The Chosen's biblical roundtables: Full episode one discussion

I'm Dale sangan's I'm the director of the chosen and I am sitting in the middle of the beginning of a joke right a Catholic a Jew and an evangelical walk into a bar who actually walks out first because they're offended that they even near a bar but this feels like that but we have a really great opportunity I'm talking to our three biblical consultants on the chosen when we decided to do this show one of the things we really wanted to make sure we were doing was be as close to Scripture as humanly possible while still making a show you know there have been shows miniseries movies that have been made about the life of Christ that literally take a verse by verse account and they've been done well and there's been some of those movies that have that haven't reached the globe or they're literally just narrating Scripture and the actors are acting it out and so we're going a little further we're going into backstory of some of these characters we're doing what's a combination of historical context biblical context and a little artistic imagination and now that's treading on very dangerous waters there's a lot of agreement on the stories of Jesus not a lot of agreement all the time on how to interpret all of them but we really wanted to show respect to the three traditions represented at this table I'm an evangelical but now I'm gonna introduce who we're talking to so this is father David Guffey and we've got rabbi Jason Sobel and dr. Doug Hoffman and so you guys all are traditional Bible scholars and believers we all believe the Bible is the Word of God but obviously there's different shades and different personalities that come from this and so one of the things I wanted to do now that we've seen episode one you guys consulted for us when you wrote the scripts I sent you all four scripts and I was saying what am i what do I got write what I got wrong and then I'd get these pages back with big blocks of red ink all over them and things that we got right but there were still some things that I think were that reflected a little bit of a difference of opinion on whether it's Scripture or interpretation so all that to say that's the long introduction episode 1 we introduce all of our main characters we are getting into the backstory of some of these characters Jesus doesn't even show up until the very end I'm going to start with you father Guffey what stood out to you as something that you thought that's either more closely Catholic for lack of a better term than what I've normally see in Jesus projects or that's less Catholic then if it would have been made by someone other than an evangelical one of the ways that Catholics pray with Scripture and this came from st. st. Ignatius of Loyola is to read scripture and read it a couple of times and then to engage it with imagination and to really sit in that a meditative state and try to put yourself in the scene so that you can imagine the characters and the Ignatian style of meditation would invite one to listen imagine what you'd hear what you taste what you'd smell what you touch and this seemed almost like that kind of a meditation and Scripture and looking at the world that people would be in when you do that kind of meditation you have to do it with some humility that you're not actually having a vision right because there's interpretation going on and we obviously bring a 21st century mindset and references to it and I thought the series did some of the same it's in English that's easily accessible today with patterns of speech that are probably closer today but that is an imagining of what of who these people might have been and what their world would have been like the other thing that I found fascinating is Mary Magdalene is such an interesting character and before the 1600s Mary Magdalene was featured prominently in in art in European cathedrals that changed somewhat with the Reformation for a lot of different reasons but she was really a powerful figure in the imagination of of Catholics for about 600 years lots of images of her and I thought of there's a window at the cathedral at Chartres that's a Mary Magdalene window that essentially imagines the story of Mary Magdalene and the way that the episode one does kind of going through the life of Mary Magdalene so when I when I read the script and and became aware of episode one I immediately thought of that window and I thought oh they're doing what they did in the 1200 when they built the cathedral it chart yeah so you use the term imagination and that's something that I think evangelicals traditionally are most scared of if you look at art throughout the years almost all of the great art that's faith-based has come from Catholics evangelicals tend to be distrusting of imagery we sometimes confuse it with idolatry I have been with evangelicals where we walked into some of the most beautiful basilica's in the world and I as an artist have been like oh my gosh this is amazing and I've had other evangelical friends say this is this feels wrong this feels too much of an attempt to try to be beautiful but there's nothing beautiful in the world it's all evil it's all sinful I mean I'm exaggerating a little bit but but imagination is something that evangelicals sometimes are are scared of almost it's like no we got to stick to the words the words are what matter and I really love that you just said about this idea of when you're meditating on it that you're imagining how it could have felt and I think that's something that we really strive to do in this series is when I want people to feel taste smell I want to you know feel the dust I want it to I want it to feel like what it must have been like back then to a point obviously there's there's limits but I think that's one of the biggest differences between Catholics and evangelicals at least when it comes to art is you're much more imaginative and we're