The History Channels The Bible premiers tonight

  • Thread starter Thread starter Kc906
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
paul_c said:
why is it inevitable that a movie has to depart from its literary source? Is it because of the ego of the producers or screen writers? I’m also a little wary about your view that Luke felt he needed to change the story. Do you really think that was his motivation?
Click to expand...
No, I do not think ego was a motivation. As a Catholic, I think assigning base motives to an effort to present the gospel would be lacking in charity. As I pointed out, if the medium changes, then the presentation must also change, unless you think you could sell a talking head reading the scripture.

If you do not think Luke changed the story, might I suggest you read him along side Matthew and Mark and notice that there are in fact differences. Also, read John and you will notice a different presentation of the Gospel. If you were a film maker, would you go through the gospel four times so that you could present the Gospel in the manner of the Bible? If not, then you would be changing it. That is why I say change is inevitable.
 
pnewton said:
No, I do not think ego was a motivation. As a Catholic, I think assigning base motives to an effort to present the gospel would be lacking in charity. As I pointed out, if the medium changes, then the presentation must also change, unless you think you could sell a talking head reading the scripture.

If you do not think Luke changed the story, might I suggest you read him along side Matthew and Mark and notice that there are in fact differences. Also, read John and you will notice a different presentation of the Gospel. If you were a film maker, would you go through the gospel four times so that you could present the Gospel in the manner of the Bible? If not, then you would be changing it. That is why I say change is inevitable.
Click to expand...
And you would also have to similarly compare and contrast events and approaches from St. Peter and St. Paul, as well.

Read the last few writings by Saint Paul … he fought the good fight of faith … there were disappointments.

Looking back from 2000 years later, how would our observations tie in with those of St. Paul?

enduringword.com/commentaries/5504.htm
 
I’ve already seen episodes 1 through 4, and I’m enjoying what I’m seeing so far, but while I understand that you would have to skip several centuries to fit a miniseries timetable, I was quite disappointed with the last episode where Nathan confronted David. He simply pointed out David’s sin with Bathsheba but completely omitted the parable of the rich man slaughtering the poor man’s lamb, prompting David to pronounce condemnation on himself. I found that this severely weakened that particular story.
 
paul_c said:
But it does bother me that the producers deviate significantly from the bible text in ways that are not necessary. Why for instance did decide for instance to exclude Mary’s words: I am the handmaid of the Lord, be it done to me according to thy words"? It seems to be a huge omission. And why create a situation where the Romans were harrassing her, prior to Gabriel’s visitation? Why not just follow the text for such an important event, particularly since it misses some important doctrinal teaching .

I also was disappointed in the calling of Peter. They have Jesus wading out to Peter’s boat, hoping in and asking Peter to fish. This is quite a change of dynamic from what the Bible really says. Jesus had met Peter through his brother Andrew, and Andrew was clued in to Jesus by John the baptist. And Jesus had preached from Peter’s boat at the shore before asking him to push out. And why skip over Peter’s reaction to the catch, Go away from me Lord, I am a sinful man.

I fully understand that they needed to trim the Bible down to fit in the allotted time, but I don’t get why they felt a need to change the greatest story ever told.
Click to expand...
I didn’t sense that Mary was being harrasses by the Romans – only that she was walking among while they were collecting the taxes.

Jesus meeting Peter through Andrew is only found in John’s Gospel

Their not changing the greatest story ever told just selecting certain events to portray.

The mainstream media is grasping art straws to try to discredit this series:

tv.yahoo.com/news/bible-stirs-controversy-satan-resemblance-president-barack-obama-141717141.html
 
JCnMe said:
haven’t read all of the posts- nor seen the storyline on the history channel as I don’t have cable-( I will buy the dvd when it comes out…)- but have seen some of those cast in the roles in promotions… as for Jesus-** the line of David is said to have lighter eyes,skin and hair that still show up today**…not all of Jewish descent are dark skinned and brown eyed…
Click to expand...
Said by who? Is that in the Bible? Just read the wiki article on it and I couldn’t find anything. That might have originated with the racist Christian Identity/British Israel movement(s).

Also, the Devil in the series is represented a guy that looks like Obama. Not for nothing but… lol @ White Jesus/Obama Devil… kinda dangerous territory they’re strolling into there.

