Sunday, November 09, 2003

I am very interested in teaching things accurately. I am also keenly aware that the media--for better or worse--mostly worse--educate us, especially young people. I'm sure no one would disagree with the importance of teaching things accurately, whether it be history, science, or whatever. Well crank that up a few notches when it comes to teaching parts of the bible, especially by portraying them in a major motion picture. The other night I saw the film The Gospel of John, which for the most part is an accurate, word for word rendering of the text. I suspect that this film may one day be used widely in Christian education as a tool to teach about the life of Jesus. Because of this, I think the producers owe us the courtesy of taking great care in the decisions they make about the film in terms of historical accuracy and faithfulness to the text. Where is this going, you ask? Well, there was one thing about the film that just irked me: The two characters specifically referred to as "slaves" by the narrative; Malchus--the one who has his ear cut off by Peter in the garden--and then another, who questions Peter about being with Jesus, were cast as black. Now, historically, household slaves in first century Israel were most likely NOT African. In fact, Malchus is an Arab name. Yet, these two characters in the movie were black. And no other named characters were played by black actors.  Was this not an extremely culturally insensitive, if not blatantly ignorant, decision by the filmmakers ? It  was irresponsible for sure, and I think all Christians ought to be disappointed. What puzzles me even more about this is that they supposedly used an advisory board of theologians and seminary professors and the like as they made the film. How was something like this allowed? 7:03:22 PM    comment []