and Syrians were naturally
suited for servitude (Seeman,2013;Strauss,2025;Woolf,2021) .
Rome in Symbolic African Adaptations of the Gospel Story
As mentioned earlier, Rome’s imperialistic rule over Judea shapes the way in which the gospel narrative
unfolds. Indeed, Rome – as an imperialistic force – appears at nearly every turn of Jesus story, although
not controlling God’s purpose (Brohm,2011;Vocational Bible School,2005). It is therefore dicult to
narrate the gospel story without mentioning the Roman agency. In line with this, it has often been
challenging for lm directors who set the gospel story in a purely African context to avoid or downplay
Rome in their culturally sensitive adaptations (Ahearne-Kroll,2022;Baugh,2011;Hammer &Douglass,
2007). In this section, we focus on how these lm directors’ choice to erase, downplay, or semiotize
Rome’s imperialistic inuences in their lms often generates serious aesthetic issues.
The Downplay Approach: Case of Collins Chidiebe’s “Cross of Jesus” (2023)
Film directors who downplay Rome in African Jesus lms usually deploy very loose adaptations of the
gospel story. The African twists they bring to the gospel narrative most often overlook the Roman-
Jewish power dynamics and generally simplify the plot to the life of a certain Black Jesus whose in-
uence in a local Black community aects power dynamics and whose spiritual mission and doctrine
threaten some local spiritualities and traditions. Simplifying the adapted narrative to a Christian vs
non-Christian god issue is, however, hardly coherent, particularly where the lm director chooses to
maintain crucixion (a symbol of Rome) as the way through which their Black Jesus is executed. This
can be illustrated using Collins Chidiebe’s Cross of Jesus (2023).
Chidiebe’s lm recounts the story of an Igbo young man called Kelechi who becomes Jesus’s incarnate
thanks to a divine miracle. As Christ incarnate, he recruits twelve local apostles and embarks on an
evangelical and salvic mission in his animist village. He authoritatively preaches the gospel, chal-
lenges local inhumane traditions, performs all of Jesus’s miracles, and forgives the sins of repentant
villagers. He pulls crowds from near and far, including the close relatives of the village king (the Igwe).
In the face of his big and consequential powers, the villagers guess that he is a powerful native doctor or
an ancient prophet. Only a few village dwellers, particularly his apostles, see him as Christ, the messiah
whose coming has been prophesied by various oracles.
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Figure 4: Jesus’s Trial before the Village King in Chidiebe’s “Cross of Jesus” (a symbolic representation of the gospels’ accounts of Jesus
trial before Puntius Pilate. Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5AQcS0JkwI
Kelechi’s growing inuence in the village soon attracts both envy and the raft of the village elders.
Viewing the young man’s inuence as a threat to the village indigenous religion as well as to their own
political inuence in the community, these village elders connive to set and eliminate Kelechi. One of
Kelichi’s apostles helps them (the village elders) for a handsome pay of 500 thousand Naira (Nigerian
currency). The village elders kidnap Kelechi, drag him to a sham trial before the village king, and se-
cure the execution of the young man. Chidiebe’s choice to eliminate cultural and historical references to
the ancient Roman Empire from his lm (see Figure 4) is, to some extent, justied, given its alignment
with Black Liberation theology and African Cultural Hermeneutics. By such an alignment, Chidiebe’s
re-invented Jesus story is set in a modern-day Nigerian community, which, culturally speaking, is very-
distant fromo Rome. Despite this fascinating aesthetic choice and adaptive approach, the lm director’s
decision to omit Rome’s imperial inuence in his lm seems incoherent. Despite the omission, he de-
ploys crucixion (an ancient Roman punishment) in a lm set in modern-day Igbo land. This choice,
which is irrespective of the cultural specicities of Nigerian societies, relays the gospel’s gloomy repre-
sentation of Rome, but creates some technological, contextual, and historical anachronisms that aect
the overall aesthetics of the lm.
By denition, an anachronism is a situation where elements of a lm – say costumes, language, props/tech-
nologies, and the like – are inaccurately placed in a historical setting (Gornkel,2023) . Good examples
include the use of very sophisticated technologies (notably Android telephones) in a lm set before their
invention. In Chidiebe’s Cross of Jesus, the deployment of crucixion (as punishment for oenses) is
culturally and historically anachronistic to the Nigerian society depicted in the lm’s narrative. This is
so despite the fact that it serves as a strong symbol of Christianity and faith. Thus, Chidiebe’s reluctance
to deconstruct and adapt Roman crucixion to an Igbo context aects the coherence of his plot and the
general aesthetics of his Black Jesus lm.