scared of that we're like well if we imagine too much then we're relying on our own human brain and we can't trust that so we just need to stick to the text and that's it so rabbi Jason I went to Israel with you last year where we visited some of the sites it was my first time and you did an amazing job of giving me some of the historical in biblical context of this but was there anything about episode one in particular that you you thought that's a little bit more Jewish friendly than some traditional Jesus projects yeah absolutely I mean I think it's overall about the series it's something that I really appreciate I mean obviously there's been we tend to want to make Jesus in our own image and likeliness right and so historically there's been a lot of blonde haired blue-eyed kind of Western westernized Jesus's and disciples and I love the fact that there's a very ethnic feel to the disciples and there's they have accents and it's it's you know when you look at their complexion or you look up you look at enough Peter is actually played by an Israeli so I mean I love that component right of looking at the characters in the story which I I think it's great and I love just even trying to capture some of the authenticity of the Jewish culture which in further episodes get into which I really appreciate and value about it and I also just love in general the fact that really so many series about the life of Jesus focus on Jesus and I love the fact that this focus on people's encounters with him and how their lives are changed and transformed as a result of it and I think that's so significant because I often think we get this Oh divine Jesus but you know he there's a humanity to him and part of that humanity is he's a son of David and there's a Jewishness in that humanity which I love now before I get to dr. Hoffman I'm gonna do a quick commercial break and give you some appreciation for the fact that you're even calling him Jesus because I know that you guys don't call him Jesus you refer to him as Yeshua and so your your your as Paul said being all things to all men or whatever it says you're sitting at this table I want us to talk about that just for a minute of why it's either okay or not okay - did what - do what we did my interpretation is and we said this at the beginning of the episode we gave this disclaimer that talked about we use the term English transliteration which means that these characters all spoke English the English language did not exist back then there are certain letters that did not exist from what I understand the letter J the J sound is not a Hebrew sound correct yeah so but my my thought was listen we can either go all the way and just mavet have them speak Hebrew or we can go all the way in here and have them speak English and just recognize that this is essentially an impression or like even some of the phrases they use aren't necessarily invented until you know later centuries but we're saying they might have not have had the phrase sticking up for the little guy back 2,000 years ago but they had a phrase like that and so we're gonna interpret kind of put it into a more modern context but I know that couldn't been natural for you sure to call him Jesus and to see him called Jesus is it okay are we forgiven because my thought is if we call him Yeshua then all the other character names have to be changed too and I just thought let's just go with the English and in different cultures it'll be subtitled but can i maybe I'm asking for forgiveness or permission how bad is it yeah look on the one I mean I like that overall you're trying to bring the authenticity to of the Jewishness of the culture which is already a significant a step in the right direction where you don't see and other things I mean obviously his name was Yeshua which is a short informative Joshua and there's significance to why that was his name but we also have to understand that the New Testament primarily comes down to us in the language of Greek because it was a common language there might have been Hebrew Hebrew Gospel of Matthew according to some of the early church history but it does come down to his Greek because that was the common language of the day and the message was for the message and so I think that since this is a message for the masses a show to the masses I think you know it does that for that reason well what I've said to people is you know Jesus is the incorrect me if I'm wrong the English transliteration of the Greek right is that about right that's about right like not the translation transliteration that the Greek literally transliterated the letters and it came to us or something like a yes because there's no J in Greek so what I've said to people though is it's you know it's the same man same meaning same Messiah so dr. Hoffman as you know in the evangelical world were very focused on the words and the literalness of Scripture we tend to err on the side of the literary and the literal and I've heard from people who when they hear about the show say well revelation says do not add to scripture and so we are uncomfortable with the fact that you were adding to Scripture and and father Duffy may be okay with imagination but there's no need for it because you have the Bible and I'm just going to stick to the Bible why is it okay if it is to ignore what John said in the book of Revelation and add to some of these stories with some backstory well you're certainly not attempting to add another book to the Bible 100% correct yeah and the the people who only want to read the Bible won't be watching this series so so that you don't have to worry about those kind of complaints right yeah I actually think that evangelicals desire to honor the Word of God is it's got pluses and minuses the strength of course is they're trying to avoid errors that we've seen happen in church history where things do get added to scripture where doctrines are added to scripture