Some Thoughts on Historical Interpretation
FROM AN ARCHITECTURAL HISTORIAN'S PERSPECTIVE
The women in The Chosen. — Angel Studios
Coming to Terms with the Death of Ramah
My wife is a big fan of Dallas Jenkins’ “The Chosen.” I enjoy watching it with her, but I am probably more in the category of “I like historical interpretation, but I like to see the “real” historical site I am visiting clearly delineated from the “extrapolation” that is done to flesh out the interpretation. The Governor’s Palace in Williamsburg, Virginia is a prime example. The whole thing was reconstructed from a drawing by Thomas Jefferson, who had sought to redesign it. It had been demolished before Colonial Williamsburg was established.
In my youth, the Governor’s Palace reconstruction was lavishly furnished. It looked like a set from Downton Abbey. I took a preservation workshop there in the 1970s and they were in the process of rethinking the whole thing. The last time I visited the Governor’s Palace, the décor was more modest. It was, after all, an outpost at the edge of a vast frontier.
The new interpretation was explained in light of a description of Governor Alexander Spottswood’s ‘Enchanted Castle’ out at the Germanna Settlements. “The room was ablaze with light, there were SEVEN candles burning!” In other words, the great ‘palaces’ were probably less pretentious than first imagined from descriptions of the time.
Most people at the time lived in simpler dwellings. HGTV hadn’t been invented yet. So, what does all this have to do with a dramatization of the life of Christ? – Everything! Jenkins’ work is a piece of historical interpretation. Most works of this genre have everyone’s lines straight out of the Gospel of Luke. They carefully limit themselves to acting out the known story from the texts.
Campus Crusade’s Jesus Film does this. All the dialogue is from the texts. But we remember stories like Ben Hur and The Robe. They were great historical fiction. They essentially created a fictional story alongside the historical one. Its like the John Frye character in the Williamsburg introduction film. It exists somewhat detached from the actual event.
The Chosen introduces a new level of storytelling. It’s like letting the 20th century decorators and gardeners at the Governor’s Mansion. You get more story than the history tells you. Sometimes you legitimately find yourself quoting that old tome “The book is better.”
Full disclosure here; I like The Chosen. It is a great attempt to flesh out a well-told story. As such, it does a wonderful job of bringing the old tales to life. Also, if Peter has a mother-in-law, you may surmise he has a wife. So, historical analysis often assumes Peter is the only married disciple. Well, he’s the only one whose mother-in-law was healed.
So, these were pretty much ordinary guys – from a variety of backgrounds. In a typical group of ordinary guys, you might expect some to be married. So, Jenkins created a fictional relationship for Thomas (the doubting disciple – hold that thought). Yasmine Al-Bustami plays Ramah, Thomas’ fiancé.
Jenkins builds a love story around this. Ramah’s father does not approve. Ramah remembers a culturally approved work-around. Jesus agrees to give her away. Season Four of the show appears headed for a wedding (Ramah made the wine that was at Cana, remember). Jesus loves weddings. He performed his first miracle there so family could save face.
Then, abruptly, without much warning, Ramah is murdered by the Roman Quintas. It is a shocking and disturbing extra-historical twist. It left fans shouting “foul!” The segment where Ramah dies begins with a flashback to David mourning the death of the son he conceived with Bathsheba. “He shall not return to me, but I will go to him.”
This follows a precedent set when, in another flashback, David is presented by Asaph with the 77th Psalm. “I will remember the works of the Lord: Surly I will remember thy wonders of old.” This Psalm serves as an overview of Peter’s wife losing their baby (not in Scripture), and Simon Peter’s working out his grief, anger, and ultimate reaffirmation of trust in the Divine.
That segment seemed to drag on (grieving really does though), and clouds the ‘Feeding of the 5000.” That’s the problem. The fictional story becomes larger than it should be. Sure, things in this life don’t make sense. That great saint, Mother Theresa said that God often seemed silent. Yes, it is a theme worth visiting.