Semiotics as Approach
Instead of downplaying or eliminating references to Rome, some lm directors semiotize or sublimate
key institutions of the Roman Empire in their African adaptations of the gospel story. A case in point
is Tchidi Chikere’s lm Our Jesus Story (2020). This lm follows the life of a young man called Tubiika
who is condemned to death in an African, visibly Nigerian, village. By chance, he escapes from this
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village to a faraway city. A few years later, he converts to Christianity and receives a divine call to return
to his village and evangelize his brothers. Tubiika accepts the call. On returning to his village, he nds
the people still determined to kill him despite the long time that has passed since his escape. Contrary
to the past, the converted Tubiika accepts his fate. He bears his cross in accordance with the divine call
he has recently received.
Like Collins Chidiebe (in The Cross of Jesus), Tchidi Chikere embraces the two concepts of Black Lib-
eration Theology and African Cultural Hermeneutics. This spurs him to eliminate all historical and
cultural references to Rome from the plot of his lm, except for the crucixion. In tandem with this,
his Black Jesus is nally executed by crucixion and not by a traditional Nigerian/African method of
punishment (as one would have expected). In addition to this aesthetic choice, the lm director deploys
Roman military costumes that are clearly reminiscent of Roman military discipline and the legal sys-
tem (see Figure 5). Roman tunics are a symbol of ancient Rome (a phenomenon that is historically and
culturally distant from sub-Saharan African societies). These costumes are also indicative of the fact
that the lm director seeks to evoke Roman’s agency in the crucixion, albeit covertly. To some extent,
this aesthetic choice breeds contextual and historical anachronisms.
Figure 5: Flagellation Scene in Tchidi Chikere’s Our Jesus Story. Source: https://web.facebook.com/watch/?v=3693319020741834
By maintaining the crucixion in his lm (see Figure 6), Chikere rather perpetrates a Hollywood lit-
eralist tradition. This literalist approach consists of representing Jesus’s life in a way that is faithful to
the gospel account. This choice concerns only the part of Chikere’s lm that deals with Jesus’ death.
This choice is surprisingly contrary to the rest of his adaptation, which is symbolic. Mixing literalist and
symbolic approaches to adapting the gospel story is problematic: it makes Chikere’s lm the product of
aesthetic cacophony. Thus, by superimposing cultural references to Rome on an African story, Chikere
generates anachronisms and cacophonic representations.
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Figure 6: The Crucixion Scene in Tchidi Chikere’s Our Jesus Story. Source: https://web.facebook.com/watch/?v=3693319020741834
One of the relatively eective ways of semiotizing ancient Rome in African Black Jesus lms is viewed
in Mark Dornford-May’s Son of Man (2006). Starring an all-African cast, the lm gives a South African
twist to the gospel accounts of Jesus’s crucixion and resurrection. It tells the story of a religious leader
(known as the Son of Man [Andile Kosi]) who grows his spiritual movement in the troubled ctitious
state of Judea in southern Africa. This state is plagued by violence, poverty, and political corruption,
among other social anomies. When a civil war breaks out in the state, Jesus urges his followers to forsake
warfare and cultivate nonviolence and peace. He also teaches them to embrace compassion, unity, and
collective dialogue, and exhorts them to ee from all forms of corruption. His teachings are so tolerable
to the local oppressive and authoritarian leadership that no one in power sees him as a political threat.
However, one of his disciples, Judas (Jim Hgxabaze), secretly meets with the state’s authorities and
frames the Son of Man as a growing threat to society. This betrayal lures the authorities into incarcer-
ating, interrogating, and torturing Jesus to force him to abandon his spiritual mission. Jesus resists the
authorities’ pressure but is unfortunately murdered, buried and later exhumed and nailed publicly to
a cross for all citizens of the town to view his corpse. Later, Jesus resurrects and urges his followers
to sing praises of God in homage to his movement. He also encouraged them (his disciples) to work
for the growth of the movement. Released two years after Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, May’s
very acclaimed Son of Man is a symbolic representation of both the gospels’ accounts of Jesus’s death
and the horrors of the apartheid regime in South Africa. The lm juxtaposes the suerings of Black
communities in apartheid South Africa with those of the Jewish people during Roman rule in ancient
times.
