I finally was able to watch my recorded first episode of the History Channel's "The Bible" mini-series late last night -- which made it easier to zap through the many annoying commercials that interrupted the story. Now I can begin to make good on my promise to comment on this docudrama and invite you to share our own thoughts.
This mini-series was not conceived as a literary or historical documentary, but as a docudrama. It attempts to do what the Bible in itself does not do, namely, it attempts to tell one single, interconnected grand story that includes transitions, dialog, emotions, and chronology.
Unlike this mini-series, the stories of the Bible actually have a lot of holes. Sometimes the Biblical stories omit details such as the ages or names of major characters. Rarely ever do we learn about the motives or the thoughts and feelings of many of he Bible's most beloved individuals. At best, we get a few episodes from their lives, often not even that much. At other times, two or even three different versions of one-and-the-same story are told (for example, Abraham's pretending to be his wife's brother to protect himself from pharaoh).
Hence, writers and directors who want to adapt the stories of the Bible to the medium of film have to invent dialogue, whole scenes, and compress other scenes to keep the storyline going. The classical example of such a process was, of course, the granddaddy of all Bible movies, Cecil B. DeMille’s “The Ten Commandments.” Half the movie is either entirely imaginative or taken from later creative sources like Philo, Josephus, and later Jewish literature (look at the opening credits next time you watch it). That’s how DeMille dragged out Moses’ early years in Egypt for about two hours when the Bible’s interest in this period lasts a few verses.
Taking on the challenge to tell the story of the Bible in ten hours is, indeed, not an easy one. The first two hours of the mini-series that were broadcasted this Sunday covered - in broad strokes - the Old Testament narrative from the beginning of the Book of Genesis to the first chapter of Joshua (up to the eve of the battle of Jericho).
The producers of "The Bible" did what many film producers, in fact, what just about every Christmas pageant does had done before them -- smoothing out contradictions (e.g., between the two different creation stories); inventing conversations (as, for example, between Abraham and Sarah); and even inventing parts of the story (Moses' youth at Pharaoh's palace).
The film opened in the ark with Noah reciting the story of Genesis 1-4. Now, on the one hand, this is clearly a means of collapsing the story for time. On the other hand, connecting the stories of creation and the flood reflects precisely how these stories do in fact work together in the biblical narrative. Properly understood, the flood story was meant to be seen an echo of the creation story in Genesis 1. The threatening waters kept at bay above the dome-like heavens allowing dry land to appear (Genesis 1) are brought crashing down upon the earth to cover up all land (flood story). The flood is not just a bad turn in the weather but God’s returning of his creation to its pre-creation state of chaos. God “starts over” with Noah and his family as the new “first humans.”
"The Bible" film gets problematic, though, in the way it portrays men vs. women. On the one hand, we are being introduced to brave, faith-filled men like Noah, Abraham, Lot, Moses, Aaron, and Joshua. On the other hand, we see their fearful, doubting, jealous, plotting, or submissive wives, sisters, and maids -- Noah's wife and daughters, Sarah, Hagar, Lot's wife, and Moses' sister Miriam (whom Scripture calls a "prophetess" and leader of her people, but whose role the film downplays). In the film, the women provide the negative backdrop to the faith and heroism of the men, something Scripture does not do. Is this the story that I want my daughters to learn? Is this how I want them to view themselves? I don't think so!
However, my biggest problems with this mini-series are not gender stereotypes. My biggest problem is that this mini-series makes the Biblical people look, talk, behave, feel, and relate to one another too much like us. Abraham, for example, was not married in today's fashion monogamously to one single wife whom he loved and treated like 21st-century North American husbands treat their files. Like most Old Testament heroes, Abraham actually had many wives, concubines, and female slaves. Monogamous marriage is a concept that did not exist for most of Old Testament times. So, why then do Abraham and Sarah look, talk, and behave more like modern British folks than ancient nomads in this film?
Likewise, while Abraham's trust in one single creator of the universe surely is touching, true monotheism is a much later development and did not exist yet at his time. At the times of Abraham an Moses, the people of Israel believed in the existence of many gods, but they opted to worship just one of them, the One who revealed his name to Moses in the burning bush. So why then does Abraham sound more like a 21st-century evangelical Christian than a Middle Eastern patriarch who slaughtered animals and sacrificed their blood on the altar of "his" god?
One evangelical commentator, Old Testament scholar Peter Enns, points out a number of other absurdities in this first part of the "Bible" mini-series, absurdities that make the Biblical narratives look more like 21st century Hollywood entertainment, rather than the Middle East some 3,000+ years ago. Among others, Enns mentions the "Kung Fu style fight in Sodom, or Sarah running up Mt. Moriah to save Isaac, or Moses looking like a cross between Charles Manson and Mickey Rourke, or the so-called “angel of death” looking like the dementors from Harry Potter."
Absurdities such as these make us forget that over 3,000 years separate us from the times of Abraham and Moses. It would be good for us to never loose track of this fact ... so that we not read our own 21st-century faith, values, world view, morals, and relationships back into the Bible. Precisely the fact that the Bible was written so long ago and precisely that its heroes are so different from us moderns and post-moderns are part of what makes our sacred Scripture so powerful. In and through the words of this ancient witness, God radically breaks into our modern lives and seeks to transform these lives. The moment we blur the tremendous gap between the world of ancient Israel and our own world, the moment we seek to fashion the Bible into a modern book, we strip it of some of its power over us.
