The Chosen (2021) s2e06

Following Mary's disappearance at the end of the last episode, we're concerned to find out what has happened to her. But those binge watching in the hope of a quick resolution will have to wait: the pre-credits sequence, as is often the case, takes us back into the even-further-past, to recreate an incident whose importance will resonate later in the episode.

Ahimalech

This time it's back to Nob in 1008 BC and the events of 1 Sam 21:1-9. Here David and his men, hungry and on the run from King Saul, beg the priests of nob for food and Ahimelech allows them to have the holy bread. It's an incident that has been adapted for the screen before, most memorably in the Richard Gere film King David (1985), but is often left out. Indeed it might just be an obscure verse in the Hebrew Bible, but for the fact that Jesus quotes (or rather misquotes) the incident in Mark 2:23-27 where he calls the priest Abiathar (the name of Ahimelech's son who later joins David). Both Matthew (12:1-8) and Luke (6:1-5) repeat the story but omit the error.

There are various ways to explain this apparent problem: Perhaps Abiathar was the high priest and Ahimelech just the one who gave David the bread. Or perhaps Abiathar is a scribal error, or an error by Mark. Or that Jesus, as a human, could have a temporary lapse in memory and still be God.  In The Chosen's version of this story the priest is called Ahimelech, but refers to his son who is apparently called Abiathar. And, when (predictably) Jesus references this incident later in the episode, he calls the priest Ahimalech.

There's another interesting wrinkle in this story too: the fact that David appears to lie when he claims he is on a special mission from "the king". In The Chosen's version of this story Ahimalech (as he is called here) calls David out on this point "it's my understanding you and the king are not on friendly terms", but David clarifies his meaning: "I've been sent on a mission from the king" (glancing upwards to imply God). 

This changes the nature of the interaction. In Samuel, Ahimelech doesn't seem to know about the problems between David and Saul. It's a reasonable request, David promises his men "have kept themselves from women" so Ahimelech lets him have the bread and Goliath's sword. There's a sense of shock, then, in the following chapter when Saul finds out and has all the priests of Nob killed, even if Ahimelech's praise of David stokes Saul's fury.

Here though The Chosen expands things. David reminds Ahimalech about the pikuach nefesh, a principle rooted in the Jewish belief about the sanctity of life meaning that most of the laws could be broken if it meant saving a specific life/specified lives. While the principles behind pikuach nefesh can be traced back to Lev. 19:16, it seems unlikely that it was being cited like this by this stage. Discussions about the principles behind it are coming from centuries later, indeed a good dal of time after Jesus. Indeed the fact that Jesus has to refer to the story, rather than just cite the principle is good evidence that the understanding behind the principle was still building at this stage. Nevertheless, for those who don't know the principle by it's Jewish name, David spells it out moments later: "Life is more sacred
than bread".

The second addition here is that Ahimalech is also given some kind of prophetic ability. Ahimalech realises that helping David might get him killed but he tells David doesn't care because "Something is going to come through you. I can feel it. Something bigger and more exciting". The implication is that he is talking about Jesus, David's descendent. 

In some ways these additions play against how the story is used later in the show. If Ahimalech knows that this scenario is a life and death situation involving something even bigger than freeing the Israelites from the Philistines then the stakes regarding the eating bread when Jewish law says you shouldn't are far higher. But then Jesus' point is far weaker: there's a big difference between what Ahimelech is doing and just letting the slightly hungry disciples chew on a few ears of wheat. But then perhaps the filmmakers decided that adding further emphasis to the broader point the series is trying to make about Jesus' divinity is more important than this one aspect.

There's something about Mary

This instalment was only meant to be short, but I'm 750 words in and I still haven't got to the credits! At the end of the last episode a couple of incidents that happened near Mary Magdalene, had seemingly triggered her past memories of her sexual assault (from s1e01) and she had disappeared. The episode ended Empire Strikes Back style with the unlikely pairing of Simon (not-yet Peter) and Matthew (never called Levi) heading off to find her. 

