Explore the life of Jesus as it's represented in the modern film series, The Chosen. Join Rev. Dr. Jonathan Huggins and the exuberant Gabrielle Roes along with host Dale McConkey as we discuss the merits of this cinematic blockbuster within the Christian community. We peel back the layers of film and television portrayals of Jesus to reveal how movies like The Chosen influence our faith and understanding of the scriptures. We also delve into the series' integration of Jewish customs, the artistic balance between imagination and scripture, and the emotional resonance these stories have with audiences today.
And join us as we play "Dale Got It Right or Dale Got It Wrong?" See if Gabrielle and Jon agree with these statements:
Grab some popcorn and join the potluck! (Mixing metaphors much?)
Warning: Spoilers throughout the episode.
The views expressed on Church Potluck are solely those of the participants and do not represent any organization.
Explore the life of Jesus as it's represented in the modern film series, The Chosen. Join Rev. Dr. Jonathan Huggins and the exuberant Gabrielle Roes along with host Dale McConkey as we discuss the merits of this cinematic blockbuster within the Christian community. We peel back the layers of film and television portrayals of Jesus to reveal how movies like The Chosen influence our faith and understanding of the scriptures. We also delve into the series' integration of Jewish customs, the artistic balance between imagination and scripture, and the emotional resonance these stories have with audiences today.
And join us as we play "Dale Got It Right or Dale Got It Wrong?" See if Gabrielle and Jon agree with these statements:
Grab some popcorn and join the potluck! (Mixing metaphors much?)
Warning: Spoilers throughout the episode.
The views expressed on Church Potluck are solely those of the participants and do not represent any organization.
I like to see people bouncing like that when the music comes on. That makes me feel proud that I picked a relatively fun song for the podcast. Well, welcome everyone to Church Potluck, where we are serving up a smorgasbord of Christian curiosity. I'm your host, dale McConkey, sociology professor and United Methodist pastor. And there are two keys to a good Church Potluck Plenty of variety and engaging conversation. And this is exactly what we are trying to do here on Church Potluck Sitting down with friends and sharing our ideas on a variety of topics from a variety of academic disciplines and a variety of Christian traditions. And I am excited about today's podcast, not only because we got some good friends to join, but we're embarking on a new endeavor. But before we get to that, let's go ahead and introduce our guests. So first we have the eminent Reverend Dr Jonathan Huggins. Yeah, the crowd goes wild. Reverend Dr Jonathan Huggins, introduce yourself.
Speaker 2:Alright, greetings. Thanks, dale, it's good to be back here. I'm John Huggins. I'm the chaplain at Berry and teaching the religion department here, and I'm also an ordained Anglican priest.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Thank you very much for that. And our other guest is a familiar face, but not a familiar name. We have Gabrielle Rose, yay, and I guess the formal way to say it is Ne Marquez. Yes, I really haven't seen you much since your nuptials in November, so congratulations on that. Another applause, even a lot of applause. Whoa Crowds, that's so.
Speaker 3:Thank you, dale. Yes, I'm Gabrielle Rose and I'm glad to be here. It's been a minute since I've been on the podcast.
Speaker 1:Yes, we have missed you and open invitation Come on whenever you want.
Speaker 3:Thank you. Yes, I work in the chaplain's office with John and help do college ministry here. I'm a Berry alum and I'm in my master's program for clinical mental health counseling.
Speaker 1:And how far along are you in that so far?
Speaker 3:I am in my last year yeah. More applause. Yeah, it's an exciting time.
Speaker 1:It is, I'm sure, a busy time. So now you're married, you've had a little taste of marriage. What's one of the things that, through your premarital preparation, that you learned that has been invaluable? Or what is something that you have learned on the job, so to speak, that you wish you had known before you got?
Speaker 3:Hard to pinpoint, just like one thing that has been invaluable, but I think we had a good premarital counselor and he sparked lots of conversations and kind of spying through different topics, and so I think talking ahead of time did help, but of course there's nothing quite like doing the thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And just learning daily life. How do you share the things you're responsible for and enjoy life together? I think being a newlywed it's fun. It's really fun, and I do. I'm grateful for the people who are like take marriage very seriously, obviously, and there are very difficult things about marriage, but I don't know that anyone highlighted just how fun it is and it's like we've just enjoyed it. We've laughed a lot. The companionship of it has been a wonderful blessing.
Speaker 1:Cool and I'm going to hit the A button, so I'll just I'll try to mimic it. Awww. So no, very good, that's cool. You know what crossed my mind as I was preparing for this episode? It might be good for the three of us to be fun to come on, and since all of us have been involved in premarital counseling and things like that and we've all now been married, is to come on and we're not quite generations apart I think 20s, 40s and approaching 60s, so from the three different generations and having a conversation about marriage from our various vantage points. That's cool, all right, very cool. But that's now what we're doing today. What we are doing today is our first foray into kind of a side project or a complimentary project that I'm doing here with church potluck, and I've already shared the music with you before, but I want to do it one more time. Y'all recognize the music owa.
Speaker 4:Jimin, you told me listen. Yes, Currently sitting next to the 260 billion subscribers fan. All right, that's right.
Speaker 1:We're doing Jesus Christ movie star. This has been an interest of mine for I think over 20 years that I taught a class on religion and film and I told my students that we're going to specifically focus on the way Jesus has been portrayed on films 20, 25 years ago. Like I said, this is going to be called Jesus Christ movie star and I've always been curious about the ways that Jesus is represented in culture in general, but in this particular case, in film, and there really has been a very big change both by secular portrayals of Jesus and within the Christian community, the way that Jesus is portrayed, and I think that makes a big impact on the way we read the Bible and understand who Christ is. So that's something I'm interested in.
Speaker 1:This is a little bit premature for us to do this, or for me to get into this, but I want decided to go ahead and do this because of today's episode.
Speaker 1:We're talking about the chosen and it's had three seasons so far and the fourth season just now began. The fourth season has just now been released in movie theaters and it will be out and streaming eventually, and so I wanted to maybe we'll see what happens but maybe spend some time going through season four fairly methodically, as it comes out and as it's on streaming, one of the things we should go ahead and say right now while we are talking about movies as always when we talk about movies, spoiler alert we're not going to hold back on anything, we're just going to talk about the movie, and so there would be plenty of spoilers all throughout this. Like I said, this is about the chosen, and I don't know what percentage of our audience is even aware of this. When did you all find out and learn about the chosen? Did you know about it the very first season, when it opened up?
Speaker 3:When was the first season?
Speaker 1:I want to say 2017, but I'm not sure about that.
