I could not go any longer without writing a post on the show, The Bible, that is currently airing on History Channel.
The show, produced by Roma Downey (aka touch by an angel) and husband, Mark Burnett, airs Sunday nights at 8pm eastern time. The show takes the stories of the Bible all the way from Genesis to Revelation and puts them into a live story that is two hours long a week for five weeks so a total of 10 hours.
I know this show has gotten lots of press…some good and some bad. So it’s my turn!
I had the privilege of attending the Catalyst Conference last summer which you can read about in my post here. If you read my previous post than you know that I had the opportunity to hear about this show, The Bible, from Roma and Mark who were at the conference and were at the time in the process of filming the show. Upon hearing what they were making I was extremely excited. Their hearts were in the right place and I knew that through them, God had the potential to do incredible things with this show.
As Mark and Roma said to the audience at Catalyst:
“this nation gives everyone the opportunity to do what you want but you have to have the courage to make it happen!”
“if you need to be certain of something you will never do anything.”
And boy did they do just that. It takes courage to create a show like this especially in knowing that they would receive criticism for expressing the Bible in media.
When God tells you to do something you should expect it won’t be easy. This show was by no means easy for them to produce. They had a very small budget and were faced with many challenges while filming.
The crazy part is even now that it is airing they are receiving criticism from none other than other Christians. It always amazes me how Christians are often the first to cut you down when you are trying to do what God has told you to do. I have even heard from Christian friends of my own that they don’t support the show because “it is not true to the Bible because they leave things out” or, my personal fav, “the Bible shouldn’t be used as entertainment.”
People! First of all there is no way to put absolutely everything that is in the Bible into 10 hours of show. Secondly, I’m pretty sure God didn’t intend for his word to be boring. If you don’t believe me just read the pages of the Bible. You will find stories of love, hope, courage, and even murder. No, God did not intend for the Bible to be boring so why not make it exciting and express it in an unique way?
Personally I think the Bible is extremely well written and I have been very impressed but then again.. what do I know?
When I first heard about this show I was excited too. First, let me say I do believe it is produced well and not a cheesy B or C rated production. Unfortunately many times Biblical productions are that way due to low budgets. No, I do not think the Bible is boring nor should a realistic depiction of it be boring. Therefore it stands to reason that it could be entertaining. And I do not have issue with some things being left out as it is ALOT to cram into any program with a finite time. However, I do feel that some unneccesary creative liberties were taken. If things that the Bible clearly states is left out due to time constraints they definitely should not add things not from the Bible. There are some clear inaccuracies. For instance there is no mention of Sarah going to the base of the mount when Abraham was to sacrifice Isaac. Yet, they left out the fact that Abraham's servant went with them to the base of the mount. Samson was a Jew not black. This stands out as he is a central character. However, there are many characters that do not seem to accurately depict the historical nationalities. It is not to be racist that a black person played the part, but just that it is not accurate. I do not know it this was just do not offend or what. There are a few others where I think liberties were possibly taken to make it more entertaining. The real story is entertaining enough without additions. It is overall done well and still probably the most accurate of any Bible dramatization I've seen. However, I urge everyone to read their Bible and know for themselves where the "creative liberties" were taken.
You bring up some very valid points, Summer. I entirely agree with you that everyone should read the Bible for themselves to determine what God actually told us as fact versus the depiction the show gives you.
I also agree that there are many circumstances in the show that the producers did add dialogue/examples/etc. such as the example you mentioned above with Sarah going to the base of the mount. Playing devil's advocate I could also argue that this was not to add additional details for entertainment but to attempt to feel in the gaps of all the stories they had to leave out due to TV time restraints.
Again it would not be possible to put every instance in the Bible into 10 hours of showtime (which they were lucky to get…when they spoke they were telling us how they were fighting at that time to get 5 hours of showtime). Thankfully since the conference they were able to double the amount of showtime.
You bring up another interesting point when you said that Sampson was not black. When I saw that on the show it sparked my attention as well because yes Sampson was a Jew. However, Ethiopian Jews are black as are some of the Yeminite and Morrocan Jews. If I had to guess I would think Mark and Roma were trying to depict to viewers that many of the Bible characters we have grown up reading about were not white like they are in our children's Bibles. For example, many people do not know realize that Jesus was probably not white as we would think. In fact the race of Jesus has been debated for centries.
Finally, I do agreee with you that I believe they have produced the Bible in the production industry in a way that has never been done before and my point is that they were not trying to misrepresent scriptures but rather using the show as an opportunity to encourage others to read more about the stories and find out details for themself.