The promise of that pairing, both logical in a way (Simon's brawn and Matthew's brain) while also promising tension – Simon is arguably the least tolerant of Matthew's former life and his mannerisms. Here we find them on her trail waking up and planning their day but it's interesting that Simon is already softening towards Matthew. At least he accepts why he is there and is not too stupid to listen to him when he makes a good point (I must admit I'm very much on the side of my namesake if it comes to picking sides).

Meanwhile we find out, almost, what has happened to Mary. She's back in one of her old haunts, in a basement in Jericho gambling, and seemingly doing very well, like a 1st century Victoria Coren Mitchell (if you don't know who she is, you should really look her up). Strangely, though, the show is a little reticent to go into what Mary else has really been up to on this bender. She has maybe been drinking, but she still seems to be doing really well playing a game that looks like it requires high levels of physical co-ordination, so she can't have had much. And then there's this exchange between Mary and one of several sore losers

Mary: I came in here with a single shekel to my name, and now look at this pile, huh?
Sore Loser:  How did you get the first one, woman, hmm? What'd you have to do for it?
Mary: Wouldn't you like to know. 

The implication seems to be that she earned it with some form of sex work. For what it's worth a shekel is perhaps the equivalent of around £10/$15. While I certainly wouldn't expect the show to go into the details, I do find it a little strange that its squeamishness about going into what Mary did that gave her such a sense of shame ("He already fixed me once. I broke again, I can't face him. I'm a bad person" she tells Mathew & Simon when they finally catch-up with her). 

Of course the point of this whole incident is that Jesus accepts her back. I find this quite a bold and interesting angle for the show and according to this rebuttal video from Dallas Jenkins they've taken some heat for it (though I didn't manage to turn anything up in an, admittedly brief, search). In the video Dallas talks about this being part of his own experience and perhaps the reason Willard and his team decided to leave any specifics out was to make it easier for people to read their own experiences onto it. Many Christians will admit to letting Jesus down: Not many did so in quite the ways that are implied here. Anyway I like the idea that not all of those who followed Jesus became flawless saints straight away. And of course says "I just want your heart" and tells her that he forgives her and gives her a hug.

I must admit, I found two of these scenes really moving. Firstly, when Mary finds Matthew and Simon (a nice reversal on them looking for her) and the alter part of the conversation as Matthew's sensitive side and his growing awareness of his own moral failures convinces Mary that it's OK for her to come back. It's nicely played by Elizabeth Tabish and Paras Patel. And then, obviously, there's Mary's reconciliation with Jesus in his tent, with some nice foreshadowing of Simon Peter's own coming reconciliation post-resurrection.

Hungry disciples

As the opening scene suggests, the longer story of Mary's redemption is paired here with Jesus debating the laws around the Sabbath after some Pharisees call out some of the disciples for plucking "heads of grain" one Saturday. There's quite a build up to this issue. Not only do we go right back to the time of Ahimelech and exaggerate it a little bit, here it's really made clear that the disciples are properly hungry, rather than just a bit peckish. 

Firstly there is a conversation between Ramah and Mary, with Ramah extracting a few home economics tips from Mary who realises that they will all "be hungry for a few days". Next there is a conversation between Thomas who is concerned that "this is literally our last meal...Why can't he make food appear out of thin air?" and Andrew who recalls similar hardship when he used to follow the Baptist. "He doesn't sound like much of a planner" Thomas replies.

Thomas is naturally back in full doubting mode, which I think The Chosen is using to show he was always a bit of a doubter and so that the infamous moment when he doubts the resurrection was not a one off but part of his personality. (I'm reminded of Thomas in Lee and Herring's Sunday Heroes who occasionally interjects with "well I find that very hard to believe). But it's ongoing presence here suggests that it's his questioning personality that is a problem, intensifying the trait already present in John's Gospel of trying to steer people away from asking too many difficult questions.

And then in the final scene the hunger becomes too much for Simon Peter who absent-mindedly starts grazing on some wheat as they walk through a field and we arrive at the story from Mark 2:23-27 that everyone who knows the show and the gospels well has been waiting for. But the show reframes this incident, only having Jesus bring up the story of Ahimelech and the Jewish principle of pikuach nefesh right at the end of the episode.