Speaker 3:Okay, then it was. I didn't hear about it until much later. I probably didn't hear about it till 2019, maybe. Okay, yes, but had someone recommend it. I remember I was on a trip with the Wind Shape College program and we had a guest counselor on the trip with us and she was evangelizing about the chosen on the trip. This is the best thing, I've ever seen. If you have not watched this, you must go home and watch it, and I was interested.
Speaker 1:Good, I think you're going to obviously get your opinions more later, but do you concur with her?
Speaker 3:Yes, no, I think I'm a big advocate for it and have not even finished all of it. I think I've just watched episodes very slowly and as there's time, but I've enjoyed like slowly digesting the content Okay.
Speaker 2:Great. How about you? Yeah, I first heard about it at some point during the first season from a minister friend whose opinion on artistic things I trusted, and I thought we would give it a try and his recommendation was powerful, because I think that typically I'm not set up to like these kinds of things it's sort of dramatic portrayals of Jesus because they feel weird or they're doing something that I think is not really historically accurate or theologically helpful or they make Jesus strange in some way, and so I wasn't like excited to start watching it immediately. But this friend of mine said it's not perfect but it's beautiful, and I thought, okay, I'll give it a try.
Speaker 1:Wow, wow.
Speaker 2:And then we've watched all three seasons as a family, very excited about the fourth one.
Speaker 1:That's very cool and I suspect that you and I are coming from a very similar place. It's weird that I want to do a research project on this because in general I don't like Jesus movies. The best way I have been able to describe it in general Jesus movies is that Jesus, in some form or another, always comes over as two dimensional, just flat, and either they can't capture both the divinity of Jesus or they miss out on the humanity of Jesus. And, he said, he's always portrayed oddly, especially in the early versions. Jesus is as white, sometimes looking like a ghost right, or an angel or spirit himself, and so that's another topic for another day, because that is not the case in the chosen. Just a little context on the chosen.
Speaker 1:I'm certainly no expert on this, but supposedly it is the first multi-part series TV episode version of Jesus that's ever been produced. And another interesting thing about it is it has been crowdfunded. Which you think crowdfunded? You think low budget, low scale, just the skin bones. In terms of the financing, financing has been very successful and, as you said, your friend said it was beautiful. I would say the production quality is very high on this, that you really feel like you're watching something that's very well done. This might be an overstatement, but sometimes Christian arts can come over as just a low budget version of the secular arts. But I don't get that sense at all from this at all. One example of that Go ahead, I really enjoyed the opening music to it. Yes, yes.
Speaker 1:The fish swimming. Yes, the video, for, as simplistic as the imaging is, it really increases emotion, for sure. All right, something that I realized after listening to this that many of the producers Dallas Jenkins is like the top of. He and a couple of other folks said that one of their inspirations was the Wire, which was an HBO show, and that intro has a little feel, I think, of the Wire intro. So I don't know if that has any influence on it at all, but this is something that has, I think, become a phenomenon of sorts that started off known, but not super well known, even in evangelical Christian communities, but it has grown in popularity with this four season.
Speaker 1:I've heard more buzz about it now than I had before, maybe because I'm aware of it now and looking for it. But let's go ahead and let's do a game show, all right, all right. So this game show is called Dale's Got it Right or Dale's Got it Wrong, all right. So I'm going to share some statements and I'm going to say right now I don't fully Embrace all these statements that I'm making. Some of them are for the purposes of the show, but I want to get your opinions on these and just have a conversation about each of these. So the first statement that I have here is the chosen is the most Jewish film Representation of Jesus and the Gospels that there has ever been.
Speaker 2:I think you have it right. I haven't seen every single Yay, I don't know that I've seen every single representation, but I think they are taking pains to make sure they do honor Jesus. Jewish identity.
Speaker 3:Yeah, even with him going to bed praying in Hebrew and just these little nuances to his character and they like take the time to include that.
Speaker 1:I agree, yeah and I would say even just in terms of his physical appearance too.
Speaker 1:So yeah so often, jesus movies will have a white actor until the 90s and 2000s, even, and so even the physical appearance of all the actors, but just so often, like, they have these little vignettes at the beginning of the episode. Sometimes I can debate breaking bad way, and sometimes they're in different eras of history, right, and you're wondering what is that in there for? And it's to explain some Jewish context behind something that's gonna happen later in the episode. That I always thought was amazing. They have had Jewish Consultants, right, that's one of the other things. I don't know where I get this. This is an evangelical project, obviously, but they have Jewish consultants. They had a Catholic consultant. They've they've had a variety of consultants. Are you saying, yeah, like you're aware of that, yeah, that's something that's well known.
Speaker 2:That's right, yeah, and there's lots of additional material available on the YouTube or on the Angel app site, like in addition to the episode. You can learn a lot about Production background and who there are. Some of their consultants are their Intentional decision to have the Jewish Jesus and to honor the Jewish traditions, so you see them practicing various things and then in the episodes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I mentioned that at the beginning, but Angel is the production company that is created. It used to be vid Angel, now it's Angel yeah, productions or something like that. Anything else about about it? I love that how they explain the holy days. When we're talking, when they're talking about Jesus, they always make an effort to Explain the Jewish context in a way that part of a conversation no narration or anything like that, but just somehow they work it in. So people are aware, and I think if this series does nothing else than to really Drill home for its audience that Jesus comes from a Jewish culture, the things that he was doing was rooted in Jewish life. I think that's a very important thing that sometimes contemporary Christianity Just just misses.
Speaker 3:Yeah and I'm with you. It feels very organic in the way that they do it. Yeah where it's not like. Here's our teaching time exactly, and this is Conversation. These are characters interacting with each other, but very like, well done, in the way that they're communicating parts of life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, do I have that right? And talking about your students, that that when you're teaching them that you have to really drill home the idea Of just how Jewish Jesus was or do most of them?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think at this point people typically get that up front, though I do still emphasize it and highlight certain portrayals they may have seen before. Most of them Haven't seen the old Jesus of Nazareth movie, but if you do, only at the bright blue eyes, yeah he has the blue eyes and he never blinks. Come up portraying them Like intentionally never blinking eyes, always wide open.
Speaker 1:So yeah, we speaking the King's English as well, and they always have a British accent.
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm glad they didn't do that either in this one. Yes, I was in the Romans a.
Speaker 1:Little bit. Have some of them. Yeah, have a little bit of a.
Speaker 2:American accents are always sound funny in a historical depiction of something. So there are some with American English eggs.
Speaker 1:But someone should try with a southern accent. Historical period. So so you agreed with me as well, gabriel.
Speaker 3:Yes, I would agree.
Speaker 1:I just needed the buzz, I just needed the affirmation there, of course, all right. My second question we should be concerned by all the non biblical content or extra biblical content In the chosen? I don't think so.
Speaker 2:I don't like. We need to be okay.
