I do have to say that starting this blog has made watching
bad “Christian” “art” a lot easier. Now,
it’s
I probably wouldn’t have even watched The Book of Esther if it weren’t for this blog, but I saw it on
Netflix, and grinned as I thought about what a train wreck it would be. But it really wasn’t, at least as a film. The production itself really isn’t all that
bad. It was entertaining as movies go,
and the acting wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.
But on the theology side (which is really the only thing we’re
worried about here), the movie is easy to review because it makes the same
critical change that almost everyone makes when narrating this story – the
removal crucial pieces of plot and substitute something less, well, lurid.
The things that are often changed are 1) who her husband is
and 2) how she wins his heart. In this
particular movie, the king is moved by her intelligence and compassion. This king, a wise and insightful man, is
agonizing over the choice of bride, and Esther’s cousin, Mordecai, offers
Esther. He witness her goodness and
kindness and must have her! Thus her “Christian
behavior” is what puts her in a place to oppose the wicked plots of Haman.
Well, the wicked plot by Haman is accurate to the
story. The whole love story thing in
there is completely fictional.
Let’s look at what really happened.
First, who was this King Ahasuerus? Was he the handsome hero of this love story,
scorned by his first wife and desperate to find a good match? No, he was a pagan king, a conqueror, who had
two harems, one for the virgins, and another for his regular concubines
(2:12-14). Once he deflowered a girl,
she would not be allowed to leave and marry anyone else, even if the king never
requested her, um, services again.
And let’s bring up one point right away – in the movie,
Mordecai offers Esther to the king. This
is a sin. King Ahasuerus was a pagan
ruler, and the children of Israel were not permitted to marry pagans (Deuteronomy
7:3-4), just as Christians today are forbidden from marrying unbelievers (2
Corinthians 6:14). The movie has
Mordecai committing this sin against his cousin and against the Lord, but the
Bible does not say that this was a voluntary arrangement from King Ahasuerus. Instead, the king commands “to gather all the
beautiful young virgins to the harem in Susa the citadel, under custody of
Hegai, the king's eunuch, who is in charge of the women” (2:3). Esther was one of them.
So much for the king’s noble romantic nature.
What about what happened next? Well, each of these beautiful virgins spends
a year getting ready, then goes to spend the night with the king to see which
one will please him most. That’s right,
it wasn’t Esther’s goodness and Christian behavior that won him over, it was
her skill in bed. Quite the opposite of
the wholesome image given to us on screen.
This was either fornication or rape, but the Bible does not go into
detail on exactly how consensual this was.
This is a story of sin, and how God can even use sin for His
purposes. Haman sought to destroy the
Jewish people, the line that was promised to produce the Messiah. So he used a lusty and wicked pagan king and
a dishonored girl to save them.
And that’s the beauty of this story. It’s not someone who out of her sheer
goodness saves the day – it’s about God saving the day despite all the wicked
things going on around His people.
Is Esther Good Enough
for Us?
There’s an undercurrent in all of this that says that
Esther, as she really was, isn’t good enough for Christianity. When we tell this story, the last thing we do
is tell it the way it was. We make it
romance and fairy-princess stuff, when it is about redemption. The thing is this – Esther was good enough
for Christ. Or, rather we should say,
Christ was good enough for her. We
whitewash her and set up the purified version of this woman to be a Christian
standard for righteousness and bravery, when she should be our example of how
God can and will take from all people and situations for his own. Instead of having young girls measure
themselves against a false standard, we can instead look at Esther and thank
God for taking her, kidnapped and dishonored, and adopt her as His. And if he will do that for her, maybe he’ll take
me as well.
In the end, Esther is set apart, sanctified for good
works. While this story does not speak
of this directly, we know how that happens from other texts. Her sin was washed clean, and she was
forgiven. The pain caused to her turned
around and used for her good (and her people’s good). She stands then, a redeemed and holy woman,
and she becomes the voice for righteousness and wisdom, not as someone who has
been perfect her whole life, but as one saved from her sin by a perfect and
forgiving God.
Why Does it Matter?
Okay, so what? All of
these movies based on the Bible are fictionalized to some degree. Most of them are told in the Bible is a very
short narrative form that wouldn’t even fit into a movie. What’s the problem with adding some stuff?
Generally, nothing. I
agree that most of these stories would need to be fleshed out to film, and I’m
not terribly opposed to biblical movies.
The trouble is, this isn’t fleshed out, it’s altered. It’s changed, and it’s changed in a way that
cuts out the Gospel. Instead of a story
of redemption, this movie becomes a story of virtue. Instead of a story that points forward to the
coming Christ, this movie points to you and asks you to try harder and be
better. The heart of the faith has been
cut out of this story and left on the cutting room floor.
If there are things we need to get right in biblical movies,
we need to be getting the Gospel right and we need to be getting God
right. The costumes, script, direction,
etc., can be of the highest quality, but if we don’t get these things right,
then it is dishonoring to God.
The real story of Esther honors God. He is our hero here, saving a people and
bringing about their redemption. In the
movie, not so much. We have Esther’s
great morals to thank for our salvation there.
