Easter Sunday is coming up, and with it the final parts of History Television's epic miniseries The Bible, or as I like to call it, "The Biblical Train Wreck." What is truly amazing about this miniseries is just how bad it has managed to be. Watching it has been a fascinating experience.
This is even more surprising considering the source material. The Bible is a transformative book – one cannot read it cover-to-cover without coming out changed. Some have found religion upon reading it, some have reached a higher level of understanding, and others have lost faith. The Old Testament, or as my religion calls it, the Tanakh, tells the shared memories of the Hebrew people and their ongoing cycle of fall and redemption, through slavery and freedom, through the most horrifying of warfare and the most exalted of peace. The New Testament tells of a God who loves humanity so much that he sends his own child to be sacrificed for their sins.
One cannot read this book without having to come to grips with the highest of morality and the most questionable of ethics. A firm commandment not to murder is followed by a divinely-mandated war of genocide. The call to the highest levels of social justice is paired with palace coups and warfare. The demand to meet one's enemies with love rather than hatred comes hand-in-hand with an exclusivity wherein all those who do not follow Christ are condemned to eternal damnation. The reader is thrust into a time and place far different than our own and yet the same, vividly realized. In the Iron Age kings of Israel and Judea, whose greatness comes from military victory and worshipping God, we cannot help but see ourselves, or at least what will one day become ourselves. It is little wonder that this holds a claim to being the most influential book in history.
And yet, the miniseries manages to fail on almost every level when depicting it. While it makes claims to portraying the spirit of the book, it consistently hits the wrong note. The cycle of fall and redemption that underlies the entire Old Testament is completely missing – all we ever see is the fall, to the point that the viewer can be forgiven for wondering what God ever saw in these Hebrew people in the first place. The New Testament shows little improvement. At least the miniseries gives the content enough time – the Old Testament material gets skipped through so quickly that major stories are missing – but it actually finds a way to screw up the Sermon on the Mount, and the famous "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone" story is transformed into a woman being saved from execution by a math problem.
The execution of the miniseries is so poor, in fact, that it boggles the mind as to how it could happen in the first place. The actors are good, and mostly well-cast (the one notable exception being Sampson, who is so well built that his God-given super-strength does not seem exceptional at all). The production values are of a high quality. And yet, the writing continually fails.
Perhaps the big problem is that the producers and writers don't seem to have any faith whatsoever in their source material, or their audience to follow it. They never allow the story to just tell itself. The audience is led by the nose through the selected material by a narrator, making the miniseries more of a guided tour through some of the Bible stories than an actual retelling. When it comes to the stories themselves, they are simplified to the point where they lose their original meaning. The story of Sampson and Delilah is a perfect example – rather than use the far more complicated story that actually appears in the Book of Judges, the writers turn the entire vignette into a Braveheart ripoff. Sampson is important because he is a leader of Israel, but we never see him lead anything – he is reduced from a complicated character who is often his own worst enemy to a big guy the Philistines single out for not-terribly-well-explained reasons.
So, even though we still have a crucifixion and resurrection to come, I've seen enough to cast judgement. This miniseries doesn't warrant more than a 3/10. The Bible is a transcendent book that took a tiny cult of personality in Judea and helped transform it into the most successful religion in human history – perhaps the producers and writers of this miniseries should have remembered that, trusted the content to be fine on its own, and had faith in the audience to follow it.
This is even more surprising considering the source material. The Bible is a transformative book – one cannot read it cover-to-cover without coming out changed. Some have found religion upon reading it, some have reached a higher level of understanding, and others have lost faith. The Old Testament, or as my religion calls it, the Tanakh, tells the shared memories of the Hebrew people and their ongoing cycle of fall and redemption, through slavery and freedom, through the most horrifying of warfare and the most exalted of peace. The New Testament tells of a God who loves humanity so much that he sends his own child to be sacrificed for their sins.
One cannot read this book without having to come to grips with the highest of morality and the most questionable of ethics. A firm commandment not to murder is followed by a divinely-mandated war of genocide. The call to the highest levels of social justice is paired with palace coups and warfare. The demand to meet one's enemies with love rather than hatred comes hand-in-hand with an exclusivity wherein all those who do not follow Christ are condemned to eternal damnation. The reader is thrust into a time and place far different than our own and yet the same, vividly realized. In the Iron Age kings of Israel and Judea, whose greatness comes from military victory and worshipping God, we cannot help but see ourselves, or at least what will one day become ourselves. It is little wonder that this holds a claim to being the most influential book in history.
And yet, the miniseries manages to fail on almost every level when depicting it. While it makes claims to portraying the spirit of the book, it consistently hits the wrong note. The cycle of fall and redemption that underlies the entire Old Testament is completely missing – all we ever see is the fall, to the point that the viewer can be forgiven for wondering what God ever saw in these Hebrew people in the first place. The New Testament shows little improvement. At least the miniseries gives the content enough time – the Old Testament material gets skipped through so quickly that major stories are missing – but it actually finds a way to screw up the Sermon on the Mount, and the famous "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone" story is transformed into a woman being saved from execution by a math problem.
The execution of the miniseries is so poor, in fact, that it boggles the mind as to how it could happen in the first place. The actors are good, and mostly well-cast (the one notable exception being Sampson, who is so well built that his God-given super-strength does not seem exceptional at all). The production values are of a high quality. And yet, the writing continually fails.
Perhaps the big problem is that the producers and writers don't seem to have any faith whatsoever in their source material, or their audience to follow it. They never allow the story to just tell itself. The audience is led by the nose through the selected material by a narrator, making the miniseries more of a guided tour through some of the Bible stories than an actual retelling. When it comes to the stories themselves, they are simplified to the point where they lose their original meaning. The story of Sampson and Delilah is a perfect example – rather than use the far more complicated story that actually appears in the Book of Judges, the writers turn the entire vignette into a Braveheart ripoff. Sampson is important because he is a leader of Israel, but we never see him lead anything – he is reduced from a complicated character who is often his own worst enemy to a big guy the Philistines single out for not-terribly-well-explained reasons.
So, even though we still have a crucifixion and resurrection to come, I've seen enough to cast judgement. This miniseries doesn't warrant more than a 3/10. The Bible is a transcendent book that took a tiny cult of personality in Judea and helped transform it into the most successful religion in human history – perhaps the producers and writers of this miniseries should have remembered that, trusted the content to be fine on its own, and had faith in the audience to follow it.