Speaker 1:Oh, I don't have that wrong. I don't have, I don't have the boo, but not here. So you just have to boomy yourself if that's.
Speaker 3:If that's the case, I think there's with any Media that you're engaging with, to think critically, and I do appreciate that the show has the at least it, I think in the first season, had this where it was like we encourage you to go read the Gospels for yourself, and I think that kind of promotion of like we are Taking scripture and we are using our creative giftings to fill in things that we don't have in the Bible.
Speaker 1:I personally would have liked them to have put that at the beginning of every episode, I think, because I think that's a bit that's very helpful to remind people. I know that kind of pulls you out sometimes, yeah, of that but and I meant to acquire that they that they put in there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but thinking critically is like that's never a bad thing. But I, even as watching this, like being like, oh, is there anything in here that's like a red flag and it's. I have not had any issues, honestly, with the things that they brought forward and still and watching it, yeah, but the lens of this is creative liberty and doing it in a way that is glorifying to God, the way songwriters do. It's like songwriters include these things that aren't necessary. That's the exact passage in the Bible, but it's so it doesn't say sloppy, wet kiss anywhere.
Speaker 2:No, it isn't there the message remix.
Speaker 1:Alright, I'm going. I'm going way off the chart here, but I do. I forget what the exact phrase is, but often when they play that song that I just referenced- how he loves David Crowder. Yeah, that when you actually sing it in church services, sometimes they they will Take that verse and change it to something else unforeseen kiss.
Speaker 2:The show sometimes gets criticism for Not sticking to just the words of scripture, which then you would still have to take the four Gospels and blend them together to try to make Jesus be saying precisely what the Gospels have Jesus saying, and it seems that they are careful and responsible with the kind of Creative license they've taken so far, and they might try to bring to life a character that in scriptures you just don't know that much about. So you get to know more about, say, nicodemus, for instance.
Speaker 1:In a sense, of what we do we, because do we do we know that Nicodemus was that involved all throughout Jesus ministry?
Speaker 2:No, we don't know that. But so the point is, is this an outrageous sort of leap or is it a Logical leap? Is it something's like within the realm of possibility? To me it seems like they kept to. This is not An irrational or totally out there guess.
Speaker 2:So one of the big the big ones is Matthew, for instance, is portrayed the disciple Matthew is portrayed in a certain way in the chosen. He's portrayed as being on the autism spectrum and someone might think that's too much creative license. You're just making stuff up. But then just that to dig into wine, there's a whole little extra they did on this about why they make that decision that you can watch and I actually was surprised by it at first. But it also struck me as someone who's taught Matthew many times in an academic setting that that's actually not outside the realm of possibility for someone. He's very careful in his detail, his gospel is very it's highly organized. He was a tax collector, so someone who he was good with details and money and puts the gospel together with this sort of precision To imagine a disciple being in someone who was on the spectrum is one.
Speaker 2:It's not. It's not a bad move, I don't think, and it actually opens up the possibility they talk about. One of the musicians I think for the show also has was on autism spectrum and Participated in playing music for the show and the deep connection she felt to the disciple Matthew as a result of that, helping people see that Jesus was calling ordinary people from all walks of life, who probably had all kinds of various backgrounds and issues and struggles, and they're making the practical, theological point that anybody can be with Jesus especially and all the other characters, I think the human.
Speaker 3:This is probably my favorite thing of all of it, where the first opening episodes Jesus at some point is like washing his hands and like doing a bedtime routine, and it struck me as I've been a Christian for as long as I can remember and I was like I've never considered Jesus having a bedtime routine or having to take care of his teeth or wash his face or fold his clothing.
Speaker 1:Or being terrible at sports, or being terrible.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's like a big theme of the whole show is just like all of these people are humans, christ included, and that's powerful and part of the purpose of you the multi-part series and for being so long, so they can take that time to go in and develop characters. And so they're not just these plastic people are walking up, getting healed and running on their way that, understanding who they were, what they're coming from in imaginative way. Here's my concern. I agree, actually I read with everything you said, so I everything said I love. But especially for those who are not steeped in the Bible, but even those like me who are pretty well steeped in the Bible, when you add these extra things it can get confusing as to whether what's biblical and what's not. Sure, I thought myself that's not in the Bible, is it?
Speaker 1:And I go look up and say okay all right, I'm not making things up.
Speaker 2:I actually had a student make this mistake in a like an answer to a test. Yes, they said, didn't Jesus did this and said this, and I said, no, you're taking that from the chosen, not from the Bible. He's here to go back.
Speaker 1:And so I do. Am concerned about that and I will give a specific example later on one of my questions. But, like Matthew, I found Matthew to be powerful, right, the redemption that comes from him being a tax collector and just the way he's welcomed and even seen his differentness as being a strength for the disciples Wonderful. I read someone else from the Gospel Coalition saying very much the same thing. I'm kind of spectrum and this, this was so meaningful to me.
Speaker 1:But I do worry about people conflating these things and not realizing. I had someone at my church say they needed to have a little flag at the top or something this is from the Bible and then have it off when it's now okay, this is from the Bible and this is not. I don't know how serious he was being about that, but I do worry about conflation, that so much extra is brought in. If the ratio is different, I think I'd be a little less concerned, but it's about I'm making this about 80-20. Only about 20% of the stuff is like directly stories from the Bible and there's so much else that I do wonder if it will get mixed up in a way that will be detrimental.
Speaker 1:I totally agree with you and I think, john, like you, I'm very picky. Like this, I do think the gaps that they fill in and the imagination that they use in your terms, gabriel, does glorify God is sincere effort to imagine what it would be like in a way that I would usually be critical of. Oh, that would be that that could be. But I found myself very moved by the stuff that they have added.
Speaker 2:It's good if we can use it as conversation starters of it's good, conversation starters about Jesus and also for people who are in the church for reflecting on, like help get inside these gospel stories that we maybe you hear the reading in church on Sunday or you've read it devotionally, but to help them come alive. And part of the goal is one of things I think they do really well is getting the spirit of Jesus. I seem to just have hit that solidly well, like the spirit of what he was.
Speaker 1:Hold on to that, because we'll get to that here in just a second. What would you all say to one of the members of my church because I showed very moving in addition to Matthew having these autistic characteristics, you have James, which I refer to as little James having a physical disability. And there's I showed this part to my church where I said, where there's this wonderful six minute exchange between little James and Jesus, why aren't you healing there right now?
