Religious Discourse and Documentaries
by
Kristin Battestella
These
documentaries and series provide friendly starting points on broad
biblical subjects as well as high concept theology and religious
supposition.
Beasts of the Bible – This 2010 documentary starts off with
unnecessary ominous and eerie foreshadowing alongside laughable CGI
and animated critters crawling across the screen. An endearing host,
animals, or zoo locations would have been better than the redundant
prologue and slithering titles padding the run time. Fortunately,
expert demonstrations, aquariums, and specimens in jars are more fun
amid the medieval bestiaries, alternate scriptures, and scholars
debating if the tempting serpent in the Garden of Eden had legs.
Modern animal authorities showing lizards, boa constrictors, and
monitors are far better than fake visuals as poison salamanders,
prehistoric predators, skeletal evidence, and evolutionary changes
make the reptilian connections. Moses' staff may have been a snake,
too, however his brother Aaron's rod is describe as turning into a
“tannin”– Biblical shade taking digs at Pharaoh, Egyptian gods,
and the Nile crocodile. Archaeology and ancient ruins help
investigate crocodile mummies stuffed with relics while Hebrew
scholars compare Greek translations and original etymology to clarify
the insects featured in the Ten Plagues. Frogs and locust, sure, but
also gnats and mosquitoes rather than lice, dangerous swarms instead
of just flies, and potentially killer bacteria like anthrax causing
those infamous boils. The science does jump the fantastic shark with
mermaid talk when suggesting Philistine temples to Dagon and
half-man, half-fish gods were just manatees, seals, or sea lions
conflated with myths and mistranslation. Was Jonah and the Whale
really a mega mouth shark or merely metaphors for maritime
constellations? Some of these Old Testament animal tales are more
famous than others, but intriguing creatures such as unicorns,
griffons, satryrs, and giants are missing. There's no mention of
Noah's Ark, and the hippopotamus as the behemoth or oar fish as sea
monsters and leviathan feel tacked on in the final twenty minutes
before abruptly ending with cherubs, eagles, and Ezekial visions. The
hyperbolic voiceover often negates the interesting theories
presented, and embellishments or dated visuals waste precious minutes
– every encounter has to have some kind of secret, shocking
revelation. This Animal Planet presentation ends on unknown horrors
and “Here be dragons” winks when the subject matter is
entertaining enough to be a longer series. Fortunately, although the
live feeding snakes may scare younger viewers, this eye catching
style can be fun for kids who like creepy crawlies.
The Dead Sea Scrolls: Voices from the Desert – There are so
many old Dead Sea Scrolls documentaries streaming that I had to make
sure this wasn't the same one I reviewed previously. Though dated
2016, this hour is obviously older, too, thanks to large computers,
then new database analysis, and sharing the high resolution
photographs or documentation on CD – recent academic strides
nonetheless after decades of painstaking restoration work and study
opportunities only open to a select few. Vintage newsreels of the
discovery reiterate the history alongside fears and conspiracies that
always seem to come in Dead Sea Scrolls discourse, and aerial views
of the Qumran ruins and on location cave scientists better explain
how the harsh climate helped preserve the documents. Carbon 14 proof
pinpoints the first century when but not why as interviews with both
Hebrew and Catholic scholars dissect the language, scriptures, and
incomplete text. Varying language, penmanship, and reconstruction is
not without controversy, however, as touching up the text or
attaching fragments requires interpretative decisions. NASA imaging
replacing infared mid-century photographs and new satellite
technology reveal an elaborate Dead Sea complex while DNA sampling
can help match texts from the same hide. Rather than the back and
forth discovery history, the second half here improves with recent
publications and academia studies detailing the Scrolls' contents –
Community Rule for the Sons of Light, scriptorium organization, and
obsessions with purification in spirit, ritual baths, and precious
desert water. Special clay jars, sundials, and hasty construction
suggests the Essenes knew what they were doing was for posterity even
if their excessive military preparation failed at Roman hands –
leaving no one to tell us about the wither tos and why fors. Although
this doesn't really share anything new to those familiar with the
Scrolls and doesn't have time to get in depth with all the angles it
presents, this hour remains a good introductory piece or classroom
starter and springboard to individual research.
How Jesus Became God – This 2014 twenty-four episode Great
Courses lecture presented by the University of North Carolina's Bart
D. Ehrman posits whether Jesus was divine or merely a dissonant rabbi
prophet against Rome teaching to love god and your neighbor as
yourself. The historical versus theological questions begin with
earlier godly and human relationships – Roman gods, humans becoming
revered in Greece, and elevations in Ancient Judaism alongside other
miraculous births, Appollonius of Tyana, Nephilim, immortals, and
mortals with magical children. From gods becoming human or coming
down in the garden to call Adam and others elected as deified like
Romulus or Julius Caesar to angels and Satan; the Old Testament is
also rampant with all manner of intermingling between man and gods.