I’m sure they mean well, just… you know…
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
VeritasLuxMea said:
Said by who? Is that in the Bible? Just read the wiki article on it and I couldn’t find anything. That might have originated with the racist Christian Identity/British Israel movement(s).

Also, the Devil in the series is represented a guy that looks like Obama. Not for nothing but… lol @ White Jesus/Obama Devil… kinda dangerous territory they’re strolling into there.

I’m sure they mean well, just… you know…
Click to expand...
Well, they did portray Samson and his family/tribesmen as black, probably based on the Beta Yisrael Ethiopian Jewish group who were airlifted to Israel during Operation Moses. It has been accepted that the “Falashas” were actually descended from Dan.
 
I do not like to bring race into it, but if you are going to make a series which is based on real historial events and people then the people should be played by actors who look like they are from Israel and the surrounding areas and the way in which some of the Biblical people are portrayed by actors in this series is probably not historically accurate given the geographic location of Israel and the surrounding area
 
porthos11 said:
I’ve already seen episodes 1 through 4, and I’m enjoying what I’m seeing so far, but while I understand that you would have to skip several centuries to fit a miniseries timetable, I was quite disappointed with the last episode where Nathan confronted David. He simply pointed out David’s sin with Bathsheba but completely omitted the parable of the rich man slaughtering the poor man’s lamb, prompting David to pronounce condemnation on himself. I found that this severely weakened that particular story.
Click to expand...
That bothered me too, but not as much as Jesus referring to Simon as Peter right from the git-go. They also referred to Abram as Abraham right from the beginning. God renaming people is a MAJOR thing in Scripture.
 
jediliz said:
they did not have Mary visit Elizabeth (and no mention of her AT ALL) and they also seemed to portray Mary as having labor pains. rolls eyes And when they beheaded John the Baptist it was because Antipas (?) seemed to be annoyed not because the daughter of his lover requested the head as a gift.

I only saw the 2nd hour tonight since I watch Once Upon a time @ 7 PM.

BTW, what was the deal with Joseph and the Roman soldiers? It was like he was being drafted for service…when he finally returned, Mary was already pregnant with Jesus and he accused her of cheating on him.
Click to expand...
Poetic license I guess, whatever they are doing they are doing it with the best intentions. Remember Hollywood wanted them to leave any New Testament references (especially Jesus) out and they had the courage to refuse and find another way of doing it. I hope God blesses them richly and not necessarily with more wealth either, a true Christian would know what I mean so I need not explain it.
 
Monte_RCMS said:
One of the interesting things to me was the lack of glamor in The Bible … Instead of Charlton Heston, we have some kind of unknown actor who does a good job … as one of millions of Jews who lived over that 2000 year period.

None of the actors has a manicure … they all look as if they have been living in tents in 120ºF weather in the desert with dust storms all the time and with not much water around.

They do a convincing job to demonstrate that life is difficult in general.

These are not folks who have been living in suburban San Diego. Or Larchmont.

If you read the whole bible, the book version, you get “put off” by all the killing … which is what was going on all over the world at the time and which is EXACTLY the same as what has been going on in those regions of the world during our own time … today … NO DIFFERENCE … not a nice bunch of people to hang out with.

If you think the horrible conditions in what the Bible, the book, describes are not the norm, then go onto the internet and read up on “human trafficking” … slavery today is just as prevalent and as nasty was it was back 3000 or 4000 years ago.

We, here, in Western Civilization, have been “spoiled” with not having had to live under those horrible conditions. If not for the civilizing influences of Christianity, we would be living just like those folks who are being depicted in the television show.

And now, of course, we have our neo-pagan society … in which we kill our own babies.
Click to expand...
I agree with much of what you said, hopefully those “unknown actors” will become known as a result of this series.

Just FWI, many historians believe that when the Bible Old Testament stories are said to have taken place that the region we historians call the Fertile Crescent (basically Egypt to Iraq and their surrounding regions) was the most violent region in the world at the time. Wars were constant and it is amazing that literacy could not only come to be, but thrive in such a region. Not to mention that the horrors of slavery would ruin the lives of far more people than it had in any period before then.

You are right about us being spoiled here, we certainly are and we wouldn’t be abandoning God if we weren’t. However, that is Ok with me because for every Christian that leaves the faith in the West due to indoctrination or for just being spoiled wanting everything their own way, there are one or two to take their place elsewhere in the world. The light that is our faith will not be put out, it will simply be passed over to people who are more worthy of keeping it.
 
