Sent: Monday, March 04, 2013 9:32 PM

Subject: MOVIE ON HISTORY CHANNEL ABOUT THE BIBLE~~ YOU MAY WANT TO READ THIS BEFORE YOU WATCH THE MOVIE

The Bible Miniseries: more hype than hope - Bill Wilson - www.dailyjot.com

With all the hype of The Bible miniseries on the History Channel, many Christians had hope that there would finally be a film about the Bible worthy of the ages. Produced by the husband and wife team of Survivor's Mark Burnett and former star of the new-agey Touched by an Angel's Roma Downey, endorsed by Rick Warren, Joel Osteen and Cardinal Donald Wuerl, The Bible's debut was definitely a reflection of seeker sensitive, watered down condition of much of the church. The Bible was high on adventure, drama, fairly graphic violence, but low on truth and accuracy. It is a shame that this miniseries will be reproduced and distributed as educational curriculum for churches.

The movie portrays early Hebrew leaders such as Abraham and Moses in ways that they appear like bug-eyed eccentrics that could be viewed as borderline lunatics. The script follows general stories in the Bible, but changes details for effect, rendering it inaccurate and falsely interpreted in places. The producers showed Sodom and Gomorrah as merely dark party towns, not even depicting the depravity of homosexuality for which sodomy received its name and YHVH God destroyed the towns. Moses was the overconfident liberator of the Israelites rather than the humble servant of God whose humility in speaking and acting was a reminder that it was God's strength, not Moses, that led the people.

AP writes of how the movie was produced by Downey and Burnett. It was designed to reach young people. Downey told AP, "We knew that we could make it heartfelt. We knew we could make it faithful. But we wanted to be sure that we could make it cool." Burnett told AP he believes there is a growing "Bible illiteracy" among young people. If this movie becomes the standard of teaching in churches, perhaps even schools, Bible literacy will take another serious hit in accuracy and truth. If you pick up your Bible and follow along with this movie, you will see that it is the retelling of Bible stories changing up the true narrative that leaves much to Hollywood license and changes the context of the text.

History Channel's president and general manager Nancy Dubuc summed up the movie in the AP story, "The faith community is going to sample it, unquestionably. Whether they stay or go remains with the TV gods. Our job has been to present this as an epic tale of adventure." And in this statement is the truth of the movie. It has been made to impress the TV gods--in other words, the world. It is presented as an epic tale of adventure rather than as the inerrant and infallible word of God that the Bible is. It takes great license with the facts, dumbs down the points, and adds a lot of Hollywood in the process.

The milk toast and seeker friendly will say it is wonderful. I am disappointed. I wonder how the movie will handle Revelation 22:18-19, "If any shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book." But then again, Rick Warren in his Purpose Driven Life book writes on pages 285-286 that Jesus told his disciples, "the details of my return are none of your business." I'm just saying...