that actually distracts from the truth that God gave us in written form unfortunately the pendulum swings to the point where now they're almost worshiping the Bible instead of the God who gave them the Bible understand and so bringing us back to being whole people including a god-given imagination I I think this is an important thing for us to be doing even as we read scripture but having our imaginations controlled by Scripture which as you've said you're trying to do that with this series so I think what happens with evangelical readings of Scripture is it all becomes flat and there's there's no relatability to these characters in the Bible because they're just these words on the page and oh of course we know that story here's how it goes but there's I have nothing in common because I live a three-dimensional life not black and white letters on a page so what a film series like this does for us is it reignites our imagination and helps us relate to what's written on the page recognizing that yeah our imaginations need to be controlled by the page but still wow this Mary is a real person she had real problems kind of like my problems yeah that draws people in and maybe they'll start reading their Bibles more well we've heard that from believers I mean I've done a few test screenings and someone said you know I like a lifelong believer I've heard this from many of them have said this made me want to go back and read my Bible and and kind of figure out even more and then when they read it they said it it was even more enriched because I when I saw Matthews name in the scripture I started to identify with him and and realize that oh yeah heat like you said he was human he had a one quick thing I want to I want to say before I abridge to a question I have for you rabbi Jason is in episode 1 we see Simon go home to his wife and they kiss and they tease each other and they have this conversation while I was shooting that scene I thought to myself I've never seen a married couple kiss and a Bible show before and then I realized I've never seen a married couple and a Bible show before and where did I draw when I was writing that scene you know what did I draw from so there's biblical context from what we can see about Simon's personality okay we don't nothing about his wife's personality so gleaning from that and gleaning from my own life as a as a married man I know what marriage life is like for many people that informed us as much as the biblical context and the historical context but that leads me to a question so these are some of these characters almost everything that's in this episode consists of things that aren't outlined in Scripture but we tried to make them plausible and so the big thing that stands out in episode one that you and I have talked about several times that you that you can't you hesitantly gave me permission for is Simon fishing on Shabbat now let me first of all clarify and ask this question is there a difference between Shabbat and Sabbath we always use the term Sabbath and Shabbat is a relatively unique term to to those of us who are Jewish yes Shabbat is the Hebrew term for the Sabbath so Shabbat is what like in the Ten Commandments this is you're talking about honoring and keeping the Shabbat which is the Sabbath so it's the transliteration of the hebrew term obviously there's some difference of what day is the Shabbat between the Jewish and Christian traditions so the biblical Sabbath of the Ten Commandments is Friday night to Saturday night because as evening and morning the first day in Christian tradition it gets become Sunday but Sabbath you know biblically what we're talking about is cheb what is shabbat shalom' mean for those who don't know yeah it's shabbat shalom' is search a traditional jewish greeting that you're wishing the sabbath piece to someone so it's the traditional greeting on the sabbath so in the first draft of the script i really wanted to show all of these characters as struggling in some way good drama has a character arc and someone goes from ideally a negative to a positive and the the farther you go the the sharper the arc the better for dramas purposes and now we're of course trying to do a multi season series which is gonna last six seven years and so the arc needs to be pretty long so I really wanted to establish these characters as having significant struggles and doing things out of desperation perhaps especially with the Roman occupation at the time the poverty at the time so I kind of casually wrote in my partners and I that Simon broke a commandment or a Jewish tradition by by fishing on Shabbat and you said no way no how wouldn't happen so I said well what if we made it because I didn't even treat it like it was a big deal and you said no this would be a huge deal to the point where I don't even believe it would have ever happened so I said how can I meet you halfway so we we made it so that he was doing it out of desperation he was justifying it by saying if a life is at stake officially at least make an argument that there's a out of desperation out of the need to save a life there is the like a doctor for example can break the Sabbath Nora to save a life there's certain instances that transcend the actual keeping of the letter and when his brother Andrew finds out that he wants to fish on Shabbat when his wife Eden she doesn't know yet an episode when we get into that in future episodes but the notion like he has to hide it when he comes home he's kind of pretending like he doesn't say whether he did fish on Shabbat or not and she you know so I tried to treat it like it would be a big deal if he did it you would say it just wouldn't it wouldn't happen even if it was treated yeah no I don't think he would have vitally violated this Shabbat I mean I even think that we see in the Gospel of Matthew when we first introduced to John the Baptist actually is John the mikveh man the immerser but we see