Words of Truth

I had time to finish both episodes in the past few days, so here’s #3.  I’m going to start out by saying that this series has gotten seriously gory. Tonight I watched Zedekiah’s small children have their throats slit.  Not a nice thing to watch, and not something that needed to be emphasized for my nine-year-old.

Daniel had to pray to God before God revealed Nebuchadnezzar’s dream. This was totally skipped over.
They showed Daniel present at the worship of Nebuchadnezzar’s statue.  The Bible says that all men bowed except for Hananiah, Azariah, and Meshael. This means that either Daniel bowed (unlikely) or that he was not present (more likely).
The Bible says they were thrown into a fiery furnace that was so hot it killed the guards that threw them in. This is not shown.  The king got a burn on his hand.  Not exactly an accurate portrayal.

In the Bible, Daniel was thrown into the lion’s den and a stone was put over the opening, whereas the program depicts the lions being kept in a pen, not a den (maybe there was a typo?), and there was a door, not a stone keeping Daniel in.  The context of Daniel 6 makes it clear that this was a big hole in the ground in which they kept lions, not a room.  The men who conspired against Daniel were thrown to the lions by the king, along with their families.  In the program, only one man was thrown in.

The scene shifts from Daniel to the Roman occupation of Judea.  They spend 10 minutes showing Herod’s Roman eagle that he put on the temple. Guess what:  this isn’t in the Bible. Why did they waste time on that? Then they spend a bunch of screen time depicting Herod’s life and his multiple killing of different people, again, something the Bible doesn’t mention, and my nine-year-old didn’t need to see.

They show Mary and Joseph making eyes at each other during synagogue. Evidently the writers were not aware that Jewish men and women were separated during worship by more than two feet of space.

Then we are treated to a “Robin Hood” scene where the Sheriff of Nottingham…um…Romans steal stuff from the people of Nazareth for taxes.

The angel appeared to Joseph in a dream. That means at night. While he was sleeping. Not in a busy marketplace through some kid.

An aside: the angels taking off their hoods is getting annoying. Also, almost every time an angel appears in the Bible, the first thing they say is “don’t be afraid.”  We aren’t gettting this image at all in the program.

We are never told that Mary endured ridicule for becoming pregnant. We are only told that Joseph was going to send her away secretly to keep her from being disgraced.  This probably means nobody knew she was pregnant at that point.  This is a mistake.

It seemed funny to me that the whole reason for Joseph to take Mary to Bethlehem was the nationwide census, and yet they were the only people traveling.  Hmmm.

I was not surprised that they messed up the timing of the wise men. Matthew 2 says that the wise men arrived AFTER Jesus’ birth. In the program however, “Balthasar” tells Herod that “he has not been born yet.”

In the Bible, the wise men asked Herod about the new king, and Herod’s wise men told the magi to go to Bethlehem. The program totally messed this up.

And finally, the magi arrive. Matthew 2 states they came into the HOUSE where the CHILD was.  The word for “child” is a different word than the word for baby.  Given the decree of Herod, Jesus was probably about 1 or 2 years old when the wise men showed up. Instead, the writers of this program depicted them as arriving mere minutes after Jesus’ birth.

They left out the shepherds entirely.

Then the program moved on to more events  that are not covered in the Bible, mostly a bunch of fighting, set during the time of Jesus’ childhood.  They cover the arrival of Pilate in Judea, yet another event not covered in the Bible.

They show John the Baptist. Oh good. We’re back to the biblical text.  Wait….what are these sumo wrestlers doing on my screen?  Ok, we’re back to John now.

Jesus arrives at the Jordan so John can baptize him.  No dove. No voice from heaven. How sad. This episode of “The Bible” is the most disappointing one so far.

Jesus heads out into the wilderness to be tempted by a snake. I don’t think Satan appeared to Jesus as a snake. I mean, why? Jesus knew Satan personally.  And I see what those people meant about the actor playing Satan looking like Obama.  I don’t think it was intentional, though.

But I was sorely disappointed that they did not show Jesus responding to each temptation with Scripture. Jesus was setting an example for us to follow: when we are tempted to sin, we ought to remember specific verses that will help us do what is right.

Jesus calls Peter.  The Bible says Peter and Andrew were in the boat together, and that James & John were present.  In the movie, it’s just Jesus and Peter. And in the biblical story, there were so many fish, that the fishermen were afraid the boats would sink. Also, in the movie, Jesus calls him “Peter” right off the bat.  It wasn’t until much later that Jesus gave Simon the name of “Peter.”

So in conclusion to this episode, I will say that I am disappointed with the way they played fast and loose with the biblical text surrounding Jesus’ birth and first days of ministry.  This does not bode well for the rest of the series.

