Testament: The Story of Moses Review - A Crime Against The Word of God

Netflix has a new three part series about the life of Moses called Testament: The Story of Moses. It blends reenactments with commentary from scholars associated with Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. That in and of itself is very bad because we don't get a real sense of who Moses is and what he really means as he is not the same man to each faith. But that is just a small part of why this series is a steaming pile of donkey manure. 

Let me give two reasons why this new series is worse than Cleopatra. While Cleopatra was awful historical revisionism the danger here is that Netflix is messing with sacred history. 

1. It's too short.

This series is hardly about the LIFE of Moses. It is basically The Ten Commandments and then at the end it skips to his death on Mt. Nebo. It could have been either longer or a lot of the reenactment cut altogether to make room for a fuller story. But thank goodness they opted for neither because what Netflix did with the material they have is utterly atrocious. 

2. The series deviates considerably from the Bible.

Because the producers have Jewish and Islamic scholars giving commentary stories from the Quran and the Midrash are included. That means we learn about Moses having to give a secret code word to Serah Bat Asher, a woman hundreds of years old who came into Egypt with Jacob, to prove he is indeed God's chosen prophet. She hears the magic phrase and sings praises to God and that's how the Israelites knew Moses was legit. 

However, for some reason the producers decided to change much of what is in the scripture and girlboss it up. That means ALL THE WOMEN have faith and ALL THE MEN are faithless. Take Zipporah. In the Bible Moses saves her and her sisters from a group of men and then opens the well and waters their flock. They then go back to their father Jethro and he hears their story and is astonished they did not invite Moses back. So they retrieve him, he eats dinner, Jethro gives him Zipporah to wife, and he serves him for 40 years. 

In this series Moses stumbles out of the desert and Zipporah allows him to drink water. Then he scares off three bandits. They then take him home to their father who is not very sure about this stranger. Zipporah convinces Jethro to allow Moses to tend his sheep. A few months later Zipporah brings Moses food in the desert and sees he has carved Egyptian hieroglyphs into a rock. She asks what it says. He says it's our story. And then they get married. 

There is a lot of nonsense like that scattered all throughout the show. Here is some more:

According to Netflix it was Moses and not God who carved the Ten Commandments into stone.

According to Netflix when the Israelites fought the Amalekites and Moses held his hands up for victory he got tired but he persevered and held them up to the end of the battle. In the Bible he gets tired, sits on a rock, and Aaron and Joshua hold up his hands. 

According to Netflix it was a total surprise to Moses that he was a Hebrew or that he had a brother and sister. 

According to Netflix Moses first met Pharaoh and performed the miracle of turning his staff into a snake at his son's birthday party. Pharaoh is disposed to grant a request on the honor of his son's birthday so Moses says "Let my people go." What is this? The Godfather??

According to Netflix Moses' adoptive Egyptian mother partook of the Passover. Actually that might be in the Midrash. Either way it's not in the Bible but it is in the show.

According to Netflix after Pharaoh and his army were drowned in the Red Sea Miriam alone sang a dirge. In the Bible Miriam and all the women dance with tambourines and sing a song of praise. 

And it goes on and on and on.

There is way too much drama and reenactment and revisionism and not enough about what it all means. Sure there are some platitudes from the commentators but of course there is no hard doctrine. There is also not enough of the Life of Moses. It would have been great to see his wars against the Ethiopians, his marriage to an Ethiopian princess, the wanderings in the wilderness, the building of the Ark and the Tabernacle, and all the rest of the story.  We don't even learn why Moses died outside the promised land. Of course seeing what Netflix did with the little they used I'm glad they did not flub it up even more. 

The whole series is a crime against the Word of God. Any believer of the scriptures cannot take this piece of junk seriously. Stay away. Stay far away.