Trivia

The crucifixion scene had to be re-shot because a preview audience was offended at Jesus having a hairy chest.

Ray Bradbury wrote the narration, but was uncredited.

Jeffrey Hunter and Robert Ryan's car broke down on the way to the "Sermon on the Mount" scene. In costume as Jesus Christ and John the Baptist, they had to push the car to get it started.

Nicholas Ray considered Keith Michell, Christopher Plummer, and Peter Cushing for the role of Christ before signing Jeffrey Hunter. He also expressed an interest in hiring Max von Sydow for the role. Von Sydow played Christ a few years later in The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965).

The film began life as a very personal project for director John Farrow, who had recently made John Paul Jones (1959) for producer Samuel Bronston. Farrow, an ardent convert to Roman Catholicism and quite possibly the only Hollywood director ever to be made a Papal Knight, called the project "The Sword And The Cross" and planned to use only the words of the Bible for dialogue. His script was deemed impossible to film and producer Bronston elected to proceed without him. Farrow never directed a film again.