Speaker 1:There's no evidence in the Bible that James had this physical, but that six minute discussion is powerful to anybody who has been chronically ill or has a physical disability. But when I showed this to my church, a lot of people liked it and enjoyed it, but one person and he wasn't said very graciously, wasn't hostile or anything he said. But doesn't it say somewhere in the Bible that you don't put anything? There's nothing that you should? I should have looked up the verse before I'm saying it this way. But it's good on its own. You don't need to add anything to it, and it's actually not to add anything to it. So what would you say to someone like that, who takes more of the Bible than only the Bible kind of approach to their understanding?
Speaker 2:I think the chosen is not claiming to be the Bible directly, it's not claiming to be inspired in the same way the scriptures are, is trying to artistically help these stories come to life, for people first and kind of like a Ben Hurd kind of thing that Jesus is proclaiming he's there, right?
Speaker 1:yeah, I don't think that's in the Bible no, I've been heard, but there is actually.
Speaker 2:In that moment they're making a kind of a theological point about someone who suffers from an ailment or something and they're not healed. How might they walk faithfully in that? So you have these moments where they are inserting things into the story to teach something that is true. Like Christians would still affirm this truth.
Speaker 2:That's being illustrated, even if that's not something that happened in the text, and part of the issue here is, I think people who are in, who know the arts well, who know literature well, even many people who study how history is written historiography, can get this stuff and roll with it and appreciate it. And I find that people like literature types usually are better at getting what the Bible is after than, say, like engineering types, like the people who so I need all mine. I'll be careful there, my wife was an engineer they often.
Speaker 2:I often experience people like that, who want the Bible to function like instructions for how to construct something, and so the all the eyes have to be dotted people will call it God's instruction book. Sometimes that I cringe when I yeah, the mechanism of instruction is not what you expect or think it should be like. They need it to be very precise and almost like a mathematical book.
Speaker 2:If you will and don't know how to handle that. How come Jesus says it this way? And Mark's gospel? He says it differently, and Luke's gospel? What are we to make of that? You're actually make creating a problem that doesn't actually exist in the world in which these means function, how they operate.
Speaker 1:I remember when I was growing up and trying to really get into the Bible and understand it, I was always frustrated when Jesus never said flat out yes, I'm gonna side. It was always you say so, and I didn't understand the context behind it. And so how come he's being wily there? He's you know he's not, he's not coming out.
Speaker 2:I've heard one of my professors used.
Speaker 2:We're talking about the book of Revelation, for instance, and he says people want it to be a puzzle book, where it's just a bunch of puzzle pieces that you put together and if you can figure out the right way to put it together, then you see everything.
Speaker 2:But the literary genre is functioning more like a picture book. So imagine a children's picture book. It's not a puzzle with pieces, it's painting pictures for you, and each of these pictures has a powerful message to communicate. But you gotta be willing to see the pictures and let them do what they're trying to do, rather than trying to force them to do what you want them to do, which is give you a detailed map of the future or the present or something like that. Yeah, so I think like the chosen is just trying to help these stories come alive for us, not say we think this is what really happened like a scholarly account or yeah, I was thinking about that where it's like the core issue seems to be biblical literacy and watching the chosen is not going to fix biblical illiteracy it's like that's what you're trying to amend.
Speaker 3:Like you do need to go read the text, you do need to go study and this is not doing that. Yeah, like John saying, using this psychological term.
Speaker 1:It does help us get the Gestalt, though, right the big picture of who Jesus was and what he did, just not the details. So great I'm gonna give myself. Even though I was wrong on that, I'll give the conversation a thumbs up. All right, gabrielle, you get us started on this one here. So here's our next question Jesus personality and demeanor in the chosen is consistent with the way he is portrayed in the Gospels? Dale's got it right or Dale's got it wrong?
Speaker 1:I want to say yes no, you want to say Dale's got it right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I would say so. I think the point of the show is it is making you think about the character and personality and demeanor of Christ, and so none of us know for sure like what tone he was talking to Nicodemus with, but I think it was thought provoking. It was thought provoking to me to be like, wow, how did that come across when he's telling Nicodemus that he must die and be reborn again? And like how can you say that seriously when you know that doesn't make any sense to the person you're talking to? And I don't know. I think it again. It's like we can't know for sure, but the Christ that I have come to know and come to understand the character of God that I have come to see throughout the Bible, it's like it felt very consistent, just in my spirit.
Speaker 1:It felt consistent with who I know Christ to be and I really how you put it in terms of tone, right? I've always wondered that. I often wonder that when I'm reading passages of scriptures, this being said in a very gentle tone, yeah, oh, ye, a little faith or is it being said, oh, ye, a little faith, right, there's so different, that's so different yeah so I often wonder how do we insert tone into Jesus's words? But I agree my my sense of who Jesus is very consistent with that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the actor and the writing has done a really excellent job with this, because Jesus isn't just one way. Depending on where you are maybe on the theological spectrum, you want Jesus always meek, mild and gentle, or you want Jesus always for harsh and proclaiming the truth. And the fact is the gospel is portraying with this dynamic. You know that he is compassionate and gentle with people at certain times and harsh with people at times, and that actually comes across in the story too. So, for instance, when he's rebuking James and John and one of the episodes for their desire to want to, you know, rain down these people who they perceive as their enemies.
Speaker 2:Jesus takes them away and he's rebuking them harshly, such that even watching the show, you're cool that was tough but he is clearly also loving them.
Speaker 2:You see it, that story in the whole context of the show. There was another moment where he's really frustrated with the Jewish authorities, for the is that passage where he's talking to them about how they emphasize the minor parts of the law. You strain out and that and swallow a camel. He says to him you've neglected the more important matters. And you can see in the presentation of the actor he's frustrated, he's angry with them because, of this and I think they portray that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the early portrayals of redemption of Mary to a lesser degree, matthew, just the way Jesus does. That is just was powerful he's moving to me the early as he's calling the disciples. I found how they portray Jesus there to be very good, and I agree that the person who plays Jesus is excellent. It really does feel like Jesus, sometimes in ways that I rarely get another portrayal. Mm-hmm for sure have they captured Jesus's feisty prophet side. Yet he hasn't gone into Jerusalem for the big crescendo. But do you get that at all?
Speaker 2:That's what I was just alluding to. He's being feisty, calling people out, yeah, okay, is he even getting in the show? It's being portrayed in such a way that he's becoming more bold and more vocal as he's heading towards Jerusalem, which fits with the gospel trajectory of the mounting tension with religious authorities just keeps getting bigger and bigger as the story goes.
Speaker 1:I agree totally that it has a nice. It's building to those more prophetic and more feisty moments.
Speaker 3:The episode that I'm thinking of, which forgive me because I can't remember what town he's in, but when he goes into the synagogue and he reads the passage from was it Isaiah, maybe? And it's like I have come to free the captives, and he's like this is true now, Like I am the one who's coming to do this.
Speaker 1:That's a great scene.