J_the_Centrist said:
I agree with much of what you said, hopefully those “unknown actors” will become known as a result of this series.

Just FWI, many historians believe that when the Bible Old Testament stories are said to have taken place that the region we historians call the Fertile Crescent (basically Egypt to Iraq and their surrounding regions) was the most violent region in the world at the time. Wars were constant and it is amazing that literacy could not only come to be, but thrive in such a region. Not to mention that the horrors of slavery would ruin the lives of far more people than it had in any period before then.

You are right about us being spoiled here, we certainly are and we wouldn’t be abandoning God if we weren’t. However, that is Ok with me because for every Christian that leaves the faith in the West due to indoctrination or for just being spoiled wanting everything their own way, there are one or two to take their place elsewhere in the world. The light that is our faith will not be put out, it will simply be passed over to people who are more worthy of keeping it.
Click to expand...
Well, God gave us The Flood.

Then, God gave the Egyptians all the locusts and pestilences.

Eventually, God gave Europe the barbarian invasions … “How the Irish Saved Western Civilization” and all that.

And the Muslim invasions of North Africa and Spain and France … and the Holy Land and Egypt and up into Turkey and Vienna.

And now …

The movie, “The Bible” … how could God the Infinite, the Almighty send His Only “Begotten” Son down to such a scruffy, quarrelsome, irritating and annoying bunch of stiff necked desert warriors who get conquered all the time? Even the Roman occupiers did not want to be there … and freely expressed their displeasure.

Makes ya wonder, doesn’t it.

And NOW, it looks like we are in for a bombardment of meteorites.

God has a plan … He merely declines to tell us what it is.

[There is an exhibit of the Shroud of Turin making the rounds … the accompanying videos that get shown talk a lot about the details of the flogging instruments used by the Romans on “Whoever” was laid to rest in that cloth … and how many strokes were “administered” and why that number … and then I get to thinking about “The Passion of The Christ”.]

This guy is interesting … John Allison … how badly people lived up until just a couple of hundred years ago:

booktv.org/Program/14211/quotThe+Financial+Crisis+and+the+Free+Market+Cure+Why+Pure+Capitalism+is+the+World+Economys+Only+Hopequot.aspx
 
VeritasLuxMea said:
Said by who? Is that in the Bible? Just read the wiki article on it and I couldn’t find anything. That might have originated with the racist Christian Identity/British Israel movement(s).

Also, the Devil in the series is represented a guy that looks like Obama. Not for nothing but… lol @ White Jesus/Obama Devil… kinda dangerous territory they’re strolling into there.

I’m sure they mean well, just… you know…
Click to expand...
Keep looking you’ll find it-it found me-but look beyond places like “wiki”:eek: all thoughts there are contributed by readers-so could be just as biased and wrong as you believe my post is…
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Just completed episodes 7/8. Generally enjoyable, but I have identified my peeves from that one.

Daniel and company were exiled during the first Babylonian invasion, during Jehoiakim’s reign, not Zedekiah’s (which was the third Babylonian invasion).

The description of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream was too abbreviated. The four metals and the feet of iron mixed with clay was an important detail and should have been included.

The attempted execution of Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah was not as powerful as it could have been. The fire should have been pre-kindled and the soldiers killed by the intense heat as they threw them in. This would have emphasized the power of the miracle.

Daniel was thrown to the lions under Cyrus, not Darius as the book of Daniel relates, but I can let this pass since historically, there was likely no “Darius the Mede” in real history and the deuterocanonical Bel and the Dragon does place Cyrus in the role of the king who threw Daniel to the lions (under different circumstances). I can accept that there was a real Daniel while also accepting that the genre of the book is apocalyptic and not strictly historical.

The timetable between Jesus’ birth, the visit of the Magi and the massacre of the innocents is too compressed.

John the Baptist is executed for political reasons, rather than as part of the trick hatched by Herodias. Antipas is portrayed as sadistic towards John when in fact he respected John and enjoyed listening to him. Antipas was greatly troubled after realizing that he had been tricked into ordering John’s execution.

Jesus called Simon “Peter” from the get-go, way before his confession at Caesarea Philippi.

To be honest, I’m quite annoyed by these lapses.
 
porthos11 said:
Just completed episodes 7/8. Generally enjoyable, but I have identified my peeves from that one.

