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The BEMA Podcast
484: Dallas Jenkins — It Would Have Been Enough (Bonus Episode)
00:58:00
Jesus, an Intimate God
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- [00:17]
A
This is the Bama Podcast with Marty Solomon. I'm his co host, Brent Billings. Today we are back again with Dallas Jenkins to mull over the questions that arose from seasons four and five of the Chosen. Mostly season five, but we might mix in a little bit of season four. Dallas, welcome back.
- [00:32]
B
I have been listening to you and multiple episodes. And so now I get a chance to see you and talk to you and face the questions and then correct some of the things that I've heard you say. Sometimes I'm like, no, no, no, that's not it. That's not what we meant.
- [00:45]
A
Good.
- [00:45]
B
It's so fun.
- [00:46]
C
I am always thrilled when you take the time to do this. I love it. So.
- [00:49]
B
No, it's great.
- [00:54]
A
When we scheduled this, you had already listened to our episode one commentary from season five, and you're like, ah, we didn't. We didn't actually. It was an Essene's house. It was just in the Essene quarter. So we talked about that a little bit. Some later episodes, we had some more discussion about that. But we'd love to know your thoughts on the location of the upper room, the location of Phoebe's house, which is where they were staying, the identity of John Mark and his family, all that kind of stuff that's mixing around. What are your thoughts on all that?
- [01:23]
B
I'm gonna say two things. One, I'm gonna confess to you that when it comes to geography and all of that, not only am I lousy in real life, like, I'm the guy who, when I get off the hotel elevator, I turn the wrong way towards my room. Every time. As in every time. Like, as in, I'll go, wait, last time I went left and I was wrong. This time I'm going to go right and I'll be, nope, I was wrong again.
- [01:46]
A
Is Jonathan Roumie like that, or is he just playing that for jokes when he's doing those outtakes?
- [01:51]
B
Yeah. So we have a running gag that every season we show Jonathan going the wrong way at the end of an important scene. Our operating philosophy is that Jesus can raise the dead and heal the sick, but he's awful with directions. The father just didn't grant him that gift. So we play into that every year. But no, that's, for me, it's real. So I genuinely, like, if you said to me, no, no, the Essene quarter is technically, we saw the disciples, they headed in this direction. And technically, the Essene quarter would be the other direction if you compare it to where the temple is. And I'd be Like, I, I probably. Right. I have no idea. I'm not great at that stuff. That said, with the Essene Quarter, and when we said Phoebe's house is in the Essene Quarter, the idea was that we wanted a place that was a little bit quieter, like not right in the middle of the. All the craziness of what was going on in Jerusalem at that time. And so that was the operating principle. Now, in terms of the. The Upper Room, there is some scholarly, I wouldn't call it consensus, but there's multiple scholars who believe that there is a decent chance that the Upper room was at Mark's house, John Mark's house. And so we went with that. But from what we've read and understood, there's not a. Like, one place that scholars have proved is the spot where the Upper room was. And so for us, we always like to, in this show, and I've heard you talk about this, is we take traditions or historical facts or biblical facts, and we like to, when possible, combine them into a narrative that is efficient. And by efficient, I mean, well, if we can introduce John Mark into the story and combine it with the Upper Room and then play out how that might play out. For example, many scholars believe it was John Mark who was at the Garden of Gethsemane in that kind of strange mention of a guy who's running past them with no clothes, and they're like, well, they think that was Mark. So we're like, okay, if we can connect him to the Garden of Gethsemane and connect him to the disciples and kind of introduce him to the group, start to build a relationship with Peter, because we know that Peter and Mark were close, then the Upper Room could be a really great place to do that. And it's not implausible. It's not contradictory to scripture or to scholarly beliefs. And so. And you, you've mentioned this, Marty, like, for example, and we'll get into this later, I'm sure the Dainu. It's possible, if not likely that the Dainu didn't even exist in the first century. Some of the Jewish traditions that we've reflected in the show, some of them now, it's. Again, it's hard to know because Jewish history is. I don't know if you've experienced this. It is. You ask five different rabbis the same question, you're going to get seven different answers.
- [04:42]
A
Yeah.
- [04:42]
B
And so it's sometimes hard to pin down, but will say, okay, maybe this tradition didn't happen at the time that Jesus did it, but. Or you know, at the time of Christ, but we believe that it's capital T, truth. We believe that it, it's. It's the kind of thing that Jesus would have done. And maybe it's something that was hinted at around the time of Jesus and then became filled out more 100 years later. So we're going to bring this into this time period and have the disciples do this, because even if it's not a fact that it took place at that time, it's beautiful. It's capital T, truthful. It's the kind of thing that's. That's fun to imagine that maybe Jesus and the apostles invented it. Who knows? That's the kind of stuff that when it comes to locations and timelines, we feel a little bit more freedom to use them as means to make a television show. We're not doing a documentary. Yeah, we're doing a television show. It needs to be entertaining. The storytelling needs to be efficient. And as long as we're not contradicting the character or intentions of Jesus in the Gospels, we feel free to explore these things.
- [05:49]
C
Well, I think that's why it's worked so well, is because you've held it with just loose enough hands. There's not some rigid mechanic of. You use all the same variables the exact same way because you have to. Because of. It's held just loosely enough that you can piece it together in a way that I have just truly appreciated because I've never felt like the history was being forced or it was the spirit of what's happening. I can remember the Eshachayel in whatever season that was, where they're reciting that for Sabbath, probably way early. But I was like, but that's the spirit. I love seeing that in its context because the historicity is not the key issue here. But what's being experienced by this Jewish culture in this context. I think that's why it works, is because you've held all these variables just loosely enough that you can use them to paint a picture. And it really. It really, really does work. And like the essay quarter, it has all the same pieces for me, like, all the pieces were there. I put the pieces together slightly differently. But it's the right quarter, it's the right place. It's even like, I love the geography. It fits the upper city where they're going to need to be. The characters are there. I kind of like have this vague memory of the John Mark tradition, but I was like, I can't remember if that's just me making that up. Or not. But that is beautiful to know that that's there. Because I say this in the last. I think it was the last episode that you haven't gotten a chance to hear over the course of all these seasons. You've proven and earned this. I'm assuming that there's a tradition I don't know about. That's where it was where when I got started, I had far more questions and now I'm like, well, I'm going to go dig to find that tradition. Because somewhere behind this is usually some extra. Some extra data that I just didn't know about. And it's really fun.
