Inside Bob Dylan's Jesus Years: Busy Being Born... Again!

Inside Bob Dylan's Jesus Years: Busy Being Born... Again! reconstructs a turbulent chapter when a Midwestern Jewish folk singer stepped into overtly Christian music and public faith. The film follows the late 1970s moment when Dylan recorded gospel albums, toured with a religiously focused band, and watched listeners react with confusion, praise and anger. Through interviews, archival concert footage and commentary from people who were close to the scene, the documentary shows how that spiritual turn changed his songwriting, performance style and public image, while tracing the personal and artistic choices that shaped those years without revealing private surprises or later reversals.

Directed by Joel Gilbert and released in 2008, the documentary uses archival clips, interviews and rare performances to reconstruct the period. It features appearances by Bob Dylan and associates including Bill Dwyer, Mitch Glaser, Al Kasha and Regina McCrary, offering firsthand perspectives.

The film had a limited theatrical life and found most of its audience at festivals and on home video, so its theatrical earnings were modest. That narrower distribution helped it reach dedicated fans and scholars more than mainstream moviegoers.

This work revisits a chapter that reshaped Dylan's public image and kept his gospel recordings in circulation, prompting ongoing debate about faith in popular music. The period it covers has become a reference point for discussions about authenticity, religious conversion in the arts, and how reputation can shift when an artist changes direction.

Viewers and critics tend to be split over the episode and the documentary's take on it, with some appreciating the close-up look and others questioning what the film emphasizes. Major themes include faith and doubt, artistic risk and reinvention, and the tensions that arise when a beloved career takes an unexpected turn.