THE CHOSEN Creator Clears Up These Season 5 Controversies

Published: July 8, 2025

Dallas Jenkins, creator of the CHOSEN — Movieguide® Photo of Dallas Jenkins

By Kayla DeKraker

THE CHOSEN creator Dallas Jenkins cleared a few things up about Season 5 following its nationwide release in June and upcoming international release this month.

In a recent Facebook post, Jenkins addressed two issues he and his team faced this season: “How do we portray the disciples’ wrestling with Jesus outright telling them he’s going to be tortured and crucified? How do we explain and portray that they’re not ridiculously stupid for not understanding when he was so explicitly clear?” and “How do we show, in a fairly short amount of time, how a crowd can go from worshiping him to wanting him dead?”

He emphasized, “Both of those story points, like many other story points we’ve faced in our show, require time and character development.”

He explained that people may see things in the show that they don’t remember from the Bible, but even though the show takes creative liberties, that doesn’t mean they didn’t happen.

“That’s not the correct measuring stick for what’s real or plausible,” Jenkins said. “Your perception isn’t necessarily reality, and silence in the Bible doesn’t mean something didn’t happen. Most times the Bible leaves out historical or cultural context because the readers at the time would have understood the very things we ‘add’ to the story.”

John 21:25 says, “Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.”

Jenkins also addressed how the show portrays the disciples confusion about Jesus’ predictions of His death.

“We show that one or two people are understanding more than others and can tell something is clearly wrong. But they don’t understand the full extent or the timing,” he explained. “We show others who start by taking him at his word (like Nathanael) but are talked out of it. We show others that are just plain confused and don’t want to try to understand.”

He added, “We show others that are confused and frustrated but they follow anyway. We show others who 100% believe he’s just speaking in parables.”

For those concerned that THE CHOSEN’s “additions” are heretical, Jenkins hoped to qualm their fears.

“The fact that the Bible doesn’t get into all that just means the Bible didn’t need to do that to fulfill its purpose,” he said. “But my TV show does…Just know that all of the context we write is researched, debated, analyzed by multiple people from multiple perspectives and ultimately lands in a place we always find ‘plausible,’ even if not provable.”