- [07:31]
B
That's the best thing when it happens. And it even sometimes happens not just with tradition, but with the Bible, where you go, I've even experienced this with Bible shows and even with my own show occasionally where one of my co writers will say, oh, this is where we could bring in this moment. And I'm like, what moment? And he mentions it from Scripture and I'm like, I forgot that was in there. And then I look up the Scriptures. Oh my gosh. I've been studying the Bible most of my life and I had completely forgotten that. I remember, even with you, who's a. Who's a great scholar, there was one of the episodes where you had hadn't remembered that, that the Pharisees tried to stone Jesus in Solomon's porch, right?
- [08:07]
C
Yep.
- [08:08]
B
And so you're probably watching it going, what the heck is going on? They would never do this. And then it's so enriching when you can continue to learn something new about your faith and about the roots of your faith. And that's what is so beautiful about the Bible. And here's the thing real quick. The Gospels do the same thing the Gospels oftentimes would insert, like, for one author might put a story earlier in the narrative because it serves the purpose of the point they were trying to make about Jesus's messiahship or whatever. And so I think we sometimes have this tendency to treat the Gospels as so which they are. I mean, of course they're historically accurate, but we treat them as, as gospel, which is, no pun intended, so deeply that we forget that sometimes the authors themselves were like, no, no, we are trying to make a larger point. This isn't just a history book. And so I think that the show, we feel the freedom to do the same thing.
- [09:01]
C
Couldn't have said it better for a Bama discussion. Yes, we try to drill that so much and we get to see that really well in the chosen Stuff. Can you walk us through Dallas? The decision to we open with these Lord's Supper cold opens. Working backwards, it was so effective for this season. But walk us through how that idea came about. And then I think Brent has a nerdy follow up question about aspect ratios, if I'm not mistaken. But talk to us about that whole decision to open those scenes that way for every episode.
- [09:31]
A
Yeah. Cause if I understand it correctly, you guys shot that whole thing as one. You were gonna maybe do that as one episode at some point. And then you ended up breaking it up and spreading across the season.
- [09:42]
B
When we were plotting out the season as writers, your first assumption with any moment in scripture is that you're going to tell it in a. In a straightforward way.
- [09:53]
C
Yep.
- [09:54]
B
And so we were considering just, you know, it was gonna. We figured it would probably just be an episode because it's a long passage. And especially if you're going to do it in the chosen way, where we are going to take the words of scripture and use them as a foundation. But we're also gonna. It's expand it and fill in gaps and make it human because we don't want it to sound like they're just reciting scripture passages. It turned out that it was like, wow, this is really long. It would be essentially one episode. We thought of different ways we could try to do it and ultimately landed on. Well, I think if we break it up, this was Tyler, my co writer's idea, break it up over the course of all eight episodes. We could then take some of these extraordinarily deep moments and not get. Let them get lost in the shuffle. Like just a quick commercial break. One of my slight regrets when people ask me, do you have anything you wish you would have done differently in the show so far? One of my slight regrets was in season four when Rhema, the whole episode where Rhema is murdered. It's the same episode where one of my favorite stories in the Bible takes place, where the healing of the blind man, where he goes into the synagogue and. And. And they say, you know, who did this? And do you think he's a prophet? And he just goes, whether he's a prophet, I don't know. Here's what I do know. I was blind and now I see. That's one of my favorite passages in the entire scripture. And it got kind of lost in that episode because of the rhema thing. And so that's a little bit. It's one of my regrets. So there's so many truth bombs in the Last Supper. So Many extraordinarily powerful moments that just packing them all together into one episode felt like it would be difficult. It also felt like similar to the Sermon on the Mount, if you just play it all the way straight through for 30 minutes or whatever. It's just. I don't know. I don't think it's quite as compelling as if we can take the time to focus on each of these key moments and give them the. Their due. So all that to say, then we started to realize that maybe playing it backwards would do two things. One, some of the themes that we were exploring really made sense with those episodes. So we really tried to tie the themes of what was being discussed at the Last Supper into the theme of the episode, and it seemed to work better when we played it backwards. But two, it really requires the audience to lean in. It's very easy, especially if you know the story and especially if you've read the Last Supper multiple times to start to just get lulled into this rhythm of, oh, yeah, this is the part that I've seen before. Well, this requires you to lean in, and you've got to engage. Wait a second. Okay, what are they talking about now? And we just think it's compelling now. I will say it's also the thing that a good chunk of our audience didn't love. They didn't love that it was going backwards. They didn't. They're like, can you just. Can you do an episode where you just play them all the way through? Can you release on YouTube, just play them all the way through and straightforward? And I think I heard, Brent, you mentioned your wife didn't love it, and that's fine. I'm not. It doesn't bother me. But I just. Every time for every person who said they didn't love it, I would hear from people who would be like, I was so amazing. It was so great. So we did it for certain reasons. I know it doesn't make for the easiest, but we're not always the easiest viewing experience. But we're not always trying to. For the easiest viewing experience. We like our viewers to have to lean in sometimes and have to really pay attention and to engage with what's happening and discover things in a way that they haven't before. And if you want to see the Last Supper played out in chronological order, there's a really, really good book that does it. It's the Book of John. And you can read it, or you can watch several of the movies that have been done over the last 80 years that capture it we're always trying to look for ways in that are going to be alive and that are gonna stir something in you that maybe hasn't been stirred before.
- [13:50]
A
I ought to follow up with my wife, because that was early on. That was like, her initial reaction. And I don't know how she felt about it once we were done watching the season. So I should follow up with her on that. I think she kind of got used to it. But I would love to know about the aspect ratio decision. My initial thought was like, oh, is it matching the famous painting of the Last Supper? And that wasn't quite it. So what was the decision to do the aspect ratio change and what are you communicating with that difference?
