James Mangold’s film “A Complete Unknown,” nominated for eight Oscars, captures the elusive, enigmatic quality of Bob Dylan in the early 1960s: the years he emerged as a major musical and cultural phenomenon. A scant few years after he came to New York from Minnesota, and legally changed his name from Robert Allen Zimmerman, Dylan transformed American music.

Especially “unknown” and baffling is Dylan’s religious and spiritual identity, one that has undergone many transformations. Mangold’s film avoids these questions, as does his 2005 film “Walk the Line,” a Johnny Cash biopic. The filmmaker – and much of Hollywood in general – must believe religion isn’t good at the box office.

As a music fan and scholar of religion, I have long been interested in artists’ religious backgrounds. Cash’s tumultuous life, like his friend and collaborator Dylan’s, was rich in religious affiliations and commitments.

And both of these musical giants shared a connection with Israel, defying calls to cancel performances there over concern for Palestinian rights – similar to artists’ debates in recent years. Dylan’s, in particular, is difficult to parse and part of his larger spiritual journey – one that’s rambled through Judaism and Christianity and back again.

The last time Dylan took the stage in Israel was at Tel Aviv’s Ramat Gan Stadium in June 2011. It had been 18 years since his last performance in the country, though he had made many personal visits in the interim.

He was, of course, a household name in Israel, revered by the young as well as the not so young. The audience members that evening, according to the Haaretz reporter who covered the event, were “overwhelmingly young, overwhelmingly........

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