While some lectures are broad, others are specifically focused on
Genesis, Job, and the pyramid of divine hierarchy – a demimonde of
saintly or fallen movement with which pagans were accustomed. “Son
of God” and “Sons of God” were ironically common phrasing in
early Jewish texts, and onscreen notations break down Jesus'
ministry, his disciples, and the gentile spread thanks to the
polytheistic ease in believing a man made god. Not believing in his
resurrection means the Jesus movement would have remained a small
sect of Judaism, so the question isn't necessarily whether he was or
was not God but how early Christians themselves perceived Jesus.
Paul's letters vary amid Trinity confusion and one god separating his
divine partiality thanks to hypostatis and the personification of
God's Wisdom or Word. Jesus' own ministry was about preparing for
God's coming kingdom, not his own divinity, and the reverence came
from others bowing down to a suffering messiah created after the
fact. Crucifixion would seem to be a failure if not for the
resurrection – whether he rose from the dead or not is almost
beside the point because the spread of the belief in Christ's
resurrection and the visions after his death are what spurred the
Jesus movement to change history. The discourse, however, does get
redundant in the middle – how many times can one say denominations
bend the scripture to fit their beliefs? – and debating the fifty
years plus between the crucifixion and the gospel writings is more
interesting, combing Acts and Romans for earlier quotes and possible
Q references common in the early movement but distorted like a game
of telephone by time the New Testament was gathered. Exhalations of
Jesus as the Son of God were adopted at the resurrection, but later
ideologies move his divinity backward – his baptism, at birth, all
eternity, existence at the beginning with God. Which is the truth
when the gospels themselves present multiple cases? Docetism,
Ignatius, non-canonical books, and disparate texts in the first and
second centuries allowed for multiple points of view including
Marcion ideas on the appearance of Jesus as a human rather than a
bodily being and Gnosticism versus sacrifice. Despite Christianity
originally being much more diverse, orthodox worship was ultimately
dominated by Rome and the founding of the Catholic church, leading to
persecutions for different beliefs before Constantine's conversion
and Council of Nicea declarations creating today's somewhat more
harmonious tradition. Had he not been raised from the dead, Jesus
would have been a historical footnote about a prophet who's
predictions failed, and at times the narrative favors Josephus and
history over the spiritual, but our professor also admits that
history is woefully inaccurate. Although confusing for a new believer
and the deeply religious may balk at the idea of examining Jesus'
divinity, this is nothing to be threatened by thanks to detailed
timelines and texts breaking down fascinating first century sources.
Should proving theories, scholars, or miracles one way or the other
change what you believe? No, and this series remains a provocative
supplement recounting historical facts as well as theological
ideologies past and present for the faithful scholar or a higher
education study.
Disappointing
Who Wrote the New Testament? – This 2016 two hours plus doesn't
need opening re-enactments, scripture quotes, and famous lines
montages bloating the time; the viewer is already here for the Word
of God analysis, who collected the Twenty-Seven New Testament works,
and the conflicts over which letters, gospels, and accounts to
include. Why is there no definitive account of Christ? Why do no
original manuscripts remain – just copies of copies written decades
later in Greek? Despite the tantalizing opportunities, this
documentary is all over the place to start with Mount Sinai
monasteries, stolen documents, and arid preservation setting the
scene with great on location tours and rituals but showing precious
little on site researchers, modern cataloging, digital opportunities,
and fellow academics. Non-canon texts such as Epistles from Barnabas
and Clement or Thomas and Mary gospels help reveal the risk of
following Jesus, his inevitable outcome in standing up to Rome, and
the danger in following him to record his ministry – leaving oral
traditions to carry the story when so many were illiterate. It takes
over twenty minutes for all this background before we get to
discrepancies and enigmas in Mark and how easy it is for later
scribes making choices or transcription mistakes to change locations
or verses. Matthew's account bridges the Jewish history of early
Christianity while prolific Luke's Gospel and Acts of the Apostles
take up a quarter of the New Testament to spread the Jesus Movement
to the gentiles. Rumors of Luke's decapitation and burial in Padua
are tested with exhumed bones, DNA analysis, and matching the skull
to the body – fascinating stuff that is bizarrely tossed in here
with less time spent on the purported Q source gospel and parchment
pieces from John's Gospel. Odd editing makes it seem as if this was
part of a larger series now condensed into one special, for the
narrative is terribly haphazard in postulating one generic,
problematic, or science related aspect to the scripture before
dropping it in favor of Hitler's disturbing Bible translations. I was
not expecting to see Holocaust footage when I tuned in nor Protestant
Reformation scandals or Mary Magdalene gossip. The fast moving
meandeing can't cover its own topic – lumping the New Testament
Letters together for a few moments before splitting hairs over the
controversies within them instead. James and Jude earn a mention
before going back to Paul amid circumcision, pagans, and a throwaway
line wondering which epistles Paul really penned or not. All this is
thrown at the screen in the first hour alone, and I zoned out after
that. If you are studying a particular part of the New Testament,
this is really only worth the matching sampling if you can find it,
for this is a thematic mess that ultimately never does what it says
on the tin.
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