- [14:17]
B
Yeah, so my cinematographer, Akis, is really brilliant and loves paintings. And the Last Supper is, of course, one of the most famous paintings in history. And so we wanted to nod to that a little bit. The aspect ratio isn't exactly the same, but the aspect ratio that we went with for the Last Supper is more painterly. And so this was one of the few times in the whole show where we are filming the disciples world, not handheld. So typically, the only time that the cameras are locked down are when we are in the Sanhedrin or with the Romans, but when we are in the world of the disciples, in the world of Capernaum, in the world of the common people, for lack of a better term, we use handheld. And that's designed to kind of communicate more of a raw authenticity, a spontaneity, a humanity and intimacy that in the Sanhedrin, in the, like, in Pilate's house, we're trying to present a little bit more of a staged formality, you know, that. That part of what they're missing is that they're so wrapped up in. In the presentation of their lives that they miss out on the intimacy and the humanity that Jesus and the apostles have. So it's a subtle artistic choice, but here with the Last Supper, we just thought there's something so beautiful about the triclinium table and the. The setup and how. And also this is what they're honoring. The Passover that they're honoring is in many ways a presentation. There is a bit of formality to it that they're doing purposefully. It's a practice, it's a tradition. And so we thought, what if in the midst of something, that from the first frame of the season, I mean, the opening frame is the camera's on Jesus's back, it slowly pulls back, and then we're introduced to this very beautiful but also very sad in some ways. Presentation and arrangement. We thought in the midst of that, in the midst of what you've traditionally seen as a painting, you're getting some of the most extraordinary truths that have ever been spoken. And also you are going to get the humanity and the relationships and all of that. We just thought it's almost like a trick. It's like, do you think this is a painting? You think this is formal? And sometimes it is. But within that formality, there's real human beings who are saying, wait a minute, what did you just say? Wait, why did you say it that way? Wait, why are we doing this? I don't feel like doing this right now. It's one of the most iconic, not only moments in history, but also one of the most iconic images in history. And we thought, let's play off of that and give the audience something fresh.
- [17:08]
A
Definitely worked for me.
- [17:09]
C
I just love art. Art is so great creativity. The artistic elements of what we have often relegated to the classroom or the pulpit.
- [17:18]
B
Golly.
- [17:18]
C
It's so good to. Whether it's a painting from the classical period or the chosen or are as fascinating to me when. When artists. When you turn those people loose and let them do their thing.
- [17:28]
B
Well. And those of us who are Protestants, like Protestant evangelicals, I think are the most prone to the focus on the word.
- [17:39]
C
Yeah.
- [17:39]
B
And the written word. And it's well intentioned. It's rooted in. In a resistance to what has at times become idolatry for. For many people where they. The icons can sometimes become the thing as opposed to pointing to the thing. So that's where Protestantism in many ways was birthed. Was. I mean, I grew up like the word of God. The word of God. The word of God. You know, almost a suspicion towards art, a suspicion towards movies. And I think that we've overcorrected. Sure. The beauty of art is that it really does require you to look deeper and it becomes kind of this connection point between you and truth. And it's not the thing. I mean, there's a famous painting of a. I think it's a pipe. And the painting just says, this is not a pipe. And it's telling you this is not actually a pipe. And we say that all the time. Jonathan is not Jesus, I am not God. The chosen is not the Bible. It is designed to point you towards the thing. It's not actually the thing, but there's something about it that can bring the thing to life in your eyes. We've heard people say the show has taken The Gospels from black and white into color. For me, and for some people who oppose the show, that's dangerous or that's blasphemous or whatever. But for those of us who've dug in, we hear from people all over the world who've said they've never loved their Bible more than they do now. Because the Chosen has in many ways kind of reminded them or pointed them towards something that is truly life giving.
- [19:11]
C
Yeah, absolutely. All right, I want to do a little section here about Marty's favorites, because you got two of my top five moments in the chosen arc in this last season. Just two of my absolute favorite scenes. So the first one, the women's satyr. They have their own dainu. That whole scene. Golly. So good. What kind of feedback have you guys gotten from like your female audience? And that's gonna be a very diverse audience, but with where we're at and cultural consciousness and all that, like, there's gonna be a lot of different takes. What kind of feedback have you heard? Cause that was just like all throughout the way, I've enjoyed some things, I've been like, what? But that was a scene I'm like, this honors the women of the gospel story. I loved it. But tell me more about what you've heard.
- [19:57]
B
Yeah, and I wanted to ask you about that too. Cause I listened to episode four of your season five analysis just yesterday and you mentioned that you talked about how there were. There's some times where I'm like questioning it or it feels like old, you know, kind of traditionalist viewpoints of women. But then other times it really honors women. So I want to ask you about that in just a moment. But the women's last supper was something that. Yes, the feedback has been. It's probably on our top five list of the most responded to tear inducing scenes we've ever done. And in fact, just so you know, Marty, if you go to the chosen app, we did a roundtable discussion, me and the women from that scene. It's like a 30 minute discussion about the filming of that scene. Wow. And what it meant to them as actresses and as women and why. I mean, they showed up and sat around the table and we started to just rehearse a little bit. And it was like the moment it started rehearsing there just tears are streaming down their face. It was just something very, very powerful and holy about that. Yeah. So that was something that the three writers, Ryan, Tyler and myself, collectively came to this belief that we have to have Jesus having a final moment with the women, we know that. Well, not, I shouldn't say final, because they were. They were at the cross, but a celebration of Passover, the fact that the women weren't there, at least in the biblical narrative, we thought, okay, clearly he had something specific to say to his 12 in this upper room. But we know from the Gospel accounts that he had a very close relationship with his women followers, his women disciples. And so we thought it's plausible and I think for our purposes at least, necessary for him to have a similar experience with the women. And, you know, that they would have. If he would have said, I. I'm going to have this Passover meal, the Seder meal, with. With my 12. They would have been like, whoa, wait, we're not doing it all together. Typically, they would have done it all together. So we just thought, instead of Jesus saying, no, I really have something specific I need to say to the men, we thought, why not have them say, no, I have something for you too. It's just separate. And so we're going to have our own meal. And Tyler is the one who connected the Dayenu. And I remember when I read his draft of it, I was just like, oh, man. Like, this is emotional terrorism.
