A few thoughts on "The Bible"

screen capture/History Channel website

I've been sick this past week, otherwise I would've posted earlier on The History Channel's The Bible--but over at FilmChat, Peter Chattaway does a better job than I would have. In "The Bible: first episode, first impressions," he touches my biggest concerns (in particular, the rush factor and loss of context) and raises some others (i.e., the us vs. them mentality and the inaccuracies). He also talks about its strengths, like the continuity between stories it does tell and how the cross-cutting between some of them enhances that. He also connects the series to previous Bible films. Worth the read--take a look.

Personally, I was most curious to see how the series would connect the stories. One advantage of a mini-series like this could be to show how, as Sean Gladdings puts it in The Story of God, The Story of Us, "there is a Story contained within all the stories, poetry, prophecy and letters that the Bible comprises." We often piece-meal Scripture and lose the larger Story that weaves through it. Seeing all the stories back to back affords an opportunity to see the progression of that Story more easily. 

But I'm not finding that in this series like I'd hoped, mostly because I'm missing the underlying foundation that connects all these stories: God's plan and desire to restore his creation and his creatures to the way we were created to be; to reconnect us with him, each other, and the world; to restore his Kingdom--one characterized by justice, right-ness and shalom--upon the earth. And, perhaps most I'm having a hard time finding in the series the reason that God does all this: For God so loved the world...

But, as Peter Chattaway notes, this is only the first installment.