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Why I’m watching “The Bible” despite my frustration with it

In 1993 I went to the Riverside movie theater in Macon, GA to see a movie that would significantly change my life.

Now being a martial artist since I was 8 years old, I had heard of Bruce Lee, and I knew that he was widely considered to be the greatest martial artist in modern history. But I’d never read much about his life story and didn’t know what all the fuss was really about.

So when I saw the preview for “Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story“, which was based on the book by his widow Linda Lee Cadwell, I was pretty excited!

I wasn’t disappointed! The movie sparked an interest in Bruce’s life and teachings that would remain with me ever since and would even inspire my own ministry (which I’ve even written an e-book about!).

But…

The more I learned about Bruce Lee…the more I realized just how woefully inaccurate “Dragon” was.

From little things like the dates given and the age at which he starts his training under Yip Man, to the more significant details like his relationship with his father and the name of his first students, to the major distortions such his paralysis-from-a-secret-underground-death-match and the publication of his posthumous bestseller “Tao of Jeet Kune Do” BEFORE his death…

The movie was FILLED with errors and inaccurate portrayals to the point where I could no longer recommend it to anyone who was looking to learn more about the life of my favorite martial artist…and yet, somewhat paradoxically, it was this very distorted movie which started me on my journey of discovery and learning everything I could about Bruce!

Okay, so what does any of this have to do with “The Bible” miniseries that is currently playing on the History Channel?

Well, I find myself having the same conflicting responses to it as I do to Dragon. As I watch it each with with my buddy Neal, there are two types of thoughts running through my mind as a Bible teacher:

“There are SO MANY things wrong with this! It distorts the events, people and cultures of the Bible in ways that, as a Bible teacher, are so painfully obvious and inexcusable!”

…but yet…

“They are attempting to introduce the overall storyline found within this amazing library known as the Bible to millions who have almost no familiarity with it in a way that excites their interest and hopefully gets them wanting to read the real thing!”

 

Both lines of thought are reinforced with each week’s episode.

To be sure, pointing out all the errors and distortions inherent in an attempt at condensing 1,500 years of written texts into a 10 hour TV series would be both painstaking and unnecessarily critical. After all, the writers state at the beginning of each episode that they have taken liberties with the events portrayed for the sake of filming, but desire to remain true to the spirit of the text.

As one of the Biblical scholar advisers to the series, Craig Evans, put it on a Facebook post today when a viewer asked him why they condensed the nativity details and omitted the voice from God at Jesus’ baptism:

I am glad you have been watching The Bible and appreciate your questions. I recall well the discussion about two years ago concerning what to do about the two major components of the infancy story (i.e., the shepherds and the magi). We all knew, of course, that the visits of the shepherds and magi were not at the same time. We did not have enough time to narrate two separate visits, yet we did not want to omit one group or the other, so we decided to do what most churches do every Christmas season – have shepherds and magi visit the manger at the same time.

As for God’s voice at the baptism, while I don’t recall the exact thinking. You should know that in addition to leaving things out (simply because 10 hours are not enough to tell the whole story), we also sometimes modernize the dialogue. The goal is not so much to reach people like you, who know the Bible story well, but to REACH THOSE who do not know it, who never have read it and probably never would had it not been for The Bible miniseries. It is our hope that through this dramatic, selective, condensed, and slightly paraphrased version we can reach millions, of whom many will have a new interest in the Bible and will, perhaps for the first time, pick it up and starting reading it.

We are thrilled that millions have viewed The Bible. Hopefully now millions will read the Bible itself, which provides the UNABRIDGED version of the story!

Now, Craig Evans is a Biblical scholar of the first rank–one of my favorites, in fact! And I believe his response is an excellent one when it comes to the creative liberties the producers took in undertaking a project of this magnitude and importance…

…on some things, that is.

 

You see, Dojo readers, what has bothered me the most–to the point where I almost cannot recommend this series to anyone looking to learn more about the actual story of the Bible–is its continuation of a centuries-old practice that has plagued the Church throughout Western Christian culture. I’m referring, of course, to the “de-Hebraization” and subsequent “Europeanization” of the Bible.

