I've been an avid Bible student since I was 21 years old. Prior to that I lived my life without caring what my Creator thought about my choices. My Bible study has only increased in the over the 40 years since I first started reading the Gospel accounts.
I know the Bible very well and am thoroughly enjoying The Chosen series. Naturally, since I am so familiar with the Bible account, I have some opinions about this series.
I believe it is important to point out that less than 10% of each episode of The Chosen is actually from the Bible accounts. Ninety percent of these episodes are embellishments; the producer's ideas of how the Bible characters may have spoken, looked and acted, beyond what is written in the Bible. I have no problem with those embellishments. As a matter of fact, I appreciate and enjoy much of the non-biblical inventions by the writers of this series.
I would like to speak about the good and the not so good embellishments created by the writers of this series. I hope you will not be offended by my critique.
Episode 2 - Simon Peter makes a deal with the Romans to settle his tax debt. The depiction of the daily life in first century Capernaum is splendid. I am really enjoying this series. I'm not so sure I like the depiction of Simon Peter being a slimeball to such a great degree. Clearly his brother Andrew knows that his behavior is reprehensible for someone who believes in Yehovah.
Two other points I'm not crazy about. First, there are Hebrew words being used in the series instead of their English translations; shabbat instead of sabbath, Yusef instead of Joseph, etc.. So then, shouldn't Christ be referred to as Y'shua? With all the other Hebrew names being used, the English name Jesus seems odd in this context. I have no problem with the transliteration Jesus, but it would work better if all the other names were the English versions as well. Second, on a historic note, the Messiah fulfilled the entire law code of Moses perfectly, without one error. He would have said the prayer for shabbat and not given Mary the option to do so in the presence of adult Jewish men. That was forbidden.
Biblical content in this episode; 1% Andrew, James, John, Matthew and Simon Peter are in the Bible; and yet the embellishments are mostly very captivating and thought provoking.