Monday, March 04, 2013

First Impressions of The Bible on the History Channel


The History Channel premiered The Bible last night (the first of 5 episodes). Having heard the Director, Mark Burnett, interviewed several months ago, I had been looking forward to it. Telling the story of the Scriptures in 10 hours is an impossible task – obviously there are going to be some gaps and some significant fast-forwards. Burnett told a group of ministers, “My job is to give an overview, and I hope to funnel people into your churches where you can tell them the whole story.” Obviously some folks on Twitter didn’t get that message. The very small sample (meaning, those I follow on Twitter) I read last night was divided – some loved The Bible, others found lots of inaccuracies and reasons to complain.
I was in that first group. I enjoyed it very much. The scene where Abraham was preparing to sacrifice Isaac was powerful, and it brought tears to my eyes. Moses was depicted in a way that made liberal use of artistic license, but the gist of the story was accurate. Obedience to the One True God was a dominant theme.
The thing I loved was that millions of viewers were seeing/hearing the truths of Scripture, perhaps for the very first time. I’m praying that God will use this series to draw many people to Him.

3 comments:

Linda K said...

Dad and I enjoyed it also. I agree with you about Abraham, that was very touching. The only thing I saw that was a decrepancy was the lamb instead of a ram. That may have been hard to get

Rick said...

loved it, I am with you Mike. I was at Catalyst and heard Mark and his wife interviewed. Mark Burrnet has provided all churches/bible studies everywhere was a great tool. We'd do our best to use it.

Tim said...

It was okay. The graphics for a miniseries is better than usual. The acting/lines were somewhat weak but not as bad as those in Christian based directions like the Omega Code and Left Behind, which I enjoyed too. The timelines were off a little such as Moses looked only about 45 when he went to Pharoah when he was supposed to be 80. They gave him a limp instead of a speech impediment. But the worse scene was Sodom and Gomorrah. They made it out to be that the townspeople were calling out to Lot to beat them angels up when in reality they wanted to rape them.

Overall, it wasn't bad. It will keep me for at least one more week.