Speaker 3:And it's I remember watching it because I'm, like, naturally, a people pleaser and so watching the room go from oh buddy, this is so fun that you're here. Why don't you read a passage for us for synagogue today? And then like everyone slowly like angry at him and he like mic drops and like they like obviously try to kill him, as how the story goes. But it's just like that to me was like feisty prophet right there. It was like that's totally controlled too. Yes.
Speaker 1:I love it. Surely you're not saying this he goes. I think I was pretty clear. Yes, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:At one point they say he didn't use those words and he says well, that's what I meant.
Speaker 1:Oh, yes, that is it, and they don't overdo the humor, but, man, they really do capture in a way that I really, I really have enjoyed thoroughly. Another scene, since we're talking about favorite scenes I like that is cousin John the Baptist is right, come on, you gotta pull the trigger, let's go, let's go. And he's I like his portrayal just being a little out there, like that friend who just wants to go and head first to everything, and so he's pushing Jesus to do this and Jesus says it's not time yet. It's not time yet. And then they come back to the camp and there's somebody who's being possessed by a demon and Jesus runs over there and just start yelling out out, get out, get out. And the demon does leave and the guy is just laying on the ground, healed, and there's just like total quiet and everyone's in a stunned disbelief of this display of power, of passing this demon out, and just all very quiet. And then, just in the distance, tiny little image of John the Baptist. Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's what's. I haven't laughed that hard at anything, and certainly not in a Jesus movie, but in any recent movie that can think of it. It was just, the timing was great and just I really enjoyed that. All right, so we all agree with that, all right. So Dale is right or Dale is wrong.
Speaker 1:The chosen is errant in the way it gives authority to the Bible, and here I'll go ahead and explain that. One thing that probably the biggest thing, that has not bothered me, I don't know. Just every time they have Matthew writing stuff down. To me that takes too much license and that puts an authority on the Bible that it was being written down while it was happening. And John, you can correct me, but that just does not seem accurate, that they weren't spending time there documenting what was going on. And even in things that were done in private, matthew keeps saying you're going to tell me about that, right, you're going to tell me about that because I need to get it down. And that puts authority on the Bible in a way that it is history in a very authoritative way. Because it was news, right, they were writing down what was happening as it was going on. That seems wrong and for something is the way the Bible has authority is different and we shouldn't pretend otherwise.
Speaker 2:That's my opinion on that, but it's a creative way of suggesting, through the show that, how these things go from event to text, what we don't have in the Gospels. Yes, it's not a video transcript. It's not as if someone were there transcribing everything that happened not what the Gospels claim to be. But there is also evidence that students of rabbis did dictate or take notes on things that their rabbis were teaching them. These early as the first and second century. So I've come across this in study and teaching. So it's not outside the realm of possibility that one of them and Matthew slash Levi being someone probably of a little higher literacy, maybe making notes. So that's not outside the realm of possibility.
Speaker 1:It's helpful to me because it just seems, especially if you are nomadic, like they were you're being around that you're not going to have they actually hand him a little. I think Jesus says you might be needing this, or something like that. And it just I did like the vignette at the beginning of one of the episodes where they show them older.
Speaker 3:Yes, I was thinking that.
Speaker 1:And Matthew was writing it down, and so that makes perfect sense. It seems consistent, but to be documenting it as it went along, so maybe I'm being a little bit too harsh on that, but that just seemed to be a stretch to me.
Speaker 3:That's fair. Yeah, I think that's a thoughtful critique Interesting. I didn't know that about rabbis and their disciples or their followers.
Speaker 2:So nothing more about biblical accuracy or portrayal In general in terms of the philosophy of the show. They want to honor the scriptures and the scriptures are the authoritative account of the life of Jesus, the only ones we have, the only ones the church has ever had. It's like how do we know anything about Jesus at all? It's from the New Testament writings, and specifically the gospel writings, so they are reliable access In terms of the witnesses learning what did the eyewitnesses and the people who come immediately after them, how did they remember Jesus? What did they say about him? We don't have any other access to Jesus aside from these documents where we could say this is what really happened. So the Bible does function authoritatively for us.
Speaker 1:I totally agree with that. But I'm just saying there's an authoritative in that this is our best documentation, but there's also an authoritative. This was written down at that moment, which is one step toward. God's hand was on the hand of the author writing it down, so it's totally inerrant because it was written by God, not by humans, as a testament of faith, and so I just thought that was one step too far for me.
Speaker 3:It seems like a tricky thing to portray what. Would you have imagined a more accurate way to convey how scripture was written down? Like the vignette where he's like writing it, is that like a more Maybe?
Speaker 1:even multiple times, doing that vignette to remind us that these things, you know, were being recorded by people who were there and who were witnesses.
Speaker 1:I think that's important because you have other people who say, you know, this was all made up after the fact and everything. But you know, I think it's pretty clear from the Gospels and the Book of Acts that people were definitely convinced of what they had seen and experienced, and so that's authoritative to me more in a way that doesn't need to be what we consider. We do have a different standard. Now, right, was there a witness and did we have video? You know, I believe it when I see it type of mentality, and I just don't think it doesn't seem like it would be that way. I don't know if the what you said, john, earlier, about taking notes of the rabbis I'd be curious to know if any of them were like traveling rabbis, right, that when you're in the midst of the ministry rather than sitting down at their feet and hearing the lectures and such whether that would happen. But that is helpful, that maybe I'm being overly harsh on that, and just for the sake of trusting the Gospels.
Speaker 2:one thing I think about is Jesus says things in a way that are often in ways that are often easy to remember, so he's telling a story or it's a short kind of statement. He's not giving these long discourses or long treatises that are very complicated. Often it's easy to remember stuff that he's probably saying many times as he goes to another.
Speaker 2:So the trajectory in terms of New Testament can information you're going from eyewitness accounts to the oral tradition. It's two written documents and that oral tradition season is anywhere from 30 to 40 years after the time of Jesus. But we're not dealing with content that would be hard or difficult for people to pass on in their memory, given the Because it was storyteller right, and that's very memorable, right.
Speaker 1:It's not systematic theology. That's right, okay, good.
Speaker 1:So Dale's wrong, this one? I'll already go ahead and say that I think the answer is Dale's wrong, but I just wanted to bring this up as a point of conversation. Dale is right, Dale is wrong. We should be concerned by the association or connection of this series to the left behind series. Dale is right, Dale is wrong. And again I'll just go ahead and give the context here. I was totally shocked when I found out that Dallas Jenkins, who is the producer of this series, is the son of Jerry B Jenkins, was one of the co-authors of the left behind series. Wow, and these two series seem like on opposite ends of the portrayal of Christian faith in one way or another One the gentle, compassionate, but also feisty Jesus and then the rapture. So I said, what's going on with that? And his father, Jerry B Jenkins, is novelizing these now Really, and I don't know. I don't think they're out yet, but he is converting these into novels.