Peter and his brother there already they're ready searching they're already part of this teshuva movie district they're looking to return to God and connect and so and and obviously breaking the Shabbat is punishable biblically by death I mean people are never really put to death biblical times are violating Shabbat but that's how serious and grave the issue is Shabbat was at the core and it still is at the core of all Jewish identity and observance to this day he was a observant Jew right so we got we got to the point where you were tolerable of it because of the fact that we treated it like it was a big deal and that he had to come up with pretty serious justification to even to even consider it nothing says that he wouldn't have certainly wouldn't have just treated it casually it would have been a it wouldn't be something like oh I just broke the Shabbat you know like and that's very different in the Christian mindset because a Shabbat doesn't have that level for most Christians today of significance maybe more akin to like the movie of Chariots of Fire or we don't play soccer on the Sabbath day right it's but even more so but one of the things that I recognize about the Chosin which I appreciate going back to kind of both of your comments which is as there's in the Jewish interpretive tradition there's something known as Midrash comes from the word drost which means to search out or to seek out and the rabbi's like to ask questions and they don't like unanswered questions and so when they look at the text they do get creative with the text and they want to know why such-and-such happens in the text and they search for reasons and they tend to add background to the story for that reason and so I'd say really what you're doing is very Jewish in a sense it's kind of a Christian Midrash on the story on the text right so because I really wanted to establish you know by the time we get to episode 4 which I don't want to give away too much obviously but by the time Jesus comes into Simon's life and you know the miracle of the fish is where we're headed where and I wanted that to be not only a spiritual moment but but a rescue of sorts now how accurate was is the show in capturing the Roman the socio-political times I'll ask you that question to just you know the Roman occupation the the the different factions among the Pharisees and Sadducees it was there was a lot of political socio-political unrest right there's a lot of tension they were an occupying army and the Romans kept power they'd give some power to a petty king like Herod or a procurer and then they they had their own procurator's that would would be there but the wrote the the Roman peace the PAC's Romano is really a piece of a heavy hand and they were quick to squash rebel movements because they couldn't afford it they needed trade routes opened and I think people forget that like in the story of the Centurion who came to Jesus and asked that his servant be healed that would have been a big deal because Jesus was doing a favor for an occupying military person an oppressor essentially so and you capture that in the first episode yeah we wanted to establish right off the bat that like you said the Romans had a heavy hand and the taxation at that time was immense right I mean it was to the point where you know that's why we kind of created this scenario that's not outlined in Scripture but it's plausible because I know we went to Capernaum and it was plausible maybe not likely but plausible that Matthew could have been Simon and Andrew his tax collector right and so knowing that the taxation was that heavy that's what we were trying to portray as this desperation that the Messiah arrived in a moment of total desperation and total oppression so on that note dangerous question perhaps perhaps based on some of my ignorance of the Catholic tradition st. Peter so an evangelical tradition were very skeptical or nervous about calling anyone a saint because you know again we're all evil sinners and we're incapable of doing anything good and Catholics are a little bit more willing to know you're able to do some good sometimes st. Peter how you know is are we violating a sacred cow by showing st. Peter doing some of the things that he does in this episode Andrew some of these struggles that people have how protective are Catholics and I know paid you all with a broad brush but how protective are you of your saints well that's a really a great question the the portrait you give them Peter is not one that will be comfortable for some Catholics but I don't think it's it would be considered heresy and I but I think it will be stretching the the good part of that is is I think people need to remember that Peter was human and you get a sense of Peters impetuousness and other things so it that it could be plausible the story that's laid out could be plausible but one of the one of the problems of Catholic notions of saints is that when when someone is recognized formally as a saint sometimes there humaneness is sanitized out so they forget that this was a person who had a faith journey who had conversion points in their life they may have been very they may not have been a dramatic dramatic single one but a number of points in their life where they made real decisions or they had to recover from mistakes or where they were they struggled and that gets lost there was a famous label man named Dorothy day who was this incredible servant of the poor in the 1930s she founded this movement that created a homes for houses for the homeless around the United States and people when she was alive used to say you're a saint and she'd say don't dismiss me that easily just because when he's been he called her a saint the radicalness of she was non-violence and she was a pacifist and kind of radical giving with one's wealth to the poor so I think it I think it won't be a comfortable portrait for a lot of Catholics but I think it