Synagogues and Sabbaths

Immediately prior to this scene Jesus has already just had a Sabbath-related run-in with some Jewish authority figures. The gang turns up at the nearby synagogue in Wadi Qelt. This is a clever bit of research by the writers because there is a building known as the Wadi Qelt synagogue which some claim is one of the oldest synagogues in the world. The building dates back to the Hasmonean era around 70-50BC, but some dispute whether it was ever really a synagogue. (Incidentally, Wadi Qelt is a valley / stream between Jericho and Jerusalem that is possibly associated with the place where Elijah hid and was fed by ravens in 1 Kings 17:3).

The synagogue is dark and foreboding and looks almost as cold as the chilly reception given to Jesus and his followers. Jesus spots a man with a withered hand and proceeds to heal him despite the protestations of the two men leading the service. 

This story is also recorded in all three synoptic Gospels (e.g. Mark 3:1-6) where it comes immediately after the grain-plucking incident. Luke (6:1-11), specifies it takes place "on another Sabbath", but obviously this is just more than acceptable dramatic licence.

The two men leading the service are interesting in a number of ways. Firstly, one is a Pharisee and the other is described as a priest. The synagogue movement was still in its early days in the time of Jesus and there does not appear to be much uniformity about who led them or executed other roles. The Gospels and Acts suggest it was relatively easy to get to perform the role of teacher (Mark 1:39) or reader (Luke 4:16). Jairus we are told was "one of the rulers of the synagogue" (Mark 5:22) as is someone else in Luke 13:14.

It seems unlikely, though, that a priest would fulfil one of the more senior roles. Priests were for sacrifices at the temple, in Jerusalem. Perhaps they might be prominent members of synagogues in / close to Jerusalem, but we don't know of many synagogues in Jerusalem prior to the fall of the temple because synagogues were a sort-of stand-in for the temple for places too far away from Jerusalem. If you have a temple you don't really need a synagogue. It was only once the temple was destroyed in AD 70 that there began to be a real need for them. 

Wadi Qelt synagogue was about 25km from the temple, so it's not implausible that a priest would have a role there. Perhaps he was only in Jerusalem sometimes, or commuted, or was retired, but it's not likely. There were other members of the community who could fulfil these roles, and the whole set up at this point (pre-70AD) was away from key authority figures and more grassroots led.

It's far more plausible that a Pharisee was involved, however, given that their eventual successors – the rabbis – came to take on leading the synagogues as the movement took over following the fall of the temple. Eventually those different roles were increasingly consolidated into one role, fulfilled by a rabbi. 

We also know that one of Jesus' criticisms of the scribes and Pharisees in Matthew 23:2-7 was their "love" for "the best seats in the synagogues", which even if you see that as hyperbole (or a later addition) at least suggest that scribes and Pharisees did sometimes have access to the best seats. Though it should point out that in the earliest version of that quotation was from Mark 12:38-40 doesn't actually mention Pharisees. That's something Matthew and then Luke add in.

Another thing I appreciated here is that the priest and the Pharisee are clearly distinguishable by their costumes (see above). I don't really like the fact that the Pharisees in The Chosen wear their garments all the time – I don't think there's much evidence for that – nor that they are so elaborate, expensive and black (it's interesting that we occasionally talk about black hats and white hats as a metaphor for overly-simplistic distinctions between goodies and baddies in westerns, but there are actually fairly few of those movies, and many many more biblical films where we find black hats indicating the antagonists, namely the Pharisees).

Nevertheless, many Jesus films tend to lump all of Jesus' opponents into one, they wear similar costumes, hang out together and act similarly and given the shorter runtimes it's hard to notice any distinction here between them. Here, however, it's clear that these two men, while united against Jesus' more lax approach to the Sabbath, are not the same. And actually Lamech (the Pharisee) wears a simpler head garment than some of the other Pharisees opposing Jesus. But this is actually an extension of an idea this episode has already explored...*

Jesus, the Pharisees & the other Pharisees

Going back even further in the episode we find two Pharisees trying to cause trouble for Jesus after another of his Sabbath healings in s2e04. The two are Shmuel, who goes right back to s1e01, and Yanni who only started opposing Jesus after the healing at Bethzatha in s2e04. Together, they are now petitioning Dunash, who seems to be the chief of staff for President Shimon, the son of the famous rabbi Hillel and leader of the generally more moderate Hillelite branch of the Pharisees. 

