YMMV / Jesus of Nazareth

• Can't Un-Hear It: While there are many portrayals of Jesus in movies and TV shows, good luck not to compare them with Robert Powell's portrayal.
• Complete Monster: King Herod The Great initially appears as a jovial leader before revealing himself as a paranoid tyrant. When learning about the prophecy of Jesus Christ and his birth, Herod callously orders the slaughter of all infants under two in Bethlehem, and declares that he won't let an infant share his world. This leads to the mass slaughter of dozens of infants throughout Bethlehem, an action so horrific that Herod's death was considered to be God Himself striking down Herod for his sins.
• Moral Event Horizon: Herod the Great crosses this line when he orders the Massacre of the Innocents.
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • In the long run, Peter Ustinov as Herod the Great is hardly in the series, but he is completely unforgettable.
  • Sir Ralph Richardson as Simeon appears in two very brief scenes but really stands out.
• Spiritual Successor: To the miniseries Moses the Lawgiver from 1974, with much the same Production Posse behind it including writer Anthony Burgess. Itself got one in A.D. - Anno Domini in 1985, which had a different crew but was still written by Burgess.
• Tear Jerker: When watching Jesus' crucifixion, Nicodemus recites the 'Suffering Servant' passage from Isaiah. He just sounds so helpless and defeated, and the passage itself is already in Tear Jerker territory without an emotional Laurence Olivier saying it. As the King James Bible puts it:
  He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as if it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried out sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken. And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, nether was any deceit in his mouth.
  • In fact, the whole Crucifixion scene counts.

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