The Old, Old Story

 

 

There's a reason why "Christian" movies aren't very good. It usually has to do with the writing, directing, music, cinematography, and acting.

However, there's a show that's streaming now called The Chosen and it is about Jesus and the Apostles. It is an excellent series that even ye of little faith could watch and enjoy.

Movies about Jesus tell more about the movie maker than they do about Jesus and The Chosen is no different. The creator, Dallas Jenkins, is an Evangelical Christian and takes the view that Jesus was the Messiah and not some fancy Democrat that has nifty parlor tricks.

Jesus is one cool dude in The Chosen. He laughs, eats, and plays chicken in the Sea Of Galilee. The actor that plays Jesus. Jonathan Roumie is, uh, perfect. 

You meet his disciples. Peter, James, John, etc. They seem like regular guys and they bicker and complain about the work. One of the disciples, Matthew, seems like he walked out of a first-century version of The Big Bang Theory. 

 

The one bad apple, Judas, is portrayed as a nice guy, not the sort of guy who would betray you with a kiss.

Now, here's the meat of the post. I will comment on what I think is good in The Chosen and what is not so good.

It is difficult to critique Christian movies because the intent of the moviemakers is good because they do not want to make a lot of money. Instead, they are spreading the "gospel" through film. Plus, and this is a big deal, most Christian moviemakers do not have the budget that the Marvel Universe has.  This makes the movies look "cheap"

You end up watching the movie thinking, "considering everything, it's not that bad of a movie".

You don't have to worry about that with The Chosen.  It is very well made.

 

 Now, here are some of the problems with The Chosen.

There's a lot of padding in The Chosen. Thomas has a girlfriend. Peter's wife has a miscarriage. James and John have a father who quit his fishing business to grow olives with the help of Mary Magdalene. Unfortunately, none of this is in the Bible.

One episode dealt with Jesus and his memories of his earthly father, Joseph. But, again, the Bible doesn't tell us a lot about Joseph. Of course, it was dramatic and all that, but still, it is not from The Bible.

On social media, there were some complaints about Matthew helping Jesus with The Sermon on The Mount. I didn't get that Matthew was ghostwriting the sermon for Jesus, but some did and I need to watch it again.

Then there was Jesus playing chicken.  I was a history major in college. I've never run across anyone saying Jesus played chicken.  I'm not saying he didn't. I don't even know if they played chicken in the First Century. But it is important to note that if Jesus played chicken, somebody would have mentioned it in the Gospels.

 

That's the real problem with The Chosen. In order to make Jesus like one us, sometimes they make him look sort of silly.  In one episode, he meets a blind woman and her sort of boyfriend.  The boyfriend is lame, as the Bible would say. Jesus gives sight to the blind woman (she has a great line when she tells the boyfriend, "You're not as handsome as you said you were") and as they was walking away he heals the boyfriend as sort of a "why not" miracle.

 

Another issue that I have is that some of the language does not sound "Biblical".  No, there are no bad words and there are no "thees and thous".  But, some of the dialogue sounds like it came from around the water cooler. I'm sure it is intentional.  Yet, I doubt the word "integral" was used in the First Century, like it was in a recent episode.  (I'm sure someone will go to the Greek to prove that I am wrong.)

Even with all of this, The Chosen is a heaven of a good show.