Watching 'The Bible'

Last night J and I watched Channel Nine's new miniseries, 'The Bible'.  I was pretty excited that it was being shown on TV, on a major channel no less and I was really looking forward to seeing how the story of the Bible would be portrayed.  

I'm not really going to give it a review.  You can go here for that.  But I wanted to share some of my thoughts about it.

One of the tag lines that Channel Nine used in promotions for the miniseries was "the story that everyone knows".  Really?  Actually Channel Nine, I don't think everyone knows the story of the Bible.  Perhaps many people know some of the stories in the Bible, but not the story of the Bible.  Did you know that the Bible is one big story?  I certainly didn't until quite recently in my life and it totally changed the way that I read the Bible.  This is one of the reasons I'm excited that 'The Bible' is being shown on TV.  I hope it will provide an opportunity for people to better understand the story of the Bible and how it all fits together. 

Source: http://www.bibleseries.tv/

J and I were both surprised when the miniseries opened with a large wooden ark on violent seas.  They were starting with Noah?!  That's not the beginning of the Bible!  But they very cleverly used images and narration to work in the beginning and how the events in those first few chapters led to the time of the flood.  I guess if they were fitting the Bible into ten episodes they would have to do things like this and I thought it was managed very well.  I won't tell you how they did it and spoil it for you if you haven't seen it yet. 

The story of Abraham was the focus for the first episode and the story of Moses and the Exodus was the focus of the second episode.  Obviously all the stories and details that are in the Bible couldn't be included, but much of the detail was there so that the viewer could get a clear picture of the story.  There also wasn't anything that I've cringed at, so I think that's a good start!  J and I found ourselves wondering as we watched, "is that really how it happened?" so it was helpful for us to have a Bible with us to check in the ads.  We were impressed with the accuracy of the details that were shown and the interpretation in areas where the Bible doesn't give details. 

Overall we were pretty impressed and are looking forward to watching it again next week. 

So I want to ask you: what do you know about what's in the Bible?  Do you know how all the little stories of the Bible that you learnt when you were younger, or just kind of know, actually fit together to make one big story?  Perhaps it's time to find out more about it.  I really want to encourage you to watch this show.  If it raises any questions for you, or you'd just like to chat about it I'd love to do that with you.  I'm sorry that I'm so far away from many of you who read this, but please don't let that stop you from emailing me or giving me a call. 

If you didn't watch it last night you can still see it on catch-up TV on the Channel Nine website.  Just follow the links from here. 

If you'd like some Bible readings to go along with the TV episodes you can sign up at the Bible Society.

I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you learn something about the Bible and the God I love.