Exodus (refection on the movie and book)

Recently I had the opportunity to watch the movie called "Exodus: God's & Kings". I was really surprise to how another movie just like "Noah" ended out doing a wrong "adaptation" from the original text, if you can call this an adaptation. Not only the script is wrong but the costume and props   (which looks like from the middle ages rather than ancient Egypt), and special effects are not well done. I read several reviews and I found out the give it a very low score, including in IMDB and others. Not only the movie deviates from the original source material but also from the main message and intent from the original text, missing out the actual point of the original text. I just going to mention a couple of big mistakes out of the many.

First stable, the character of Moses is shown as a warrior and a revolutionary, a man who was opinionated, and just by that I can tell the scrip writer not even look at the original source material. The book of Exodus shows Moses as a quiet guy who not event wanted to try to free his people, shy and even scared. The point of the book is that Moses changed from a shy run away guy to a bold leader, that itself is a good plot for a movie.

Second, the movie show God a a little kid and perhaps as an hallucination of Moses, showing the plagues and miracles as a series of natural events that happened as coincidences. Again this ruin the movie since the whole point of the boom of Exodus is the miracle of the supernatural power of God over nature, and over natural events, quite the opposite of the movie message. The supernatural power of God and His message has a lot of fun and interesting elements for a good plot. So here the director and scriptwriter really missed out a good opportunity for get more audience, and for instance more from the box office.

In the past previous versions had been amazing, one of my favorites so far is "The Prince of Egypt" that did a very good job, with a great box office response. Or even the 1950's "The ten Commandments" did a very good job becoming a classic, winning an oscar for Special effects & was nominated as best movie.

Anyway this story has a good lesson to be learn from. There is a whole nation under slavery oppressed by the first nation of the world back then. The people of Israel were oppressed for 4 centuries and by the time of their deliverance they were so used to it, it was normal for them, the lifestyle as slaves, so by the time God delivered them from Egypt, it was hard for them to adapt to freedom, it gets to the point that the people cry to back to Egypt because at least they have food provided : "and the people of Israel said to them, “Would that we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger." Ex. 16:3.Yes it is true they were in a dessert but they didn't believe that God would take care of them and their needs and He deliver them from slavery. It is also true that they didn't know anything but the life in Egypt, they certainly didn't know how to survive in a free environment. 

This is what happen spiritually as well, when we find ourselves oppress by a sin habit or an oppression of fear or any kind of struggle for long time, it became part of our life, it is normal for us and when God set us free we find ourselves wanted to go back one way or another, but by faith we need to accept the new reality so "So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed." John 8:36. We have to take our freedom and move forward not looking back, even when the new life is scary or unknown the best is yet to come because now God is leading you not your old habit, fear shame or oppression.