BBC1 - Miracles of Jesus

[Carus Andiae]

Thought I might post a review of this since it is our period, has some relevance to the discussions of early Christianity in the Civilian forum, and had a few Roman soldiers in it.

The idea was to show what the miracles of Jesus (assuming that they happened as described) told us about Jesus - how he saw himself, and how others would have viewed him. Interestingly the Beeb chose a Muslim, well known Middle East reporter Ragheh Omar, to present. As usual, there were lots of reconstructions.

Perhaps it might have been interesting to non-Christians, but I would have thought that any churcgoer with a reasonably competant preacher wouldn't have learnt anything new; as a Christian, I mentally re-titled it 'Egg Sucking For Grandmothers'.

Secondly, they completely wasted the opportunity for a view 'from the other side' - nothing was really made of the presenter being a Muslim, and any new perspectives he could have brought to it.

Third some of the comparisons with Old Testament miracles were forced - ni some cases they made statements about miracles which didn't truly tally with the gospel accounts in order to make their point.

Fourth, a minor point, though it was interesting to here the dialogue of the re-constructions in Aramaic, it was curious to note that whilst most of the cast were played by Middle Eastern originating actors, Jesus himself was European, presumably British.

Finally - the costumes of the civilians were all the usual Arabic style long robes right out of the Children's Picture Bible, Jesus had long hair as usual, and the Romans... dear oh dear. Quite decent bronze 'Italic' helmets, but the flimsy leather armour, too-small, too-flat scuta etc were right out of an old sword-and-sandles epic. Worse than 'Gladiator' hock:

So, overall, not impressed.

[Tarbicus]

Jesus himself was European, presumably British.

Did you think? I thought he looked Middle Eastern, and his hair was a lot shorter than usually seen.

[Carus Andiae]

Can't find a cast list for it, but Jesus was played by Chris something or other, definitely a British name. He could be Jewish, though. It just struck me when looking at the cast list that every one elese had very Middle Eastern names. And I agree, his hair could have been worse.

I forgot to mention in the original post:

When introducing each miracle they make a brief attempt to suggest non-miraculous explanations for the events, which seemed a bit silly. If the iracles didn't happen, then the whole point of the programme, to discover what the miracles meant, was lost somewhat. I suppose they had to for balance, though.