- [22:20]
A
Yeah.
- [22:20]
B
But also very spiritually profound. And again, capital T, truth. I don't know if the Dayenu happened at that time. I don't know if Jesus had a last supper with the women. None of these things are factual. But I don't know that we've captured capital T, truth better than we did in that scene of them expressing to Jesus not only the heavy. The weight of their relationship with him, but my favorite. Not my favorite, but one of my things I love about the scene, if I can be so bold as to talk about my own work this way, is the front half of the scene where you're lulled into this comfort of just. They're just chatting and laughing and telling stories. And I love that Mary Mother talks about Jesus spitting up on her shoulder as much as I love her expressing later how much she means to him. Because those are the human moments that you forget about. In fact, Mary Mother even says people don't talk about that part. He spit up on my shoulder. I changed his soiled diapers. Those kinds of things are the things that I think make those moments later, when you realize they're speaking to the creator of the universe, even more profound. So that was for sure an anointed moment, as we sometimes say, where sometimes God just grants us the favor of giving us a scene that I Don't think we were smart enough to come up with on our own. And from the writing to the filming to the music, I don't know that we can do better. I think it represents the best of what we're capable of and our humanity combined with God's favor.
- [23:48]
C
Well, it was a fantastic decision. I appreciate. I feel like. Thank you is the thing I want to say to the team for stewarding that decision the way that you did.
- [23:57]
B
Because, man, I was so glad to hear you say that. You started to think of your own Dainu. And we've heard of people all over the world have said the same thing. They said it made me think. I'm going to get emotional here because it reminds me, at my 50th birthday party this year, I turned 50 in July. And my mother, who's in her 70s and who is morbidly afraid of public speaking and never gets on stage, my dad and I have always been the ones who do that. And at my birthday party, there was a lot of people, there was a big celebration, and, you know, she shared some memories about me. And then she did her own Dainu for me. And she was like, you know, if you would have just been my firstborn son who, blah, blah, blah, it would have been enough. And you would have graduated from high school and not gone on to college and didn't. It would have been enough. And I was like, it wrecked the room and wrecked me. And we've heard from people all over the world, have said that they've. They've gathered their families and they've done their own. And they've had their own personal moments where they've done it, and that's like, what's better than that? You know, when you can make a television show that causes people in dozens of languages and countries all over the world for their lives to be impacted and for them to learn something more about and to remember. I mean, that's the thing that the Jewish people do so beautifully that us Gentiles need to learn from is they remember and they honor. And it's just been so beautiful for me, as the creator of the show, to practice that myself.
- [25:28]
C
Yeah, really well said.
- [25:32]
A
Well, leading into Marty's other. He called it a top three moment, this next one. But leading into that on Thaddeus, I was curious about the connection between Peter and Thaddeus, because Peter makes this comment as they're waiting for him to show up for the Last Supper, like, oh, don't worry about him. Never underestimate that kid. And it just Seemed like there was maybe something there that you guys found connecting those, those two disciples more intimately than we realize.
- [25:59]
B
Yeah.
- [26:00]
C
Is there any John mark, like tradition buried there?
- [26:02]
B
No. That was less about the specific relationship between Peter and Thaddeus than it was about Peter's growth as a leader in recognizing the strengths of other people. It's the kind of thing that he probably wouldn't have said in early seasons because he probably wouldn't have noticed. Like in season four, for example, you see him starting to pour into Matthew a little bit more. And Thomas, you know, when Thomas is going through his tragedy, Peter is the one who feels compelled to talk to him directly and to try to give advice. And so season five is the same as you were. Just these subtle moments where you're seeing him recognize and see other people in a way that he hadn't before and he's coming into his own as a leader and, and trying to learn from Jesus. And then of course, shortly thereafter, after recognizing Thaddeus and being a good leader, of course you see him say, Jesus, you'll never wash my feet. And you know, he's still Peter. And Jesus says, you know, well, sometimes Peter is still Simon. You know, we really are trying to show that each season Peter gets more and more Christ like and learns more, but also falls harder each season. And of course, we just filmed season six, which, you know, we know some of what happens around the time of Christ's crucifixion. That is devastating. And it's devastating because Peter shows so much growth and because Christ has given him so much responsibility that I think it's an important lesson for the viewer that even the heroes of the faith are capable of profound mistakes. And so a subtle thing like don't underestimate Thaddeus was just a way of showing Peter's awareness and leadership.
- [27:47]
A
There are many times that we've noticed Peter's growth in that regard. So yeah, that's good.
- [27:52]
B
Yeah. But I wanted to real quick, I wanted to go back, if you don't mind. I know it's your show, but I wanted to just ask you, Marty, when you say things like there's times in the show where I've been glitched perhaps by the kind of the more old fashioned treatment of women, do you not see that as what I would consider an accurate portrayal of what would have taken place in, at that time. We don't intend it as like a political statement of a woman belongs in the kitchen. Although there are many women, including my mom and my wife, who were stay at Home moms and who did the cooking. But that's not a life prescription. It's just a. Some women prefer this. And back in the first century, that certainly was the majority of how things operated. And so we're going to accurately capture that while at the same time showing how Jesus honors women and that it's not all or nothing when it comes to this. But I'm just curious if you actually found some of those scenes to be historically inaccurate or if you just were concerned that, okay, this will feed into a viewer's stereotype.
- [28:51]
C
Yeah, definitely more the latter. I definitely was like, historically, if you were to do anything but this, you would be. Which maybe there's even the license to pull it a little that direction. But this is definitely historically the way it would take place. What I'm always trying to. I've had to work so hard at this because I'll immediately do that. I didn't have a problem with the scenes, but I've tried to catch myself going, I work with some amazing women that have carried a whole bunch of baggage of a very. Whatever you want to call it, kind of Christianity. And I always think about them, and I think, how did they feel that scene? How did they see that scene? And for the most part, I've always, like. I think I want to give it the benefit of the doubt and layer over the history and be like, oh, no, this is spot on. I love it because I can see it that way. Then I would bump into a good friend of mine that was like, oh, Eden, she's just that typical Christian home wife. And I'm like, oh, I didn't. I almost felt like she's this fiery, like, whatever. So I just always kind of wanted to, in my own commentary, like, remember them and say, I hear you. I'm out there. Here's what I'm seeing. Maybe there's room to see it or feel something else.
