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Fans pour funding into ‘The Chosen’

252 points by jkuria 5y ago

wombatmobile 5y ago
I knew Jesus, before he was a superstar. https://youtube.com/watch?v=C21mASBdAkU https://youtube.com/watch?v=C21mASBdAkU
civilized 5y ago
Darn, not the Chaim Potok novel.
- selimthegrim 5y ago
  Beat me to it.
- Freak_NL 5y ago
  I wondered briefly if someone was making a retelling of The Wheel of Time from the point of view of the Forsaken. That would make for an interesting uncanonical novel.
neonate 5y ago
https://archive.md/opL80 https://archive.md/opL80
MontagFTB 5y ago
Most Christian-faith-based media is overly saccharine or unrealistic. The Chosen is one of the few pieces of Christian media I’ve not just watched, but thoroughly enjoyed. It focuses on characters rife with their own set of personal issues who are changed by their encounters with Jesus. It portrays a realistic world full of problems we can all relate to. Ironically, it is a breath of fresh air precisely because it has a bit more grit.
- SavantIdiot 5y ago
  The Last Temptation of Christ was brilliant in this regard. Jesus of Nazareth as a person that didn't really want to be the Christ.
  - phd514 5y ago
    There's a huge difference between The Chosen and LToC -- while both may present a "gritty" and imaginative narrative including fictionalized accounts that are not canon, The Chosen does it in a way that does not contradict anything canonical while LToC depicts a sinfully lustful Christ who abdicates his role as savior by stepping down from the cross. As such, it should come as no surprise that The Chosen is popular and well-received among believers and LToC was widely criticized.
    - tootie 5y ago
      Depends whose canon you're talking about because there is no canonical canon. Kazantzakis was very influenced by Gnosticism which set him at odds with the Orthodox and Catholic versions. Personally I found the story to be the most accessible and human version of the story.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - SavantIdiot 5y ago
      Where does the LToC contradict the gospels? They aren't a comprehensive diary of his every thought. You can't say Jesus didn't fantasize about a life with Mary, because that's proving a negative. It's just a proposed fiction to imagine Jesus in a more human way than the vagaries of the canonical gospels. I can see how that would upset some people, but I'd be interested to know where the contradictions exist. It made me really consider the gravity of being the son of god in a way that the gospels simply aren't equipped to deliver.
      - ekianjo 5y ago
        books 2000 years ago were not written to talk about feelings. this is rather recent in litterature circa 16th or 17th century onward
- boomboomsubban 5y ago
  I'll admit to being biased against the show from the start, but your description of it sounds like Jesus is just a constant deus ex machina. Is there more to it than "Jesus shows up and everything's cool now?"
  - colordrops 5y ago
    Considering its meaning, is your use of the term "Deus ex machina" (god out of the machine) intentionally ironic?
    - boomboomsubban 5y ago
      It's just the term for a seemingly unsolvable situation suddenly being solved by an unexpected occurrence.
  - jollybean 5y ago
    "but your description of it sounds like Jesus is just a constant deus ex machina." - there is no reasonable way to infer this from the given comment. Thee 'bias' may be a bit stronger than imagined.
    - boomboomsubban 5y ago
      Not particularly. Their description was that everybody has real problems that are changed by coming in contact with Jesus. Real problems, solved by a solution suddenly showing up in the third act. A deus ex machina.
  - eitland 5y ago
    Haven't seen the Chosen yet but the stories as written are quite a bit more nuanced.
- scop 5y ago
  I concur. As a believing Christian, if somebody comes along and says “hey do you want to watch this Jesus show/movie?” my honest answer is…not really! I went into the Chosen expecting it to be awful and have been very impressed by the story telling and production quality . You pinpoint part of the problem: in an attempt to be reverent, shows or movies will make it all so pious as to remove anything earthly or real about it. And, surprise surprise, that’s dreadfully boring. Or if there is some grit/problem, there’s a “once saved always saved” bent to it where the problem is fixed and then the movie ends…as of life isn’t full of hardships after baptism/whatever! I think the second problem for Jesus films is due to the nature of the gospels themselves: outside of the Passion narratives, they are strung together stories with little narrative connection. (I know, I know, it’s more nuanced than that…but the point being that a film director just can’t make a film about the gospels without making it seem like a random string of events with largely different people/places). It is this problem that the Chosen so masterfully addresses: make the focus on the characters in the story, not Jesus, and thereby give a narrative form to what are otherwise brief, well-known stories. The healing at the well, whose brother is made to be a militant apostle, is a great example. There have also been some flourishes in the show that have indicated some real artistic meditation/thought by the writers, for example when Jesus and John discuss the Torah and John is given the first insights into his eventual theology.
  - ARandomerDude 5y ago
    > ... outside of the Passion narratives, they are strung together stories with little narrative connection... It may seem this way given the style of books we're accustomed to reading in the 21st century, but there are clear narratives to each Gospel, and the events are amazingly well arranged. You might enjoy a book like Reading the Gospels Wisely. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0801039371 https://www.amazon.com/dp/0801039371
    - scop 5y ago
      Thanks for the recommendation! I’ve read NT Wright and Bauckham and others on this topic, but I haven’t heard of Pennington. Will check it out! Wright in particular has really helped me to see each gospel in its own narrative form. I agree that the gospels do have narrative structure when considered as products of the first century. Perhaps the closest to a “modern” narrative would be John’s gospel, but even that is very difficult to tackle given the heavy theology interwoven throughout. In fact, it was seeing scenes from John’s gospel in The Chosen that really alerted me to the talent of the filmmakers. Seeing them pull of John 3 in a meaningful and natural way was phenomenal, as they avoided the potential for dry/impersonal theology by wrapping it in the deeply personal experience of Nichodemus.
- maroonblazer 5y ago
  I was raised Catholic, am now an atheist, but I'd watch this too. I also highly recommend "Jesus of Nazareth". It's a more traditional telling of the New Testament but the cast and performances are truly outstanding. https://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Nazareth-Robert-Powell/dp/B075B2G56S https://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Nazareth-Robert-Powell/dp/B075B...
  - gattilorenz 5y ago
