CYPRESSWOOD CHURCH OF CHRIST’

November 12, 2006

 

PRAYERS, PETITIONS AND THANKSGIVINGS:

Our congregation                                                                 Our students

 

Our nation, military and leaders                                         Various friends, relatives and co-workers

 

Leon in the Army in Korea                                                 Holiday travelers include the Cruthirds

 

November 12 is the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church.  Please spend some time thinking about Christians who are persecuted in various parts of the world including China, Africa, and Muslim lands.

 

 25424 Aldine-Westfield, Spring, TX  77373

www.geocities.com/adon77373/cypresswoodbulletin.htm

 

 

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

We will not meet the next two Wednesday nights.

 

Bob Stolte is being honor for his 74th birthday, November 18, at Park Manor/Cypress Station, 420 Lantern Bend Drive, between 2 and 4 PM come and go celebration.  The family requests no gifts.  It will be held in the main dining room.  Please RSVP to Pat at pastolte@sbcglobal.net or call 281-251-8032.

 

 

ONE NIGHT WITH THE KING

 

“Now the king was attracted to Esther more than to any of the other women, and she won his favor and approval more than any of the other virgins.  So he set a royal crown on her head and made her queen instead of Vashti” (Esther 2:17).

 

The screen writer for the movie, The Nativity, (1), made an interesting comment.  He said that when writing a screen play for such movies as The Rookie or Radio, (2) since few people know all who are involved, it is easy to embellish for the sake of dramatic effect.  But not with the Bible, and in particular the story of the birth of Jesus.  Everyone knows the story, so one must be careful.  He is right.

 

One Night With The King is a new movie that came out rather quietly.  It is the story of Esther based on a novel called Hadassah (3).  The part of Esther is played by a newcomer, Tiffany Dupont.  Other actors include John Rhys-Davis as Mordecai (4), John Noble (5), and Omar Sharif as an advisor to King Xerxes.  It is a film produced by a Christian company and filmed in India.  It is basically a love story between King Xerxes and Esther. 

 

The story opens however with King Saul being approached by Samuel (played by Peter O’Toole), who tells Saul that God is angry with him for sparing Agag, king of the Amalekites (1 Samuel 15).  God had told Saul to utterly destroy them.  Since Saul did not do that, the Amalekites would be a thorn in Israel’s side throughout the reign of David, then they fade from the scene.  A number of scholars think that Haman the Agagite was from Amalek and that this explains his hatred for the Jews (Esther 3:1). 

 

We find Esther has been adopted by her cousin Mordecai.  The Bible doesn’t tell us how her parents died but the picture implies that they died at the hands of members of the nation of Amalek.  In the film, we see the faith of the Jews who lived in Susa, the capital and primary library city of the Persian Empire (539 to 332 B.C.). 

 

The historical setting centers on King Xerxes and his upcoming invasion of Greece.  The banquet in Esther one is consider a prelude to the invasion (c. 480 B.C.).  Queen Vashti refuses to come in before a bunch of drunken subjects and perform for them, and is sent off into exile.  The movie continues to emphasize the planned attack and the political debate centered on that attack.  Historically, no one knows for sure when in Esther the invasion happened.  Some think that it occurred between chapters one and two.  After Xerxes was defeated by the Greeks in several battles, he returned to Susa and now wanted a queen.  Young virgins were gathered throughout the empire and brought to Susa and prepared for their encounter with the King.  Esther, whose Jewish name was Hadassah, was one who was brought into the citadel.  She found favor with the king’s eunuch and asked and accepted his advise.  Mordecai had told her not to reveal her nationality. 

 

Much of the film centers around her love for the king and the political intrigue going on in the palace.  Mordecai overhears a plot to kill the king and let’s Esther know about it.  The film also shows the rise of Haman and his hatred of the Jews.  In the end, we see the Jews victorious over their enemies.

 

This film will not rise to the standards of the Bible epics we know of from the past such as The Ten Commandments with Charlton Heston nor with Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ (6).  Nevertheless it is an enjoyable film.  It does raise some interesting questions which we probably will never have answered.  Did some of the descendants of the Amalikites survive in Persia?  How did Esther’s parents die?  Were the Jews hated even in Persia?  How did Mordecai send word to Esther?  What was going on in the palace of Xerxes?   Why didn’t Xerxes inquire of Esther and her background?

 

One reviewer said that he thought that if they had had a “tighter” script, it would have been a much better film.  I agree.  For instance, where the film contacts the Bible, it is accurate.  One exception is that near the end of the film, having Xerxes preparing to go off to war, they have only one banquet instead of two.  Trying to squeeze too much into a limited historical time frame hurts the film.  One has to wonder if it would have been better to have written the screen play around the book of Esther and then had ideas from the novel than the other way around.

 

In general I enjoyed the scenes concerning the city of Susa.  Streets scenes, dress and cultural ideas were enjoyable.  One scene showed a multitude of scribes in two long rows writing down the words of the king.  Considering that Persia had one hundred and twenty seven providences, I thought that was effective.  Some of the overviews of the city were a little over done.  It looked like one of the cities out of The Return of the King or Star Wars, episode one, instead of an ancient Persian city.  There were mixed reviews about this.  Had the palace not been so huge with tall water falls, it would have been more impressive in my mind. 

 

Haman was the villain in the movie as well as the Bible.  We find him speaking against democracy and freedom and standing in a room full of anti-Semites preaching against the Jews.  He also wore a wrist band with a dangling swastika on it.  The idea in my mind seem to be connecting this with the 20th Century rather than a Biblical and Persian context.  Another tool used in the film was a necklace used to show the Star of David when the light hit it in a certain way.  When Esther is finally revealed as a Jew, in scripture Haman pleads for his life.  In the film, he sarcastically pleads and almost kills Esther. 

 

Issues of time was a problem in the film.  Preparing Esther and company for the king required a year, something not mentioned in the film.  The film states that in six weeks all the Jews would die, but in Esther 3, it was almost a year.  Given the size of the Persian Empire, stretching from India to Asia Minor and Egypt, six weeks is too short of a time to issue a decree and then a second. 

 

Christian elements crept into the film as well.  The idea of a coming king who would rule the world out of Israel was one of them.  At this time, the expectation of a coming Messiah was not well developed.  Praying to God as “Father” was probably not the Jewish way of prayer.  They would have addressed Yahweh as “The Lord.” 

 

Having said all that, I did enjoy the film.  It is worth watching and as I reread Esther, I found that it did capture many Biblical ideas.  I would like to see consultation with Biblical theologians, historians, and archaeologists on future films.  I did not see any well known people in these areas in the credits.  I think that this too would have helped make the film much better.  Both Michael Medved and Christianity Today gave it two and a half stars out of four.

 

                                                                                                                                George B. Mearns

 

 

(1) The Nativity will be released on December 1, 2006 and Lord willing, I will review this film as well.

(2) The screen writer wrote all three of these movies.

(3) Tommy Tenney wrote this novel.

(4) He played the Egyptian in Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and as “Gimli” the Dwarf in The Lord of the Rings.

(5) He played “Denethor” in The Lord of the Rings.

(6) Of all the films and mini-series made about scripture, the best two are the eight hour mini-series Jesus of Nazareth and the movie, The Gospel of John.  Both capture scripture and the culture of the day.