- [29:58]
B
Right.
- [29:59]
C
But that's kind of where I was at. But historically, I was always. To depict it any other way would be maybe not impossible, but definitely would be less historical. Those things are accurate. If anything, there's a little bit of our own presidivism that we've projected onto that as we probably should, as we. As you would make that show.
- [30:17]
B
So, yeah. And I would just suggest that all of us, including possibly whatever woman that you're describing, are capable of projecting onto what we watch, our own experiences. And. Yes. Even trauma.
- [30:34]
C
Yes.
- [30:34]
B
And that's not to diminish the trauma at all, but it's to also Say, well, part of the healing process is to not see every. Either depiction or every man as a threat. Like, that's part of what I hope that all people get to experience in a relationship with Christ is a healing of whatever trauma that you've faced. And part of the healing includes. And we depicted this in seasons like two, for example, with Mary Magdalene.
- [30:59]
C
Yes.
- [31:00]
B
And we did this very intentionally in season two. She's doing great. She's following Jesus. She's got her scripture with her. She sees a Roman when she's by herself and it goes. And it all falls apart and she forgets her scripture, she forgets her prayers, she blames herself. She has all the same feelings that all of us do. But I also think it's important to show, and we do. In season four, no, season five, she sees a Roman again and she's. She actually like, puts her chest up on her shoulders back and things are different now. And she then quotes a scripture and she looks up at the Father and says, thank you for that.
- [31:37]
C
Yes.
- [31:38]
B
And so I think that for viewers too, I would contend it's healthy to slowly but surely perhaps not project onto to others your. Your own lens and to try to see the totality of it.
- [31:49]
C
Yeah, I think we would talk about that with like the rabbinical language of a good eye or a bad eye, like having this generous. What's the positive way I can frame this or view this. And again, not to diminish or take away from the traumas we bring into that, but are there ways, redemptive ways to see and hear things?
- [32:05]
B
Yeah.
- [32:05]
C
All right, I'm going to jump back to Thaddeus because, man, I don't even know how to make this into a question. It was just one of my favorite scenes of the whole thing we've experienced in five seasons now. But I don't know who wrote that monologue that Jesus gives to Thaddeus. I'm going to find it written out somewhere in a transcript. I'm going to memorize it. Not in the same way I would memorize scripture, but the way I would memorize a favorite poem. That was one of the best monologues I have ever heard Jesus describing to Thaddeus, who we are as a church, what the kingdom of God is. Holy cow. That was so good.
- [32:40]
B
Well, this may sound cliche, but again, that was Tyler.
- [32:43]
C
Tyler is a guy, man. Wow. Go Tyler.
- [32:45]
B
Tyler's your guy for sure. Because Tyler is. Now again, when I say that, I mean he wrote the first draft. Ryan and I, of course, contribute to that and, and then there's other things that I did the first draft of and yadda. So we all, we all do everything together. But yeah, yeah, there's sometimes some of those really poetic moments. A lot of those came from Tyler because that's how his brain works. And he's able to take concepts that we've maybe taken for granted and put them into the context of monologues or of poetry or of some kind of moment where you're just like, oh, my goodness, that is transcendent and yet feels very truthful. And then my job is, and Ryan's job when Tyler comes up with something that insane in a good way to make it human and real so it doesn't feel like Jesus reciting poetry. It feels like something Jesus would have actually said to a human being. And so in that moment, I think that might be along with maybe our treatment of the Sermon on the Mount when Jesus is delivering it to Matthew and we personalize it by showing the disciples one of those moments where a biblical, spiritual, theological, historical concept is spoken directly to the viewer as much as it is to the person that he's talking to. I think we're, we're actually putting together a concept for a shirt that has that entire speech, you know, or that entire monologue on it combined with the phrase, you know, say yes to the.
- [34:17]
A
World'S no, you got the Diana shirt already. And then you're, you're gonna, you're just getting, you're gonna get all our money.
- [34:22]
B
Well, yeah, but, but honestly, joking aside, the shirts that we come up with are always meant to say something meaningful as opposed to just, we're gonna slap the chosen on a shirt.
- [34:34]
C
Yeah.
- [34:34]
B
And make money off of it. We really want it to be out in culture.
- [34:38]
A
I absolutely appreciate the way you guys do the merch because it's. Yeah. They don't feel throwaway, they don't feel cheap. Like, it feels like there's deep meaning behind what you guys do.
- [34:47]
B
Yeah. When he says you're going to be, you know, hated and loved, all of those things that he says in that moment, I, I think for me as a 50 year old who's making this show, I'm, I'm still being blessed by some of these things because it's, it's a reminder for me that this is a life commitment that you are making. And when Jesus says, like, I'm not going to promise you that it's going to be fun, you know, it's not always going to be fun, but it's going to be the most life giving thing you ever do. And you will have committed yourself and given yourself to a movement into a practice that will change your life and others. And yeah, I mean, I'm glad every time I turn on your episodes to listen, I always have a little bit of a oh, my goodness. This is the part where I'm wondering what Marty and Brent are gonna say. How did this translate to him? And whenever you say, this was my favorite moment, you know, even this deep into the show, I'm like, so gratifying.
