Welcome to Gaia! ::

Now, I really don't want to get into a religion fight, so here's some ground rules. This isn't a fight thread.

1. If you're not Christian, fine. This really applies to any holy book.
2. Please no flaming. If you can't say something either nice or relevant, don't say anything at all. Appreciated.


The subject, now.

Taking Poetic License With The Bible--Justified?


Explanation of what I mean: I recently watched a movie based on the travels of Moses as he freed the Jews from Egypt. In the movie, they added subplot (like his wife leaving him angrily because God wasn't giving him enough time to be a father and husband) that isn't actually in the Bible. I had to ask my mom several times if the movie was being accurate, and most of the times I asked, it wasn't. The movie (by Disney) called "The Prince of Egypt" also had inaccuracies, and gave a warning claiming that artistic and historical liberties had been taken by the filmmakers. These liberties are also known as "poetic license." In short, they misrepresented biblical events for artistic reasons.


So... Do you think it's right to take poetic license with any holy book?

Depends. Even talking about my religion is borderline heresy, but it would obvioiusly depend on what the laws are within that paticular religion doesnt it? Is it ok for an outsider to do so? I don't see why not, they are called outsiders for a reason.

sweatdrop I'm sure the perspective is different if it isn't something you believe in. I don't really think it's okay to make up what happened in wars either, though XP

(real shady how I've never heard about wars America lost...I mean, minus Vietnam--which I wouldn't know about outside of novels and my parents telling me... >.>)

I think I'm saying that the fact that we do it doesn't make it okay.

One has to accept such a story as a story. Movies always, always deviate from truth, to make it more exciting and to make it appropriate for their specific audience. I know what movie you're talking about, and I liked it, even if it isn't entirely "accurate." One has to take it as a representation and not holy or anything. However, I'm a fairly leniant person who doesn't always take every word in the BIble as exact. I mean, it's been translated and retranslated countless times. There's no way that the meanings of a lot fo it have been lost or altered....

BTW, the movie you mentioned was a Dreamworks one, not Disney. 3nodding
I'm a fact nerd like that....

Yeah, I agree somewhat, but sometimes it's just not appropriate to the audience. For example, I'm pretty sure that Moses picked his wife for her intelligence, not for love. That's all fine and dandy, but try explaining that to a 7-year old. emo

I do have to admit that I hate twisting stories until their unrecognizable unless the person is open about the fact that it's not meant to be accurate.