Although characterized by a number of contextual and historical anachronisms (see Ahearne-Kroll,
2022;Griere,2013;West,2013), May’s Son of Man is intelligently set in apartheid South Africa. This
setting makes sense as it enables the evocation of imperialism and racial marginalization, two vices
that are comparable to Rome’s attitude towards the Jews in Jesus’s days. In many of its scenes, Son of
Man artistically compares the horrors of the apartheid regime in South Africa with the negativism and
gloominess of Roman rule over the Jews. The lm is replete with references to South African people’s
experiences with apartheid that directly point to Rome’s oppressive rule over the Jews in history and
in the gospel accounts. A case in point is the gruesome execution of May’s Jesus through a process that
involves the latter’s arbitrary arrest, detention, torture, murder in secret, and crucixion. Except for
the crucixion, all the aforementioned violent approaches to intimidating and silencing anti-apartheid
activists were in force in pre-1994 South African society. These brutal and oppressive systems are com-
parable to the Roman culture of dissuading rebellion and “high treason” against the empire. Hence,
May added a posthumous crucixion of Jesus. This crucixion is visibly to make a symbolic association
between Black anti-apartheid activists in South Africa and the oppressed Jews in ancient Rome.
Another reference to Rome in Son of Man is seen in the scene where Mary leads a group of Jesus’s
followers in a toyi-toyi dance in protest at the brutality that led to the death of Jesus. It should be em-
phasized that, as a dance/chant of resistance, toyi-toyi was constantly used by protesters in apartheid
South Africa to defy colonialism and unjust policies. As noted by Adejumobi (2013), the dance was
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EthioInq.J. Hum. and Socia. Sciences (2026), vol.5, Issue. 1, 1-16 14
“employed by political and labor leaders and domestic workers and mine workers as part of their rev-
olutionary struggle” during both the anti-apartheid and decolonization movements in South Africa
(Adejumobi,2013). By juxtaposing this form of South African resistance with the death of Jesus in
his lm, May successfully evokes the many protests and uprisings deployed by Jewish rebels to protest
Rome’s oppression. Thus, May’s lm suggests that in the same ways the Jewish people suered oppres-
sion from the Romans in the antiquity, so too Black communities in modern-days South Africa suered
political and cultural marginalization from the White-dominated apartheid regime.
Thus, May’s lms followed the two currents of Black Liberation Theology and African Cultural Hermeneu-
tics current - as Chikere’s and Chidiebe’s lm did - but doesn’t fail to allude to Rome’s imperial inuence.
The South African lm runs contrary to the Nigerian lms (Cross of Jesus (2023) and Our Jesus Story
(2020)) that omit imperialistic inuences from some exogenous forces which remotely can be associated
with Rome. It attempts to depict the cruelty of the Apartheid regime, which can be compared to Rome’s
brutal conquest and imperialist rule over the Jews.
3 CONCLUSIONS
This study examined ancient Rome’s depiction in both literal and symbolic/metaphoric adaptations of
the gospel story. It is argued that most of these adaptations sensibly relay the gloomy representations
of Rome in the gospel accounts of Jesus’s death and resurrection. In literalist adaptations (notably Mel
Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ), Rome is – in line with biblical texts – depicted as an oppressive
force, a morally decadent culture, and even a barbaric force. This is achieved using various techniques.
The same negative notion is suggested in symbolic Africa Jesus lms, albeit via semiotics, subliminal
cues, and cultural equivalence. This paper also showed how African Jesus lmmakers’ eorts to semi-
otize and downplay Rome’s agency in their lms usually lead to contextual, technological, and histor-
ical anachronisms. These aesthetic issues (anachronisms) mostly – if not essentially – arise from these
African lmmakers’ reluctance to deconstruct and radically adapt the crucixion of Jesus following
African cultural sensibilities.
The arguments of this paper therefore imply that African makers of Black Jesus lms should fully en-
gage with African cultural specicities when they set their Jesus lms in an African context. Mixing
literalist and symbolic approaches to lm adaptation in the same Black Jesus lm may lead to aesthetic
cacophonies and inconsistencies. Hence, this aesthetic choice may lead to relatively confusing repre-
sentations of Jesus’s story in the lm. This study focuses on the depictions of Rome in Black Jesus lms.
Future research may dwell on how both African and non-African audiences receive these lmic repre-
sentations and how such representations fuel popular narratives about ancient Rome in other forms of
popular culture in Africa.
Funding Information
No author received funding for the purpose of this research
Conict of Interests
The authors declare that there are no conicts of interest
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