This is a series I have complex feelings on. Hello catholiccontriversy here and this lent FOX made a mini-series called "The Faithful," a 3 part series that tells the story of Abraham fathering Ishmael and Isaac, the rivalry between Esau and Jacob, and Jacob's marriage to Leah and Rachel, all told from the perspective of Sarah, Rebekah, and Rachel. Episode 3 aired on Easter Sunday, episode 2 aired on Palm Sunday, and episode 1 aired the week prior. Since this was coming from secular FOX Network under the management of Disney, I went in cautious, but I was hopeful because it'd be nice to have more adaptations of the bible. Plus, Hallo was advertizing on it, and they tend to be good judges of character. Before I get into the religious analyses, I'll just go over some technical elements. The set design is great, as is the costuming. I'm not the most knowledgeable about how things were back in genesis times, but it sure felt period accurate. The acting is also really good, I believed the emotions everyone had, which was accented with the lighting and cinematography. A lot of people like to complain about conservative media being poor technical quality, but this was high technical quality. OK, now for the religious analysis.
One thing that I like is this covers passages and stories that are not very commonly told (at least in the Catholic church). I know the binding of Isaac really well since it's part of the readings every year, but we never talk about Ishmael or Esau or Jacob, so that's pretty cool. On that note, they don't go into great detail of the binding of Isaac, probably because it is so well known. They also do a really good job with "portraying God" by making Him a force that is felt but not seen. They also "reasonably expand" on the passages, like with showing how Rachel is a shepherdess and what that would mean, and what 7 years of service to Jacob is, and what the strong emotions were like and what would draw them to have those emotions (instead of a single line of "but Leah was hated" it expanded on why Leah was hated). In a way, it kind of reminds me of Veggie Tales and how they would expand on stories. It's also not super graphic, a strong TV-PG, which makes it approachable.
Now for what makes me hesitant to say "this is great," and that is how it handles Abraham and Jacob fathering children. Prior to this my general knowledge of Abraham's children was "Sarah was infertile, and it was after much prayer and faith was Sarah able to bear Isaac." I had read all of Genesis so I know I heard about Hagar and Ishmael at least once, but it wasn't something that "got a lot of attention" and I kind of forgot about. Same thing with Jacob and his marriage to Leah and Rachel, I read it with a full reading of Genesis but I kind of forgot about it. When the show was talking about Sarah having Abraham father his child with Hagar, and how they "kept trying to Sarah's jealous displeasure," I'm like "what? I need to verify this because this feels kind of wrong." I look it up and yeah, I had just forgotten about Hagar and Ishmael. The same thing with Jacob and the deception into consummating Leah instead of Rachel and so being married to her first, and then the jealous rivalry between Leah and Rachel in their competition for Jacob's love, with arguing over who Jacob will "have relations with" that night. So the complexity comes from how "highly implicit" it is, especially when compared to how the translation I reread handled it. In the ESV copy I reread when it covers Abraham fathering Ishmael with Hagar, it basically just says "and so Abraham went into Hagar and she bore a son," it wasn't "and so for months Abraham went to Hagar's tent to lay with her for months until she was with child. Even though it was Sarah's idea it made her upset and jealous." It's not necessarily implausible since this is how children come into the world except for that one time, and it would give reason for Sarah's frustration with Hagar, but it just felt a little off. Same thing with Jacob accidentally marrying Leah and fathering many children with Leah even though his heart is for Rachel. Again, the ESV basically translates the passage as "but there was a plot and Jacob went into Leah that night, and when he awoke he was with Leah," not "and there was a great plot to have Jacob bed Leah, the deception was so strong that he didn't realize he was bedding Rachel's sister" as was shown in The Faithful. Likewise, when covering Jacob fathering children with Leah, it just says "Jacob went into Leah, and she bore [this son], which made Rachel jealous," not the "and after lying with Leah and bearing a son, he promised Rachel he would lay with her again since his heat was for Rachel, but then with the birth of Reuben he became closer to Leah, and they had a bitter rivalry over who Jacob would lay with" as was shown in the series. It's not like this is implausible either, it kind of is "what needs to happen to father children" and would explain what went on and why Joseph is Jacob's favorite son, but it seemed to "linger more than what was really necessary" and just felt off.
I don't really know about this one. This definitely isn't The Star where it rewrites major biblical stories and motivations. The 2nd episode when it was just Esau and Jacob and there isn't any "who is lying with who" is completely unobjectionable and fully covers the stories with respect, as does everything else in the other episodes, so it definitely seems like the creators have reverence for the source material and wanted to tell those stories. It also inspired me to reread these passages of Genesis to "fact check" it, and it's hard to make "it inspired me to read my bible" a bad thing. Then while these passages are "bad actions," I had to remind myself "this is before God gave Moses all the rules, these guys were trying their best but still fell to bad things of the era, and the fact that they had problems after doing these things was foreshadowing to the laws of Moses." Also, even though they do "linger on things," this is still a PG show and doesn't get too crazy. However, it just feels kind of off. I recommend reading Genesis 16 and 29-30 as a companion to episode 1 and 3, respectively. It is a pretty good series, just prepare yourself that this is not necessarily "squeaky clean." This has been catholiccontriversy, signing off, and may God bless you.
