Seite - 155 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Band 07/01

Reading The Book of Joseph | 155www.jrfm.eu 2021, 7/1, 145–171 The Book of Joseph in THE BAPTISM As indicated earlier, Ubisoft has launched two narratively interconnected live- action trailers, called The Sermon and The Baptism, and one short movie called Inside Eden’s Gate (Barry Battles, CA 2018), all for the promotion of the launch of the game.12 We exclude The Sermon and Inside Eden’s Gate here be- cause The Book of Joseph does not play any role in either of them. Even though the short film does feature a scene in which Joseph writes something on a page in some sort of notebook, this notebook does not resemble The Book of Joseph as seen in the game, in either its white or its grey version (fig. 8). The writing itself cannot – unfortunately – be read by the film’s text-immanent reader and the characters in the film do not refer to it either directly or indirectly. The second trailer, The Baptism, does feature The Book of Joseph, and it does so twice. In The Baptism, Joseph is performing a baptism on the shores of the Henbane River on a Black girl, who is later revealed to be the teenage daugh- ter of Jerome Jeffries, the pastor of the Lamb of God Church, also featured in “The Atonement” mission in the game. During the ceremony, while Joseph holds the girl under water, he gets flashbacks of his earlier encounters with Jerome. We see Joseph meeting Jerome and his daughter in the trailer (fig. 9), where he has a notebook bearing the symbol later associated with his cult. 12 See: www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5uHQYz-hNw, www.youtube.com/watch?v=VokeHE550_w, and www.youtube.com/watch?v=eL4hY12SGF8 respectively. Fig. 8: Joseph writing in some sort of diary that bears no visual resemblance to The Book of Joseph. Scene from Inside Eden’s Gate (00:14:03).