The Bible, 2013 - Episodes 4 and 5

Sorry it's taken me so long to finish writing about The Bible TV series.  The series ended on Easter Sunday, but...it's out on DVD now!  So, my review isn't quite irrelevant.  All of the teachers at college seem to have gotten together in a mega campaign to make the last couple weeks since Easter as painfully stressful as possible, which then prevented me from blogging or doing pretty much anything other than school.  When I was finally free, I was temporarily distracted by The Host, which I finally got to see on Saturday (keep an eye out for a Host related post in the relatively near future).  So, now I've finally gotten back on track.

Due to the fact that two Bible episodes have passed since my last Bible post, I'm going to combine my thoughts about both Episodes 4 and 5 into this single post.

Are you ready?

Episode Four

Ah.  Episode 4 was so refreshing after the carnage and bloodshed which has occurred over the course of Episodes 2 and 3.  No one's eyes got gouged out.  No one's throats got sliced.  The fact that I, the person who watches (most of) Passion of the Christ almost every year and forced myself to desensitize to decapitation in order to watch The Hobbit in the theatre, is saying it was hard to watch says something about how violent episodes 2 and 3 were.

Best of all, Jesus was the central character in episode 4!

Episode 4 focuses on some key events in Jesus' earthly ministry.  Therefore, there is a noticeable lack of hand-to-hand combat and all the other stuff that was hard to watch in previous episodes.  Obviously, due to time restraints, they were unable to get ALL of the key events of Jesus' earthly ministry into this episode, but the episode does a very good and accurate job of portraying the events that are shown.

There were seriously, like, no content issues in this episode.  Jesus gets arrested toward the end of the episode, and we do see him get a little beaten up.  This might be a little unsettling for some really young children, but you know what your kids can handle better than I do.

I say "a little" beaten up because I watched Passion of the Christ on Good Friday evening.  Every single other Passion film pales in comparison to Passion of the Christ.  Just saying.

Episode Five

...And, they're back on a violence spry.

Episode covers Jesus' encounter with Pilot, his crucifixion, resurrection, and some of the acts of the apostles.  Considering that it took Mel Gibson roughly two hours to tell the whole Crucifixion story (with a two-five minute resurrection scene to top everything off), the makers of the Bible TV series did really well squashing all of these events into their timeframe.

I'd just watched Passion of the Christ on Good Friday, and the final episode of The Bible aired on Easter Sunday.  So, I watched The Bible's version of the crucifixion with Passion of the Christ fresh in my mind.  I found it very interesting that The Bible's crucifixion scene seemed almost identical to The Passion's.  Little nit-picky things like the high of the whipping post, the amount of times Jesus falls on the way to Golgotha, the manner in which Jesus falls, how Mary (Jesus' mother) rushes to his side when he does fall and how she kisses his feet when he's on the cross, the way they filmed the nails being hammered into Jesus' hands and feet, and even the way the cross is raised into position were all very reminiscent of Passion of the Christ.

The hugest difference was that The Bible's crucifixion scene is much shorter and less brutally gruesome than Passion's.  This is great for those who get a little squeamish around large amounts of blood.  However, there are still large amounts of blood (not as much as Passion, but still), so young children could be disturbed by that.

But, I've watched Passion of the Christ, so I could handle The Bible's crucifixion scene.  But, if you or your kids are squeamish around blood, you might want to be careful.  Know your limits and know your kids.

The Resurrection is beautifully portrayed, though, and in much more detail than in The Passion.

And then comes the persecution of the apostles.

Several people get really beaten up by Paul (before his conversion) and his cronies.  Also, the apostle Stephen takes some pretty hard blows to his head while he's being stoned.  After the killing blow, he see blood trickling out of his nose.  We see other apostles get banged up and kicked around, one apostle gets his head whopped off, and another guy is chained up and forced to drink poison.

Scenes such as Paul conversion, the apostles receiving the Holy Spirit, and what is supposed to represent John's revelation are very nicely done and chill-inducing.

The acting throughout the episode is superb!  The quality of the production are stunning (and meet my ridiculously high standards).

Overall

I personally loved this latest television adaption of The Bible, and I was very sad to see it end.  But, the DVD is on my birthday wish list, so I will (hopefully) be able to watch it again soon.

Plus, I could always just go read the Book again, which is something I always highly suggest.  Especially when it comes to The Bible.