could be helpful in the long run yeah so Mary Magdalene is the most featured character in episode one we want it I mean episode one of any show is essentially a set up episode you're introducing the characters you're introducing the settings there's not necessarily beginning a middle and an end that hopefully comes at the end of the season but we definitely knew that if we wanted people to watch this show we needed to give them something at the end of episode one that gave made them think okay this isn't just a bunch of sadness and oppression the whole time we do get to see some victory and so we wanted to show a character experience some sort of of redemption or victory and Mary Magdalene was who we chose and so he created this backstory of trauma and her childhood so doctor up but I'll start with you on Mary Magdalene what are the biggest misconceptions about Mary Magdalene I can think of two off the top of my head but what would you say are some of the biggest misconceptions in traditions about Mary Magdalene yeah this this is one of those issues where evangelicals become afraid of imagination because Mary Magdalene's traditions about her have gone far afield of what scripture actually says about her she's been likened to a prostitute she's been even identified as the woman in John chapter 8 caught in the act of adultery and but the text doesn't say that at all but this over imaginations have kind of overshadowed what the Bible says about her and so I appreciate the corrective imagination you're using an episode one that Mary is a troubled person the Bible does say she was oppressed by demons and that Jesus rescued her from those so your dramatic portrayal of her I think gives some reality to Bible readers oh this is plausible this this does fit what the Bible tells us about her and now I can relate to her as a real person with trouble and she has a background that it's her troubles not even her fault well I've got troubles that aren't my fault and now she becomes a relatable character instead of just this person who have these known imaginations that I have to dismiss but I don't know anything else right because it says in scripture when we're introduced to her it almost speaks of it in past tense Mary Magdalene who had been possessed or oppressed by sit by demons and so we worked we that was our beginning point and we worked our way backwards and so what would what would lead someone to be oppressed by demons at some point and this I know each tradition holds a little bit differently of what what what could allow you to be oppressed or possessed by demons and so we thought trauma would be would be something that would cause someone especially living in a Eligius atmosphere you wouldn't come easily to just all of a sudden be possessed by or oppressed by demons and so we thought of this this traumatic experience as a child losing her father being abused potentially even sexually abused by Roman in her teenage years and we have you have that scene in there's a moment in the in the episode where she's flashing back and having the suppression - when this Roman assaulted her and there's a visual of as he as he gets over her there's there's a darkness that literally covers her face and we were essentially metaphorically and this is where some of the Catholic in me was coming out metaphoric imagery showing darkness enveloping her and we thought of that almost being the moment when demons began their oppression of her are there different interpretations and the different traditions about demonic possession versus oppression in the Catholic Church it seems more common right - when I you know the movies about exorcism it tend to come from from Catholic tradition what is the belief that like when it talks in Scripture about Mary Magdalene what is the for all intents and purposes what was the belief about what took place was she possessed by demons what what what is that what does that mean well the scripture says she was possessed by demons so and that would be there's a belief that that take that that happens it's fairly rare possession is when one loses one's free will and is completely controlled by another entity oppression would be where demonic forces are trying to exert influence but they aren't really controlling temptation is just where they're kind of pulling and beckoning so there would be it would be recognized that there are there are different ways in different levels of the ways that the evil one could try to insert itself into one's life always recognizing that the power of God is stronger than any force of evil and but even those nuances are interpretive nuances that the the New Testament doesn't have separate words it just has one worry this person was demonized it doesn't make a distinction between oppression and possession and temptation well but you have examples of people talking about temptation like Paul yeah we have those examples but we don't have this technical terminology this person is oppressed but this person's possessed and and I've heard too many people try to almost congratulate themselves you know well I'm oppressed by a demon but at least I'm not possessed it's like you know if you've got a demon problem you it needs to be taken care of yeah don't go don't congratulate yourself and the answer to most demon problems is just talk to somebody pray start observing your religious practice for Catholics we'd say go to confession start going to services and then try to live a good life and then bring your life into a lot into the line but with God so I mean most of the time if people do that the problem if there is a demonic problem it it it lessens over time if and the other thing is as you point out the forces of evil will use trauma or will use other kinds of illness and so it's really it's critical and the like in the Catholic tradition right now somebody feels that they're possessed the first thing you do is you send them to a medical