I like Professor Peter Enns' suggestion on this subject (though not on many other subjects). He cites Victor Matthews' book, Old Testament Turning Points: The Narratives That Shaped a Nation
“The Bible” puts the emPHAsis on the wrong sylLABle. Although the series follows the storyline of the Old Testament, the producers opted to go more with the “big names”–let’s call it “celebrity”–approach to teaching the Bible than than the “stages of the story” approach as Matthews does. [emphasis in the original]
That’s why Samson and Daniel each get their own hour and all we see of Solomon is him playing with a model of the temple as a boy rather than lingering for a few minutes on how he caused a civil war. Sheesh.
So, given the precious 10 hours, here’s what I would have done.
I would have given the last 3 hours to Jesus and the book of Acts, ending with Paul’s imprisonment in Rome. Telling the story of the Christian Bible is, after all, the point of the series, and giving about 65 years of history 1/3 of the airtime sounds right to me.
The remaining 7 hours I would divide this way.
Adam (and the flood as a transition to Abraham): .5 hours
Abraham (with Jacob and Joseph as a transition to Moses): 1.5 hours
Moses (go nuts with the plagues and the Red Sea, but don’t forget to linger a bit on Mt. Sinai) 1 hour
David (leading off with conquest and judges and ending with the birth of Solomon) 1.5 hours
Divided Monarchy and Fall of the Northern Kingdom (beginning with Solomon’s screw ups and ending with Assyrian invasions, include a prophet or two) 1 hour
Fall of the Southern Kingdom and Return from Exile (leading off with maybe Josiah’s reforms, including Babylonian invasion, and return and rebuilding of the temple) 1.5 hours
As a transition to the New Testament, they could talk about the challenges of maintaining Jewish ways of life and frustrated messianic hopes in the centuries after the exile. Then, enter Jesus to redefine Jewish messianic hope.
That’s a lot to cover and the same sorts of adaptations would need to happen as we see in the series now. A lot would have to be left out. Still, it’s better than giving Samson and Daniel about 2 of the 10 hours, dragging out Abraham, and dealing with the post exilic period in literally one sentence.
Me: I think such a scheme makes a lot of sense. It certainly would offer a better overall view of the narrative structure of the Old Testmant. Enns correctly says,
. . . most of the Old Testament is concerned about land: getting it, settling in it, keeping it, getting kicked out of it, and in the case of the southern kingdom of Judah, coming back home.
Related posts:
- WEIRD THINGS HAPPENED ON THE SET OF 'THE BIBLE'
- HISTORY CHANNEL'S "THE BIBLE" REACHED 13.1 MILLION VIEWERS
- WHY THE BIBLE SHOULD BE TAUGHT IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
- ORAL TRADITION AND THE NEW TESTAMENT