Merolliv
I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.
HomeyTao
For having a relatively low budget, the film's style and overall art direction are immensely impressive.
Janis
One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.
sergelamarche
The bible is hard to read. I hate it. Plus, it's impossible for us who do not know much about the period to interpret correctly the texts in the bible. This is why this series is so interesting. Give us the stories and put them in context. The series is however, not all that accurate and does not provide the answers I'd wish. There is another TV broadcast about Jesus made by archaeologists explaining very well some the significant aspects of the story. There is a definitive version still to make. The parts before Jesus are fun but the jews don't look good at all in them. The people chosen by god that have all the rights? The germans sure showed them wrong. And now we know the englishes are the ones chosen by god! Haha!
jefferycarlson
I think some reviewers judged the show too much. So what if Jesus in the movie was pretty and their was more violence in the bible then the show? The actual release on Blu-ray and DVD had some scenes edited it seems to make them more biblically related. I am trying to remember, I think in Jericho that the scenes seem more believable after watching the DVD version because you can see that they actual kill the women and men or actually try to kill everything. I did not see any children killed but it seems to match up somewhat more with biblical context on the DVD or Blu-ray. Did anyone notice the differences in scenes played out on the DVD or Blu-ray collection? I think that some editing of the scenes was great because the true unedited and unrated version would have been more like a 300-movie and drive some people away. In Addition, Their are plenty of movies to cover the parts of the old testament not already covered by the bible. For instance, one night with the king and many others.People like to say that the old testament was mostly genocide. You have to see the bigger picture though: Israel was meant to replace the people or cultures that had already started throwing children into the fire or offering them as sacrifices to idols, raping people in the streets, and other nasty stuff(clearly in the old testament more then once). So, taking an eagles eye view it was a choice between Israel who was keeping gods commandments and acting civilized and the other countries that were clearly barbaric in their practices and would not listen to change or even meet halfway in change or reason with them.
Duncan Watt
Elisheba, I really liked your review about how the producers 'whitewashed' parts of The Bible.However, in your comments about Lot, you could have added the extra little horror in that story, concerning incest where those two very young daughters - and in the TV series they do look extremely young (I must admit I had always assumed them to be in their late teens) - take turns having sex with their father.I am not sure how often this quaint story gets told in its entirety in Sunday Schools across the United States, especially if one is using the racy New Living Translation of The Bible, where nothing is held back - unlike the King James' version where people 'know' each other. That's what I grew up on and no one explained 'know' to me when I was young: it was quite an eye-opener when I chanced on the New Living Translation! One can certainly see how one gets one's morals from The Bible - God thought Lot was the only one worth saving in Sodom; he was a true moral role model for all of us! I wrote the above a few days ago and then I thought I'd add something more about Biblical horror stories. The story of Abraham and Isaac came to mind; that surely must be one of the most appalling stories in the whole Bible; and as I was thinking of the scene shown in the TV version, I realised that the programme wasn't following the story I know and love so well! The Bible refers to a ram with his horns caught in a thicket. I really have to wonder why the producers decided to substitute a lamb or kid with its hoof caught in the cleft of a tree.I've added a Spoiler Alert as I'm not sure if some viewers might be expecting The Bible 'warts and all'. And also some viewers, like me, might be expecting a ram in the hideous Abraham story.