I recently saw Ridley Scott's Exodus: Gods and Kings. It's been getting a lot of flack lately from its decision to bring together an all-white lead cast to its portrayal of God.
Yes, the movie strays far from the Biblical source. For example, there's a lot of focus on the Pharaoh Ramses's love for his young baby boy. But there was one scene in the movie that really got to me. And that was in the aftermath of the 10th plague brought onto the Egyptians. (Will this count as a spoiler?) After Death kills the firstborn of every Egyptian household, Ramses, holding the dead limp body of his son, confronts Moses.
Ramses: Is this your God?! Killer of children?!
Sitting there in the theater I thought, "Ouch. Way to leave in the 'ugly side' of the whole story..."
Then today I came across this blog article. Excerpt below, but just go and read the whole article.
I never asked anyone these questions back then. I don’t think most Christians do. We don’t want to rock the boat. Maybe sometimes we’re afraid of the answer. We concentrate on the Gospels and letters to the Romans, take snippets from the nicer Psalms and embroider them on throw pillows. We skim over the “bad” stuff, the stuff we don’t understand, the stuff that doesn’t fit our modern sensibilities, until we almost forget it’s there. And then, when someone like Ridley Scott throws it up on the big screen for all of us to see, it hurts us — not so much because Scott made it up, but because he didn’t.
Yes, the movie strays far from the Biblical source. For example, there's a lot of focus on the Pharaoh Ramses's love for his young baby boy. But there was one scene in the movie that really got to me. And that was in the aftermath of the 10th plague brought onto the Egyptians. (Will this count as a spoiler?) After Death kills the firstborn of every Egyptian household, Ramses, holding the dead limp body of his son, confronts Moses.
Ramses: Is this your God?! Killer of children?!
Sitting there in the theater I thought, "Ouch. Way to leave in the 'ugly side' of the whole story..."
Then today I came across this blog article. Excerpt below, but just go and read the whole article.
I never asked anyone these questions back then. I don’t think most Christians do. We don’t want to rock the boat. Maybe sometimes we’re afraid of the answer. We concentrate on the Gospels and letters to the Romans, take snippets from the nicer Psalms and embroider them on throw pillows. We skim over the “bad” stuff, the stuff we don’t understand, the stuff that doesn’t fit our modern sensibilities, until we almost forget it’s there. And then, when someone like Ridley Scott throws it up on the big screen for all of us to see, it hurts us — not so much because Scott made it up, but because he didn’t.
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