Review of “The Bible” Mini-series Part 5: Where’s the Beef?

April 3rd, 2013 Post by Pastor Sam Schuldheisz

Growing up my dad always used the old Wendy’s commercial line, “Where’s the beef?” when coaching basketball (balance, eyes, elbows, follow-through). Now, Dave Thomas was thinking economically (not theologically) when he came up with that world-famous slogan. But that’s the phrase that came to mind Sunday night as I watched the fifth and final installment of The History Channel’s The Bible. That little question, “Where’s the beef?” not only works well on squirrely junior high boys at basketball camp or for selling people a greasy hamburger (and don’t forget that Frosty!). But “Where’s the beef?” is actually a profound theological question.

In other words, where’s the substance, the content, the 200 proof theology, the solid food of doctrine and the meat-and-potatoes-teaching? For man does not live by bread alone but by every Word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. As  Chris Rosebrough said at the beginning of his excellent critique of The Bible on Monday’s episode of Fighting for the Faith, “It’s not so much what was said as what wasn’t said that was the most glaring problem with episode five of The Bible.” Agreed. If God’s Word is food, I found myself still stuck in a food line starving after Sunday dinner was served up. The solid food of Scriptural doctrine was missing at key points and the main course of Christianity – Christ crucified and risen for the forgiveness of sins – wasn’t on the table after the actual account of Holy Week was over.

To be sure, Sunday’s episode had some good appetizers: The disciples prayed the Lord’s Prayer just as Jesus had taught them as they sat in Jerusalem prior to Pentecost. Considering the overall miniseries was ten episodes long, they spent an appropriate amount of time on the events of Holy Week. Positively speaking, another thing that stood out was the attempt to show what was going on with the disciples after Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension. There was even a Trinitarian baptism.

However, when it comes to the main course, the overall meal amounted to little more than empty calories. It wasn’t so much what was on the plate as what was left in the kitchen, that was the problem for this viewer. At the end of the evening, I couldn’t help but ask, “Where’s the beef?” So, here are four courses I found missing from the table on Sunday evening.<read the rest at Steadfast Lutherans>

The History Channel’s The Bible Parts 5 & 6: The Absent God

It’s no exaggeration when I say I’ve been mulling over in my head for a great deal of time exactly how I was going to write this. There are so many ways in which this miniseries is just plain wrong that it was difficult to figure out which angle to take. When watching this latest installment of History’s series “The Bible”, I probably woke my sleeping daughters at least three or four times yelling at the TV.

The easy and obvious tack is to pick apart each detail of Scripture that is incorrectly portrayed. There certainly are a lot of them. In the Daniel portion there is a confusion of Darius with Cyrus. The timing of the arrival of the Magi seems to be off when compared with Matthew’s Gospel. When Joseph hears the truth about the Child in the womb of the Blessed Virgin, it is not in a dream. When John the Baptist sees Jesus, he sure looks like he’s meeting Him for the first time. And when John the Baptist is beheaded, there is no wedding, daughter, request, or silver platter. But these are details, and though they’re important, these oversights fall by the wayside when the real issues are examined. There were also a couple of artistic licenses taken — the snake in the wilderness during the Temptation comes to mind. But again, one expects a certain amount of license even for a dramatization of the Bible.

I had a couple of sheets of paper with scribbles and arrows and a bunch of underlines, trying to make sense of how to present some of the more glaring problems with this presentation. No one’s faith is going to be shaken by a mistake over Darius, or by Magi showing up to the manger. But there are a number of issues that must be noted, and many of them undercut the major teaching of Holy Scripture. As Lutherans, we believe that the Bible speaks two words to men: God’s Law that convicts us of sin and shows us the need for salvation, and His Gospel that shows us how He has saved us in Christ. For us, it all comes down to this teaching about justification. Now, it should come as no surprise that a program put together by a modalist, a new-ager, and many Christians who hold to erring confessions of the Faith will not be Lutheran. I hope no one expected this series to even feel Lutheran, because there was never a shot at it. At the same time, I think most of the truly glaring errors can be reduced to this: God is simply missing.

I wish I had a really eloquent way to say it, but I don’t. God just seems to be away from <read the rest at Steadfast Lutherans>

History channel's The Bible, Part 2--Review

The History Channel’s The Bible, Parts 3 & 4: Fire the Narrator

March 11th, 2013 Post by Scott Diekmann

Last night featured the next installment of Executive Producers Mark Burnett and Roma Downeys’ docu-drama The Bible on The History Channel. Theirs is a tough challenge, as they try to capture the broad sweep of Holy Scripture in ten hours. They’ve done a decent job of creating a grandiose setting with beautiful landscapes and nice special effects, and so far they’ve systematically marched through a compressed linear presentation of the Bible. Where they seem to be lacking is in presenting the theology behind the spectacle, specifically, the Biblical themes of Law and Gospel, and on an even more basic level, of pointing us to Christ.

Episodes 3 and 4, titled Homeland and Kingdom, roughly cover the <read more at Steadfast Lutherans>

Pr Matt Richard on History channel's "The Bible"

Keep Watch For The Theological Underpinnings Of Word-Faith Tenets In The History Channel’s “The Bible”

March 4th, 2013 Post by Pastor Matt Richard

Last night The History Channel aired its miniseries, “The Bible.” It is a miniseries produced by Roma Downey and Mark Burnett. Leading up to this miniseries there seemed to be a well organized marketing campaign to promote this series. The promotional efforts by The History Channel certainly grabbed my attention.
Besides the marketing campaign, the miniseries seemed to generate a lot of grassroots speculation, reviews, and <read More at Steadfast Lutherans>

The Bible mini-series Episode 1 in Review

Steadfast Lutherans has a useful review of the first episode of the History channel's The Bible mini-series:

The Bible – Night One review…

March 4th, 2013 Post by Pastor Joshua Scheer

So last night the History Channel docudrama “The Bible” premiered.  It was overall a hard episode (actually two episodes) since it covered the time of Creation (covered by Noah retelling Gen 1-3 on an Ark filled with terror and worry) all the way to the story of Rahab and the beginning of the conquest of the Promised Land.  It was very interesting what the writers chose to cover and what they chose to not cover.

The chapters of the Scriptures which are covered in these first two hours are:  Genesis 1, 9, 12, 13, 14, 18, 19, 21, 22.  Exodus 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 11, 12, 14, 20.  Joshua 1, 2.

First, some hopeful thoughts.  I am hopeful that people may actually ask their pastors about this more or even get back into the Scriptures after seeing this to get “the rest of the story” so to speak.  Face it, if you are going to cover thousands of years of human history in a matter of two hours, there are going to be some real gaps (like Jacob or Joseph) and very shallow stories (Abraham and the covenants with God).  It is simply impossible to...<read the rest>