Yesterday I went to see Exodus: Gods and Kings, directed by veteran British director Ridley Scott and starring Christian Bale as Moses and Joel Edgerton as Ramses. I offer below a few general observations, followed by some comments with a more theological slant on three specific quotes from the screenplay. before ending with a brief conclusion.
Spoiler alert: since this film is based on a well-known Bible story, it would be difficult to say anything that might spoil it as regards the overall plot. However, if you haven’t seen it yet and are waiting on tenterhooks to find out how it handles some of the theological aspects of the story, you may do better to wait until after you’ve seen it before reading the rest of the post.
General observations
First off, I thought Exodus was a good film overall. When I looked up its IMDB entry, I was surprised by the number of scathingly negative reviews I found. I can only assume that some people are looking for a perfection that will never be achieved, especially given the subject matter, and/or for something that perfectly coincides with their own preconceived ideas of how the story ought to be portrayed. If you approach it with an open mind, however, I think you’ll agree that there is much to commend.
Some things I especially liked:
– The portrayal of Egyptian civilisation: Scott makes masterful use of CGI and modelling to recreate the splendour of Pharaoh’s palace and its environs and to show just how relatively advanced Egyptian civilisation was (its enthralment to primitive religion notwithstanding).
– The acting: most of the cast were good, though I didn’t much care for Ben Mendelsohn, who played the Viceroy in charge of the Hebrew slaves, and Sigourney Weaver and Ben Kingsley both felt like token – almost cameo – appearances. However, the real honours go to Christian Bale and Joel Edgerton, both of whom I felt put in nuanced and believable performances. The difficulty of pulling this off in such iconic roles should not be underestimated.
– The way in which Scott tried to remain faithful to the story. On this point, some will disagree. There are various parts of the Exodus story that are not explicitly referenced on screen. While some will find in this a reason to trash the movie for taking liberties with scripture, I take a different view. First, no director could hope to include every scene in the story in a 150-minute film. And second, I doubt very much that Scott’s objective was to reproduce the biblical Exodus account in a way that biblical literalists would be happy with (probably an impossible task whichever way you cut it). All things considered, while Scott certainly took some creative liberties, I thought he remained surprisingly faithful to the biblical narrative.
Exodus is by no means a perfect film, nor even a superb one. In particular, there were a few plot holes and things that just didn’t make much sense to me (for example, I was left wondering how on earth Hebrew slaves could have had the freedom to undertake in-depth military training). And some will baulk at how the director chose to portray God. It was certainly an interesting choice – but that, for me, was to the film’s overall benefit.
In short, if you want a Moses movie that sticks very closely to the biblical text as traditionally understood, you should probably stick to Cecil B. De Mille’s 1956 epic The Ten Commandments. However, if you relish seeing a fresh and creative interpretation of an old story, and if you’re comfortable being left with some unresolved questions after the closing credits have rolled, you’ll probably enjoy Exodus: Gods and Kings.
Theological observations
For the remainder of this review, I’d like to take a more theological tack. To do so, I’ll comment briefly on three lines spoken by characters during the film.
What kind of God kills babies?
We hear this question from the lips of Ramses when Moses warns him that God will slay all the firstborn males of Egypt unless he lets the Hebrew slaves go.
I would venture to suggest that most western believers have become so familiar with the Exodus story that the idea of God snuffing out the lives of countless innocent children because of a recalcitrant ruler doesn’t even begin to strike them as problematic. Well, it should. The fact that it often doesn’t is, to me, a perfect example of how we have so often allowed our insistence on a literal/inerrant reading of scripture to override our moral conscience.
You might ask, “Well, if God didn’t kill all those babies, who did?” It’s not my purpose in this post to try to answer that question. What I do want to spell out clearly and unambiguously is that if the idea of God as the kind of God that kills babies doesn’t bother you in the least, I think you need to ask yourself some serious questions.
Which way does God say?
On their journey to the Red Sea, and with Pharaoh and his chariots in pursuit, the Hebrews come to a place where they have a choice of two routes: they can either take the easier, safer route, which also happens to be the longer one; or they can take the shorter, faster route, which is mountainous and perilous. The decision falls, of course, to Moses.
Moses tells his leaders to wait behind while he goes on ahead a little way. We see him desperately seeking divine guidance as to which path to take, but the God who has previously spoken to him so clearly remains strangely silent. In the end, he goes back to the other leaders and announces that he thinks they should take the shorter route. His brother Aaron asks, “Which way does God say?”; after a moment’s hesitation, Moses replies, “This way”, pointing to the narrow path that rises into the mountains.
In this moment, we see Moses caught between an earnest desire to be faithful to God and the pressure of having to make a decision that will be seen by his people as authoritative. In the absence of specific guidance from God, he makes his own decision, but allows it to be attributed to God.
To me, the parallels with scripture are striking. Many, many times the writers of the Old Testament tell us that God told such-and-such a king to do this or that. But these are fallible human writers, telling a story about fallible human leaders. Isn’t it just possible that on occasions, either those leaders themselves or those who later eulogised them attributed to God what were, in fact, entirely human decisions and actions? Kings and leaders need ways to assert their authority, and in the ancient world invoking God was a common way to do this.
Leaders can falter, but stone will endure
Near the end of the film, we see Moses chiselling the Ten Commandments into stone tablets as God speaks to him. Presumably in an attempt to allay Moses’ doubts as to whether written commandments are the right way to go, God utters these words to him.
I found this to be a fascinating scene. First, it raised a question as to the real origin of the Ten Commandments. Did God really dictate them to Moses (or, if you prefer, write them with His own finger)? Or, as he had already done on at least one previous occasion (and we might thus safely assume more than one), did Moses come up with them himself and attribute them to God in order to imbue them with authority? And second, knowing in hindsight the history of the Israelite’s long and turbulent relationship with the law and our ongoing penchant for words set in stone rather than the freedom of the Spirit, it felt like a moment heavy with fate.
Conclusion
In view of the above comments, I’d simply like to leave you with the following thought. Exodus: Gods and Kings raises some troubling questions about God’s relation to human violence and man’s propensity to use God to validate and authorise his decisions. But it shouldn’t take a movie to cause us to grapple with such questions: they’re crying out from the pages of scripture itself. It’s high time Christians found such issues more troubling rather than glibly sweeping them aside on the basis that “It’s in the Bible, therefore God said it, and that settles it.”