Daniel and company were exiled during the first Babylonian invasion, during Jehoiakim’s reign, not Zedekiah’s (which was the third Babylonian invasion).

The description of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream was too abbreviated. The four metals and the feet of iron mixed with clay was an important detail and should have been included.

The attempted execution of Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah was not as powerful as it could have been. The fire should have been pre-kindled and the soldiers killed by the intense heat as they threw them in. This would have emphasized the power of the miracle.

Daniel was thrown to the lions under Cyrus, not Darius as the book of Daniel relates, but I can let this pass since historically, there was likely no “Darius the Mede” in real history and the deuterocanonical Bel and the Dragon does place Cyrus in the role of the king who threw Daniel to the lions (under different circumstances). I can accept that there was a real Daniel while also accepting that the genre of the book is apocalyptic and not strictly historical.

The timetable between Jesus’ birth, the visit of the Magi and the massacre of the innocents is too compressed.

John the Baptist is executed for political reasons, rather than as part of the trick hatched by Herodias. Antipas is portrayed as sadistic towards John when in fact he respected John and enjoyed listening to him. Antipas was greatly troubled after realizing that he had been tricked into ordering John’s execution.

Jesus called Simon “Peter” from the get-go, way before his confession at Caesarea Philippi.

To be honest, I’m quite annoyed by these lapses.
Click to expand...
Correction - Episodes 5/6.
 
porthos11 said:
Just completed episodes 7/8. Generally enjoyable, but I have identified my peeves from that one.

Daniel and company were exiled during the first Babylonian invasion, during Jehoiakim’s reign, not Zedekiah’s (which was the third Babylonian invasion).

The description of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream was too abbreviated. The four metals and the feet of iron mixed with clay was an important detail and should have been included.

The attempted execution of Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah was not as powerful as it could have been. The fire should have been pre-kindled and the soldiers killed by the intense heat as they threw them in. This would have emphasized the power of the miracle.

Daniel was thrown to the lions under Cyrus, not Darius as the book of Daniel relates, but I can let this pass since historically, there was likely no “Darius the Mede” in real history and the deuterocanonical Bel and the Dragon does place Cyrus in the role of the king who threw Daniel to the lions (under different circumstances). I can accept that there was a real Daniel while also accepting that the genre of the book is apocalyptic and not strictly historical.

The timetable between Jesus’ birth, the visit of the Magi and the massacre of the innocents is too compressed.

John the Baptist is executed for political reasons, rather than as part of the trick hatched by Herodias. Antipas is portrayed as sadistic towards John when in fact he respected John and enjoyed listening to him. Antipas was greatly troubled after realizing that he had been tricked into ordering John’s execution.

Jesus called Simon “Peter” from the get-go, way before his confession at Caesarea Philippi.

To be honest, I’m quite annoyed by these lapses.
Click to expand...
So, I am assuming that you think negatively about the series. That young people are watching this series and actually talking about the Bible is bad, right? Yes, everyone agrees there are “lapses”, but they only have 10 hours to tell as many Bible stories as possible. You do realize that Hollywood wanted the series NOT to mention Christ at all and Roma and Mark had the courage to refuse, right? What another poster on this thread said was absolutely correct, you really can’t release a drama about the Bible without pleasing one half and angering the other half of the Christian community. :banghead:
 
J_the_Centrist said:
So, I am assuming that you think negatively about the series. That young people are watching this series and actually talking about the Bible is bad, right? Yes, everyone agrees there are “lapses”, but they only have 10 hours to tell as many Bible stories as possible. You do realize that Hollywood wanted the series NOT to mention Christ at all and Roma and Mark had the courage to refuse, right? What another poster on this thread said was absolutely correct, you really can’t release a drama about the Bible without pleasing one half and angering the other half of the Christian community. :banghead:
Click to expand...
Oh, I’m not dissing the series itself; in fact I’m following it and actually enjoying it except for some of the pet peeves. They should compress, given the timetable they have, but they can also do better by not omitting significant details such as some of those I mentioned. They could have done better with the details of David’s story (especially Nathan’s confrontation) and the attempted execution of Daniel’s friends. They could have accurately portrayed John the Baptist’s death, used the narrator, or skipped it altogether instead of presenting it in a way that has absolutely no support in the texts, and still keep to the timetable.

I’m just pointing out some areas that for me weaken the story with the liberties taken.

Or is the series immune to criticism on this board, because if it’s hands-off, I can stop.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top