Dunash doesn't really take their complaints seriously: they don't have enough witnesses; Shimon is too busy etc. Dunash even seems to allude distantly to the pikuach nefesh. and areas where the law needs "reform". While they are annoyed that Dunash has rebuffed them, they quickly pivot to the followers of Shammai, "the rigid one" as a slightly reductive piece of clumsy exposition puts it. 

Yanni recites a story about Shammai of such dedicated adherence to the law, you suspect even Yanni thinks he might be going a bit far. They hope Shammai will use it to gain the upper hand over Shimon politically-speaking.

What this does well – far better than any Jesus film I can recall off the top of my head – is delineate the Pharisees and make it clear that not only are all Jews not the same (as the show has done already, for example with the Zealots and a shout out to Simon the Zealot's super camp "training exercises" in this episode), but even among the Pharisees there are a range of views. On the one extreme we have Shimon and his late father Hillel. On the other we have Shammai, and close-ish to the Shammaites, but still markedly different we have Shmuel and Yanni.

There are some things I really hope for here and some things I know won't happen, but hope that they one day might in something else. It would be nice if Dunash and maybe even Shimon get more air time in the rest of the series (remember I've still not seen it all). That we could see this more liberal Pharisaism up close a little more. And that it is shown to be truly liberal. While it seems that Shimon is more relaxed about the rules of the Torah (this episode awkwardly mentions 613 rules here twice!) it also seems that this is as much about moral laxity, or being overly casual than that he's more closely aligned to Jesus. 

This matters because after the fall of Jerusalem a lot of the branches of Judaism disappeared. With the destruction of the temple there was little role for the priests and the more aristocratic Saducees were perhaps more deliberately and systematically disassembled by the Romans. Similar Zealot ideology was a busted flush and the Essenes held out in the desert for a bit before more or less their extinction.

The Pharisees, though (and particularly, but not exclusively, the Hillel school) , eventually sort-of morphed into the rabbis (apologies for the gross simplification) and so when we see them portrayed in Jesus films it's important to remember they are, in some ways, stand-ins for the Jewish people of today. The more questionable their motives, the more The Chosen looks like the uglier forms of supersessionism and antisemitism (if modern day Judaism is descended from an inferior despicable starting point etc.). So I hope the Hillelite Pharisees, at least, are shown to include more devout, genuine and compassionate people, especially if they do not end up becoming Christians).

What I'd love to happen was to see the narrowing of the gap between Jesus and the Pharisees and more of a recognition of the similarities between them. They had similar views on the Torah and belief in an  afterlife. The Pharisees had an interest in purity in every day living and we see Jesus discussing similar ideas around purity, holiness, being perfect and defilement. I think most Christians today like to think that Jesus was more relaxed about the rules of the Torah, and certainly that is the angle the show seems to come from but actually while Jesus was often less strict on certain rules he was more hardcore on others. Much of the Sermon on the Mount involves Jesus challenging his disciples to go beyond accepted standards.

So what would be nice would be to see these heated debates more as passionate in-family disagreements over relatively minor questions, than almost despising each other as much as the Romans. After all, in Luke 13:31-32, the Pharisees ultimately warn Jesus that Herod is trying to kill him: for all the passion of their debates they don't want Herod to kill him (like he killed John). 

For my money it's good that whereas in the Gospels the debate over the healing the man's hand ends with the Pharisees looking to "destroy" Jesus, here they seem concerned, and a bit angry initially, but softening to him even as they try to work out how to respond. The thought that Jesus might be for real seems to cross their minds, they seem at least a little open to the possibility even as they wrestle what the right way to respond is.

So this is an encouraging step and I hope the various flavours of Judaism in general, and Pharisaism in particular continue to get fleshed out in more detail. This has been a longer post than usual, and I do need to stop doing this and get on with catching up with the series before season 5 comes along in a few weeks.

* You can read more about ancient synagogues in Dana Murry's article for the World History Encyclopedia, "The Ancient Synagogue in Israel & the Diaspora". A much older (1896) and probably inaccurate piece by EDW Burton is also interesting.