The saying goes, “the book is always better than the movie.”  In this case, that saying is absolutely true.  Don’t trust in the word of Mark Burnett, read the Word of God.

I did most of the introductory work for these posts in the first post, so from now on I’m just going to include my comments without introduction. Except for this one. You know what I mean.

They totally messed up the Jericho story (the spies hid on Rahab’s roof under some reeds. She was to hang a red rope out her window which was part of the city wall, not on a post outside her doorway.

I disagree with the move to totally skip the story of Gideon. It’s a great story showing God’s deliverance using a person most people wouldn’t look at twice. His story also shows the need to depend totally on God, not on our own power.

Which judge did they show?  Samson.  But it wasn’t really Samson, because Samson was JEWISH, not black. Yes, I know there are Ethiopian Jews now. There weren’t back then.

NOT an accurate portrayal of Samson.

They portray Samson as a guy who is just trying to do what is right. Samson wasn’t a good guy in the Bible. He was selfish and repeatedly disobeyed the commands of God to not touch dead things, not drink wine, as well as the law of Moses (for example, he married two Philistine women).

They messed up the details of the death of Samson’s first wife. Then they edited the Delilah episode down to one conversation where Samson gives away his secret the first time she asks.  Also, they made it seem like Samson killed about 100 people total, when he killed just under 6000 Philistines.  I don’t know how they could have shown this on TV, but they could have at least tried.   In the program, Samson’s eyes were still bleeding from his eyes being gouged when he killed his last Philistine. In the Bible they shaved his head, and it had been long enough for his hair to grow back before his last demonstration of God’s strength.

One final note about Samson.  His strength came from God, not his biceps and steroids, as every depiction of him seems to show. I don’t think the historical Samson was a big guy. That’s what made people wonder, “Where does he get his strength?”  Think about it:  if you saw a big burly guy doing feats of strength, you would assume he works out a lot and is strong and healthy.  But if you saw a wimpy looking guy do great feats of strength, you’d say, “huh?  What gives?”  That’s why I think Samson probably looked more like Captain America before his “treatment.” You know, this guy:

Moving on…

They totally glossed over the fact that Saul didn’t want to be king.
They totally glossed over the choice of David as the new king. First Samuel 16 has the account for any that care to read it. It’s an amazing story of how God looks into the heart instead of how someone looks on the outside.

At the battle with Goliath, David didn’t just drop Saul’s shield as the program portrays, he tried on Saul’s armor, and it was too big. Also, he picked up the stones from a creek, not from the ground in front of the king.  Again, details.

Goliath was probably too short as portrayed in the movie.  If I recall correctly, he was about nine feet tall, not six and change.

Saul never murdered any priests who gave David shelter.

The man who told David that Saul was dead claimed to have killed Saul (when Saul killed himself, as accurately shown in the program), and David had the messenger killed, a fact that is not mentioned in the program.

David reigned in Hebron for ten years before the conquest of Jerusalem. The ark was not brought into Jerusalem for many years.

As a final note on this episode, I can’t believe they totally skipped everything from just after David & Bathsheba to the deportation.  Elijah, anyone? Jehoshaphat? Elisha? Isaiah? Hezekiah?  These guys would have made for great TV!

In closing, if you are still reading, that means you are interested in the retelling of fictionalized biblical stories.  If you want to read great stories based on the life of David and his mighty men, read “Day of War” (and the sequels) by Cliff Graham.

a really great read!

He does an amazing job telling the facts as they were, and embellishing the extra stuff the Bible doesn’t mention.  Are his stories history? No, but the events described COULD have happened the way he tells them.  I believe there is a movie in production based on his book.  I plan to see it when it comes out.

Let me start out by saying that I approve of the idea behind making this mini-series. It has been getting very good ratings (last week it was the highest rated show of any time slot.  That means that The Bible: Episode 3 had more people watching it than any other single show that week).  On the whole, I am glad that they decided to bring the contents of the Bible to the screen.  Obviously I have not seen the entire series, because at this point only three episodes have aired.  I have watched the first two (with the third recorded and waiting for me).

This show has been very good on some things.  For instance:

• They very clearly showed the literal six days of creation.
• They depicted Noah’s flood as a worldwide flood.
• They showed Moses and the children of Israel crossing the Red Sea, when many liberal theologians have claimed that the Israelites crossed much farther north through a shallow marsh called the “reed sea.”

But they have made some questionable decisions about some parts of the Bible, and have been flat-out wrong on others. While I am glad they are exposing people to the Bible’s contents, it saddens me that they have gotten some things wrong. And so, for those of you, my readers who have not read the Bible, I will outline here the things that they have gotten wrong, according to the Bible itself.