But God seemingly distant and Simon Peter’s grief become problematic when Jonathan Roumie (TV Jesus) is present but seemingly uncaring when his disciples go through hard things. That’s where I find the “death of Ramah” scene failing. It comes across a bit like the coach saying “suck it up, buttercup,” and falls short (in my mind) of the deep relationship I do think God desires to have with us. You know, some coaches are tough but show love and you remember them. Some are just hard-nosed and you endure them. I find myself legitimately asking myself “what kind of coach is TV Jesus?”
I think Jenkins says something like “Jesus doesn’t embrace Thomas because he would want to be left alone,” but this is theater, and I want to see some gesture of comfort. I don’t think this is the time to develop some theological treatise on personal tragedy and importance of mission. I want to see at least a glimmer of the Jesus who carved little toys for Abigail and Joshua – especially in light of the buildup of Jesus initially being willing to stand in for Ramah’s father and bless the wedding.
That’s a game changer to me. “TV Jesus” is emotionally all on board right up to the death of Ramah, then he’s awkwardly distant. This is obviously the prelude to ‘Doubting Thomas’’ doubt. I think of C. S. Lewis. It was the death of his mother that led to his crisis of faith and the writing of his long poem ‘Dymer.’ It took him years to get to the wind-blown leaves on Addison’s Walk – the place where he found faith.
But in The Chosen, we’ve moved on to a great portrayal of the healing of the Centurion’s servant (son)? And Mary and Martha. Thomas is indeed left on his own. Judas is starting to help himself to the money in the bag. The story is still good, especially as it recounts real events.
But I find myself less trusting of Roumie’s character, and that may indeed be the screenwriter’s intent – to ultimately lead us to trust in God’s unseen hand of mercy. Perhaps Jenkins wants to take us to Addison’s Walk by way of Dymer.
I wanted to take a Chosen break, but wife wanted to watch more, so we’ve continued. It’s good, but I’m a bit less enthused. I’m sometimes wanting a bit of Top Gun or a documentary on building the Brooklyn Bridge. I’m too analytical for my own good.
I like that Jonathan Roumie took time off to play controversial Jesus freak Lonnie Frisbee. It was the perfect time to remind everyone he’s a human actor. In fact, it is a good time to remind ourselves that this is a humanly written work of art. A lot of us cringed at the much-rehearsed Sermon on the Mount in The Chosen coming off like a rock concert – “Jesus do you like the red sash or the blue?” My sense is that the actual event was more organic – with no ‘advance crew’ posting flyers.
I get the impression (from the interviews) that the Last Supper is going to be portrayed in the manner of Leonardo’s painting(s) [1]. I know that’s the image many of us have because it was the image on Grandma’s kitchen wall, but it is a Renaissance image. The disciples likely never sat in chairs. They would have reclined on cushions around a low table.
This past Holy Week a local church presented a tableau reenactment of the Leonardo painting. It was beautiful. Historically speaking though, it probably wasn’t what the upper room was really like.
But I digress. The sudden death of Ramah throws a big monkey wrench in the flow of the portrayal of history. I would think the band of women disciples would have in reality had much more shock and grief. I’m not the screenwriter, but may I gently suggest that it might have been better to write the story a little differently.
If I have the foreknowledge of impending tragedy (here’s one for the theologians), I’m certainly not going to play along to the point of offering to give the bride away. A better story, in my mind follows: Eden (Simon Peter’s fictional wife) counsels Ramah that the life of a disciple’s wife is not easy. The disapproval of Ramah’s father, and the unrequited love become a nice side-story.
It doesn’t become an intense derailment of the story. It flows as a subplot (like the friendship of Matthew and Mary Magdalene). You get to keep a beloved character. We know that the disciples die martyr’s deaths, just like Marcellus and Diana do in The Robe. We can wrestle with Paul’s admonition in 1 Corinthians 7:27. How do we, as ordinary people, with ordinary human longings and desires, live in light of “the present crisis?”