- [35:47]
C
Well, just as a comment too, you just said the phrase this deep into the show, this is the hardest. Like, I was like, okay, at some point in the beginning of the arc chosen wins me over. And I just knew. I'm like, okay. But you get to the final week, you get to the passion week, you get to whatever next season looks like and we don't know and you do. And that's gonna be some of the hardest stuff to make, the most difficult stuff to do well, where everything can go off the rails. And I love that this far into the episode. And the proof in the pudding for me was my kids are sitting there watching it and I'm like, I would tell that monologue with my whole heart to my kids. And that's where I know how much I believe in something without qualification, without having to explain away and deconstruct it. Like, to just be like kids. That's it. Yeah, that's it. That thing he just said, that's it. It will be hard and it will be easy and it will be beautiful and it will be ugly and people suck and people are glorious and say yes to the world's nose. And like, I was like, bam. That was it. That was just so well written. And it's not. Somehow you're getting into these difficult moments and bringing us through what could just be crazy and it's not. And it's been such a good, such a good fifth season. So I have really high hopes for season six.
- [37:05]
B
Well, I appreciate that because it is. Seasons five and six have been without a close. I mean, season six is the hardest thing we've ever done almost in my life. I mean, 86 days of filming, I had my first kind of emotional breakdown that I've ever had on a movie set. Not a nervous breakdown, but, like, where I couldn't hold myself together and I had to get away and just sob for five minutes because it was just so painful and challenging to film. But what I've appreciated about you guys and your analysis is the Appreciation of just how challenging it is to marry some of these concepts from the final week of Jesus's life that are so confusing and so odd and so sacred. Yeah. And yet, like you said. Yes. At the same time. So sac that we have a group of Orthodox Jewish consultants that are mixed with some secular Jewish consultants who. There's nothing informal. We don't have to take any of their notes, but we just want to get their feedback just to make sure we don't accidentally just do something that could be profoundly offensive. Unless it's necessary. I don't mind offending people. I just don't want to do it sloppily. And this is the part of the story that's the most fraught for Jewish people and Jewish viewers where they're like, are you going to do the thing where the angry Jews kill our sacred Christian Messiah?
- [38:24]
C
I'm going to say that in this season's commentary. You're going to hear me say it like, I don't know how this is going to go. I don't know where they're going to go. Because I have that same concern as a Jewish believer. So. Yeah, absolutely right.
- [38:32]
B
And I would first argue that and contend that this is just starting from season one, possibly the most Jewish show of all time. I mean, it's most. I would say that on balance, and my Jewish consultants agree with this, that they're seeing gentiles saying Jewish prayers and appreciating Jewish history more than they ever have, recognizing more than perhaps ever how Jewish of a Jesus. Yeah, Like a Jew. He is a Jewish Messiah, is a Jewish Jesus. He's not a whitewashed European gentile Jesus. Yeah, that's our operating principle. But you do get into this season five and season six stuff where there is a group of Jewish leaders who were corrupt and who did arrange to have Jesus killed. That is a fact. The fact that there have been some evil people throughout history who have taken that and used that as justification to be anti Semitic is horrible. And it saddens me, but it doesn't mean that we shouldn't be faithful and honest to what actually happened. Well, at the same time, we have to show that Jesus and the apostles, in their rejection of the religious leaders were not rejecting their Jewish faith.
- [39:45]
C
Right.
- [39:46]
B
They still practice their Jewishness. They still practice the prayers. This was a corruption of the Jewish faith. It was not a all or nothing. Okay, well, now we're not going to be Jewish because this group of Jewish leaders was corrupted. And as I believe you noticed in episode four, it's not just Nicodemus. It's not just Yousef.
- [40:05]
C
Yes, yes.
- [40:06]
B
Who were wrestling with this and who weren't okay with the corruption that was taking place. Shimon is our kind of representative and what we believe would have been the most historically plausible representative of the. Wait a minute, guys. This is a bastardization of something that's beautiful. And let me remind you of. Of this and let me remind you of that. And he just gets overwhelmed. And the main reason that he gets overwhelmed is because Jesus wanted it that way. Meaning Jesus was, in many ways doing things that resulted intentionally in a response that got him killed. Jesus wasn't like, oh, my goodness, I didn't know how that would come across. Right. Well, why are they behaving this way? I can't believe they're so angry. This was part of God's plan and.
- [40:49]
C
It'S so relevant for us, Dallas, because if we can't, what you're going to do is you're going to watch them think about their own faith and how it's been corrupted.
- [40:57]
B
Yes.
- [40:57]
C
Gee, I wonder if there's any, like, relevant wrestling matches for us today. If we can't think about them doing that in their context. How in the world would I ever expect myself to be able to look at the same ways that my own faith can be corrupted or twisted or anything else? So that's just such a. Yeah, because the opposite extreme is just as harmful, which is that we remove everything from the Jewish conversation. It's simply Roman imperialism. And that's not historically what's going on. And it robs me of my ability to think critically about what my own faith can become.
- [41:27]
B
Yeah. And so we have intentionally, in season five, for example. For example, when they're having the conversation about the sacrifices, we made it a point for Philip, for example, to say, this is a corrupted version of our history. It's not that the sacrifices are wrong, and it's not even that paying for sacrifices is wrong. It's that it's been corrupted and misused. And we felt the need to clarify that because it's easy for Gentiles and Christians to go, okay, out with the Old, in with the new. The New Testament is essential. Some. For some people, it's almost like a rejection of the Old Testament. And it's like, now with the old, in with the new. And it's like, well, that's not. That's not what Jesus was doing, and it's not what he meant. That's the same thing with Judas. Our portrayal of Judas has been, instead of saying he's just a guy who came on board and for three years was playing possum because he all along plan to. To betray the sinless son of God. We want to show a guy that followed Jesus was with these disciples for, for three years, at one point was healing people and casting out demons and preaching with authority. It's implausible to think that he was the whole entire time just, you know, trying to, to fill out this dastardly plan. We wanted to show him as something that we're capable of today where we can come into something and be very positive and optimistic and, and all in. And then slowly but surely the flesh can start to take over. And we do that all the time. I see it in the evangelical world all the time. There but for the grace of God go I that even as the show has grown, I came into this not caring about the fame or the money or the, the growth of the success. I just wanted to make a good show. And, and I'm constantly checking myself to make sure that as it happens I don't start making certain little subtle adjustments just to avoid criticism or gain praise or justify certain financial decisions for the sake of making more money and all that. Because Judas is a great example of how that can happen.
- [43:21]
C
Yeah. I've got a couple high level questions to get us out of here, Brent, but do you have anything in the. Before I do, yeah.
