If you want a decent theological portrayal of the Bible, stick to VeggieTales.
If you want a hyperglorification of a violent deity, maybe “The Bible” is for you. Watch it with plenty of wine and booze in hand to overlook all the “creative alterations” that were made.
Most memorable commercial break event: ChristianMingle.com ad followed immediately by a Captain Morgan Rum ad. (Comment on Facebook: “Isn't that supposed to be the other way round? Get loaded on Capt and then cruise christianmingle.com?”)
Seriously, this week didn’t improve from the first.
I won’t dwell much on the deviations of the show from the text.[1] It’s just embarrassing to see all the inaccuracies. There doesn’t seem to be much reason for it. Deviating doesn’t improve the drama or the narrative. It doesn’t even improve the action. I really can’t figure out why the writers chose to deviate so much from the text, which renders some episodes incomprehensible to me.
The sort of “creative time-compression” I described last week continues and it continues to be disturbing and distracting. I watched partly with the perspective of someone unfamiliar with the bible narrative and from that viewpoint, the story being told by this miniseries is even worse. It is disjointed, scattered, and scenes are introduced that make no sense. Someone who knows these stories can, obviously, fill in the details, but for everyone else it’s a WTH? and then onto the next action scene.
Words are placed into the characters’ mouths that give a perspective of God that is most certainly an interpretation. The Bible leaves many things ambiguous and up to the reader. This show doesn’t like ambiguity. It wants to provide a definite answer. So when Samson asks God to restore his strength so that he can avenge his enemies, in this show he says, “He [God] wants me to destroy you all,” an interpretation and quote that is not in the Bible. When David returns successfully from Saul’s bride-purchase mission by slaughtering two-hundred Philistines, David says (in the show) to Saul, “Two-hundred men. God was with me,” again an interpretation and not in the biblical text.
This points toward the main theological issue I have with this series: God is absent, except when convenient.
For the Hebrews the most important thing about their scripture was the Covenant between God and them. That idea is completely, totally, absolutely missing from the four hours I’ve watched. All of the stories of the Old Testament find their foundation, their center, their basis in the Covenant. Without it the stories have no meaning and are just tales, explaining why (in my opinion) this miniseries feels so scattered, disjointed, and has to rely on creative alterations, action, and violence to hold it together.
The central Hebrew proclamation about God’s character is found in Exodus, where Moses asked to see God:
The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation.” (Exodus 34:6-7 ESV)
When I think about the four hours I’ve seen so far (and probably the only four hours) I see only the last part and little to nothing about the mercy, the grace, the patience, the steadfast love that is of higher priority and more significance.
If I were to give a description of God based only upon what I’ve seen in the series so far, I would say that God is violent, vindictive, partisan, and quid pro quo – I’ll bless you if you obey, and destroy you if you don’t. God seems to communicate with humans only when God has something he needs done.
This second week – the second two-hours – confirmed much of the misgivings I had with the first two-hours.
As I see it “The Bible” miniseries is a fictional adaptation loosely (and I use the term generously) based on the Bible.[2]
[1] If you’re one of my friends on Facebook, you can find the post on March 10, 2013 that goes into my live-update details of my observations.
[2] Yes, I realize some of you will say that the Bible itself is fiction. If you happen to be one, imagine that the Bible is depicting something that is true, if not completely accurate or precise in its telling.
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