S2, E1
Here we start season 2 with Episode 1. If you are new to these, I have completed episode guides for every episode in season 1 and 5. Here we begin to continue to work our way through all of the episodes of The Chosen to see what is in the Bible and what is not, what is helpful and what might be harmful.
Biblical: What We Find in Scripture
Nothing. Certainly Jesus did travel to Samaria and meet a woman at the well in Sychar. However, the things that are actually recorded in the Bible all happened in the previous episode, episode 8 of season 1.
Unbiblical: What Contradicts Scripture
The teaching of the lost sheep is recorded in Matthew 18 and in Luke 15. The former seems to be set in Capernaum, the latter in Jerusalem. This means that Jesus probably taught that parable more than once, which would be expected. However, there is no biblical record to state that Jesus taught that in Samaria. Mt. 18 and Lk. 15 also both happen later in Jesus’ ministry than his visit to Samaria. While it’s possible that this teaching happened in Samaria, a possibility not recorded in Scripture, it is recorded that Jesus taught that Parable in Galilee and Jerusalem. I am therefore including this portion of this episode in the unbiblical category.
In the scene where the disciples are going out to buy food to prepare, a fictional scene, Matthew is seen distributing the gold coins from the fictional bag of coins that was found in the previous season. Judas is the disciple who is recorded in Scripture as keeping the purse (Jn. 12:6).
I almost put this point in the “Biblical” category out of sympathy because so far this entire episode has either been fictional or confusing. Ultimately I decided to put it here because so many of the details are confused. James and John were given the name “sons of thunder” by Jesus because they wanted to see fire called down from heaven. However, as this is recorded in Luke 9:51, I think once again the timeline is off. This episode is presented to us as very early on in Jesus’ ministry, and in fact it should be as Jesus encountered the woman at the well very early on in his ministry. However, it is much later in his ministry that James and John receive the title that they are given. This might be forgivable as the timeline in the NT is often hard to understand. However, here is why I think this scene is contradictory. In Lk. 9 when the two brothers want to call down fire from heaven, it is because a whole village rejects Jesus. Here in this episode it is merely 3 travelers.
Extra-biblical: What Is Made Up but Doesn’t Contradict Scripture
This episode begins with the disciples, looking markedly older than in the previous episodes, giving what appears to be interviews to someone. All of this is fictional, though there are some elements drawn from true things. Andrew speaks of his calling while he was with John the Baptist. Andrew was in fact a disciple of John the Baptist before he was a disciple of Jesus (Jn. 1:35-40). There is no knowledge of where Jesus met Mary Magdalene the first time, we just know that Jesus cast demons out of her (Mk. 16:9, Lk. 8:2).
We are shown that the person interviewing people was the disciple John. John certainly was an eyewitness to the events and certainly recorded them as an eyewitness. While we don’t know exactly who wrote the first gospel, it is largely believed that the gospel of Mark was written before the other gospels, and there seems to be reasonable evidence for this. In the interview with his mother, John’s mom states that the whole world could not contain the books that would be written if everything were to be recorded. John’s gospel says this in Jn. 21:25, though we have no knowledge that this saying came from his mother or anyone else. Those are presented to us in the Bible as the words of John.
Ramah and her family are entirely absent from Scripture. While scenes involving her in the future may be drawn from biblical accounts, Ramah and her family are, and will always be, entirely made up.
The only thing that is known about Jesus’ time in Samaria after meeting the woman at the well is that he stayed there a couple of days (Jn. 4:40).
Matthew is often portrayed as odd, even maybe at times appearing to have some kind of sensory disorder. This isn’t informed by Scripture. The socially odd nature of Matthew is something that is made up by the Chosen’s writers.
The scene where the disciples are going through the streets of Samaria to buy food isn’t in the Bible. In fact, maybe we could just put here that all of the scenes that take place in Samaria are fictional because there is no record of Jesus’ time in Samaria other than his interaction with the woman at the well and the statement that he spent two more days there.
To be specific, even though you could probably discern this already, the healing of the man in Samaria is fictitious.
Helpful: What We Might Be Helpful To the Watcher
While the scene with James and John preparing a field for seed is not in the Bible, it is helpful in showing just how difficult farming would have been. Farming would have largely been done using animals and not human labor for the plowing, but it was still hard work.
The scene with Big James and John where the Samaritans throw rocks at them and Jesus is not from the Bible. But the truth of the matter is that none of us are worthy. That is certainly a helpful lesson for us all to learn.
The Samaritans used what is called the “Samaritan Pentateuch.” The Pentateuch is the 5 Books of Moses that open the Old Testament. They did not have, or more likely did not think they needed, the other 34 books of the Old Testament that Jews had.
The Jews did also use the word “logos”, which gets translated as “word” in our Bible’s to describe, as it is called in this episode, “divine reason.” Reason being a cause, not a thought. The Greeks talked about the logos as the things which caused, or created, all other things. This is why John opens his gospel the way that he does, as shown in this episode. This is not a historical fact recorded in Scripture. However, it does seem that John opens with the words “In the beginning” to draw us back to Genesis 1, and he uses the word logos for Jesus in his opening chapter to present Jesus to us as the “Divine Reason”, the cause of all creation.
Dangerous: Things That Have Been Added That Might Be Dangerous to Accept as Fact
I believe that there is a danger inherent in every episode, and for that reason, I’m including this suggestion in every episode guide. The danger is assuming that the things in the episodes of the Chosen that are not in the Bible are true, part of the biblical record. In order to avoid this danger, I would encourage everyone who watches the Chosen to compare it to the biblical record. IN part, this is because most of what is in each episode of the Chosen is not found in the Bible. There is more speculation here than actual events recorded in the Bible. If you want a harmony of all of the gospels in chronological order to aid this, then I would recommend purchasing a copy of One Perfect Life by John MacArthur. It is a compilation of all of the gospel records in order of the events as best as we can understand.
Related to this episode, I have a concern about the scene in Samaria with the man whose field Jesus planted. There is a trend in some of the episodes that I have seen to make the most dramatic, most noteworthy, most emotional scenes from things that there is no biblical record of. It seems like emotional and/or spiritual manipulation to make the things that tug at our heartstrings the most be those things that never happened. The Bible contains everything that is needed to move our hearts. I would rather the writers and editors use those things that are inspired by the Spirit to inspire the watcher.
Anachronisms and Errors: Things that are out of place regarding the time, etc.
Once again, I will admit that I am being a little picky on this point, but the geography of Jerusalem and Samaria isn’t correct. While there are snow-peaked mountains in the northern part of Israel, Jerusalem is the highest peak around in its area and doesn’t get snow.
Colorful cloth, especially long cloths, would have been very expensive. It is incredibly unlikely that any sort of colorful cloth would have been used to drape over streets or over vendors’ booths.
The glass in the house of the woman that Jesus met at the well is more like glass might have been. Small pieces and opaque, not clear. However, this would likely have been something that was only in the house of the wealthy.
Wax candles seem out of place as well. Most likely, there would have been small lamps that burned olive oil.