Why “The Chosen” is Worth Watching

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I was a latecomer to “The Chosen.” I finished watching season 4 only a couple of weeks ago. I had thought it was probably just another pious portrayal of Jesus that was long on devotion and short on history. I’m glad my resistance didn’t persist. 

For those of you unfamiliar with it, “The Chosen” is an historical television series “created, directed, and co-written by filmmaker Dallas Jenkins,” according to Wikipedia. “It is the first multi-season series about the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. Primarily set in Judaea and Galilee in the 1st century, the series depicts Jesus' life through the eyes of the people who interacted with him, including the apostles, and disciples of Jesus, Jewish religious leaders, Roman government and military officials, and ordinary people.

“The series stars Jonathan Roumie as Jesus alongside Shahar Isaac, Elizabeth Tabish, Paras Patel, Noah James, and George H. Xanthis, among a large cast of others. …It is available on various streaming platforms, including Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, Facebook, YouTube, and others.

Watched by 280 million

“The show has been watched by an estimated 280 million people worldwide, a third of whom are not religious.” The fifth season, with 8 episodes, is due to begin on June 15.

A warning. We Bible readers will have images in our minds of all the various scenes in the Bible, and The Chosen messes with them. That is, the show will provide powerful new images of the life and times of Jesus that may be different from our own. And we may find that disconcerting or even frustrating.

But I generally liked what I’ve seen so far, with some exceptions. The actors are, for the most part, talented and believable. Commenting on the performance of Roumie, who plays Jesus, a friend of mine said something to the effect that it’s the first portrayal of Jesus in such a show that “doesn’t make me throw up.”

Joe Hoover, S.J.
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I took that to mean the portrayal was credible, avoiding portraying Jesus as a wimpy human or as piously half-divine. Most of the other actors were equally believable, in my view. But surely not all of Jesus’ followers were as handsome, or pretty, as the actors in The Chosen. Maybe it’s hard to find Hollywood actors who look like ordinary people.

The settings for the scenes were generally also believable, but I found the settings of the interior of houses, offices of Roman and Jewish authorities and palaces unbelievably elegant for first-century times. That’s true especially of the houses of Jesus’ youth and that of his disciples and friends, most of whom, scripture scholars say, lived in poverty.

The cover story of a recent issue of America magazine, entitled “A Jesuit Considers ‘The Chosen,’” by Joe Hoover, the magazine’s poetry editor and a film maker himself, offers some interesting insights.

Done Wonders for His Understanding and Engagement

“…I have been a baptized Christian for 53 years,” Hoover writes, “attended a Catholic Christian grade school, high school, college and two graduate schools and for more than two decades have been a member of a religious order that bears the name of Jesus (Society of Jesus)…and the television series has done things for my understanding and engagement with the life of Christ and his disciples that nothing else ever has.

“No sermon, no theological exhortation, no master’s degree, no class on John or Mark or Luke, no spirituality workshop, no 30-day biblically based retreat has brought the Gospels home and made Christ and his people real and relatable to me in quite the same way “The Chosen” has. I think that is worth something.”

I do, too. That’s why I believe people searching for God in the Christian tradition should consider watching the series. Let’s face it, our imaginations are relatively poor, especially when it comes to what life was like in the first century. And when it comes to who Jesus and his disciples really were, we need help. “The Chosen” goes a long way in providing it.