{"id":27574,"date":"2015-02-06T15:17:02","date_gmt":"2015-02-06T23:17:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/?p=27574"},"modified":"2015-02-06T21:39:57","modified_gmt":"2015-02-07T05:39:57","slug":"a-d-will-cover-only-part-of-the-book-of-acts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2015\/02\/a-d-will-cover-only-part-of-the-book-of-acts.html","title":{"rendered":"A.D.<\/i> will cover only part<\/i> of the book of Acts."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"ad-peter-john-2a\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Last year<\/a>, producer Mark Burnett gave every indication that A.D.: The Bible Continues<\/i> would cover the entire book of Acts and then some. He told one interviewer that the series would tell \u201cthe story of the first 40 years after the crucifixion.\u201d (Acts itself covers only the first 30 years or so.) He told another that he and his team \u201cplanned to get to [the year] 70 as the temple falls\u201d. (Acts itself comes to an end circa AD 62.)<\/p>\n

And then, he said, he hoped the series would be renewed for several more years, until it reached the death of the emperor Constantine in AD 337. But lately there have been signs that the series will be much more limited in scope \u2014 at least for now.<\/p>\n

Exhibit A: PE News<\/a>, the official news source for the Assemblies of God<\/a>, says ministers from that denomination have prepared an \u201cOfficial A.D. Church Kit\u201d that includes 12 weeks\u2019 worth of sermons \u2014 presumably one for each episode of the 12-part series \u2014 that are \u201cdesigned to take viewers deeper into the first 10 chapters of Acts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Exhibit B: while promoting the series a few weeks ago, the actors who play Peter, Paul and John discussed the fact that they had already shot eight episodes \u2014 and that they were only just getting to the conversion of Paul, which happens in Acts 9<\/a>:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=lx6DHdIolLg<\/p>\n

Exhibit C, and this is the clincher: Roma Downey posted a video<\/a> on one of the show\u2019s official websites \u2014 which I hadn\u2019t seen until I had almost finished writing this post \u2014 in which she states that the series will cover just the first 10 chapters of Acts.<\/p>\n

That would take the series to the conversion of Cornelius, which happened in the late 30s or early 40s AD \u2014 long, long before the destruction of the temple in AD 70.<\/p>\n

A few random comments and speculations:<\/p>\n

First, it\u2019s interesting that the series will apparently include the conversion of Paul and<\/i> the conversion of the first Gentile, i.e. Cornelius \u2014 but it will not<\/i> get as far as Paul\u2019s ministry to the Gentiles, which was very controversial within the early church.<\/p>\n

Second, it occurs to me that Caiaphas, Herod Antipas and Pontius Pilate \u2014 the chief Jewish and Roman leaders at the time of Jesus\u2019 execution \u2014 were all deposed between AD 36 and 39. Given that the series begins<\/i> with the crucifixion of Jesus, and given that the first season seems to be coming to an end not long after these people all lost their jobs, perhaps their downfalls will be one of the show\u2019s major arcs?<\/p>\n

Third, Paul writes in Galatians 1<\/a> that he spent three years in Damascus and Arabia after converting to Christianity, before returning to Jerusalem and meeting with Peter and at least one of the other apostles. Will A.D.<\/i> incorporate this detail?<\/p>\n

Finally, this is one more way in which the new series will be very<\/i> different from A.D.: Anno Domini<\/a><\/i>, the 1985 miniseries that also<\/i> consisted of 12 hours aired on NBC. That<\/i> series covered the entire book of Acts and ended not long after the martyrdoms of Peter and Paul, which happened after<\/i> the events of Acts \u2014 but it looks like this new series will need to be renewed for another season or two before it gets that far.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The new series — which was once going to cover the first 40 years after the crucifixion of Jesus — will now cover only the first 10 or so.<\/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":[1306,2615,2607,430,924,2616,505,184,52],"class_list":["post-27574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-ad-beyond-the-bible","tag-adam-levy","tag-babou-ceesay","tag-caiaphas","tag-cornelius","tag-emmet-scanlan","tag-paul","tag-pontius-pilate","tag-roma-downey"],"yoast_head":"\nA.D. will cover only part of the book of Acts.<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The new series -- which was once going to cover the first 40 years after the crucifixion of Jesus -- will now cover only the first 10 or so.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2015\/02\/a-d-will-cover-only-part-of-the-book-of-acts.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A.D. will cover only part of the book of Acts.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The new series -- which was once going to cover the first 40 years after the crucifixion of Jesus -- will now cover only the first 10 or so.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2015\/02\/a-d-will-cover-only-part-of-the-book-of-acts.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"FilmChat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-02-06T23:17:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-02-07T05:39:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.production.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/files\/2015\/02\/ad-peter-john-2a-1024x385.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Peter T. 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