doctor and a psychologist to make sure that all other things are explored and looked at first because if you if you can heal the body then even if there is a some presence of evil there if you can close that close that crack would begin the healing then the spirits yeah and it's interesting cuz in the Jewish tradition even here modern Hebrew if you're sick and good of the Beit holy and the word for sick comes from the word whole it's actually first used in Genesis hot love deal Banco - look holy makes separation between the holy and this and the secular or the profane and so the word whole come literally means to bore out so the idea is that sickness is a result of there's a vacuum there's something missing where God should be or there's there's a lack of a wholeness and that lack of a wholeness that that boring out that space that has created allows opportunity for things that are not of God to come in whether it's physical sickness whether it's negative spiritual influences and you see that even in the Hebrew the differ between redemption and exile guru lah and go lah is one letter difference it's a letter olives and you take out the letter olive it represents God's name you you end up with exile and if you put the olive back in he's the elephant eat all that you get Redemption and so when God has taken out there's something missing you end up with the opportunity to this vacuum this space it's the parable of of your shoe of Jesus where you clean the house and it's empty and if it's not filled in with God then it's space for something else to enter and that's a very conceptually Jewish view going back to creation right and that's something we were focusing on was we opined that the trauma of her childhood and of her of her teenage years like you said it it created a vacuum or it allowed her to be to be taken by something else and so the first words that Jesus speaks in our series are that's not for you so he she's literally reaching for drink to fill the void in fact the the bartender for lack of a better term says this is not meant to solve your problems it's meant to distract from them and she says no give it to me I want others I'm gonna give it to she goes to reach for it and Jesus walks in and the first time we see him he says that's not for you and she rejects that she starts to get like the demons were portraying her as starting to really get worked up and so she's getting a headache it was Justin by the presence of Jesus and she says leave me alone and that to me was very much an encompassing of how we oftentimes when Jesus is pursuing us sometimes were like no no I don't want this I want my thing I'm possessed by something else in her case it's demons but I think a lot of us can be owned by other things besides Christ so she's walking out trying to get away and he calls her by name and the scripture that he speaks over her is when he says you know thus says the Lord who created you and he who formed you and then he says you are mine and it's not just casting out a demon which was what Nicodemus was trying to do he's not only casting out a demon he is taking ownership and so when he says you are mine and puts his hands on her head and then she kind of leans in and and and just becomes his that was meant to be a you know a physical and literal representation of she is no longer possessed by anything else she now belongs to Christ what I love it because I think that I think one of the principal biblical truth is that identity is destiny your destiny is wrapped up in your identity and biblically a person's identity is connected to their name so oftentimes when God gives someone a new identity Jacob to Israel supplanter to one who wrestles with God overcomes of Rome to Abraham he gives them a new name and so you see that even with the change of her name in the story representing her new identity her new destiny because of her encounter and I love it because that change of the name and portrays all that saying I know you by name because Hebrew name is Shem and at the word and at the heart of the room is Shama which means soul the middle two letters is the word name because a person's name reveals their soul I knew they're called to be her they're ready to be yeah it's a very moving scene and for all of these artistic nuances all woven together into a place where I think the viewer can identify I mean sometimes we love our problems we we want to get rid of them but we're comfortable with them at least I know this problem and I've resigned myself to live with this problem when Jesus comes to rescue her from her problems she's not so sure she wants to give it up because it's what she knows but he pursues her and I think there's many viewers who will need to hear this message that Wow maybe there's an answer to my problems and maybe maybe the discomfort I feel is I'm being pursued by my Creator who maybe wants to change my life symbolize with the change of the name yeah I thought it was very creatively well done very moving and hopefully see the ways that Christ is pursuing them maybe through a person through a book through a song that touches them something that gets always trying to say to us you are mine I was curious about where you got her name Lilith if there's a meaning to that that that made that happen or that's just somebody that you hated in your childhood well my my writing partner Tyler Thompson I have two writing partners Ryan Swanson and Tyler Thompson and Tyler I would call a Catholic hole like he's kind of partly Catholic partly evangelical I mean he's an evangelical primarily he's raising that church but he really likes like Anglican churches he's comfortable in Catholic services he likes the the dramatic the imagery that all that stuff and so for him he's the one who came up with the name Lilith when we came up with this idea of her giving herself a different name almost to try almost in a way to deny her our upbringing who she truly