When writers adapt a book for the big screen, it's inherently impossible for the screen version not to become a new work altogether. The three-hour Canadian film production The Gospel of John, newly released on DVD, is no exception.

This word-for-word depiction of the events described by Jesus' disciple John (according to the translation in the American Bible Society's Good News Bible) plays out in an epic panorama. The story opens with John the Baptist, wild-eyed and prophesying about the Messiah. And right from these opening scenes, the story gallops ahead, with

Jesus appearing seemingly out of nowhere to begin his ministry. I found this literal rendition of events to be both the strength and the weakness of the movie. Because, ultimately, I found myself asking, What is the advantage to having this story told through the medium of film?

Rather than allowing me to draw out any spiritual insights or mine the story for ideas that could illuminate my own spiritual beliefs, which is what movies usually prompt me to do, The Gospel of John simply renders the words of the Gospel in scenes, with a voice-over to fill in the parts that cannot be dramatized. There's no subtext or resonance to contemplate. Unlike the Mel Gibson movie The Passion of the Christ, The Gospel of John doesn't promulgate any specific agenda. And one can't help comparing these two films.

What I realized more clearly than before by watching this meticulously researched and faithful adaptation of John's Gospel, is that Gibson's The Passion succeeds as storytelling precisely because Mel Gibson, the filmmaker, is all over his film. He had a point he wanted to make, and to do so, he felt free to pick and choose details and images not only from all four gospel accounts of the crucifixion, but from other sources that aren't in the Bible.

The film The Gospel of John, however, delivers only one version of events: the Gospel according to John. There's no auteur's consciousness shaping and directing the viewer to a particular conclusion about the meaning of the events portrayed. So while this film is faithful, it nevertheless has huge gaps in the overall story of Jesus' life. This Gospel encapsulates only what John felt was most important—Jesus' ministry and seven miracles, his crucifixion and resurrection. But Jesus' birth, his Sermon on the Mount—even the ascension—aren't even mentioned. So, while John's Gospel account is powerful, filled with love and passion, and filmed with consummate attention to detail, it is sprawling and epic yet, at the same time, ultimately incomplete.

So, ironically, the very thing I found weakest in the Gibson film—its telescopic focus on the crucifixion to the exclusion of the totality of Jesus' ministry—is exactly what I found I longed for more of in The Gospel of John. The gospel film errs because it relies on its sweeping scope of the Biblical account of one disciple, and therefore lacks the resonance and import of all that the events in Jesus' ministry signify—the meaning that one derives from actually reading and comparing the four Gospels. Here, I found myself almost wishing for some of Gibson's artifice, such as a creepy androgynous devil, or something akin to God's giant tear exploding from heaven, or other fictional devices. I can only hope that there's a religiously based film coming one day that will find some middle terrain between these two very different, but equally sincere, productions.

In the meantime, if you long to imagine what the clothing, topography, and daily life of Jesus' era looked like, you will revel in The Gospel of John. And some of the images are powerful and convey a certain grace and spirituality. With a cast of 75 very fine principal actors, and with 2,500 extras, British director Phillip Saville has orchestrated a true tour de force with this production. I just wish that as a storyteller, he had been able to go as deep as he went wide.