Speaker 2:So I hope the sins of the father aren't passed on to this. I say that joke. I think even in the left behind series, if I remember right, jerry B Jenkins was more of the storyteller contributor whereas Tim LaHaye was more of the theological contributor to those things and most of the problems that people have with them, like problems I have with the left behind series, are the theological problems, not the storytelling issues. I didn't mean to cut you off there, but it's fascinating.
Speaker 1:In the little tiny bit of research I did on this, even major newspapers were complimenting the storytelling, which I found to be interesting, that I would have just dismissed it out of hand because of the theology behind it. And this is also can't go on this. But when you look up the pictures of Tim LaHaye and Jerry B Jenkins, jerry B Jenkins is always smiling, tim LaHaye not so much.
Speaker 1:I do find that interesting and I would love to hear Jerry B Jenkins' thoughts on that now being part of two big projects, two really major Christian phenomenon in the literary world.
Speaker 2:It's also probably something neat there, Dallas being able to grow up in that semi-artistic environment where there's books and movies being produced, and then him learning to be a director or producer.
Speaker 1:Very good one by all appearances.
Speaker 2:Almost like that was necessary background for Dallas to be able to do what he's doing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it equipped him for making the chosen now.
Speaker 1:So maybe y'all are saying we needed the left behind series in order for us to get the chosen.
Speaker 3:Only the Lord knows.
Speaker 2:That's always a good father. Good father Into the Jesus series rather than a yeah, so you agree with me that those both seem very different, right?
Speaker 1:Oh yes, the connection there is very surprising to me. I thought that was interesting, but we shouldn't judge the chosen or be worried about the connection there in any way. It would be funny if they get the series six and then just everything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, wow, it just goes into a left behind movie, that's right. That's right.
Speaker 3:This is the prequel. That would be this point.
Speaker 1:Anyway. So, gabrielle, what haven't we talked about that you'd like to talk about Anything, about the series or anything you said. You talked about your friend who was being evangelistic, about the movie itself. Do you have several friends who have watched it and all reacting pretty much the same way?
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah, I feel like it's pretty common for people to have watched parties, lots of Bible studies.
Speaker 1:Oh really, We'll use this.
Speaker 3:Hang out and watch an episode a week and talk about it together, which I have not had a chance to be a part of that, but obviously have discussed it with friends, and I think that's a great way to do it is to do. What we're doing right now is to pick a part and look at where was this actually explicitly in scripture? Where was their creative license taken? What is being like? What theological points are they making about Jesus? But, yeah, no people seem to really enjoy it and love it.
Speaker 3:And again, it's just the whole thing of like Jesus being embodied and being made real to me and to again. I think I already said this, but like the Nicodemus episode really was very important to me. And again, to see this like chapter that is typically, it's just like all these bullet points in the Bible of here's a point, here's a point, here's a point, and like how in the world did that make sense in a conversation? And it was like a light bulb went off in my brain to watch this portrayal of Jesus have a conversation with Nicodemus and somehow these points did flow into one another and did make a coherent statement and I was like that's shocking, because to me they were so disparate and confusing, and I think it was powerful to see that.
Speaker 1:I like that. You're right. Sometimes in scripture it is just documenting things Jesus said, without a whole lot of the context, or it's not a very rarely is it a full conversation where you're getting both people, and so I agree with you that seeing, oh, that would make sense in how this comes up. I do that a lot as well. It's nice.
Speaker 3:Yeah, just putting some flesh and bones on words that we read all the time. I also appreciate if just highlights from the show, but the sermon on the mount, it was a huge buildup to it and I think that was something I'd never even considered. It was like oh, I wonder what it was like to prepare and like how much did Jesus actually prepare?
Speaker 1:and I like that. They showed both the logistical preparation and how we know lots of people are going to be coming out for this and how are we going to do it? And then it made me think in a judgmental way, or but? So Jesus really had to sit there and think how to say this A very human aspect of preparing a very important speech. He's human, so I guess you would sit there and say what's the most effective way of doing that, rather than just this disembodied spirit having the words already and I've already got exactly what needs to be said and I don't have to give it any reflection. That was a thought provoker moment for me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and as you're saying that, I'm thinking about the fact that Jesus had to pray as often as he did, and it's yeah, it wasn't just this divine zapping of knowledge and ability, but he's communing with the Father, he is reflecting, he is thinking and that's not too much of a stretch, in my opinion, to think about him trying to decide, like, how do I best communicate this to people and take these huge theological truths and put them into stories that they will remember and a common person can walk away and think about that for days.
Speaker 1:I like that a lot. I think for me this is one of the most human representations of Jesus, without sacrificing the divine aspects. It so often comes down to either or in these portrayals in film, and I think this really does a great job of showing the fully human and fully divine.
Speaker 3:One other thing. My husband, I think, is less excited about the chosen than I am. He still likes it, but he had made the comment of he did not enjoy the additional like romantic things happening between some of the disciples and I was curious, I don't know if. Did that bother either of you? Do you know what I'm talking about?
Speaker 1:You're the one married to him, so what does this say?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think he is more like black and white than I tend to be, and so I think for him it's like that is irrelevant to the story, starts to feel rom-com-y when this is supposed to be about the Bible.
Speaker 1:Here's what I'll say. Attached to that, and I've got good and bad point to it. I do think that they're going so much into the backgrounds of some of these characters that it has started to feel like is dragging a little bit for me. I was immediately fascinated. I've been so hard when I first.
Speaker 1:I didn't watch this until within the last couple months when I found out the four season was coming, because I said, oh, you put this off long enough. But I was worried about especially my bias, coming from conservative evangelical kind of circles that it was, you know. But so I had a bias there that I have to confess, and so I just binged and I was just fascinated and I was just taken out. I was being moved for emotions and tend to be more analytical when I watch things, and so it was just wonderful. But then, third season, it just started to slow up. For me Now, a good part of that is that I got this out a brain cramp.
Speaker 1:I think some of that does capture the pacing of what ancient life would be like in Israel. That things just didn't go from here. It's not like Mark, where, bang, things are happening every moment, right, there's lots of time in between and there's just conversations and there's family moments and there's other things going on rather than just the teachings and just these historical moments. So there's something good about that. But sometimes when it gets into so much imagination in terms of the romance, but I haven't for a moment thought oh, that's too much romance.
