A Not-So-Faithful Portrayal of the Women of the Bible

W hen I first saw the advertisement for Fox’s series The Faithful: Women of the Bible, I was skeptical but hopeful: Skeptical, because most attempts at portraying the Bible on the screen cannot seem to resist the temptation of taking generous liberties with the text, hopeful because the women of the Bible do not garner nearly enough attention, despite the remarkable impact of their stories. Like the biblical characters themselves, film portrayals have tremendous power, and with great power comes great responsibility. The majority of people watch such films without reading the Bible, and so what is depicted on screen becomes embedded in their minds, whether it’s true or not.

It’s one thing to be creative with secular history on the big screen; I’d know little about John Adams if it weren’t for the 2008 miniseries, but I kept my husband (our family’s resident historian) close by to correct any errors. But salvation history? We’re dealing with God’s Word here. Though the show opens with a disclaimer about creative interpretations that supposedly honor “the spirit of the original text,” there’s a certain amount of hubris involved in messing with it. Christians believe that the ancient writers of the Bible, inspired by the Holy Spirit, tell us exactly what God wants us to know — no more, no less. I recommend keeping the Bible right beside you if you watch this series featuring the matriarchs of Israel. Check it often.

The first episode, “The Woman Who Bowed to No One,” focuses on Sarai, played by Minnie Driver, and it’s narrated by Natacha Karam, playing Hagar. But you might not know that based on the title, because it is not an accurate description of the biblical Sarai; rather, it’s the product of a 21st-century feminist, #MeToo mindset. Biblical Sarai is a much more passive character than the woman portrayed by producers Carol Mendelsohn, Julie Weitz, and René Echevarria. Biblical Sarai is rebuked by the angels who overhear her laughing at the notion that she’ll bear a child in her old age. As the biblical Sarai and Abram travel throughout the Negev, Sarai not once, but twice, goes along with Abram’s plan to protect them from foreigners by passing her off as his sister. This dubious plan lands Sarai in the harem of Pharaoh and then Abimelech. Twice, God intervenes to rescue her.

But Hollywood Sarai ends up in Pharaoh’s household because she refuses to bow to him as he passes by in a boat on the Nile. Abram wails loudly as she is dragged off by Pharaoh’s guards. Suddenly, Abram is the victim, not Sarai. Hollywood Sarai is a plucky, brave woman who cleverly devises the plan to tell Pharaoh she is Abram’s sister, and who is reassured by Hagar that she acted rightly to spare her husband. Subsequently, Abimelech turns out to be the same man to whom Sarai was almost betrothed at the beginning of the episode, but whom she flagrantly renounced and insulted, only to then accept a romantic proposal from Abram, sealed with a very public kiss. Some 30 years later, Abimelech takes Sarai into his harem as a way of enacting revenge on Abram, who, at the time of the rejected betrothal, slugged him on the jaw. Note that nothing in this paragraph starting with the phrase “Hollywood Sarai” is biblically supported. But that’s alright: Hollywood just wants to protect its viewers, who apparently can’t handle the truth, especially when it’s inconvenient.

But the truths of the Bible are often inconvenient because they are meant to challenge us, especially as readers living 4,000 years after the original events occurred. Students of Scripture engage in a process called exegesis, which involves drawing meaning out of the text. This is essentially a process of seeking to understand the “other” in his/her own context. Eisegesis, on the other hand, is to be avoided, as it involves imposing our own preconceived notions onto the text. Yet eisegesis is what Hollywood repeatedly insists on doing. For Hollywood, Sarai cannot be powerful unless she has power, but the most impactful biblical figures (i.e., Jesus Christ) change the world by not grasping at power (see Philippians 2:6); they change it by doing God’s will.

The extent to which the barren biblical Sarai actually follows God’s will is up for debate, and to its credit, the episode does a decent job of portraying her ambivalence. Sarai loves Abram deeply and hands her maid Hagar over to him to bear a child — a common practice in the ancient world — with no insignificant amount of turmoil and inner conflict. In perhaps one of the most poignant moments of the episode, Sarai regrets her lack of faith in God’s promise that she, even in her old age, would bear a child. Before Abimelech releases her, she kneels down and prays for God’s help. That’s the closest we see of Sarai bowing to anyone in the episode, and rightly so, since she humbles herself only to God.

It’s one thing to imagine the dialogue between Sarai and Abram as she tries to convince him to accept Hagar into his bed, or even to imagine that Sarai and Hagar may have developed some level of friendship and comradery, but it’s another to portray Sarai as a healing figure. Whereas in the biblical text, a jealous Sarai banishes Hagar and Ishmael shortly after Isaac is born, Hollywood Sarai orchestrates the banishment out of kindness so that Ishmael can find his own way. Years later, Hagar unexpectedly returns to pay tribute to Sarai at her burial. The Bible hints at some sense of eventual reconciliation when Ishmael returns home to bury his father, but the credit for such reconciliation should be attributed to the divine providence that protects Hagar and Ishmael. By turning Sarai into the hero, the “spirit of the original text” is lost.

What saddens me about the persistent tendency to “rewrite” the Bible is that it merely feeds into the fallacy that we must wear rose-colored glasses in order for women to be viewed as significant. In fact, the unadulterated biblical text tells us that the matriarchs of Israel helped change the course of history, for better or worse — mostly better, because God has a way of writing straight with crooked lines — but not always. The story of Sarai and Abram is the perfect example of how humans can redirect history when they don’t have enough faith and make questionable choices.

The truth is that women in the Bible act, often from behind the scenes, in ways that considerably affect all those around them. That alone speaks to their power. And it should come as a stern reminder to us all: to tread carefully, in all our actions, big and small, because we cannot always anticipate the long-term effects. What we do in our personal lives, within our marriages, within our families, affects others. That’s a core message of the Bible. But as long as Hollywood continues to think we can’t handle the truth, we will keep making the same mistakes, again and again. Rebekah, the star of the next episode, is an even more nuanced and complicated biblical character than Sarai. Maybe Hollywood will write straight some crooked lines from the first episode. I remain hopeful, but skeptical.