{"id":25878,"date":"2014-12-27T12:49:35","date_gmt":"2014-12-27T20:49:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/?p=25878"},"modified":"2014-12-27T12:49:35","modified_gmt":"2014-12-27T20:49:35","slug":"exodus-gods-and-kings-the-scholars-speak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2014\/12\/exodus-gods-and-kings-the-scholars-speak.html","title":{"rendered":"Exodus: Gods and Kings<\/i> — the scholars speak!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"vlcsnap-2014-10-01-12h41m11s250\"<\/a>Yesterday<\/a> it was reported that Egypt had banned Exodus: Gods and Kings<\/a><\/i> because of the film\u2019s \u201chistorical inaccuracies\u201d.<\/p>\n

Chief among these was the film\u2019s suggestion that the pyramids were built by the ancient Hebrews, which Gaber Asfour, the Egyptian minister of culture, said was not only anachronistic but was also evidence of the film\u2019s \u201cZionist<\/a>\u201d agenda.<\/p>\n

But what do actual historians make of the film?<\/p>\n

A few weeks ago, the studio released a video featuring three Egyptologists<\/a> who spoke about subjects like Ramses, slavery and Egyptian empire-building in broad terms, without directly addressing the portrayal of these things in the film.<\/p>\n

Since then, a few articles have popped up, looking at the film\u2019s historical advisers.<\/p>\n

Chief among these is Alan Lloyd, an Egyptologist who was already profiled by the Philippine Daily Inquirer<\/a><\/i> and has since been profiled by Deadline<\/a>, which quotes him to the effect that Exodus: Gods and Kings<\/i> is \u201cas accurate as one could expect\u201d \u2014 though he admits that the film could have been even more<\/i> accurate:<\/p>\n

Dr. Lloyd says the production went to great lengths to get costumes, make-up and the physical environment right. But he didn\u2019t begrudge Scott a little artistic license. \u201cThere are things which aren\u2019t entirely accurate,\u201d he says. \u201cThe prominence given to cavalry in the battle context (for example). The ancient Egyptians at the relevant period did not use cavalry<\/a>, though horsemen certainly occur in our documentation. However, this is a case where the cinematic needed to take precedence over historicity.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Times of Israel<\/a><\/i>, for its part, spoke to Rabbi David Baron<\/a> of Temple of the Arts in Beverly Hills, who also served as a consultant on the film:<\/p>\n

Did they show you the shooting draft of the script? Did you come to the set at all? I\u2019m just curious what your involvement was.<\/b><\/p>\n

Not the shooting draft; they showed me the script, and I gave them extensive, copious notes on it. I told them where they could anticipate criticisms. They did not follow all of my advice, but they received it, and they did discuss it. I am told, in a number of writers\u2019 meetings that they did have lengthy discussions about some of my comments, but ultimately, they decided to go in the direction they were intending to go all along. And I think they did make a couple of tweaks based on some of my notes. . . .<\/p>\n

What I\u2019m really pleased that the writers did is that they looked at some of the new research of hieroglyphics that have come to the fore, that indicate references to a God who\u2019s called \u201cI am,\u201d and to Egyptian soldiers floating on the water, referencing a time very close \u2014 if not right there at the Exodus. And a young researcher named Brad Sparks<\/a> has been promoting these discoveries to the biblical research community. And if they\u2019re upheld, they will verify that this episode did actually occur. . . .<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t remember crocodiles, though, in the original text. That one was new to me.<\/b><\/p>\n

Well, there are a group of Sephardic scholars who describe the second plague as crocodiles, not as frogs, so he kind of got \u2018em both in.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And what about scholars who didn\u2019t<\/i> serve as consultants on the film?<\/p>\n

NPR<\/a> spoke to Robert Alter<\/a>, professor of Hebrew and comparative literature at the University of California in Berkeley, who discussed how monotheism was a \u201cwork in progress\u201d for the Israelites of this period, and whether there was any basis for the controversy over the film\u2019s alleged \u201cwhitewashing<\/a>\u201d of its characters:<\/p>\n

Well, of course, we know something about what ancient Egyptians looked like because we have representations of them in visual art; and they were not black Africans, they were Caucasians \u2014 think of the statue of Nefertiti<\/a> that everybody has seen in some reproduction. In the film, there are some black characters and they are servants, or probably slaves, and I suspect that that\u2019s historically realistic. Now, as far as the Israelites proper, we don\u2019t really have visual representations of them. I would guess that most of them were on the dark side of Caucasian. On the other hand, we\u2019re told about David that he was either ruddy or a redhead, which would mean that he might have been very fair.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Finally, the latest edition of Wired<\/i> magazine\u2019s Geek\u2019s Guide to the Galaxy<\/a> podcast features Robert M. Price<\/a> and Richard Carrier<\/a>, both of whom happen to be the sort of atheists who question whether the historical Jesus even existed<\/a> \u2014 and Carrier volunteers the opinion that Exodus<\/i> is \u201cthe worst Ridley Scott film ever made,\u201d for aesthetic reasons as well as its lack of fidelity to both history and the Bible.<\/p>\n

If I find any other scholarly responses to the film, I will add them to this post.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What did the ancient Egyptians look like? Did they have a cavalry? What did the film get right and what did it get wrong? Scholars who were consulted by the filmmakers, and scholars who weren’t, answer these questions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1116,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[2667,2714,743,2713,2712,2715,2711],"class_list":["post-25878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-alan-lloyd","tag-david-baron","tag-exodus-2015","tag-gaber-asfour","tag-richard-carrier","tag-robert-alter","tag-robert-m-price"],"yoast_head":"\nExodus: Gods and Kings -- the scholars speak!<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"What did the ancient Egyptians look like? Did they have a cavalry? What did the film get right and what did it get wrong? 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