* * * * * * * * * *I also have to say that I found the way the producers of 'The Bible' combined the Creation story with the story of Noah very well done. Neat!However, I do have a few problems with both stories. I have always understood that Abraham was the 'founder' of the monotheistic religion of Judaism, having just the single God, Jahweh. As far as I know Abraham is supposed to have lived somewhere around 2000 B.C.E. And Noah of flood fame lived some 900 years earlier. My problem is this: if Noah lived so long before monotheism was established, how did Noah know that it was God, with a capital 'G' - the later God of the Jews - who ordered him to build an Ark; surely Noah would have worshipped a whole panoply of gods - he wouldn't have known there was only one God. I can just imagine this scenario: Noah coming into the family kitchen and announcing the great news of the coming flood, and Mrs Noah saying, "That's nice, dear. By the way, which god did you say it was? The god of the sea or the god of rain? That would be typical of either of them, wouldn't it! So angry they always are!"And then during the fearsome storm, where we get glimpses of a lonely llama in a stall, when Noah was describing Creation, he referred to God as though he knew there was only one god. How's this possible?I also noticed that the producers of 'The Bible' didn't go with the first chapter of Genesis where God, again with a capital 'G' some 2000 years before the establishment of monotheism, created both man and woman at the same time. The producers went with the much more likely story in Chapter 2 of creating Adam out of mud, rather than the completely unbelievable 'evolution' route. Of course creating man out of mud or clay has always proved a really tried and trusted method - so many cultures around the world have favoured this way of creating humans: the Egyptians with Khnum, known as The Potter; the Greeks with Prometheus; in the Babylonian creation epic 'Enuma Elish', the goddess Ninhursag was said to have created humans from clay; in Sumerian mythology, the birth goddess Nammu, of the watery depths, was said to have moulded clay into the shapes of humans; the Mayans, the Maoris of New Zealand, the Yoruba of West Africa and the Chinese all have similar myths, to name but a few. With so much stunningly convincing evidence, the mud/clay/dust method was definitely the way to go.Whoever came up with such an asinine idea as evolution? How could we humans possibly have evolved from an early ancestor common to both the great apes and hominids? Who do these scientists, paleontologists, evolutionary biologists, etc. think they are? Scientists are always so arrogant when they propose their ridiculous hypotheses, spend years and years of their lives in detailed research, sometimes doubting their findings, and finally they produce a theory, submitting their work in peer-reviewed publications to have it minutely examined by the greatest minds in the particular field. Such arrogance! When it is all so obvious that all that was needed was a group of bronze-age herdsmen in the Middle East sitting round their fire of a night and one of them announcing: "I was listening to that Egyptian fellow who arrived here yesterday. He told a wonderful story about their god Khnum, I think he said it was. This god, he said, made all men in his own likeness out of clay on a potter's wheel. I've already told my children this story, you know. And they really loved it..." So convincingly obvious! So thoroughly believable! Any humble believer just knows the truth when he hears it.
EmpressOfTheSea
Well now, I just finished watching this series. The Old Testament is mangled beyond belief & it's only the New Testament where stories of the Bible one grows up with are actually recognizable. This is why I give it half a rating.There are too many glaringly obvious deviations of the Old Testament but the one that leaps out at me the most is: Where in the hell is King Darius? HE is the one, not Cyrus, DARIUS! who tossed Daniel to the lion's den! However, this is hard to admit but, the parting of the Red Sea effects were great, probably better than Cecil B. DeMille! (This from a huge fan of the equally mangled "The Ten Commandments" movie. I like the effects & music, but that's a different story.) As for the New Testament, while the stories are finally becoming closer to 'canon from books' the settings are not. Anyone can go to Jerusalem (in times of peace) & see for themselves that Calvary Hill is not a big plain but is in fact, just as the Bible says, a large skull-shaped chunk of rock with the ancient cross-holes & sign-placement holes still there today making out the face. It is right beside the busy bus depot. Furthermore, whatever happened to "The Garden Tomb"? Not only does it say in the Bible that the tomb was part of a garden but also, again, anyone can visit it. The agreed site of the tomb of Jesus is at the edge of a lush garden. Furthermore, the tomb is about 12 to 15 feet away from the crucifying face of Calvary Hill. (In other words, if this story happened, Jesus could look right into his future tomb while hanging on the cross.) So I'm not sure where this was filmed, but definitely not on the direct locations.So, in conclusion, while the series makes from some good effects, just like the epic Ten Commandments, it still falls short of the original stories.