I look forward to hearing what thoughts came to your mind when watching "The Bible". If you have not watched it yet, it is being shown at 9pm on the History Channel on Sunday nights.
Unlike this mini-series, the stories of the Bible actually have a lot of holes. Sometimes the Biblical stories omit details such as the ages or names of major characters. Rarely ever do we learn about the motives or the thoughts and feelings of many of he Bible's most beloved individuals. At best, we get a few episodes from their lives, often not even that much. At other times, two or even three different versions of one-and-the-same story are told (for example, Abraham's pretending to be his wife's brother to protect himself from pharaoh).
Hence, writers and directors who want to adapt the stories of the Bible to the medium of film have to invent dialogue, whole scenes, and compress other scenes to keep the storyline going. The classical example of such a process was, of course, the granddaddy of all Bible movies, Cecil B. DeMille’s “The Ten Commandments.” Half the movie is either entirely imaginative or taken from later creative sources like Philo, Josephus, and later Jewish literature (look at the opening credits next time you watch it). That’s how DeMille dragged out Moses’ early years in Egypt for about two hours when the Bible’s interest in this period lasts a few verses.
Taking on the challenge to tell the story of the Bible in ten hours is, indeed, not an easy one. The first two hours of the mini-series that were broadcasted this Sunday covered - in broad strokes - the Old Testament narrative from the beginning of the Book of Genesis to the first chapter of Joshua (up to the eve of the battle of Jericho).
The producers of "The Bible" did what many film producers, in fact, what just about every Christmas pageant does had done before them -- smoothing out contradictions (e.g., between the two different creation stories); inventing conversations (as, for example, between Abraham and Sarah); and even inventing parts of the story (Moses' youth at Pharaoh's palace).
The film opened in the ark with Noah reciting the story of Genesis 1-4. Now, on the one hand, this is clearly a means of collapsing the story for time. On the other hand, connecting the stories of creation and the flood reflects precisely how these stories do in fact work together in the biblical narrative. Properly understood, the flood story was meant to be seen an echo of the creation story in Genesis 1. The threatening waters kept at bay above the dome-like heavens allowing dry land to appear (Genesis 1) are brought crashing down upon the earth to cover up all land (flood story). The flood is not just a bad turn in the weather but God’s returning of his creation to its pre-creation state of chaos. God “starts over” with Noah and his family as the new “first humans.”
"The Bible" film gets problematic, though, in the way it portrays men vs. women. On the one hand, we are being introduced to brave, faith-filled men like Noah, Abraham, Lot, Moses, Aaron, and Joshua. On the other hand, we see their fearful, doubting, jealous, plotting, or submissive wives, sisters, and maids -- Noah's wife and daughters, Sarah, Hagar, Lot's wife, and Moses' sister Miriam (whom Scripture calls a "prophetess" and leader of her people, but whose role the film downplays). In the film, the women provide the negative backdrop to the faith and heroism of the men, something Scripture does not do. Is this the story that I want my daughters to learn? Is this how I want them to view themselves? I don't think so!
However, my biggest problems with this mini-series are not gender stereotypes. My biggest problem is that this mini-series makes the Biblical people look, talk, behave, feel, and relate to one another too much like us. Abraham, for example, was not married in today's fashion monogamously to one single wife whom he loved and treated like 21st-century North American husbands treat their files. Like most Old Testament heroes, Abraham actually had many wives, concubines, and female slaves. Monogamous marriage is a concept that did not exist for most of Old Testament times. So, why then do Abraham and Sarah look, talk, and behave more like modern British folks than ancient nomads in this film?
Likewise, while Abraham's trust in one single creator of the universe surely is touching, true monotheism is a much later development and did not exist yet at his time. At the times of Abraham an Moses, the people of Israel believed in the existence of many gods, but they opted to worship just one of them, the One who revealed his name to Moses in the burning bush. So why then does Abraham sound more like a 21st-century evangelical Christian than a Middle Eastern patriarch who slaughtered animals and sacrificed their blood on the altar of "his" god?
One evangelical commentator, Old Testament scholar Peter Enns, points out a number of other absurdities in this first part of the "Bible" mini-series, absurdities that make the Biblical narratives look more like 21st century Hollywood entertainment, rather than the Middle East some 3,000+ years ago. Among others, Enns mentions the "Kung Fu style fight in Sodom, or Sarah running up Mt. Moriah to save Isaac, or Moses looking like a cross between Charles Manson and Mickey Rourke, or the so-called “angel of death” looking like the dementors from Harry Potter."
Absurdities such as these make us forget that over 3,000 years separate us from the times of Abraham and Moses. It would be good for us to never loose track of this fact ... so that we not read our own 21st-century faith, values, world view, morals, and relationships back into the Bible. Precisely the fact that the Bible was written so long ago and precisely that its heroes are so different from us moderns and post-moderns are part of what makes our sacred Scripture so powerful. In and through the words of this ancient witness, God radically breaks into our modern lives and seeks to transform these lives. The moment we blur the tremendous gap between the world of ancient Israel and our own world, the moment we seek to fashion the Bible into a modern book, we strip it of some of its power over us.
I look forward to hearing what thoughts came to your mind when watching "The Bible". If you have not watched it yet, it is being shown at 9pm on the History Channel on Sunday nights.
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