MISSED OPPORTUNITY: Exodus: Gods and Kings
by Clearchus
Clash Daily Contributor
If you have not seen the movie, I recommend you go but probably not for all the Hollywood pabulum reasons you think. Before I dive into the details of that, I will say that it was pretty cool to see Batman playing Moses. Christian Bale did a great job.
Watching the movie, I could not help but find interesting similarities with Noah. Both movies present an Atheist’s depiction of God. One of my favorite things to do is sit down with an Atheist or two, over coffee in a near private setting, and ask them to ‘draw’ their word picture of God. The ones who rise to that challenge usually describe a pissed off, childish entity who slew bazillions in petulant anger. Their views nearly always point at an entity it is easy to get angry with. That atheist viewpoint is subtle, and sometimes not so subtle, in the movies Exodus and Noah.
The reason people of faith should see the movie is to challenge dinner table conversation. It will enliven the charge Moses wrote about the law and miracles in Deuteronomy to “teach them diligently to your children, and talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.” (Deuteronomy 6: 7) Even more importantly, it should place all of us in the real Book of Exodus – not the Hollywood script. Then, the challenge will be whether or not the Bible story in scripture is accurate or an Atheist’s viewpoint is accurate.
Among the missed opportunities in Exodus is the concept of Life. Moses’ story begins in a basket placed in the Nile. That was a result of Pharaoh’s order to kill all the Hebrew males. In that simple act, Pharaoh was the ultimate abortionist of his day. God’s penalty was to take the lives of only the Egyptian first born. That resulted in liberty for the Israelites. 1,800 years later, God’s own first born would die to liberate ‘all the families of the earth’ (God’s promise to Abraham) on a cross near Golgotha.
An intriguing facet arrives in the form of a kid talking with Moses. I appreciate the difficulty of presenting a conversation from beyond space time to a human being. Let’s dive deep on that a moment. In one scene that is not in scripture, Moses walks into his adopted father’s (Pharaoh) bedroom. The man is literally being killed by Egyptian medicine and its superstition based practices. Out in the wilderness, wandering the ground outside Canaan, Moses detailed clean and unclean. He was 100% accurate on unclean things that would kill a nomadic people. He either had a full bio-chemical laboratory at his disposal or a conversation with a caring God. Examination of medical rules for cleansing households, dealing with disease, and handling refuse were likewise 100% accurate. It describes modern medical practices for preventing the spread of disease and infection. Another missed opportunity on the silver screen.
My eyes rolled during the plague scenes. There have been few dramas that can equal the cosmic warfare that took place against the gods of Egypt when God used Moses to free Israel from their bondage. We all are familiar with the death of the firstborn that finally caused Pharaoh to release them. Yet few of us, probably, are aware of the significance lying behind the other nine plagues. This was a cosmic war against the demons of darkness. Each plague specifically attacked and ridiculed the pantheon of Egypt. Take a closer look at: http://www.khouse.org/articles/2000/263/
It would be more accurate to call the movie, Exodus: God vs gods and Kings.
If I was a Hollywood producer for a day, I would have ended the movie much more dramatically. The first two chapters of Numbers detail how Israel ‘camped’ each night. The door of the Tabernacle opened to the East, the rising sun, and the direction from which God comes in the end days. This is significant. Of the 40 plus times Jerusalem was conquered over the past several millennia, so far, only two armies took Jerusalem from the East. One was King David. The other was Israeli paratroopers during the Six Day War. The third will be the host of Heaven in the last days.
Sitting in the desert, the book of Numbers indicates that 3 tribes of 150,000 men and their families, led by the tribe of Judah, camped on the east side of the tabernacle compound. Rabbinical precision indicates that they only camped on the east side of the tabernacle, in the width of the tabernacle compound, extending east until all had a place. Not the north east or south east. That is where the garbage and sewage waste went, outside the ‘camp.’ The same is true north and south with 3 tribes and about 100,000 men and their families on each side. On the west, 3 tribes and around 30,000 men and their families camped. Draw that on graph paper with each square representing ten thousand. The way I would have ended Exodus was with a panoramic aerial view of Israel camping in the wilderness, tabernacle compound at the intersection, in the shape of the cross.
Image: http://plusbits.mx/bajo-la-piel-skin-resena-scarlett-en-todo-su-esplendor/
Clearchus is the author of three Science Fiction books; “Sunigin,” “Insurgio,” and “Certo” (Available at Amazon) about the next Texas Revolution. He is a retired Army Field Artilleryman who was one of the last men in the U.S. Army to command an M110 8″ Howitzer firing battery. He currently designs computer networks for commercial, non-profit, and government environments. Married for 32 years to the most gorgeous babe he knows, he and his wife have four kids. Their lives and perspectives straddle military assignments, combat tours, and mission trips across Europe, Asia, and the Horn of Africa.