    There's also The Gospel According to St. Matthew, by Pasolini. It's currently in my to-watch list, but many people claimed it's a step above Zeffirelli's Jesus of Nazareth
- sircastor 5y ago
  It’s a challenging tightrope to walk: You either have to take a lot of creative liberties about Jesus (for lack of explicit background) or you limit your content to just the source material, and end up with a very limited depiction. Everyone (or at least every Christian) has their own version of Jesus in their head and when media is produced about him, they correlate that version with their own.
  - jollybean 5y ago
    This is such a good point. 'The Passion of Christ' is a great example of something that can be truly emotive for some, but not for others. I found it barely interesting and frankly not sure how much it has to do with Christianity, or rather in a pedantic way. It was nice production design, neat to see 'what it would have looked like' and I'm actually sympathetic to why 'it's good in a way' ... but to me it's all kinds of besides the point. Populism is perhaps more real in Faith than it is in politics, there are various lowest common denominators that can appeal to broad audiences and suck a lot of wind out of the situation.
    - EdwardDiego 5y ago
      It was interesting to me as someone who's been adjacent to, and by necessity somewhat versed in Christianity, for 20 years, but the need to make the audience sit through all 40 lashes, that felt very hardcore "if the Mass isn't in Latin, it doesn't count" Catholic to me. I was mainly there for the Aramaic.
      - jollybean 5y ago
        As a Protestant, none of it made any sense to me at all on the level of Religion or Faith. It seemed like one of those big budget 'History Channel' re-enactments of an important moment, with a big focus on the violence, for what I can gather are reasons of ratings, and that's it. Without offending anyone who liked it, it seemed to almost offensive to me.
        EdwardDiego 5y ago
- phonebanshee 5y ago
  I kind of had to laugh about this. The vast majority of European written media over, say, the last two thousand years, is Christian faith based.
  - QuarterReptile 5y ago
    I think it would accurately be described as Christian derived (being Western) but, given the exponential growth of published writing over time, I doubt the majority of written media is Christian based. Just my hunch..
- jollybean 5y ago
  The best 'faith based' stuff focuses on the content or experience, not Disneyfied characterization of the Bible. U2 is a Christian band, they make Gospel music. They just stopped saying that back in the 1970's but if you look at their lyrics it becomes immediately obvious. In fact, blatant. Literally their hit song "He Works in Mysterious Ways". They don't even hide it, yet, nobody is really aware. That to me is mind-blowing: how something can be so obvious, right in front of our eyes, not even denied ... and we don't see it. Mr. Rogers Neighbourhood is 100% Ministering without apparent Ministering. 'Children of Men' is possibly my favourite film, it's literally a Nativity Story. ... but the last thing on the planet I would ever want to listen to is a 'Christian Band' that calls themselves a 'Christian Band'.
  - onionisafruit 5y ago
    The U2 lyric is “she moves in mysterious ways”. Just a little different.
    - jollybean 5y ago
      Oh that's right it's funny how your memory adapts to what you want it to be. But it's just the same with them anyhow. U2-charist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U2charist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U2charist
- Causality1 5y ago
  Does the grit extend to Jesus himself? That is to say, do we get the Zen monk-style Jesus from modern Western media or do we get the anger-issues Jesus from the Bible?
  - WoodenChair 5y ago
    > That is to say, do we get the Zen monk-style Jesus from modern Western media or do we get the anger-issues Jesus from the Bible? Both of those are your interpretation of others' interpretations, and I question whether either of those is a widely held view. Personally, I don't see the media as depicting him as zen-like and I definitely don't read him as having anger-issues in the Bible.
    - Causality1 5y ago
      Give it another read. He gets pissed off all the time and for the most bizarre reasons, like the time some people he was teaching don't understand his parable and he's asked why he teaches in parables if people have trouble understanding them and he throws a shit-fit.
      - xedrac 5y ago
        I understand how someone could come to this conclusion, especially if you read the Old Testament and believe that Jesus and Jehovah are the same being. But I do think The Chosen has successfully captured the essence of the Gospels and made them much more relatable.
    - EdwardDiego 5y ago
      That time he cursed the fig tree, was used to great humour by a web comic. https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/biblical-literalism https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/biblical-literalism
      - secondcoming 5y ago
        That's quite funny but I assume the fig tree was a metaphor
- RickJWagner 5y ago
  My family started watching 'The Chosen' a while ago, we're hooked. As a programmer, I identify most closely with the Mathew character.
  - finder83 5y ago
    Agreed! Matthew is such a great character. I relate a lot with him too. I get the same feeling watching the character as I do reading the book of Matthew, which makes me appreciate the gospel even more.
  - matthops 5y ago
    The studio behind The Chosen is hiring engineers. Remote friendly. :) www.angel.com/apply
lehi 5y ago
I wondered at first that Chaim Potok's novel would have so many fans, but this makes more sense.
- jraby3 5y ago
  Great book.
mensetmanusman 5y ago
Highly relevant for the season. It is fascinating even for the secular among us to consider the aspects of human history that have resulted in billions of people dedicating their lives to follow Jesus. The upending of the family structure that ended up converting the Roman Empire after 300 years might be analogous to what the world is starting to experience again (with slow universal demographic collapse except in subsets of practicing religious).
- mrfusion 5y ago
  > upending of the family structure that ended up converting the Roman Empire after 300 years What is that? What happened?
  - rbalicki 5y ago
    They may be referring to https://www.science.org/content/article/how-early-christian-church-gave-birth-today-s-weird-europeans https://www.science.org/content/article/how-early-christian-...
    - bobthechef 5y ago
      W.r.t. that article, while Christianity does emphasize the value of the individual (Imago Dei), individualism (emphasis on "-ism") is a feature of liberalism and therefore a Christian heresy. Human beings as social animals and individualism is as much of a departure from the human good as collectivism.
- selimthegrim 5y ago
  Which Jewish family customs do you think Gentiles were opened up to?
verve_rat 5y ago
Christians can be a fandom, just like Veronica Mars. Surprised it took this long for something to be this successful.
- DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
  Does _March of the Penguins_ count?
- throwaway894345 5y ago
