I sat (cringed) through the first of five episodes of the overhyped “The Bible” miniseries airing (anachronism, since I don’t have an aerial antenna with which to receive the signal, but rather a cable, but I digress) on the History Channel.
The first hour covered 1) Noah briefly narrating Creation week while being tossed about during the Flood; 2) the story of Abraham. Skipping the very important stories of Jacob and Joseph altogether, the second hour was primarily about Moses and the Exodus.
The best line (in my opinion) of the entire two hours came at the start of the first commercial break, “The Bible is brought to you in part by Wal-Mart.”
Throughout the two hours it seems like the creators try their best to avoid portrayals of the supernatural, including God speaking. Lot’s wife turning to a pillar of salt was the first instance where the supernatural simply could not be avoided. The burning bush is the first instance that I noticed where they simply could not avoid God actually speaking. The next obvious instance was the first plague where the water of the Nile is shown turning to blood. The fourth instance is the tenth plague where the Angel of Death is shown as an enshrouding mist that works its way through Egypt, being repelled by the bloody door frames of the Israelites but passing through the cracks and windows of the Egyptians. The final depiction of a major supernatural event is the parting of the Red Sea. (Pharaoh survives in this show, btw., unlike in the biblical text.)
This seeming reluctance to show the supernatural and God speaking leads to somewhat comical and confusing moments. For instance Abraham always seems to be talking into thin air, a confused old man who could be interpreted as hearing voices. Where Abraham is about to kill Isaac, it isn’t a voice from heaven, but a voice from a being on top of the next hill – could be a divine being, but it could just as well be a man. When fire comes down on Sodom it looks like lightning comes down and starts a fire among some trash and debris, and as a natural result of fire spreading, the city is destroyed. Because so many of the events that the bible text depicts as supernatural is made to be natural, those things that actually end up as supernatural on the show seem staged and fake.
Another weakness I felt was that the creators invented and injected their own scenes of violence while omitting so much actual violence that is found within the biblical text. At least one of these instances is probably related to the avoidance of the depiction of supernatural events: the angels who go to Sodom pull out swords to fight and kill the residents of Sodom who are blocking the escape route of Lot, et. al.
In order to supposedly increase drama and make for a better story, chronology is altered, sometimes compressed, and sometimes expanded. Aaron, for example, dose not meet Moses in the wilderness but just happens to show up after Moses reaches Egypt and is trying to get an audience with his people, the Israelites. Eight of the plagues are compressed into essentially a rapid slideshow of about a minute real-time. Instead of the Exodus commencing in the middle of the night, the Israelites have an entire day after the tenth plague to gather their belongings and prepare for their journey. (And where were their flocks and herds…?) The entire giving of the Law and the Covenant, the greatest moment of the founding of the Israelite nation at Sinai, is narrated in under a minute. For some odd reason Mt. Sinai and Mt. Nebo are conflated so that the giving of the Law and the passing of leadership to Joshua occur in the same scene resulting in viewer confusion. (There was a commercial break immediately following and when the show returned my first question was, “Where’s Moses?” I went back on the DVR to figure out what actually happened.) The 40 years in the wilderness is just a caption on the screen.
The way the show treats the story, the events, and the dialogue during these first two hours, by skipping so much, unless a person if familiar with the surrounding bible stories, I suspect there will be a degree of confusion.
In some of the preview articles and interviews regarding this miniseries, I read that many biblical scholars had been consulted and approved of how the show was put together. Maybe this is a case of “too many cooks” because the result, at least these first two hours, is a mass of confusion and unnecessary deviations from the text.
As far as production quality it didn’t seem any better than other recent films and TV shows dealing with the Bible. The previews touted the great CGI work. Well, the scenes of clouds moving, or the mist meandering through Egypt might be good, but overall I saw nothing terribly impressive. The musical score seemed forced and overly emotional. The dialogue patterns seems to be too 21st century American.
I think the preview piece in TV Guide summarizes this series best, “The final word on The Bible, more than with most such projects: The Book is better.”
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