Speaker 1:Personally wish that they had gone through Peter and Eden's the miscarriages, the miscarriages, that they dragged the tension between them out a little longer than I would have liked. I was drawing on. When I found out what the issue was, I said that's good, but this is me being critical with zero editing and knowledge of movie making, so maybe it was perfect in the way that it was done. But for me that I said they were showing her. I said come on, you're a good family, had that conversation, the conversation's coming, go ahead and have it In a way that's necessary.
Speaker 2:So I like those things pretty well. To me they're not unreasonable guesses as to the kinds of things the disciples could be facing. So the show's called the Chosen. There's a sense in which it's focusing on the disciples, their stories and a lot of that, since we don't know much background to them. As we know, peter's married, but we don't know, did they ever have issues? But we do, and so they're making, they're constantly making those connections with the audience to help the audience see themselves in the story. I think and that becomes pretty powerful Cause in my mind nothing's been portrayed. That's just an unreasonable thing. Should we imagine that none of the other disciples were ever interested in marriage or and one of the females coming along as a disciple as well? That seems reasonable and it's done respectfully and you actually learn some things about the culture in the process, right In terms of how the relationships could be pursued or how our marriage or engagement could be pursued, and that's interesting.
Speaker 1:This is maybe a bad point time to bring it up, but one of the things I also like about the Chosen a lot is, even though all the apostles are men, right, they really incorporate women very much into the movie and they're seen as central and integral and important. Now, bringing it up during rom-com moment maybe diminishing that point, because it's far more than that in terms of they have two of the women being very instrumental in raising funds for the mission and doing very important things.
Speaker 2:The whole first episode. So it's still Mary Magdalene. Yeah, yeah, very much. I was gonna mention just a minute ago that I often there's certain scenes that are run more closely to the biblical narrative. Sometimes I will use those scenes in a class or a sermon to illustrate it, for the reason of helping people to imagine it, get inside the story, experience it from another and another way not just reading it, but hearing it. Seeing it Might have been like you know.
Speaker 1:We live in the age of the image.
Speaker 2:right, yeah, we're all doing this in our heads anyway. When we read the text, we're imagining what it would be like. When we read about Jesus, we're imagining what he might've looked like, how he might've sounded, and this has given you one person, or a group of people's version of their imagination when they read the text. We're already doing this anyway. We can listen to theirs.
Speaker 1:Gabriel, you work with John probably more than anybody else. Are you surprised by how you know his critical mind right and are you surprised by how holy he is embracing the chosen.
Speaker 3:No, no. I think something about John is that he looks for the places he can affirm and encourage good work. That's being done, so I think John is quick to.
Speaker 1:I just cause he can't find any fault with you.
Speaker 3:No, no, no. But just in general, I think when he engages with our students, when he engages with anyone who's like trying to wrestle with theology, he's like quick to encourage them in what they're doing right rather than highlight the places they're going wrong. So that's not surprising.
Speaker 1:That's a very chaplain-y thing to do. I wasn't asking you to give compliments to you. You're a supervisor.
Speaker 3:It's true, I've seen that's good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I knew we got a good one way back in the day. Good, anything else that we haven't talked about that we should.
Speaker 2:I'm looking forward to the fourth season. I've heard from some students who've already gone to see the first three episodes that have been released in theater and they feel like the production quality and writing just keeps getting better and better. Wow, well, it'll be good.
Speaker 1:I think I'll probably wait for it to stream, but I might all of a sudden get the urge and run out and watch it. But it's three hours in the theater, right yeah indeed Three episodes at it. Or maybe not quite three, because it's 45 minutes times three, so they show three episodes at a time.
Speaker 2:Oh, if I could maybe add a final comment, and this maybe just as a recommendation for the show One of the things I think is powerful about it and I'm just saying this as a Christian, as a minister that if it has the opportunity to reintroduce Jesus to people who maybe already think they know him or already think they have, maybe they have a preconceived idea of what they think Jesus is like, either coming from the churches they've grown up in or Christians they've met, or images they've seen and stained glass or whatever, and maybe it's been an image that was off-putting or the impression they got was off-putting. I would just say let watch this story with an open heart and mind, knowing it is reflecting the scripture. Let it lead you to the scriptures, of course, but also let it reintroduce Jesus to you afresh to see him maybe again for the first time.
Speaker 1:Well, I can't think of a better place to stop the conversation, and I wish you would say that at the very beginning, because that itself was quite moving and I totally agree with that. So I agree. Well, mrs Rose, thank you so much for coming and sharing, and John, thank you very much for your comments as well, and I wanna thank our audience for sitting around the table with us today, and I hope we have provided you with some food for thought and something to chew on. I guess if we're doing Jesus Christ movie star, I gotta come up with a different outro, you know. So I'm catching it to movie imagery, so Some Hallelujah chorus stuff, you know that's right. Well, we might not be done yet.
Speaker 1:So, after we finish the music, we usually have some leftovers where we chat about other things that we thought about afterward, and you're welcome to listen in on those as well. But thank you so much for listening. We appreciate your support. This has been Church Potluck. All right, we are done, but we're still recording, okay, so you can leave those on if you want or we can just sit back and chat.
Speaker 4:So that was really good and that really was I really loved what you said at the very end there.
Speaker 1:That's exactly how I feel about this and you kind of said it at the beginning in a different way, just that, even though with all the extra and added stuff, it glorifies God and does the work, and I think that's a great thing. I think that's a great thing. I think that's a great thing. I think that's a great thing. I think that's a great thing. I think that's a great thing. It glorifies God and does a faithful job of portraying the character of Jesus.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, I mean, even I think it's so hard to come by media of any kind. That is good for the soul, and so I know it's like just in my very personal life on a Friday night, what are we gonna watch? And it's so nice to be like I watched something You're gonna watch a romcom with your husband?
Speaker 1:Yeah, watch a romcom. No, I mean because that's how he's portraying.
Speaker 3:Yes, yeah, but I think it's so nice to be like I can watch this show that I'm actually gonna leave feeling nourished rather than depleted. I'm gonna leave feeling rested and thinking more about Christ and it's like the fact that there's something that exists out there that's like that. That's a show, is amazing.
Speaker 2:I think previous media portrayals movie, tv show portrayals of Jesus have been. It's too easy to sort of critique them because there's stuff that's just kind of obviously strange. But I was surprised at how moved and touched I was by watching Me too totally, and it kind of took me by surprise. I mean in that first episode when Jesus first finally enters the show right at the very end and he quotes this passage that she's learned as a little girl I've chosen you and then goes up and puts his hands on her, my wife and I are both just like the floodwater's open. We're just like crying, and some of the appreciation of these moments is born out of your own life suffering.