  The surprising thing is there hasn’t talk really been anything like this. Christian content is almost universally inauthentic for a variety of reasons.
- EdwardDiego 5y ago
  There is a terrible tendency in Christian TV / movies from the US I've seen to hire actors like Dean Cain, Kevin Sorbo and Kirk Cameron. I suspect it's because they're politically correct (In the original Leninist sense) for their target audience - or cheap, or both. And none of them are renowned for their acting chops.
  - MontagFTB 5y ago
    The problem is the amount of liberties Christians will allow in the portrayal of Jesus. This show works around the problem by making it more about his disciples and immediate followers, and how their lives are impacted by him.
  - tootie 5y ago
    I think most mainstream Hollywood studios are not interested in depicting extent religious mythology because it's bound to incur protests from someone or other. So it stays on the margins of the industry with only True Believers willing to tie their career prospects to material that's bound to be so polarizing and opinionated.
    - wolverine876 5y ago
yeetaccount3 5y ago
Why are Christian movies near the very top of HN? I wish I did more than lurk, this should be flagged for lack of taste as much as the religious angle.
geerlingguy 5y ago
I believe one of the main people behind this series is Darrel Eves, who seems to be partnered up with some bigger YouTubers (most notably MrBeast) and puts on VidSummit. Just an interesting connection, and I wonder if the success of The Chosen might be related to it being produced in a more "secular" way.
bgroat 5y ago
I like that it makes Jesus seem like a fun guy. Here's a guy who socially hangs out with a hooker while passing no judgement, and who's first documented miracle is turning water into wine. This SOUNDS like a guy you'd want to hang out with.
- bigmattystyles 5y ago
  Wait really? I haven't watched this but I seem to recall some throwing a shit fit at the Last Temptation of Christ for that very reason. I even recall the same thing at Life of Brian, which doesn't even show Jesus except for a very far shot out of focus depicting the service on the mount? I guess times have changed...
  - MontagFTB 5y ago
    I’d describe The Chosen’s portrayal of Jesus as personable without being irreverent.
  - chungy 5y ago
    The Last Temptation of Christ is, mildly speaking, complete garbage when it comes to theology. It actively subverts the gospels and tries to lower Jesus into the realm of natural man. The film has a few nuggets that might be interesting for those learned in religion, but it serves more as a reflection of Paul Shrader's personal struggles with faith at that point in his life. The latter point isn't all that unusual; Kevin Smith (Dogma) and Trey Parker/Matt Stone (South Park, Book of Mormon (musical)) likewise do the same. The Chosen takes a reverent interpretation. It makes no apologies for having creative license, the Bible isn't meant to be a screen play after all, but it does so in a manner consistent with the character of Jesus both in the Bible and as believers understand him to be. He is fully human and fully God. He weaves the qualities of both throughout the show with the way he handles emotions, miracles, passing down wisdom, and so forth.
- paulryanrogers 5y ago
  > ...and who's first documented miracle is turning water into wine. Fear not! Some translators believe it meant unfermented grape juice. So no need to doubt a church's anti-alcohol stance.
1121redblackgo 5y ago
I will almost always support and cheer for a crowdfunded success and this is no different. Congrats and kudos to everyone working on this project.
NateEag 5y ago
I haven't watched The Chosen, but given how people are describing it here, I'm going to strongly recommend Dorothy Sayers' serialized radio play "The Man Born To Be King." Most adaptations of the Gospels make Judas an evil caricature of a human being. Sayers' Judas strikes disturbingly close to home, leaving one with the thought "There but for the grace of God go I." Every one of the characters in her adaptation feels plausible and real. Whatever you think about the Gospels' historicity, I think it would be hard to read these plays and not understand why so many people try to follow Jesus, even today. https://www.amazon.com/Man-Born-Be-King/dp/0898703077 https://www.amazon.com/Man-Born-Be-King/dp/0898703077
- Thiez 5y ago
  Speaking of Judas, I think he was pretty great in Jesus Christ Superstar. They definitely managed to portray him as a sympathetic character who was doing what he thought was right.
- MontagFTB 5y ago
  Thanks for the recommendation! I see you liked to the book- is the radio play available somewhere? Which was better?
  - NateEag 5y ago
    It's been quite a few years since I last looked for the radio plays. IIRC, the tapes of the original productions were lost, possibly mislaid somewhere but more likely destroyed in a BBC archive fire. I've not personally listened to a performance of these plays (though I will say that "Kings In Judea", the Nativity story, makes a great piece of Christmastime readers' theater, speaking from personal experience). Looking around the web a bit, it looks like some more recent productions may be available.
gaoshan 5y ago
I've not seen it but I wonder if Christian support for it is due to it making them feel good about their chosen faith or if it's because it strips away what Christianity has become (in the US in particular) and challenges those that profess to follow the faith to return to the ideal that it once represented? Jesus as represented in the US seems more like an authoritarian, gun toting, intolerant, white washed perversion of the brown skinned, middle eastern opponent of oppression and intolerance that I always imagined him to be.
- dang 5y ago
  Please don't take HN threads into religious flamewar. We're trying to avoid that here, and this is a noticeable step into it. Ditto for ideological and political flamewar. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- Shared404 5y ago
  I would guess that it's a little of both. I personally like it's effect for the latter reason, as that's one of my pet peeves. I suspect there are a lot of people who don't see past the former however.
- scop 5y ago
  While a large portion of the audience may be white, American, and evangelical, the cast of the show is entirely brown skinned. You should give it a watch. Here’s the first two episodes on YouTube (starts at 13:00) https://youtu.be/q6sHNLmYbAM https://youtu.be/q6sHNLmYbAM
- BuyMyBitcoins 5y ago
  >” Jesus as represented in the US seems more like an authoritarian, gun toting, intolerant, white washed perversion of the brown skinned, middle eastern opponent of oppression and intolerance that I always imagined him to be.” I find this whole “Republican Jesus” image to be held by people on the left and its existence is a caricature that is a result of contempt and/or unfamiliarity.
  - 5y ago
exo-pla-net 5y ago
Would any atheist here recommend it?
indigodaddy 5y ago
Anyone know the best way to watch The Chosen? The last time I tried maybe a year ago, I think I was forced to use some sort of custom App and casted to my TV, but the quality was so wretched I couldn’t bear it and stopped watching within a few minutes..