was I believe he knew the meaning of the name cuz you guys pointed out to me that Lilith because you said oh I'm not sure if Lilith would be a good name for her because it means what well I mean it's associated with negative characters within the tradition demonic going back to right yeah so I didn't know that when I when he said I he suggested Lilith and it was so accurate to what the name actually means that's why we stuck with it but I thought but I think he would say I think he knew he's into meanings and names and stuff like that and and so it was just kind of I think meant to symbolize a little bit of the darkness that she was facing so there's also something interesting in her Hebrew name because Miriam Hebrews Miriam and which is miriama trees bitter waters right so there's a sense in which even the character itself there's this bitterness within her life and obviously that's Moses sister and she gets that name cuz they're in exile in Egypt in slavery so there's an interesting connection even there in Jesus comes in sweet as the waters in a sense of her life I'd like to pretend that I did that on purpose and the clothes of this Jesus doesn't enter into this episode into the very end and he enters in a what I think modern people would consider it but perhaps a place of ill repute which is essentially a 2000 year old version of a of a bar we evangelicals drinking at all is very untraditional very scary I grew up my mom when I'd go to a baseball game like at Wrigley Field or whatever the the guy would come with the beer and she would say I don't pass beer like he was running to pass it down the aisle she does even touch it my father has never had a sip now he doesn't find it sinful he just heard he's new he grew up with the belief that it was sinful and so he hasn't had a drop but the whole notion of where Jesus would would would hang out would he be at a place where sinners were did anything when you were reading the script or watching the episode on what level of comfort were you or do you think some of the people of your tradition would be with Jesus showing up in a place where there's gambling taking place in a place where maybe people were misusing wine I mean again we don't it's a lot of us don't drink wine at all but there's clearly nothing scriptural that says you shouldn't require at all but maybe a place where it a lot of too much wine is drunk level of comfort that you think Catholics may feel with Jesus being in a place like that a lot of Catholics be outright okay with good we finally I'm losing and a lot of Catholic countries a bar or pub is not a place of ill repute but it's a gathering place so the way it's portrayed I wondered about the historicity of a bar I mean I mean I think that's probably an insertion I don't know that they would have had bars like that in the time of Jesus I don't recall ever and I remember ins and things like that that probably caught my eye more than the idea that Jesus would be in a bar but no I and I think if you look at the faith stories of some people in the stories I've heard people tell especially in their struggles with addiction I think they'd probably be pretty comforted that the idea that Jesus might come to get them in a bar yeah I think the broad evangelical tradition would resonate with this that it's well-known that Jesus went to places where people of ill repute were hanging out and he was not afraid of rubbing shoulders with them yeah I don't know much about the first century bar scene we did a lot of research on it and it was it wasn't there was nothing that told us that what couldn't have been there's no evidence that there were bars traditionally but there were places we even saw some some carvings and whatnot that represented places where people gathered and told stories and kind of hung out and we thought well they you know it would make sense that they would drink wine to get he said and there was no neon lights in the movie outside flashing and yeah that was good I think probably the biggest anachronism problem with episode 1 is the scene where the fishermen are fighting and he says he gives him a liver punch and says his wine hands I mean the the ancients knew about wine of course and they ancient snoo about livers but I'm not so sure that they connected alcohol with liver disease there's a scene where he punches the guy and says that's why they call me wine hands because of what I do to your liver and a couple people on the set said they've known that wine bothered the leather back and I said hey nerd you don't need to point that out no one's gonna notice and then you've noticed and a few other people have noticed 18 26 is the date I think I could put on that because we thought well maybe they could have known that like because they did look at bodies right after death at times they knew about the body parts right that delivers certain livers seemed worse than others and then maybe a guy had drank too much wine but yeah it's probably a bad one but it was just it made for a good joke cuz because when his brother says oh that was cheesy one hand that sounded more clever in my head I it was actually that actually made it better when they teased each other about it later because the joke is itself is cheesy yeah but but when he makes fun of him for yeah all right well episode 1 we covered a lot of ground and what we're gonna do after each of these episodes is just talk through kind of what we went what went right what went wrong what was close and how each of these different faith traditions may respond to it we hope you'll join us again for after episode 2 you

Channel: The Chosen

Views: 100,857

Rating: 4.9452634 out of 5

Keywords: biblical experts, biblical discussion, Judiasm, Christianity, Evangelism, catholicism, Jesus, Christ, bingeJesus, the chosen, the chosen tv series, behind the scenes, bts, scholars

Id: wRN3PtFebyo

Length: 41min 38sec (2498 seconds)

Published: Tue May 28 2019