'Oracles of God' Film to Examine Compilation of the New Testament

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An upcoming film set to release next month will explore the historical process of how the Gospels and New Testament were written and codified.

“Oracles of God: The Story of the New Testament,” produced by CBN Films is directed by Erin Zimmerman who shared how the movie had been five years in the making after plans for the film began in 2017. Although filming started in 2019, the film halted production due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Faithwire reported.

“We came back in 2023, spent the summer in Israel doing pre-production,” Zimmerman told CBN News in an interview. “We were supposed to start filming in October 2023.” However, production for the film stopped after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.

“That was one where I really said, ‘OK, God, what are you doing? Because you had me here all summer. You had us get all the way up to filming. And then, why?'” Zimmerman said. “And the answer I got back then was… ‘I want you to be here. I want you to be here with your people while this is going on.'”

Despite the delays, Zimmerman came to realize that the project took place in God’s timing.

WATCH THE TRAILER for Oracles of God at GodTube.com

“Last year, The Wall Street Journal said this is a golden age of Bible publishing,” Zimmerman explained. “Who would ever have thought that? You know, Bible sales last year were up. …This is before Charlie Kirk and all the things that are going on now to sort of stir this up.”

“Last year, Bible sales were up 22 percent over the previous year,” she noted. “This year, already, they’ve… sold a million more Bibles than they had at this point last year.”

“His timing is better than ours,” she said.

Zimmerman told CBN News that viewers who go see “Oracles of God: The Story of the New Testament” will look at the biblical narrative after Christ’s death and resurrection as well as the New Testament’s formation.

“How did those stories get written down?” he said. “How did we get those? I mean, how did we go from apostles… All through Jesus’ ministry, Jesus was saying to them, ‘Oh, I’m telling you, but you still don’t understand. You still don’t understand what’s going on.' Right up to the cross… they still didn’t understand. So how did we go from that to all these men saying, ‘But this is my life’s mission. Now I have to write this down and write it down well.'”

She also highlighted the film’s exploration on how the New Testament was codified following word-of-mouth.

“Suddenly, what happened was the apostles were dying off and persecution was starting to come in,” the filmmaker said. “King Herod was driving the Jews and the Christians out of Judea [and they said], ‘Uh-oh, we’ve got to write this stuff down, because we don’t have the firsthand accounts anymore.'”

Ultimately, Zimmerman hopes that the film would strengthen believers' faith by realizing the reliability of Scripture.

“I want people to have a real love and confidence in this text,” she said. “A lot of people don’t believe the Bible because they had personal problems, or bad brushes with Christianity, or something.”

“But there are a lot of people out there who don’t just because they say, ‘Hey, you know what? I think the text is corrupted,” Zimmerman continued. “Well, I think it has — it wasn’t done by those people. It wasn’t written at this time.'”

“Oracles of God: The Story of the New Testament” is set to release in theaters Nov. 2, 3, or 5.

Image credit: ©GettyImages/jaflippo

Milton Quintanilla is a freelance writer and content creator. He is a contributing writer for CrosswalkHeadlines and the host of the For Your Soul Podcast, a podcast devoted to sound doctrine and biblical truth. He holds a Masters of Divinity from Alliance Theological Seminary.