- indigodaddy 5y ago
  Looks like there are various streaming options now, including Peacock, YT, Tubi. I just tried it in my Roku TV with Peacock and the quality is fine. https://reelgood.com/show/the-chosen-2019 https://reelgood.com/show/the-chosen-2019
- gnicholas 5y ago
  Another commenter [1] said it's on youtube. [2] 1 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29446519 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29446519 2 https://youtu.be/q6sHNLmYbAM https://youtu.be/q6sHNLmYbAM
  - indigodaddy 5y ago
    Ah ok I remember now. I did originally attempt watch it on YT and it was the same “from the livestream” that you linked to, and the quality is indeed (just looked at it now again) very very bad. I replied to my own comment with some other streaming options, of which, the Peacock one is good quality. Not sure about the Tubi one but it’s bound to be better than the YT stream which is utterly terrible.
- rnestler 5y ago
  I used https://watch.angelstudios.com/thechosen https://watch.angelstudios.com/thechosen to stream it.
ldehaan 5y ago
Uh, jewishes are the chosen, before you forget, and Jesus would get his booty whipped by Shri Ganesha. There are hundreds of popular religions, jesusanity is just one of them. Catch them all!
- dang 5y ago
  If you troll HN like this again we will ban you. While I have you: could you please stop posting unsubstantive and flamebait comments generally? You've unfortunately been doing that repeatedly, and it's not what the site is for. I don't want to ban you because your good comments are good. But the bad comments take out more than the good comments put in. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
AlbertCory 5y ago
I think it's wonderful this show is happening, and I'm an atheist. It's also wonderful to see, on this techie platform, people aren't afraid to call themselves a "believing Christian." I'm going to check The Chosen out. The bulk of Christian movies or Old Testament bible stories are unwatchable, as a lot of people have noted. I went to Israel four years ago [1], and there was something really special about actually seeing the Jordan, the Sea of Galilee, Capernaum, the sites of the loaves and fishes, and the Sermon on the Mount. Places I grew up hearing about. (Yes, I know those last two are only the conventionally believed sites, and no one knows for sure.) I've gotten really interested in the rise of Christianity since going there. Swimming in the Dead Sea was worth doing once. You come out feeling all oily and you have to take a shower. But you can float on your back and raise both arms up in the air, and you don't sink. Getting lost in the Old City and having to ask directions was fun, too. Google Maps was no help. By the way, I think the best genetic estimate of what Jesus looked like is: what people in Syria and Lebanon look like now. Darker skin than, say, Swedes, but not black. [1] https://photos.app.goo.gl/6RoCLQYmx9AAB4Ak8 https://photos.app.goo.gl/6RoCLQYmx9AAB4Ak8
- rg111 5y ago
  > It's also wonderful to see, on this techie platform, people aren't afraid to call themselves a "believing Christian." I am a progressive (not in the current US sense) religionless athiest and I am very glad that people can safely say that they are Christians in this platform. I highly appreciate this.
  - jhgb 5y ago
    I'm pretty sure that you can safely say that you're a Flat Earther, too. No harm will come to you in either case.
    - AlbertCory 5y ago
      Maybe no "harm" but you'll probably draw some ridicule. On some forums, announcing yourself as a Christian will win you an anti-Trump diatribe. Anyhow, what's wrong with being a Flat Earther? (Just kidding. We all know it's an oblate spheroid.)
DeathArrow 5y ago
It's nice that something like this happened without big studios being implied. Maybe this will inspired others to crowdfund interesting TV series and films. Productions of big studios and TV networks began to be boring and too politically involved to the point that historic truth was satisfied in order to match trendy political movements.
aaron695 5y ago
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9471404/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9471404/ 9.6 (23K) - That's artificially/impossibly too high, but bad Christian movies get knocked down quickly so there's something to it. RT is garbage, as you can see from the fact reviewers simply are not reviewing what is obviously something important to a lot of people and that would be their job bringing new things to the average person, but it scores well for what it has - https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/the_chosen https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/the_chosen
say_it_as_it_is 5y ago
Creating a project whose cash-strapped members pay to be a part of is rare. Good for them to find each other and be a part of this project to bring a science fiction story to market,
- batch12 5y ago
  You could have made this point without the flamebait.
- dang 5y ago
  Religious flamewar will get you banned here. No more of this, please. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: it looks like you've been posting mostly unsubstantive and flamebait comments, unfortunately. Would you please not do that? I don't want to ban you because your good comments are fine, but they're also hard to find amid the bad ones, and that sort of imbalance is the sort of thing we end up having to ban accounts for.
  - say_it_as_it_is 5y ago
    You're right. Thanks for the feedback.
    - dang 5y ago
      Appreciated!
wanderingmind 5y ago
As a non Christian I have enjoyed talks and writings on Don Knuth on faith and Bible and how it has influenced him and his work. A sample is the Pascal lecture he gave at Waterloo[0] [0] https://youtu.be/-JvdanSygfg https://youtu.be/-JvdanSygfg
p0d 5y ago
I read the bible every day and found the Chosen strange to watch at first. As in, "That's not in the bible". I really enjoyed it however when I parked the idea that it isn't a word for word retelling of the biblical text. I would encourage anyone to watch it. Bible reader or not.
stickyricky 5y ago
Why don't big studios produce content that people clearly want to see? It seems like capitalism should dictate that they chase lucrative markets. Studios regularly produce much more niche content than a Jesus origin story.
- matthiaswh 5y ago
  You see it occasionally. In the last decade there was Noah, an Exodus movie with Christian Bale, The Shack, and Breakthrough. Probably others. Other than Exodus I think they were generally considered successes. Go back a little further and you see the Narnia series, which while profitable and generally well received, did not quite turn into the Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter level of success that they were shooting for. There were also a couple of Bible mini-series by Roma Downey and Mark Burnett that were huge hits. The big studios tend to be like investors though; they are looking for content that will turn into smash hits and spin off even more profitable sequels. There are only so many Biblical accounts that fit the bill, and non-Biblical Christian movies are typically more about personal conflict.
jb1991 5y ago
Anyone know how they did their own streaming or what provider they used?

