Holy Moses! Netflix Commands a New Version of ‘Testament’

ICYMI: Netflix is telling its commercialized and humanism-enriched version of the “Prince of Egypt,” the Ten Commandments, and a fabled journey to the Promised Land in Testament: The Story of Moses. 

If you’re expecting a full escapade like Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments, don’t. Then again, if you’re expecting one of those journeys through the Bible by way of the Smithsonian, don’t do that either. It’s both. 

The episodes will include dramatic reenactments of Moses’ life, from drifting into Bithiah’s (Pharoah’s daughter) life to leading the Children of Israel from Egypt. There will also be excerpts from interviews involving Biblical scholars, ancient historians, and even British actor Charles Dance as narrator (aka Tywin Lannister in Game of Thrones, Master Vampire in Dracula Untold, William Randolph Hearst in Mank) walking us through a few scenes.

Looks promising? Looks inviting? If you watch that trailer of Testament carefully, it’s also broadly misleading. The three-part epic docuseries dropped in the streamer on March 27 and dropped the ball in a ham-handed fashion for viewers everywhere.

Testament Takes a Chosen Premise, Sorta

It appears there are some epic recreations of Moses’ story (played by Avi Azulay). While the archetypical Biblical prose is absent from many portions of this docudrama–think Dallas Jenkins’ global success The Chosen- there are blatant revision notes in the trailer.

Where? Did you see Moses on Mount Sinai hurling the tablets of Holy Writ to its crumbled demise below? Any chapter and verse where that happened in the Pentateuch? Was this a memorable scene from Mel Brooks’ spoof History of the World, Part I? Uh, no. It’s reminiscent of the out-of-bounds notes from Darren Aronofsky’s Noah, like the foolhardy delusions called “rock monsters.”

Hopefully, Testament does not wax eloquent and makes the Bible a poor rendition of Reader’s Digest. However, the docudrama does seek to make Moses tangible, a guy to whom we can all relate. This was the goal of the producers, although they may have gone a skosh over the mountaintop to make it real.

“Anyone who has seen The Ten Commandments as a child was well aware of the more epic elements of the tale. The burning bush, the plagues, Passover, the Red Sea, and, of course, the Ten Commandments. What really drew us in was the mystery of Moses’ inner life, his struggles with his own identity, his self-doubt, his humanness.”

Emre Sahin and Kelly McPherson, producers of Netflix’s Testament: The Story of Moses

His inner struggles created the reality for a man with a livid temper who killed a bully and buried him in the sand (Exodus 2:11-12). He struck a rock when told to speak to it (Numbers 20:10-14). And then, Moses lost his faith and didn’t enter the Promised Land (Deuteronomy 34:10-13).

Each will be on full display, so we can all understand them. However, there’s a stark difference between interpreting the heart of the message and just sticking something else in the story because you’re woke.

The Need for a Last Will and Testament

There is a place for movies and TV series like these that stretch the Bible into areas of saltwater taffy but still leave portions of the sacred unsettled. The parts of Testament are divided into “The Prophet,” “The Plagues,” and the “Promised Land.”

For anyone who knows the story of Moses from the Bible, watching The Prince of Egypt, seeing The Ten Commandments, or pilfering through the pages of “Greatest Legends and Heroes of the Bible” in Sunday School, those three segments ring true for just about anyone. Yet, taking a “Smarter Than a 5th Grader” approach to one of history’s most legendary characters isn’t exactly the work of chronicling antiquity.

That’s something Netflix understands all too well.

They can build a story into something that is Ken Burns-esque, but the road to get to the end can be pothole-prone. Queen Cleopatra is a historical docudrama with Swiss Cheese-like holes in it. (Watch it. You’ll see). Another foible-laden docuseries was Alexander: The Making of a God, which showed the boy emperor climbing up the ladder and skipping a few rungs along the way.

Netflix is the streaming mecca for documentaries but stick to church if you’re looking for a scholarly lesson ripe with hermeneutics and apologetics. This is only TV.

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