This is nothing new; it has been the norm in almost every depiction of Biblical culture ever committed to film! In fact, to this day, I would argue that the only movie which has ever done an outstanding job in accurately depicting the look and feel of its Biblical setting is “The Miracle Maker“–which was created through a mixture of stop-motion and traditional 2-D animation!

But in the age of multimillion dollar global productions and international casting, there is no longer any acceptable reason to perpetuate erroneous depictions of Biblical cultures.

The Bible is an ancient Near East library of literature.

It recounts events that took place in ancient Near East history.

Among ancient Near East people.

Yet there is almost nothing in this series which  faithfully portrays the ancient Near East cultures of the Biblical world!

I’m not just talking about the casting of “white” actors in pretty much every lead role (with the curious exception of Samson, who was played by a British version of WWE wrestler Mark Henry it seems, and Satan–who some on Twitter have declare to be a President Obama look-alike!), although that is a major pet-peeve of mine and a distortion of the Image of God which is found within all ethnic groups.  But as much as I resonate with such critiques of the racial undertones communicated (perhaps unknowingly) through the casting decisions made by the producers, I’m not simply talking about “race”.

I’m talking about “culture.”

Specifically, historical cultures that are woven into the very fiber of the Bible’s narratives. If this series had been produced for the Hallmark Channel or TNT or even CBS, I might be less critical.

But it’s airing on THE HISTORY CHANNEL.

HISTORY.

Thus, the bar is raised in terms of portrayals which attempt to be HISTORICALLY accurate.

Yet “The Bible” gives us a world in which the background extras and incidental characters are played by middle-eastern/North African/Mediterranean actors, but the lead characters are all not only European in skin-tone, but also in speech, hairstyle and grooming!

For example, despite the depictions of Hebrew men in ancient artwork as well as the command found in Leviticus 19:27 the viewer is presented with…

David

Jeremiah

and most cringe-worthy of all, Joseph…

Yesterday in a discussion of this week’s episode, I joked on Facebook that the producers had decided to cast a Jonas Brother as Joseph. I mean, seriously, the cast of Gilligan’s Island is more Galilean than Mary and Joseph!

Of course, to many people, this may not be a big deal; I’ll be labelled as overly-critical or a Debbie Downer…

But to others (myself included), the decisions made by the producers of “The Bible” distort the notion of God entering into SPECIFIC cultures in history–particularly that of the ancient Hebrews in the land of Canaan.

 

There are also a number of choices made by the filmmakers in terms of the depiction of supernatural characters which have theological significance.

For instance, all throughout Scripture, unless they are disguised, angels incite fear and awe from those who encounter them face to face. The most common greeting found on the lips of angels is usually something like “fear not” or “get up”. Yet rarely do viewers get this sense from the onscreen angels in “The Bible”…

 

And Satan, the deceitful tempter who is said to disguise himself “even as an angel of light” according to 2Corinthians 11:14 is anything but deceptive when appearing to Jesus in the wilderness…

How this Star-Wars-Emperor-meets-Grim-Reaper-from-Bill-and-Ted’s-Bogus-Journey fits with the seductive, tempting, subtle nature of Satan found in the actual Bible is beyond me!

But the most glaring theological decision that the producers seem to have made has to do with the main character of the Bible.

God Himself.

He is almost totally absent from the events depicted each week! From episode 2 onward, He is not only unseen, He is also unheard. God never speaks to any of the characters. This carries no small amount of theological significance, because Scripture presents us with a God who speaks and interacts with the characters found on its pages…unlike the gods of the surrounding nations who cannot speak or act on their peoples’ behalf (Jeremiah 10:5, Habakkuk 2:8, Psalm 115:5, etc.).

Yet contrary to the written version, the onscreen God of “The Bible” is largely silent throughout Israel’s history (and even at Jesus’ Baptism!).

 

As mentioned above, these are only a few examples of things that I’ve found disturbing and/or frustrating while watching this series.

But I continue to watch.

And not only that, I hope that others continue to watch!

I hope people who have never read the Bible or who have only read it in snippets or isolated passage here and there are intrigued by this series.