252 points by jkuria 5y ago

I knew Jesus, before he was a superstar. https://youtube.com/watch?v=C21mASBdAkU https://youtube.com/watch?v=C21mASBdAkU

civilized 5y ago

Darn, not the Chaim Potok novel.

selimthegrim 5y ago
Beat me to it.
Freak_NL 5y ago
I wondered briefly if someone was making a retelling of The Wheel of Time from the point of view of the Forsaken. That would make for an interesting uncanonical novel.

neonate 5y ago

https://archive.md/opL80 https://archive.md/opL80

MontagFTB 5y ago

Most Christian-faith-based media is overly saccharine or unrealistic. The Chosen is one of the few pieces of Christian media I’ve not just watched, but thoroughly enjoyed. It focuses on characters rife with their own set of personal issues who are changed by their encounters with Jesus. It portrays a realistic world full of problems we can all relate to. Ironically, it is a breath of fresh air precisely because it has a bit more grit.

SavantIdiot 5y ago
The Last Temptation of Christ was brilliant in this regard. Jesus of Nazareth as a person that didn't really want to be the Christ.
- phd514 5y ago
  There's a huge difference between The Chosen and LToC -- while both may present a "gritty" and imaginative narrative including fictionalized accounts that are not canon, The Chosen does it in a way that does not contradict anything canonical while LToC depicts a sinfully lustful Christ who abdicates his role as savior by stepping down from the cross. As such, it should come as no surprise that The Chosen is popular and well-received among believers and LToC was widely criticized.
  - tootie 5y ago
    Depends whose canon you're talking about because there is no canonical canon. Kazantzakis was very influenced by Gnosticism which set him at odds with the Orthodox and Catholic versions. Personally I found the story to be the most accessible and human version of the story.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - SavantIdiot 5y ago
    Where does the LToC contradict the gospels? They aren't a comprehensive diary of his every thought. You can't say Jesus didn't fantasize about a life with Mary, because that's proving a negative. It's just a proposed fiction to imagine Jesus in a more human way than the vagaries of the canonical gospels. I can see how that would upset some people, but I'd be interested to know where the contradictions exist. It made me really consider the gravity of being the son of god in a way that the gospels simply aren't equipped to deliver.
    - ekianjo 5y ago
      books 2000 years ago were not written to talk about feelings. this is rather recent in litterature circa 16th or 17th century onward
boomboomsubban 5y ago
I'll admit to being biased against the show from the start, but your description of it sounds like Jesus is just a constant deus ex machina. Is there more to it than "Jesus shows up and everything's cool now?"
- colordrops 5y ago
  Considering its meaning, is your use of the term "Deus ex machina" (god out of the machine) intentionally ironic?
  - boomboomsubban 5y ago
    It's just the term for a seemingly unsolvable situation suddenly being solved by an unexpected occurrence.
- jollybean 5y ago
  "but your description of it sounds like Jesus is just a constant deus ex machina." - there is no reasonable way to infer this from the given comment. Thee 'bias' may be a bit stronger than imagined.
  - boomboomsubban 5y ago
    Not particularly. Their description was that everybody has real problems that are changed by coming in contact with Jesus. Real problems, solved by a solution suddenly showing up in the third act. A deus ex machina.
- eitland 5y ago
  Haven't seen the Chosen yet but the stories as written are quite a bit more nuanced.
scop 5y ago
I concur. As a believing Christian, if somebody comes along and says “hey do you want to watch this Jesus show/movie?” my honest answer is…not really! I went into the Chosen expecting it to be awful and have been very impressed by the story telling and production quality . You pinpoint part of the problem: in an attempt to be reverent, shows or movies will make it all so pious as to remove anything earthly or real about it. And, surprise surprise, that’s dreadfully boring. Or if there is some grit/problem, there’s a “once saved always saved” bent to it where the problem is fixed and then the movie ends…as of life isn’t full of hardships after baptism/whatever! I think the second problem for Jesus films is due to the nature of the gospels themselves: outside of the Passion narratives, they are strung together stories with little narrative connection. (I know, I know, it’s more nuanced than that…but the point being that a film director just can’t make a film about the gospels without making it seem like a random string of events with largely different people/places). It is this problem that the Chosen so masterfully addresses: make the focus on the characters in the story, not Jesus, and thereby give a narrative form to what are otherwise brief, well-known stories. The healing at the well, whose brother is made to be a militant apostle, is a great example. There have also been some flourishes in the show that have indicated some real artistic meditation/thought by the writers, for example when Jesus and John discuss the Torah and John is given the first insights into his eventual theology.
- ARandomerDude 5y ago
  > ... outside of the Passion narratives, they are strung together stories with little narrative connection... It may seem this way given the style of books we're accustomed to reading in the 21st century, but there are clear narratives to each Gospel, and the events are amazingly well arranged. You might enjoy a book like Reading the Gospels Wisely. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0801039371 https://www.amazon.com/dp/0801039371
  - scop 5y ago
    Thanks for the recommendation! I’ve read NT Wright and Bauckham and others on this topic, but I haven’t heard of Pennington. Will check it out! Wright in particular has really helped me to see each gospel in its own narrative form. I agree that the gospels do have narrative structure when considered as products of the first century. Perhaps the closest to a “modern” narrative would be John’s gospel, but even that is very difficult to tackle given the heavy theology interwoven throughout. In fact, it was seeing scenes from John’s gospel in The Chosen that really alerted me to the talent of the filmmakers. Seeing them pull of John 3 in a meaningful and natural way was phenomenal, as they avoided the potential for dry/impersonal theology by wrapping it in the deeply personal experience of Nichodemus.
maroonblazer 5y ago
I was raised Catholic, am now an atheist, but I'd watch this too. I also highly recommend "Jesus of Nazareth". It's a more traditional telling of the New Testament but the cast and performances are truly outstanding. https://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Nazareth-Robert-Powell/dp/B075B2G56S https://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Nazareth-Robert-Powell/dp/B075B...
- gattilorenz 5y ago
  There's also The Gospel According to St. Matthew, by Pasolini. It's currently in my to-watch list, but many people claimed it's a step above Zeffirelli's Jesus of Nazareth
sircastor 5y ago
It’s a challenging tightrope to walk: You either have to take a lot of creative liberties about Jesus (for lack of explicit background) or you limit your content to just the source material, and end up with a very limited depiction. Everyone (or at least every Christian) has their own version of Jesus in their head and when media is produced about him, they correlate that version with their own.
- jollybean 5y ago
  This is such a good point. 'The Passion of Christ' is a great example of something that can be truly emotive for some, but not for others. I found it barely interesting and frankly not sure how much it has to do with Christianity, or rather in a pedantic way. It was nice production design, neat to see 'what it would have looked like' and I'm actually sympathetic to why 'it's good in a way' ... but to me it's all kinds of besides the point. Populism is perhaps more real in Faith than it is in politics, there are various lowest common denominators that can appeal to broad audiences and suck a lot of wind out of the situation.
  - EdwardDiego 5y ago
    It was interesting to me as someone who's been adjacent to, and by necessity somewhat versed in Christianity, for 20 years, but the need to make the audience sit through all 40 lashes, that felt very hardcore "if the Mass isn't in Latin, it doesn't count" Catholic to me. I was mainly there for the Aramaic.
    - jollybean 5y ago
      As a Protestant, none of it made any sense to me at all on the level of Religion or Faith. It seemed like one of those big budget 'History Channel' re-enactments of an important moment, with a big focus on the violence, for what I can gather are reasons of ratings, and that's it. Without offending anyone who liked it, it seemed to almost offensive to me.
      - EdwardDiego 5y ago
phonebanshee 5y ago
I kind of had to laugh about this. The vast majority of European written media over, say, the last two thousand years, is Christian faith based.
- QuarterReptile 5y ago
  I think it would accurately be described as Christian derived (being Western) but, given the exponential growth of published writing over time, I doubt the majority of written media is Christian based. Just my hunch..
jollybean 5y ago
The best 'faith based' stuff focuses on the content or experience, not Disneyfied characterization of the Bible. U2 is a Christian band, they make Gospel music. They just stopped saying that back in the 1970's but if you look at their lyrics it becomes immediately obvious. In fact, blatant. Literally their hit song "He Works in Mysterious Ways". They don't even hide it, yet, nobody is really aware. That to me is mind-blowing: how something can be so obvious, right in front of our eyes, not even denied ... and we don't see it. Mr. Rogers Neighbourhood is 100% Ministering without apparent Ministering. 'Children of Men' is possibly my favourite film, it's literally a Nativity Story. ... but the last thing on the planet I would ever want to listen to is a 'Christian Band' that calls themselves a 'Christian Band'.
- onionisafruit 5y ago
  The U2 lyric is “she moves in mysterious ways”. Just a little different.
  - jollybean 5y ago
    Oh that's right it's funny how your memory adapts to what you want it to be. But it's just the same with them anyhow. U2-charist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U2charist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U2charist
Causality1 5y ago
Does the grit extend to Jesus himself? That is to say, do we get the Zen monk-style Jesus from modern Western media or do we get the anger-issues Jesus from the Bible?
- WoodenChair 5y ago
  > That is to say, do we get the Zen monk-style Jesus from modern Western media or do we get the anger-issues Jesus from the Bible? Both of those are your interpretation of others' interpretations, and I question whether either of those is a widely held view. Personally, I don't see the media as depicting him as zen-like and I definitely don't read him as having anger-issues in the Bible.
  - Causality1 5y ago
    Give it another read. He gets pissed off all the time and for the most bizarre reasons, like the time some people he was teaching don't understand his parable and he's asked why he teaches in parables if people have trouble understanding them and he throws a shit-fit.
    - xedrac 5y ago
      I understand how someone could come to this conclusion, especially if you read the Old Testament and believe that Jesus and Jehovah are the same being. But I do think The Chosen has successfully captured the essence of the Gospels and made them much more relatable.
  - EdwardDiego 5y ago
    That time he cursed the fig tree, was used to great humour by a web comic. https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/biblical-literalism https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/biblical-literalism
    - secondcoming 5y ago
      That's quite funny but I assume the fig tree was a metaphor
RickJWagner 5y ago
My family started watching 'The Chosen' a while ago, we're hooked. As a programmer, I identify most closely with the Mathew character.
- finder83 5y ago
  Agreed! Matthew is such a great character. I relate a lot with him too. I get the same feeling watching the character as I do reading the book of Matthew, which makes me appreciate the gospel even more.
- matthops 5y ago
  The studio behind The Chosen is hiring engineers. Remote friendly. :) www.angel.com/apply