- [43:27]
A
On the idea of New Testament being a replacement for the Old Testament, I love just how you are constantly integrating the psalms and even like the time in the garden, the Abraham and Isaac. I don't know what your vision, I don't know what you call that, the Ezekiel portion.
- [43:44]
C
I love the way that all of.
- [43:45]
A
That stuff is getting mixed in and getting people familiar with those parts of the Bible that they might not be as familiar with because they're focusing on the New Testament.
- [43:55]
B
Yeah. The Garden of Gethsemane scene is another one that has, I would say the majority of people were completely. They loved it and it was very moving for them. And then there was a few people who were like, what is happening? Like, and when Jesus, when Jesus goes into the valley of dry bones. That was for some people was like, I don't. My brain is, who is this? Where is he? And. And good. The good news is a lot of people then went into scripture, they'd post something about it and they go, what is he? Who's he talking to? And what is this? And then people in the comments ago, it's from Ezekiel, Ezekiel and those three sequences where Jesus is. Here's what we know from Scripture. Jesus is in the garden, and he's so distressed, and he's in so much spiritual and emotional pain and torment. I mean, he even says, my soul is troubled to the point of death. And scholars debate whether he was actually bleeding or whether it was the sweat drops were as drops of blood. We interpret it kind of in the middle, that he was very intense. But the scripture, some interpretations just say that he was sweating, like they were drops of blood. But clearly he was very, very distressed. And there's one passage of Scripture that talks about how an angel was sent to him to provide some comfort. And so we took that concept and just thought, okay, in his communion with his Father, where he's begging his Father for relief and he's. He's praying, he's hearing, he's listening. What are some artistic ways we can communicate how the Father would communicate to him, short of a voice from heaven. Right. And so this is where we thought there are moments in the Old Testament that speak to what Jesus is actually asking for. So is this the Father giving him this vision, or is this Jesus kind of hopefully like, hey, I know what. The last time that a son was brought up to be sacrificed, it was a test. It didn't actually go all the way through with it. Maybe that's what's happening. We don't spell it out whether that's God giving him that vision or Jesus manifesting it. But it's the same thing with Ezekiel, is we decided moments of history that spoke to what might give Jesus some comfort. We thought, this is a really interesting opportunity to marry the old with the new. Heaven with earth, past, present, and future, all on God's economy of time, not our own. And we really explore that in season six, when Jesus is on the cross. We really play with heaven meeting earth, past, present, and future all coming together, because it's the most, in many ways, the most supernatural of our seasons, where we really do try to give you a glimpse into what it might look like and feel like for heaven to meet Earth and for God's economy of time, where to him a day is a thousand years, what does that actually look like in the mind and heart of the Son of God? And so we played with that a little bit in the Garden of Gethsemane. And then it concludes, of course, with his earthly father showing up and giving him some comfort. So we definitely went on a limb. We definitely were taking an artistic chance, but we thought it had the potential to be very beautiful.
- [47:04]
C
Yeah, it worked. For me, when we did our commentary just yesterday on it, we wondered if you were toying with the idea of an angel coming and this could be the way that he experienced that which just fits so many of the narratives in the Old Testament. It's an angel, it's a man, it's God. What's going on here? It worked for me and it was one of those places where I'm like, well, this could go weird, but it works. It just totally works. So it was really good. Let me close. I'll put two questions together and you can answer however you want to.
- [47:30]
B
Great.
- [47:30]
C
We've got two more seasons and maybe if we're lucky and you're as stern as you always have been, we'll get to talk to you one more time. But we're now on the back end of. We're coming down the home stretch of this seven season thing you're doing with the Chosen. I'll add this image to. I saw on your Instagram you posted you were done, you were finishing up season six filming, you were saying goodbye to Jonathan roomie. And you post on Instagram about that. Just as you come now to the, to this point in this journey, what are some of the biggest things that you've. Like this a really open ended question, but where have you come? What have you learned? What sticks with you? Like I remember talking to you at the whatever the end of season one and this thing was just getting started. We're like Kickstarter and can we make it work? And everything from the business to the art and the filming. Even just thinking about Jonathan Roumie, like what it was like to work with him had to have been incredible. Like he's just done an incredible job with this role, phenomenal job with this role in ways that will change people. It's exactly what you said. It's not scripture, it's not a pipe. But he has done something anyway. There's a big mess of a question that you can say anything you want to. What do you feel like having come to this spot of the journey, kind of seeing the light at the end of the tunnel?
- [48:47]
B
Well, I would say that more than anything else I have learned about that. Jesus is an intimate God and you see that in our portrayal. Whenever Jesus is healing someone or calling someone to follow him, or even rebuking someone, he speaks directly to their specific heart need. It's not just one size fits all. And that's true today. He knows our hearts more than even we do and that has informed my faith quite a bit. I would also say that the lessons of the Gospels and in fact, the lessons of the Old Testament, the lesson of the five loaves and two fish, is very similar to the lesson of the walking through the water, the parting of the Red Sea, which is that God told the Israelites to camp out at the edge of the Red Sea. He put them in an impossible situation where they had no escape. And the only way out of this situation was a miracle. And he put them there. It's not like they got themselves into a corner and now God comes in to save the day. And the same thing with the feeding of the 5,000. Jesus was the one responsible for their hunger. He's the one who'd been preaching so long that they didn't have a chance to leave and go home to the point where they were so hungry that if they went home, they would faint along the way. And Jesus knew that. He's the one who brought about the very hunger that required a miracle to satisfy it. And in the midst of all of that, he still asks us to raise the staff. He still asks us to provide the five loaves and two fish. And so there's this very mysterious. I don't know what word to use. Maybe it's a mysterious combination of God's sovereignty with the grace that allows us to participate in it. That has been really profound for me over the last five, six years. And I've seen it in my own life more than ever. So when we go through challenges like my family has gone through since we started the Chosen, more challenges in our lives and medical crises and personal struggles than any time in the rest of our lives combined, it has been really healing and beautiful to go. This isn't just some accident that we kind of stumbled into, and now we're going to pray that God can rescue us from it. Most likely, he actually has brought this about for a specific reason. And we want to know what that is, and we want to be redeemed and sanctified and. And justified through that process. And that's something that I think I'll take with me forever. Now, just so you know, when you say light at the end of the tunnel, I don't know if this is good news for you or bad news, but, like right now we're filming a Joseph miniseries, like the Old Testament Joseph. Now, I'm not the director of it. This is a project that I'm overseeing, but not directing, but. And then when season seven is done, I'm going to take a little bit of a break, but then I'M going to be show running a Moses show, a three season Moses show, and then we'll hopefully do a book of Acts show. We're developing other projects. We have an animated series that at the time that someone's listening to this right now is probably out and available on Prime Video, where we really do believe that for whatever reason, our approach to storytelling seems to match really well with Bible stories and seems to crack the code for a lot of people around the world in terms of bringing them to life. And so we want to keep doing that as long as God allows. So I just hope and pray that when I talk to you on a podcast episode five years from now and we're analyzing our portrayal of the 10 plagues and we're talking about it on Bema, that I still have the same posture of brokenness and surrender that brought me to this place. Because I believe that's where God wants us. He wants us on the manna program, as my wife calls it. Yeah, every day our hands are out looking for that daily manna. And he said to the Israelites, if you store it up, I'm going to make it rot. Because I want. He wanted them to bend it on him every day. And that's what I want to. I want to maintain.
