One sentence impression: Still not great or even good, but improves over the first three weeks’ terrible.
This week’s ad moment: Promo for the new GI Joe movie – the movie depicting the kind of power and methods that Jesus condemns and by which he was killed.
I guess now that instead having to deal with hundreds and thousands of years at a time, the show can focus a little more on details. That does improve the continuity and storyline somewhat. It still isn’t particularly great or memorable, but it certainly improves from the disasters of the first three weeks.
The show still continues to be disjointed, however. For people familiar with the gospels, the events are so reordered it only makes sense from a movie script perspective. The grossest example is the nighttime conversation of Jesus with Nicodemus occurring during Holy Week, rather than at the opening of Jesus’ ministry (as recorded in John’s gospel). In doing so I believe the show does severe injustice to the theological messages of each of the gospel writers. For people unfamiliar with the gospels, the problem is that scenes appear without much explanation. The most glaring example I noticed was the scene of Jesus coming to Bethany after Lazarus died. Jesus comes in and Martha exclaims Jesus is too late. Huh? It is explained as the dialogue continues, but it could have been better scripted. The ordering of scenes wouldn’t matter to someone unfamiliar with the stories, but the scenes expect some knowledge about the gospel accounts for them to really make sense – a kind of Catch-22.
The violence level is down from previous weeks, but it still adds scenes of violence that are not directly found in the Bible. Some of it adds some background information to the place of Zealots, the Roman garrison, Pilate, and the ruling priests in the social order of the times, but I don’t think all of it was necessary.
My largest disappointment with this depiction of the life of Jesus is that I didn’t really see or hear the mind-blowing radical nature of his teachings and way of life. In the show, Jesus is depicted as someone who disregards traditions and customs, who has little regard for formal authorities, who works a few miracles here and there, who travels with a ragged band of followers (including a single female – Mary Magdalene), and who offers some wisdom sayings. His main crime was causing large crowds to follow him and that would raise suspicion among the Romans, possibly bringing a crackdown on the Jews.
Why did Jesus attract crowds? Why did he incite such hatred? Much of the background is assumed. Based strictly from what I saw on the show, Jesus may have offended and embarrassed some leaders, he may have said some things that were against accepted religious doctrines, he claimed power to forgive, and he raised Lazarus from the dead, but unless one already knows how to fill in the gaps, the show itself provides little reason why Jesus was so opposed.
The Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, the rest of his teachings and parables that were so radical are mentioned in passing, if at all, or applied to a context that was not intended. I refer to the Feeding of the Five-Thousand depiction where teachings such as “Don’t be anxious,” “Ask and it will be given,” “Give us this day our daily bread” are given as directly applying to miraculous provisions that God will provide, if you just ask.
There is little to no demonstration of what made Jesus so attractive so some, and so repulsive to others. The Jesus of this show comes across mainly as a quirky, itinerant teacher. In the scene where Jesus asks who the disciples think he is, Peter responds that Jesus is “the Son of God.” But again, words have to be congruent with actual actions and I feel the show falls desperately short in this regard. If all I knew about Jesus was what I saw tonight, there would be little inclination or desire to follow him.
There is no doubt the format and length of the miniseries contributes to the overall shallowness. But I think if the creator and writers came from the perspective of “What one aspect of Jesus do I want to show?” I think a better portrait of Jesus could have been shown. Rather what I see is an answer to the question, “How best can we show the conflict developing between Jesus and the leaders that lead to Jesus’ crucifixion?” And for that, I’m sorry and disappointed.
No comments:
Post a Comment