lehi 5y ago

I wondered at first that Chaim Potok's novel would have so many fans, but this makes more sense.

jraby3 5y ago
Great book.

mensetmanusman 5y ago

Highly relevant for the season. It is fascinating even for the secular among us to consider the aspects of human history that have resulted in billions of people dedicating their lives to follow Jesus. The upending of the family structure that ended up converting the Roman Empire after 300 years might be analogous to what the world is starting to experience again (with slow universal demographic collapse except in subsets of practicing religious).

mrfusion 5y ago
> upending of the family structure that ended up converting the Roman Empire after 300 years What is that? What happened?
- rbalicki 5y ago
  They may be referring to https://www.science.org/content/article/how-early-christian-church-gave-birth-today-s-weird-europeans https://www.science.org/content/article/how-early-christian-...
  - bobthechef 5y ago
    W.r.t. that article, while Christianity does emphasize the value of the individual (Imago Dei), individualism (emphasis on "-ism") is a feature of liberalism and therefore a Christian heresy. Human beings as social animals and individualism is as much of a departure from the human good as collectivism.
selimthegrim 5y ago
Which Jewish family customs do you think Gentiles were opened up to?

verve_rat 5y ago

Christians can be a fandom, just like Veronica Mars. Surprised it took this long for something to be this successful.

DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
Does _March of the Penguins_ count?
throwaway894345 5y ago
The surprising thing is there hasn’t talk really been anything like this. Christian content is almost universally inauthentic for a variety of reasons.
EdwardDiego 5y ago
There is a terrible tendency in Christian TV / movies from the US I've seen to hire actors like Dean Cain, Kevin Sorbo and Kirk Cameron. I suspect it's because they're politically correct (In the original Leninist sense) for their target audience - or cheap, or both. And none of them are renowned for their acting chops.
- MontagFTB 5y ago
  The problem is the amount of liberties Christians will allow in the portrayal of Jesus. This show works around the problem by making it more about his disciples and immediate followers, and how their lives are impacted by him.
- tootie 5y ago
  I think most mainstream Hollywood studios are not interested in depicting extent religious mythology because it's bound to incur protests from someone or other. So it stays on the margins of the industry with only True Believers willing to tie their career prospects to material that's bound to be so polarizing and opinionated.
  - wolverine876 5y ago

yeetaccount3 5y ago

Why are Christian movies near the very top of HN? I wish I did more than lurk, this should be flagged for lack of taste as much as the religious angle.

geerlingguy 5y ago

I believe one of the main people behind this series is Darrel Eves, who seems to be partnered up with some bigger YouTubers (most notably MrBeast) and puts on VidSummit. Just an interesting connection, and I wonder if the success of The Chosen might be related to it being produced in a more "secular" way.

bgroat 5y ago

I like that it makes Jesus seem like a fun guy. Here's a guy who socially hangs out with a hooker while passing no judgement, and who's first documented miracle is turning water into wine. This SOUNDS like a guy you'd want to hang out with.

bigmattystyles 5y ago
Wait really? I haven't watched this but I seem to recall some throwing a shit fit at the Last Temptation of Christ for that very reason. I even recall the same thing at Life of Brian, which doesn't even show Jesus except for a very far shot out of focus depicting the service on the mount? I guess times have changed...
- MontagFTB 5y ago
  I’d describe The Chosen’s portrayal of Jesus as personable without being irreverent.
- chungy 5y ago
  The Last Temptation of Christ is, mildly speaking, complete garbage when it comes to theology. It actively subverts the gospels and tries to lower Jesus into the realm of natural man. The film has a few nuggets that might be interesting for those learned in religion, but it serves more as a reflection of Paul Shrader's personal struggles with faith at that point in his life. The latter point isn't all that unusual; Kevin Smith (Dogma) and Trey Parker/Matt Stone (South Park, Book of Mormon (musical)) likewise do the same. The Chosen takes a reverent interpretation. It makes no apologies for having creative license, the Bible isn't meant to be a screen play after all, but it does so in a manner consistent with the character of Jesus both in the Bible and as believers understand him to be. He is fully human and fully God. He weaves the qualities of both throughout the show with the way he handles emotions, miracles, passing down wisdom, and so forth.
paulryanrogers 5y ago
> ...and who's first documented miracle is turning water into wine. Fear not! Some translators believe it meant unfermented grape juice. So no need to doubt a church's anti-alcohol stance.

1121redblackgo 5y ago

I will almost always support and cheer for a crowdfunded success and this is no different. Congrats and kudos to everyone working on this project.

NateEag 5y ago

I haven't watched The Chosen, but given how people are describing it here, I'm going to strongly recommend Dorothy Sayers' serialized radio play "The Man Born To Be King." Most adaptations of the Gospels make Judas an evil caricature of a human being. Sayers' Judas strikes disturbingly close to home, leaving one with the thought "There but for the grace of God go I." Every one of the characters in her adaptation feels plausible and real. Whatever you think about the Gospels' historicity, I think it would be hard to read these plays and not understand why so many people try to follow Jesus, even today. https://www.amazon.com/Man-Born-Be-King/dp/0898703077 https://www.amazon.com/Man-Born-Be-King/dp/0898703077

Thiez 5y ago
Speaking of Judas, I think he was pretty great in Jesus Christ Superstar. They definitely managed to portray him as a sympathetic character who was doing what he thought was right.
MontagFTB 5y ago
Thanks for the recommendation! I see you liked to the book- is the radio play available somewhere? Which was better?
- NateEag 5y ago
  It's been quite a few years since I last looked for the radio plays. IIRC, the tapes of the original productions were lost, possibly mislaid somewhere but more likely destroyed in a BBC archive fire. I've not personally listened to a performance of these plays (though I will say that "Kings In Judea", the Nativity story, makes a great piece of Christmastime readers' theater, speaking from personal experience). Looking around the web a bit, it looks like some more recent productions may be available.

gaoshan 5y ago

I've not seen it but I wonder if Christian support for it is due to it making them feel good about their chosen faith or if it's because it strips away what Christianity has become (in the US in particular) and challenges those that profess to follow the faith to return to the ideal that it once represented? Jesus as represented in the US seems more like an authoritarian, gun toting, intolerant, white washed perversion of the brown skinned, middle eastern opponent of oppression and intolerance that I always imagined him to be.

dang 5y ago
Please don't take HN threads into religious flamewar. We're trying to avoid that here, and this is a noticeable step into it. Ditto for ideological and political flamewar. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Shared404 5y ago
I would guess that it's a little of both. I personally like it's effect for the latter reason, as that's one of my pet peeves. I suspect there are a lot of people who don't see past the former however.
scop 5y ago
While a large portion of the audience may be white, American, and evangelical, the cast of the show is entirely brown skinned. You should give it a watch. Here’s the first two episodes on YouTube (starts at 13:00) https://youtu.be/q6sHNLmYbAM https://youtu.be/q6sHNLmYbAM
BuyMyBitcoins 5y ago
>” Jesus as represented in the US seems more like an authoritarian, gun toting, intolerant, white washed perversion of the brown skinned, middle eastern opponent of oppression and intolerance that I always imagined him to be.” I find this whole “Republican Jesus” image to be held by people on the left and its existence is a caricature that is a result of contempt and/or unfamiliarity.
- 5y ago

exo-pla-net 5y ago

Would any atheist here recommend it?

indigodaddy 5y ago

Anyone know the best way to watch The Chosen? The last time I tried maybe a year ago, I think I was forced to use some sort of custom App and casted to my TV, but the quality was so wretched I couldn’t bear it and stopped watching within a few minutes..

