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A.D. The Bible Continues


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PhuturePriest

The portrayal of Mary as an old woman bothers me on numerous levels. Also, the Jews were an ethnic race who had olive skin, so the fact they made John and one of the women black just for brownie points from the media is annoying and theologically problematic (As non-Jews couldn't participate in Judaism, and making John black implies he wasn't a real Jew.)

I do like the portrayal of Caiphas, but that's pretty much the only positive thing I have for it. I wouldn't recommend watching it.

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The portrayal of Mary as an old woman bothers me on numerous levels. Also, the Jews were an ethnic race who had olive skin, so the fact they made John and one of the women black just for brownie points from the media is annoying and theologically problematic (As non-Jews couldn't participate in Judaism, and making John black implies he wasn't a real Jew.)

I do like the portrayal of Caiphas, but that's pretty much the only positive thing I have for it. I wouldn't recommend watching it.

How old? Assuming she was 13 around the time of Christ's birth, she would have been near 50 by the time of his death (don't know what the lifespan was back then, but I'd imagine 50 was ancient).

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PhuturePriest

How old? Assuming she was 13 around the time of Christ's birth, she would have been near 50 by the time of his death (don't know what the lifespan was back then, but I'd imagine 50 was ancient).

​There is reason to believe she did not age the way most people do because she was born without original sin, and aging is a result of original sin.

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How old? Assuming she was 13 around the time of Christ's birth, she would have been near 50 by the time of his death (don't know what the lifespan was back then, but I'd imagine 50 was ancient).

​lol. You're gonna hold THAT against a cable miniseries?

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I do like the portrayal of Caiphas, but that's pretty much the only positive thing I have for it. I wouldn't recommend watching it.

​I fully expected you to comment on how handsome this portrayal of Jesus was--but alas, I forgot--you are now the more masculine post-Harry Styles burning PhuturePriest.

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PhuturePriest

​I fully expected you to comment on how handsome this portrayal of Jesus was--but alas, I forgot--you are now the more masculine post-Harry Styles burning PhuturePriest.

​I've been ruined after Jim Caviezel. All portrayals of Jesus at this point must simply be referred to as uglier versions.

Besides, I honestly didn't find this portrayal of Jesus to be remotely handsome.

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White Knight

The Bible Continues A.D is a high quality production that has interesting non gospel adaptions interruptions that are either very brief in Scripture or aren't even there, but that comes with the territory when interrupting things that are either very limited in scripture or aren't recorded at all, which isn't a problem or concern yet, but it could be later on in the series. So far very few problems outside of the limited scripture usage in dialogue with the figures in "The Tomb is Open." episode of the series. Which is good, for now.


The pros: They got a Masculine looking Jesus who is probably second best Jesus portrayal in recent years next to the The Passion of the Christ portrayal of Jesus.
The Passion wasn't too watered down, but still got the message across without turning into something sappy, Something the LORD's Passion is not.
The costumes were high quality, they looked believable and not low budget at all. The acting is okay its nothing outstanding or memorial able. The special effects for what a little there are special effects  get the point across, you don't need very much to tell this story anyway, except with a few parts, the way they used it was appropriate for its usage.

the cons: it is a sequel to the previous mini series "The Bible" which aired on History channel and other channels. It also has the rushed feeling that 2014  movie "The Son of God" had, very few scriptural dialogue to get the point across accurately, too much condensing of the content to fit in a forty five minute runtime without robbing the integrity of the story of the gospels. They didn't do a very good john explaining who was who as far as the disciples themselves, you knew who Peter was, Andrew, The Blessed Mother, and Judas Iscariot, outside of that they didn't do a very good job explaining which disciple is who in the story. The acting with some of the characters is less believable than others Pilate is probably the most believable of the bunch. The editing is a little too much, some of the scenes seem to be off and not entirely convincing of what is going on to allow time to dictate the outcome of the story, it sometimes seems forced.