- [53:02]
C
Well, I will pray that prayer with gentle compassion because that's not an easy prayer to have prayed for you, but that's a good desire. I love that.
- [53:10]
A
As we record the Chosen Adventures is eight days from coming out. My two boys, they're seven and four. And we're counting down the days until we can watch the Chosen Adventures. But as people are listening to this, go watch it right now. The other thing that I saw you guys were talking about recently was translation of the Chosen into all these languages. And in your promotional thing for it, you did the Dainu Sanes in a whole series of languages. And that just had me weeping. Like, it's just so. As beautiful as it is just in all in English like to see, like, oh, this is something that all of these different people get to experience. Like, that's just super exciting. So it's not necessarily a question, but I just want to make sure people are aware. Like you have it available in what, 80 some languages now?
- [53:58]
B
Yes. The season one has been translated now into 86 languages. And we got a visit from the Guinness Book of World Records who said that we held the record now for the most languages translated for a season of a streaming program. The goal is 600 languages. Come and See is the nonprofit that finances our Production, and they also finance the translations and execute the translations. And so it is a huge operation. And it is one of the most beautiful things that I ever experienced. Every time I see one of those scenes where you see it in English and then it goes to Japanese and then it goes to Korean, and then it goes to Dutch and German and all this stuff, and I'm like, oh, my gosh, it's so fun. And the chosen adventures, the animated show, is also already translated into five or six languages and more to come. Wow. The most moving thing I've ever experienced, probably there's been a lot, but on this show is when I saw 300 Madagascar orphans were gathered into this room because the president of Madagascar loves the show, and television had never been dubbed into their language before.
- [55:03]
A
Wow.
- [55:03]
B
And they showed them the episode from season one, episode three, with Jesus and the little children. And these kids got a chance to see the show in their own language and then experience. And afterwards, several of the kids said, I saw a God who's just like me. He brushes his teeth in the stream just like I do. He makes his own food just like I do. He dresses his own wounds just like I do. And I'm like, I could die now and it would be enough. You know, I was just like, that's the greatest thing that we've ever experienced. And that all exists because people donate to come and see and allow this show to get out to that many people in that way. And that's. There's something so beautiful and profound about the fact that the viewers are participating in this. Gosh.
- [55:44]
A
So amazing. Well, Dallas, you have been incredibly generous with your time. Thank you so much for sharing with us. The number of questions and things we have to wrestle with and think about are endless. And so we could go on for hours. But thank you for giving us some time today.
- [55:58]
B
Well, absolutely. Now I gotta get back to editing episodes or season six and writing season seven. I really can't wait for you guys to see season six, because we go balls to the wall, as they say. All the risks that we took in the Garden of Gethsemane are, like, on steroids in season six. Yeah. So. Okay. Right off the bat, too.
- [56:18]
A
Oh, and I so love that you are putting them out in theaters, that it's such a fun experience to get to go see that on a big screen when they come out. So. So thanks for making that happen, too. All right, well, listeners can find details about our show. We'll probably have a handful of links of things that we talked about and referenced today, so you can find that@bayamawdisupship.com or in your podcast app. Thank you all for joining us today to be a part of this conversation. We'll talk to you all again soon.
- [56:51]
B
So I'm curious, guys. When you do these chosen episodes, there's got to be some of your listeners who are like, I don't care. Get back to the stuff we normally like from you guys.
- [56:59]
A
Yeah.
- [56:59]
B
And then there's probably some who. These are the only episodes they listen to.
- [57:03]
C
Yeah.
- [57:03]
A
Oh, yeah. We have a good chunk of listeners who found Baymob because they started listening to our chosen episodes, our delayed schedule. People are like, when are you doing season five? When are you doing season five?
- [57:13]
C
So they were not happy with me because I was waiting. I didn't see them in theaters, so I was waiting for Brent to ship me a Blu Ray before I hit Amazon or whatever it was on streaming, and. And I. They were not happy. You haven't seen it yet. Why did I even invite you to my house if you can't talk about season five?
- [57:31]
B
So, yeah, yeah, that's. That's both gratifying and depressing to hear at the same time.
- [57:39]
C
So.
- [57:39]
B
Yeah, that's beautiful. Thanks so much, guys. Really appreciate what you do.
- [57:42]
C
Yeah, absolutely. You too, Dallas. Really, it's. This is a project that's going to be hard to understand the gravity from where we sit, but it's just so impressed with how you've handled it and how you've continued to press it forward, and I'm going to be a hard sell, but you've sold me, so great work.
- [57:57]
B
Yeah.
- [57:58]
C
Yeah.
- [57:58]
B
All right. Thanks, guys.
- [57:59]
A
Thanks, Dallas. See ya.