indigodaddy 5y ago
Looks like there are various streaming options now, including Peacock, YT, Tubi. I just tried it in my Roku TV with Peacock and the quality is fine. https://reelgood.com/show/the-chosen-2019 https://reelgood.com/show/the-chosen-2019
gnicholas 5y ago
Another commenter [1] said it's on youtube. [2] 1 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29446519 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29446519 2 https://youtu.be/q6sHNLmYbAM https://youtu.be/q6sHNLmYbAM
- indigodaddy 5y ago
  Ah ok I remember now. I did originally attempt watch it on YT and it was the same “from the livestream” that you linked to, and the quality is indeed (just looked at it now again) very very bad. I replied to my own comment with some other streaming options, of which, the Peacock one is good quality. Not sure about the Tubi one but it’s bound to be better than the YT stream which is utterly terrible.
rnestler 5y ago
I used https://watch.angelstudios.com/thechosen https://watch.angelstudios.com/thechosen to stream it.

ldehaan 5y ago

Uh, jewishes are the chosen, before you forget, and Jesus would get his booty whipped by Shri Ganesha. There are hundreds of popular religions, jesusanity is just one of them. Catch them all!

dang 5y ago
If you troll HN like this again we will ban you. While I have you: could you please stop posting unsubstantive and flamebait comments generally? You've unfortunately been doing that repeatedly, and it's not what the site is for. I don't want to ban you because your good comments are good. But the bad comments take out more than the good comments put in. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

AlbertCory 5y ago

I think it's wonderful this show is happening, and I'm an atheist. It's also wonderful to see, on this techie platform, people aren't afraid to call themselves a "believing Christian." I'm going to check The Chosen out. The bulk of Christian movies or Old Testament bible stories are unwatchable, as a lot of people have noted. I went to Israel four years ago [1], and there was something really special about actually seeing the Jordan, the Sea of Galilee, Capernaum, the sites of the loaves and fishes, and the Sermon on the Mount. Places I grew up hearing about. (Yes, I know those last two are only the conventionally believed sites, and no one knows for sure.) I've gotten really interested in the rise of Christianity since going there. Swimming in the Dead Sea was worth doing once. You come out feeling all oily and you have to take a shower. But you can float on your back and raise both arms up in the air, and you don't sink. Getting lost in the Old City and having to ask directions was fun, too. Google Maps was no help. By the way, I think the best genetic estimate of what Jesus looked like is: what people in Syria and Lebanon look like now. Darker skin than, say, Swedes, but not black. [1] https://photos.app.goo.gl/6RoCLQYmx9AAB4Ak8 https://photos.app.goo.gl/6RoCLQYmx9AAB4Ak8

rg111 5y ago
> It's also wonderful to see, on this techie platform, people aren't afraid to call themselves a "believing Christian." I am a progressive (not in the current US sense) religionless athiest and I am very glad that people can safely say that they are Christians in this platform. I highly appreciate this.
- jhgb 5y ago
  I'm pretty sure that you can safely say that you're a Flat Earther, too. No harm will come to you in either case.
  - AlbertCory 5y ago
    Maybe no "harm" but you'll probably draw some ridicule. On some forums, announcing yourself as a Christian will win you an anti-Trump diatribe. Anyhow, what's wrong with being a Flat Earther? (Just kidding. We all know it's an oblate spheroid.)

DeathArrow 5y ago

It's nice that something like this happened without big studios being implied. Maybe this will inspired others to crowdfund interesting TV series and films. Productions of big studios and TV networks began to be boring and too politically involved to the point that historic truth was satisfied in order to match trendy political movements.

aaron695 5y ago

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9471404/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9471404/ 9.6 (23K) - That's artificially/impossibly too high, but bad Christian movies get knocked down quickly so there's something to it. RT is garbage, as you can see from the fact reviewers simply are not reviewing what is obviously something important to a lot of people and that would be their job bringing new things to the average person, but it scores well for what it has - https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/the_chosen https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/the_chosen

say_it_as_it_is 5y ago

Creating a project whose cash-strapped members pay to be a part of is rare. Good for them to find each other and be a part of this project to bring a science fiction story to market,

batch12 5y ago
You could have made this point without the flamebait.
dang 5y ago
Religious flamewar will get you banned here. No more of this, please. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: it looks like you've been posting mostly unsubstantive and flamebait comments, unfortunately. Would you please not do that? I don't want to ban you because your good comments are fine, but they're also hard to find amid the bad ones, and that sort of imbalance is the sort of thing we end up having to ban accounts for.
- say_it_as_it_is 5y ago
  You're right. Thanks for the feedback.
  - dang 5y ago
    Appreciated!

wanderingmind 5y ago

As a non Christian I have enjoyed talks and writings on Don Knuth on faith and Bible and how it has influenced him and his work. A sample is the Pascal lecture he gave at Waterloo[0] [0] https://youtu.be/-JvdanSygfg https://youtu.be/-JvdanSygfg

p0d 5y ago

I read the bible every day and found the Chosen strange to watch at first. As in, "That's not in the bible". I really enjoyed it however when I parked the idea that it isn't a word for word retelling of the biblical text. I would encourage anyone to watch it. Bible reader or not.

stickyricky 5y ago

Why don't big studios produce content that people clearly want to see? It seems like capitalism should dictate that they chase lucrative markets. Studios regularly produce much more niche content than a Jesus origin story.

matthiaswh 5y ago
You see it occasionally. In the last decade there was Noah, an Exodus movie with Christian Bale, The Shack, and Breakthrough. Probably others. Other than Exodus I think they were generally considered successes. Go back a little further and you see the Narnia series, which while profitable and generally well received, did not quite turn into the Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter level of success that they were shooting for. There were also a couple of Bible mini-series by Roma Downey and Mark Burnett that were huge hits. The big studios tend to be like investors though; they are looking for content that will turn into smash hits and spin off even more profitable sequels. There are only so many Biblical accounts that fit the bill, and non-Biblical Christian movies are typically more about personal conflict.

jb1991 5y ago

Anyone know how they did their own streaming or what provider they used?