Exodus: Gods and Kings

Exodus: Gods and Kings

I've decided to start listing movie reviews on my blog. These reviews will be pretty much limited to just biblical movies. I will also eventually post some I've done reviews of in the past. Now about the recent film Exodus: Gods and Kings:

This has to be the absolute worst Bible movie I’ve ever seen. Very little of it resembled the story in the book of Exodus. But I like to be positive, so I’ll start with what I liked about the movie.

First, it shows the pyramids. That is true. The pyramids were in Egypt long before the Israelites ever showed up.

The scenes are fantastic. Very authentic. From the costumes to the chariots, it all looks like 1500 B.C.

That brings me to my first complaint. At the beginning of the movie, they date this as 1300 B.C.E. That is not possible for several reasons. First, that is a liberal date. Liberals date the Exodus as taking place in the 1200s, the 13th century. They do this because of the Bible’s mention of Pithom and Ramses. Exodus 1:11 says that “And they [the Israelite slaves] built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses.” There was a pharaoh named Rameses, but that’s not what this verse is talking about. It’s talking about the names of cities. You will not find one conservative scholar who uses the 13th century date for the Exodus. They all give the date as around 1445 B.C.

Second, the Bible makes clear how long ago the Exodus occurred. If you look at Genesis 47:27, it tells when the Israelites first came to Egypt. This was during the lifetime of Joseph. If the date of the Exodus was 1445 B.C., that would make the date in Genesis about 1875 B.C., since it mentions 430 years. We know when Abraham lived (around 2000 B.C., and Joseph was a little while later, so 1875 B.C. would be accurate.

Also, 1 Kings 6:1 tells us another date that tells us when the Exodus occurred. It says, “It was in midspring, during the fourth year of Solomon’s reign, that he began the construction of the Temple of the LORD. This was 480 years after the people of Israel were delivered from their slavery in the land of Egypt” (NLT). We know when Solomon lived because we know when David lived. Solomon lived sometime in the 10th century (the 900s). If you count back from say 965 (a reasonable date), you come to 1445 B.C. And that is when it happened.

You also do not need to say it was B.C.E. That stands for “before the common [Christian] era.” But that is offensive to Christians. Aren’t they trying to make money off Christians with this film?

In a couple places, the Israelites talk about not forgetting their homeland and that they are praying to see Canaan again. But they had never seen it in the first place.

At the beginning of the movie, we see Moses as a young adult in the home of Pharaoh. He is with his brother Rameses (spelled Ramses on IMDB). Moses and Rameses get along pretty well. But after the pharaoh dies and Rameses becomes the new pharaoh, things change. He calls in Miriam to question her about her relationship with Moses. He threatens to cut off her arm if she won’t tell the truth. Moses sticks up for his sister and tries to keep their secret. Nothing about this in the Bible. Didn’t happen.

At one point, Moses and Rameses are talking about the meaning of Israel. Rameses says it means “he who struggles with God.” Moses corrects him and says it means “he who wrestles with God.” Actually, it means “God prevails,” but is there a real semantic difference between struggling and wrestling?

The Bible makes clear that Moses had killed one of the Egyptian taskmasters, and when Pharaoh found out about it, he wanted to kill Moses (see Exod. 2:12-15). But that’s not what happens in the movie. Moses is visiting some Israelites, and when he comes out of the dwelling where they were, some men try to attack him. Moses kills one and another is injured. When pharaoh (Rameses) finds out, he banishes Moses from Egypt. That’s just silly. The pharaoh would have killed him. Period.

When Moses is wandering in the desert, he meets up with the woman who will become his wife (Zipporah). She is with her sisters watering their flocks at the well. Some men come along with their flocks and tell these women to get lost. Moses stands up to them and defends them. He chases these men off. That did happen (Exod. 2:16-17). So I will give credit for that. This is the first of only two accurate events in the film.

There is a scene of the burning bush, although you don’t know that this is what it is. You can’t tell that the bush isn’t really burning. But God doesn’t speak to Moses from the bush. He reveals himself as a 9-year-old boy. Really? Where did that come from?

When Moses decides to obey God and go back to Egypt to lead his people to the Promised Land, he leaves his wife and son at home. I doubt this happened. Zipporah (Moses’ wife) is not happy about this.

When Moses talks to the Israelites, he often talks to Nun, the father of Joshua. I’m sure he was a godly man, but we have no record in the Bible of anything he ever said to Moses or anyone else.

When Moses gets to Egypt, he goes in the royal horse stable. Pharaoh is there, and Moses draws his sword and threatens him. Didn’t happen. Not in the Bible.

The scenes with the plagues are really a piece of work. At no time does Moses ever confront the pharaoh and tell him that God wants him to let his people go. The order of the plagues is somewhat biblical. They have blood, frogs, flies, boils, death of animals, hail, darkness, and death of the firstborn.

The actual biblical order is blood, frogs, gnats, flies, livestock (plague), boils, hail, locusts, darkness, firstborn. So it appears that they combine the gnats and the flies. And they switch the boils and the animals. The darkness really isn’t that dark. The boils last until the end of the movie, which is rather odd. It doesn’t say, but it seems that like the other plagues, the boils came to an end.

In the plague of blood, the way the Nile becomes blood is very strange. Men are fishing on the Nile when many crocs (or maybe alligators?) attack them. So that’s where the blood comes from. Nothing miraculous about that.

At one point Moses complains to God that these plagues are hurting the Israelites too. But that’s not accurate. In Exodus 8:22 says, “But it will be very different in the land of Goshen, where the Israelites live. No flies will be found there” (NLT; see also 9:4; 10:23 Was that true of all the plagues? Maybe. It seems that perhaps some of the plagues did affect the Israelites but not all did.

When God tells Moses that he will kill the firstborn, Moses gets angry and says he won’t have anything to do with that. Sorry, that absolutely didn’t happen. Moses was on God’s side.

Moses does tell Israel to sacrifice a lamb and put its blood over their doors. That is biblical, so I will give credit for that. Moses also tells Pharaoh that not a single Israelite boy died. Only the second and third accurate events in the film.

When Israel finally crossed the Red Sea, some odd things happen. First of all, the sea wasn’t dry ground. But the Bible makes it clear that they crossed on dry ground (Exod. 14:16, 21-22).

I’m almost certain that in the movie they said that 400,000 Israelites left Egypt. IMDB says 600,000. See Numb. 1:46. The number of men 20 years old or older was 603,550. That didn’t include the Levites or the women and children. There were probably at least 2 million people who left Egypt.

When the waters of the Red Sea finally came back over the Egyptian army, that water killed the army, but not Pharaoh or Moses. How did they survive? That’s just silly.

There was too much in this film that was not accurate to give it any good rating. I gave it one star out of ten on IMDB.com. I don’t understand why they wouldn’t let the Bible speak for itself. Well, I suppose I do. The makers of this film believe the Bible is all make believe, so they don’t have a problem making their own set of “facts” in their version of what they think happened.