The first episode started with Noah in the ark relating the facts of creation to a young girl.  First of all, we have to assume that this girl, who looked like she was about 12 years old, was Noah’s daughter-in-law.  Seemed a little young to me, but there were only eight people on the ark: Noah, his wife, his three sons, and his sons’ three wives. Another thing about the Noah story that they got wrong:  there was no top deck on the ark that was open to air as they showed Noah walking out on.  The ark wasn’t even a “boat.”  It was a big wooden box, meant to float.  There was probably no keel (as the program shows), and no rudder.  The ark wasn’t a ship meant to go anywhere, it was built for one reason: to protect the creatures inside from death by water.   And I’m sure it didn’t leak either (as the program showed).

The show moved next to the story of Abraham.

• When God first called him to leave Ur, his name was Abram, and his wife was Sarai, not Abraham and Sarah.  A small detail, but there it is.
• They made it seem like Abram left Ur with his wife, his nephew Lot and Lot’s family, and his servants. Nobody else came, at least not that we were told about.  They left Ur and arrived in the Promised Land shortly thereafter.  The reality as told in Genesis 11:31 is that Abram’s father Terah took his whole family. They left Ur and settled in Haran (in present day Turkey).  Then in Genesis 12 God called Abram and told him to leave Haran and go to the Promised Land.
• The program does a good job overall with the Theophanic meeting at Mamre (as told in Genesis 18), but  when the Bible says that God “…appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre…,” maybe the program’s producers could have produced some trees? And I don’t like the way they made God seem creepy when He was telling Sarah about the birth of Isaac.
• The story of Lot and the destruction of Sodom was not done to my taste. This doesn’t mean they got it wrong, but they made it seem like the two angels were some kind of kung-fu sword masters.  And the program depicted the people of Sodom with ambiguous motives regarding the “two visitors.”  The Bible is clear that the people of Sodom wanted to have sexual relations with them when it says, “…bring them out that we may have intercourse with them…” (Genesis 19:5).  In my opinion this was cowardice on the part of the people behind this program, because it would have produced an outcry from people who believe that homosexuality is not a sin.
• Abraham and Isaac.  The program’s story of sacrifice had several things wrong.  First of all, Abraham took Isaac, a donkey, and two servants. The program showed just Abraham and Isaac.  They went on a  three day trip but the program seems to indicate they just walked over the hill a ways.  When God told Abraham to not go through with it, he pointed out a RAM caught in a bush.  Abraham then sacrificed the ram.  In the program, it was a lamb, not a ram.  I understand that a lamb is probably easier to deal with in film production than a fully grown ram, but it’s a detail.

Then, without explanation, they moved directly from that story to the story of Moses.  Here is a list of good stories they could have told:

• Isaac and Rebekah’s story
• Jacob and Esau
• Jacob deceiving Isaac.
• Jacob traveling to Haran, seeing the stairway to heaven, falling in love with Rachel, tricked into marrying Leah, working for his uncle Laban for 20 years, his return to the Promised land
• Jacob wrestling the Angel of the Lord.
• Joseph and his dreams
• Joseph sold into slavery, arriving in Egypt, being Potiphar’s slave, falsely accused of impropriety with Potiphar’s wife.
• Joseph’s time in prison and the dreams of Pharaoh, Pharaoh’s butler, and Pharaoh’s baker.
• Joseph’s elevation to “second in command of Egypt” and his food program
• Joseph’s reunion with his family.

Moses comes next.  They messed up a few things here:

• They got the wrong Pharaoh, but then, almost everybody does. Given the fact that the Exodus happened in 1445 BC, the reigning Pharaoh at the time of Moses birth in 1525 BC was probably Amenhotep I (reigned 1526-1506). The pharaoh reigning when Moses fled Egypt in 1480 would have been Thutmose II. The pharaoh of the Exodus would have been Thutmose III, who was born in 1481. The program shows Moses growing up with (and swordfighting with) the pharaoh of the Exodus, when in fact this pharaoh had most likely never met Moses, since Moses left Egypt when Thutmose III was 1 year old.
• As the Israelites leave Egypt, there is no smoke by day and fire by night as the book of Exodus states.
• In the Bible, Moses doesn’t smack his staff down on the ground to start the parting of the Red Sea, he raises his rod and stretches out his hand (Exodus 14:16-27).

Interesting sidenote unrelated to the aims of my post:  Historical records show that the son of Thutmose III who was pharaoh after him (Amenhotep II) was NOT his firstborn son.  Ancient Egyptian records indicate that Thutmose III’s firstborn son Amenemhat died sometime between 1455 and 1444. The tenth plague, the death of pharaoh’s firstborn, took place with the rest of the plagues in 1445. Interesting, no?

I believe that just about covers it for episode one.  Tune in soon for my review of Episode 2.