In 1947, the American radio network ABC began broadcasting a series called, modestly, The Greatest Story Ever Told. It ran for nearly 10 years, was aired in more than 50 countries, and spawned a novel and, eventually, an epic, star-studded movie. That teasing, irresistible title was an allusion to a poem called Tell Me the Old, Old Story, written by an Englishwoman in 1866, which had been set to music the following year and had become a popular hymn.
The story that both titles referenced, and which neither of them needed to name, was the story of Jesus Christ: still, up to the mid-20th century, the defining sacred story in British, American and western culture. It was a story that was told and retold not because it was unfamiliar, but…