Speaker 2:And wondering where is Jesus in this? Is Jesus with me? Is he near me? Seeing it portrayed like. There's that moment when one of the disciples I forget which one at the moment I know, nathaniel, yeah is portrayed as having had his businesses fall apart and he's crying out to God like where are you? And he feels like God is nowhere to be found as he's praying. And then later in the episode he meets Jesus and Jesus says I saw you, yeah, with a tree. Once again, it's like. It's like all your own personal life, suffering and hardship comes to the surface. In that moment You're like did you see me Jesus yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was surprised by how it took me emotionally I don't know if I've got a particular moment, even though I haven't had any physical defermenties or anything that exchanged between little James and Jesus, because you're telling me to go out and heal people and here I'm not healed. Why, I'm sure people who suffer like that, why would you not take this away from me? Isn't that the better thing, right? And Jesus is kind of explaining how, yes, you would have an amazing story, but think about the story you'll have, that you were faithful even through this, that you healed others and comforted others even through this. That touched me very powerfully.
Speaker 3:And I was thinking about this was your. I don't remember which question brought this up, but I was thinking about the fact that we preach like John and I both preach on Sunday nights at college church and the whole idea of preaching is like you are saying more than just the scripture, like we read the scripture and then you elaborate and you add in other stories that connect, or you kind of add in some commentary on things that are going on and thinking about the chosen doing something very similar and preaching being taking the word of God and helping apply it to this current context. And I'm thinking of so many of my students and, like me studying to be a therapist, it's like so many of my students are very in touch with emotion and like want to connect with something real and something deep. And then for the show to be like a timely thing for this generation who is like no, that's real, like what I'm watching is real and it's not just some facts or some theology, but there's story, there's narrative, there's healing, and so I think that's good.
Speaker 1:I've never done this during the the leftover time, but that was. That's awesome and that's how I answer the person at my church who said you know you never add or take away from what's in the scripture. And I said but that's what preaching is right, that we're finding ways to explain what's being proclaimed in the Bible. So the way you said it was, I love that. Exactly that's what preaching is and this is preaching, and it's difficult to sometimes find preaching exactly how you like it right and the chosen does such a good job of it. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Another scene, you know, even though they're taking the license, with the miscarriage and miscommunication, you know, between Peter and Eden. I do love it being resolved Like at the same time, like the powerful imagery of she's doing a cleansing ritual at the moment, that I missed that Peter is on the water and the storm and Jesus is walking on the water and he's invites him to walk out on the water too and he starts to sink. It's like he's sinking at the same time she's going down for cleansing. Oh, maybe I've been reached there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've got like, I've got like two episodes or three episodes Spoiler alert, spoiler alert.
Speaker 2:They were kind of kind of resolved at the same time. It was powerfully done. You know I got the wrong one again I saw an excerpt where they were talking about just filming that scene of Jesus walking on the water. It was so difficult to figure out how to do it that at one point they said we can't do this thing, we're just going to have to skip it. And then they were like it's in the theme song, we can't skip it. It's walking on the water in the theme song. So they pull it together.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think it's good to think about how human the people who are who are making this show. Like, before you get super critical, think about if you sat down to try to make a show about Jesus or write a song about Jesus or write a story Like it's. Like it's a lot of pressure.
Speaker 1:That's one of the things that I before I mentioned. Has stunned me is just the quality of this, both in the storytelling and in just the production value of it. It's just, it's so very impressive yeah.
Speaker 3:And I feel like I'm, like I just can't imagine that there hasn't been a ton of prayer making it. You know, like I'm, like I feel like they had to have asked the Lord for guidance and the Spirit to lead them, because it is like it's impacting in a way that, in my opinion, has to be beyond just like human abilities and like, oh, I'm just really smart and good at making shows. It's like this this is too good to just be you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, indeed, it will be interesting to see its legacy, whether this will be just something that's been produced and then, 10 years from now, you know, get you know a little bit of streaming and a little bit of attention, or if it's something that will become kind of iconic.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think it has that I think it has that potential. For sure.
Speaker 2:You know this interest in authenticity, portraying things well and as they most likely were. You know you saw it when the passion movie was released Mel Gibson's Passion.
Speaker 1:Movie yes.
Speaker 2:Whenever, that was 2004 or something you know, 20 years ago that's. I find that film to be it's difficult to watch because it is so brutal, you know, in its effort to be accurate in the depiction of Jesus suffering. It's brutal and it's sort of drug out and that part's tough. But they have little moments where they have flashbacks and they have Jesus and he acts as you know in the movies Jesus speaking in Aramaic, you know, and it's like a moment at home with his mom while he's building a table.
Speaker 1:You know you're getting sort of the humanness of Jesus in that moment One of the vignettes shows him as a child right, Skitting his knee or something like that, getting covered yeah.
Speaker 2:They actually powerfully portrayed that in the Passion. That's one of my favorite moments. Mary's remembering him fall down as a child. At the moment he's falling down holding the cross, yeah. And she runs up to him and it's one of the most powerful lines. And again, it's not in the Gospels but it's in Revelation. Jesus says behold, I'm making all things new. He says it right there in the Passion Me. She goes to him and he says I'm making all things new.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Like I got a little chill just to hear you telling this.
Speaker 3:That's beautiful, I mean that was. The one other thing we didn't really talk about was his relationship with Mary and the one episode where he's doing a bunch of healings and Mary shows up at the end of the day and like helps put Jesus back to bed, and, like I was even had these like thoughts of like maybe he doesn't need me anymore, he doesn't need his Eema.
Speaker 3:And it's like no, he still does. I don't know. I thought, yeah, I think it's moving and I don't know. I don't know how you guys felt about his relationship with Mary.
Speaker 1:I think it was very good. I'm trying to remember when he turned, when she convinces him to turn water into wine. I don't think she is, as sometimes you get a little. He's my son. Yes, he'll do what I say, even though it's his first miracle, you know. Yeah, yeah. So that was a fun conversation and I will say, just a little surprise, just how much you embraced it. But that's very cool. That's very cool, yeah.
Speaker 2:That's very cool, and he didn't turn the water to grape juice even though it comes out of this conservative. No, he didn't.
Speaker 1:Well, it's not true, no, no, we confess this grape juice. So many traditions, so many conservative traditions, say you know it was unfermented wine, that it really wasn't alcoholic. It wasn't. It wasn't the same as what we call wine today. And a little, a little historical factoid here. Maybe when you were at Mount Tabor with us that you heard me say this once at one point it was the Methodists who invented grape juice. Yes, or A Methodist, right, I do Welch's. It was a guy named Welch and it was originally named Welch's Unfermented Sacramento Wine.
Speaker 3:Yeah, why didn't they keep that title? It's okay, it's okay.
Speaker 1:Everybody wants to drink Unfermented Sacramento Wine. Well, thank you all so much. That was a lot of fun.
Speaker 3:Thank you. Thank you, Dale.