Those who wish they could make it to the Holy Land can now experience the next best thing — taking the journey with scholar Truman Madsen.
"It's like Truman takes you by the hand," Ann Madsen said of her late husband. "And teaches."
Madsen's final trip to the Holy Land before his death is documented in the DVD set "The Eternal Christ," released today by Excel Entertainment. Madsen spent many years in Jerusalem, including his time as director of the Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies.
The DVD set features eight hourlong episodes, each showing the Savior's ministry in its original setting. Most of the material was unscripted — just the scholar talking, sharing his vast knowledge of the Savior's life and ministry.
"I don't for a minute think it was without the aid of the Spirit," Ann Madsen said.
She was there for most of the taping and experienced things she never had before.
"Applying what Christ did to what we do," she added. "I've never seen him do it quite like this."
As his self-proclaimed best student, Ann Madsen experienced many things along with the rest of the viewers. Despite spending so many married years together and being a professor herself, she is always learning.
"I was absolutely amazed at the things I learned," she recalled after the first screening of the DVDs.
"When he teaches I always learn," she added. "There's never a time when I feel like he teaches and I don't learn something."
The series gives the viewer the feeling of being there along with Truman Madsen, a man known throughout the church and scholarly community for the breadth and depth of his knowledge about Jesus Christ.
"He had a rich store of information because he studied constantly," she said.
The film footage takes the viewers in and around Jerusalem to sites the Savior visited in his day. Truman Madsen takes you from Bethlehem to Nazareth and everywhere in between.
An on-site documentary, similar to "On Sacred Ground," which retraced Joseph Smith's path, "Christ" centers around Madsen teaching the Savior's life and doings.
"Truman had two passions in his life. A devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ and an absolute witness of Joseph Smith as a prophet. He wore out his life studying and getting closer to those two individuals."
This set is very intimate, with Madsen talking right at the camera. It becomes an informal teacher-student visit through the Holy Land.
Madsen is at his best expressing his deepest feelings for the Savior — it can be seen as his last testimony of the Savior, one in which he can speak from mountaintops on the divinity of Christ.
In planning for the trip to Israel, which took place over six weeks in the spring of 2008, those around the scholar saw his excitement regarding the trip.
"Truman felt a real urgency about this trip," Ann Madsen said. Truman Madsen, who passed away in the summer of 2009, has left one more lasting impression of his lifetime of studying the Savior.
"The Eternal Christ" is available on DVD wherever LDS products are sold.
Justin Crandall