Overall though I was happy to see a high production of the Bible Continues A.D. air on a major television network outside of the History channel I hope it improves on its short comings and takes more time to explain certain things in "accurate" detail that needs to be explained right, fully, and truly, without watering the content down like the movie "Son of God" did so badly. Everything in scripture about the Jesus story is important to understand correctly in order to make any sense of it.

I hope this show climbs up in quality and not shink down. The Passion of the Christ by Mel Gibson is still the extoled standard of Jesus movies or media content, nothing has beaten it nor will it.

 

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I feel like there is a high risk of cheese with this effort. I missed the Easter Sunday program so will have to start there. I saw it advertised with the slogan "the crucifixion was just the beginning" which somehow struck me the wrong way. 

Pretty sure Mary aged. Or she would have given birth as an infant. Jesus aged too and he didn't have anything to do with sin either.

Or is the argument that Mary somehow aged to 13 and then got stuck since that is when she made her fiat? Not sure what the point of that would be. There's every reason to believe Mary was an older lady if her son was 33 when he died. She probably at least lived into her 50s (past menopause). 

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BarbTherese

If Jesus did not age, would He be fully human like us in all things (sin excepted)?  Suffering and death is a result of original sin and Jesus suffered and died on the cross.

Edited by BarbaraTherese
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totustuus20

I watched Sunday's episode last night, and I enjoyed it, but I have a few questions. The producers and writers seemed to have added some new characters and new dynamics which weren't in the Bible. Did Saint Peter have a daughter named Maya?

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It's my personal belief that 33 is the perfect or peak age, for obvious reasons. At the resurrection our glorified bodies will reflect that. So, because Mary was perfect, she had the appearance of a 33 year-old after reaching that age up until the end of her life. Most of the Catholic artwork I've seen seems to back that up. Anyway, my criticism with the portrayal of Our Lady in AD? She doesn't strike me as very convinced in her faith that Jesus will rise. And she doesn't come off as the reassuring or stable maternal figure that she must have been. It's almost as if she's just another one of the female disciples, in the same boat as everyone else. While I could appreciate the fact that she believed, I wasn't particularly edified by her depiction.

I think the AD series suffers from the same flaws as The Bible. It tries too hard to cater to a contemporary pop culture audience with a low attention span. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it suffers from a kind of political correctness that robs it of authenticity. The dialogue is too modern sounding and Western. And sometimes it feels like I'm watching a soap opera. One of the characters I can't stand is the wife of Caiaphas-- she reminds me of Jezebel from the Old Testament and how manipulative she wasCaiaphas, Pontius Pilate, and his wife Claudia are pretty annoying as well.  The plotting is getting out of control… I can imagine that it all went down like that, there must've been a number of political consequences that spiraled from downplaying the resurrection of Jesus. Very interesting.

All in all, A.D Is essentially faithful to the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles where it really matters (so far anyway). All the extra stuff doesn't contradict the Biblical text. The series is engaging and entertaining to watch and I'm glad that it's on a major network like NBC. Even though I'm not satisfied by it, I'm glad it was made. Something is better than nothing at all. It's just too bad that it doesn't compare to the 1985 miniseries that was a sequel to Jesus of Nazareth. I found that version to be memorable and pretty moving actually.  More convincing acting and better musical score I think.  

Edited by Seven77
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I watched Sunday's episode last night, and I enjoyed it, but I have a few questions. The producers and writers seemed to have added some new characters and new dynamics which weren't in the Bible. Did Saint Peter have a daughter named Maya?

​ The New Testament does refer to St. Peter's mother-in-law so from that we can conclude that he had a wife, and kids most probably.  Who knows? Maybe he did have a daughter  named Maia.  I just thought it was funny how she gave her dad the idea of praying for the Holy Spirit-- and how they just kept repeating the Our Father frantically over and over. That reminds me-- the preparation for Pentecost  didn't strike me as very Catholic. The presence of Our Lady was diminished and the praying seemed to take place only in the course of one night opposed to 9 days. 

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