I hope that those who have been led to believe that the Bible is “a boring old book full of rules” come to see that it is anything but! (It is a library chronicling God’s interaction with humanity and His Covenant plan to bring the world that has rejected Him back to Himself…and we find ourselves as participants in Act IV of this five-act drama!)

In other words, I hope this series does for those who know very little about the Bible (particularly those who think they know more than they do!) what “Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story” did for me back in 1993.

I believe it will, because God is able to use all things in communicating His truth to humanity, even our flawed attempts at retelling “that old, old story.”

That is why I’m looking forward to next week’s episode.

 

Blessings from the Dojo,

JM

 

ps: Readers, feel free to share your own responses to the series in the comments section below. Have you enjoyed it? Hated it? Been indifferent to it? What would you have changed about it if you had been in charge? Why?

Posted by on March 18, 2013.

Categories: Arts and Culture, Biblical Scholarship, Blog, Hebrew Bible, New Testament

6 Responses

  1. ok, I’m sold. I definitely fall in one of the above categories. I’ll be tuning in next week. I need to see if the previous episodes are available on demand. Thanks JM

    by Tom Metcalf on Mar 18, 2013 at 7:39 pm

  2. Once at an Intervarsity Christian Fellowship Retreat called Atlanta Urban Project, a retreat specifically dealing with the Christian response to inner city cultural issues, I had a conversation with one of my white Christian brothers. He made this significant statement, “I’ve never thought of myself as ‘white.’ I’ve always thought of myself as NORMAL.”

    The key to his statement is his assumption. Think of it this way. In America, News Broad casters are usually taught to speak with a Midwestern “accent” because this accent is considered “neutral.” It doesn’t have the distinctness of New York of Georgia accents.

    I believe some feel that white European culture is a “neutral” cultural expression that encompasses all NORMAL human cultures, and thus we shouldn’t “nit pick” about the specifics or distinctness of other cultures, including the culture of Christ, who came in the flesh–in Hebrew flesh.

    by Olatunde on Mar 19, 2013 at 7:11 pm

  3. Yes! I totally agree, Olatunde! It’s not as much about RACE as CULTURE, which I tried to note in the blog. Hebrew CULTURE encompassed multiple “races”–from Urijah the Hittite, to Moses’ Cushite (African) wife, to Paul of Tarsus (European/Asia Minor). That is what the producers seem totally unconcerned with portraying in their lead characters (with the exception of Samson).

    by jm on Mar 19, 2013 at 7:14 pm

  4. I agree completely with you JM! Especially with your remark about the absence of God And an impression of His working out His redemptive plan. It feels like stories without the Incredible reality that this is God making a way for salvation and redeeming Hi s creation. This had been disappointing to me as welll. The Scottish accents are less disappointing and more just laughable. But like you I hope it will be a weak flawed means The Lord uses to work a saving work in many lives!

    by Todd personett on Mar 19, 2013 at 10:11 pm

  5. I don’t agree about the “nuetrality” of whiteness or european american characters. The reality is, that many white people in American will not watch films with lead characters that are not white. Even in Hollywood, films that have a mostly black cast do not do as well in theaters, not necessarily because of cultural differences but because of the assumption that this is a “black movie” and must be about black culture.

    I don’t think there was any nuetrality envolved. To get the majority of americans to watch a film or program the main characters must look like them, especially the “good” characters as opposed to the “evil” ones.

    by amber on Aug 5, 2013 at 8:20 am

  6. I was frustrated with this series because it didn’t really hit Jesus as he was, it made him like a little yuppie hippie, not the vigilant amazingly strong and courageous person he would have been. I hate the way these movies always make him talk like he is in some new age sect. I agree its very easy for them to know how people looked in the bible what they wore hairstyle it was written down. The only part I did like was when Jesus said “We do not live by bread alone but by EVERY word that preceedeth out of the mouth of GOD!” too many christians disregard Gods law I am a full bible believer and won’t take for granted a single syllable that the creator of the universe said to do.

    by Jazz on Mar 29, 2014 at 5:55 pm

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