Is HOUSE OF DAVID Biblically Accurate?
By Movieguide® Contributor
THE HOUSE OF DAVID director Jon Erwin and special advisor Dallas Jenkins shared how and why they made the new show as scripturally truthful as possible.
“The goal of what we do is to get people to say, ‘Is that in the Bible?’…and to draw people back to the book,” Erwin explained in a recent interview. “It’s like these shows, hopefully in their purest form of gigantic billboards say, ‘Go to the sword.’ I love that.”
Jenkins, who advised on the project and directed THE CHOSEN, said, “Even if you’re not a believer, like even if you’re just interested in history, the source material is extraordinary as well.”
Erwin explained that some have questioned the truth of David’s upbringing displayed in the show. But there are Psalms written by David that mention he’s an illegitimate child and shunned by his community.
This is in line with rabbinic teachings that say David was the son of a slave and did not get fair treatment alongside his brothers.
Jenkins added, “A lot of what we’re trying to do is illuminate capital truth even when we’re not using facts. So sometimes there are things that aren’t directly from scripture. There aren’t even directly from history but we want to make sure that they’re still capital truthful.”
RELATED: WHAT YOU’LL LEARN ABOUT THESE BIBLICAL FIGURES FROM HOUSE OF DAVID
Movieguide®’s review reads:
The scenes where Samuel confronts Saul and where Samuel anoints David are, of course, taken directly from the biblical text. They are perfect examples of how to take a dramatic scene from the Bible and translate it to a visual medium….
That said, HOUSE OF DAVID does have scenes that aren’t found in the biblical text. For example, though First and Second Samuel and First Chronicles in the Bible are full of account of David’s many military exploits, the scene of David and Eliab fighting against an advance guard of the Philistines is not biblical. However, it serves as a transition scene explaining how the Philistines came to recruit the giant Goliath in their ongoing fight against the Israelites.
The ultimate question for movies and programs like HOUSE OF DAVID, however, is, does the work reflect the spirit of the original material? In the case of the first three episodes of HOUSE OF DAVID, the answer is in the affirmative.
Brett McCracken, author of “The Wisdom Pyramid,” agrees.
He said the show has “a tough balance to strike, but Erwin’s House of David does a commendable job of being both narratively interesting and biblically faithful.”
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