Sunday, April 7, 2013

Review of The History Channel's The Bible: The Epic Miniseries (2013)



I have always enjoyed biblical drama, so when I heard about History Channel's The Bible: The Epic Miniseries (2013), I was anxious to watch it. I watched the first episode on YouTube, but it kept stopping, so when I found out that the story about Moses from Exodus was available to view around Passover, I wanted to see it. I ended up buying that episode for my Kindle Fire, but bought the whole series on DVD too.

The story of Moses and the Exodus was excellent.  It was very accurate and well done.

Seeing the series reminds me of reading the Bible in comic book form.  Many stories are covered and some scripture is said, and the stories are easy to understand.

Most of the reviews I've read say that this series is very good. I agree, but there are some things I don't like:

Many stories are skipped over, including the story of Joseph.

All that is said is that "famine brought the Israelites to Egypt."  To me that is "so weird."  People that have never read the Bible will never know about Joseph since the series skipped over it.

Everyone in the series speaks with a perfect "English accent."

I guess British actors were used in the series, but it is again "just plain weird" to see biblical characters speaking "perfect English."

The "Bad Guys" are really ugly and evil looking and life in biblical times appears to be very, very miserable.

The "bad guys" in the series have greasy hair and dark dirty faces and look like they need baths.  I guess the producers of this series wanted to be realistic about what life was like.  Watching the series made me glad I was not born in biblical times.

The "Devil" in the series seems to look a lot like President Barack Obama.

That too, is just "plain weird" and seems a bit odd.

Almost every scene takes place in the desert.  The sets look similar to Tatooine, the desert planet, from the Stars Wars Episode One movie.

Almost every scene takes place in the desert.  The sets look similar to Tatooine, the desert planet, from the Stars Wars Episode One movie and the angels and the devil also seem to be dressed up as Jedi or Sith like in Star Wars.  Not all of Israel is a desert and not all the stories from the Bible should resemble Star Wars.

The actor who played Samson is black and one of the angels who went Sodom is Asian.

Various races may have existed in biblical times, but I don't believe Samson was black.  I guess angels could be Asian...but why does the angel look like a ninja warrior fighting in a kids fantasy movie?

I am glad I bought the DVDs.  I was surprised how many bible stories I do know.   I will watch the series with my family again and again.



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