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The Ten Commandments movie

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
Our cable went out a couple of days ago so my husband went looking for movies and pulled the movie The Ten Commandments (1956) off the bookcase, which is one of his favorite movies. We have seen the movie many times but it has been years since I watched it.


I soon realized that I am not the same person I was when I last watched it because I cried through practically the entire movie. I know I have said that I am not religiously inclined and that I don’t like God very much but after watching this movie I realized that is not really the case.

I never read the Torah or the Old Testament, only bits and pieces of it, but now I am inspired to read it all, as soon as I have time. I also want to say that I now believe that Judaism laid the foundation for the religions that came later – Christianity, Islam, and the Baha'i Faith.

I have a whole new appreciation for Moses and the Jewish people and Judaism after watching this movie, so I guess it was a good thing our cable went out. :)

If anyone of the Jewish faith or anyone else wants to weigh in on how accurately the movie depicts the Jewish history I would be very happy to hear from them. How much of the movie was just Hollywood? Call me naive, but I believe that those miracles could have happened by the power of God.
 

Estro Felino

Believer in free will
Premium Member
I have watched it so many times that I know some scenes by heart...lol.
I like it because it focuses on the life of Moses as Prince of Egypt before he escapes.
It is very detailed.
I recall the scene when Moses chooses Sephorah as wife, among the daughters of Jethro...
It was a beautiful scene...I cried when he did.
 
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Windwalker

Veteran Member
Premium Member
I never read the Torah or the Old Testament, only bits and pieces of it, but now I am inspired to read it all, as soon as I have time.
I enjoy the 10 Commandments movie. But when I read the whole OT for the first time, it left me feeling a little less than inspired like the movie. I think it was the whole driving a tent stake through someone's temple, and the rest of the brutalities on its pages which jarred my faith back then in my search of God. In looking back on that experience, that where I started saying that one of the surest way of becoming an atheist is to read the OT. Sometimes, ignorance is bliss. :)

But I do appreciate the mythology, nonetheless. I just don't take it as factually true. I understand it as how people used to imagine God way back when.
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
I have watched it so many times that I know some scenes by heart...lol.
I like it because it focuses on the life of Moses as Prince of Egypt before he escapes.
It is very detailed.
I recall the scene when Moses chooses Sephorah as wife, among the daughters of Jethro...
It was so beautiful...I cried when he did.
Yes, I liked that scene too... and the parting of the waters of the Red Sea...what scene didn't I like?
I cried throughout the whole movie, off and on, especially when Moses talked about "the power of God" with that commanding voice and when he talked to God on the mountain.. I really liked the scene are the end when Ramses finally said "his God is God."

After the Xfinity cable guy comes tomorrow and fixes our cable I am going to find out if I can purchase that movie on Xfinity so I will have it at mi fingertips all the time instead of having to drag out the DVD.
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
I enjoy the 10 Commandments movie. But when I read the whole OT for the first time, it left me feeling a little less than inspired like the movie. I think it was the whole driving a tent stake through someone's temple, and the rest of the brutalities on its pages which jarred my faith back then in my search of God. In looking back on that experience, that where I started saying that one of the surest way of becoming an atheist is to read the OT. Sometimes, ignorance is bliss. :)

But I do appreciate the mythology, nonetheless. I just don't take it as factually true. I understand it as how people used to imagine God way back when.
I am going to try to stay with my image of Moses and God for a while before I read anything :D but even if I did read the Old Testament or the Torah, I am not going to necessarily believe God did the things that were attributed to Him, as I think the OT is anthropomorphic.

But I do not really risk anything by reading the OT because I still have my images of God from the NT and what Baha'u'llah wrote. What I think people need to understand about God is that God is loving but also just so sometimes the wrath if God it is warranted, as was depicted in the movie. I kind of like the wrathful God because I am big on justice. ;)
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
But I do appreciate the mythology, nonetheless. I just don't take it as factually true. I understand it as how people used to imagine God way back when.
I kind of like the "idea" that an omnipotent God could part the waters even if He didn't, but who knows? ;)
 

Samael_Khan

Goosebender
Our cable went out a couple of days ago so my husband went looking for movies and pulled the movie The Ten Commandments (1956) off the bookcase, which is one of his favorite movies. We have seen the movie many times but it has been years since I watched it.


I soon realized that I am not the same person I was when I last watched it because I cried through practically the entire movie. I know I have said that I am not religiously inclined and that I don’t like God very much but after watching this movie I realized that is not really the case.

I never read the Torah or the Old Testament, only bits and pieces of it, but now I am inspired to read it all, as soon as I have time. I also want to say that I now believe that Judaism laid the foundation for the religions that came later – Christianity, Islam, and the Baha'i Faith.

I have a whole new appreciation for Moses and the Jewish people and Judaism after watching this movie, so I guess it was a good thing our cable went out. :)

If anyone of the Jewish faith or anyone else wants to weigh in on how accurately the movie depicts the Jewish history I would be very happy to hear from them. How much of the movie was just Hollywood? Call me naive, but I believe that those miracles could have happened by the power of God.

Yes, please read the Bible from beginning to end. It would probably also help for you to get something that tells you which chapter goes where chronologically, as books such as the prophetic books, are not in chronological order and one needs that context in order to understand the authors intent and what they are commenting on.

Read each book like a storybook, not focusing on bits and pieces even though the first read through might be difficult.

Judaism obviously laid the majority of the foundation for those three religions you mentioned. But one also shouldn't discount the foundations that Zoroastrianism laid, and possibly, Atenism.
 
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ChristineM

"Be strong", I whispered to my coffee.
Premium Member
Good film, but not as good as the book by all accounts but can't really compare because ive only read the bible.

My parents had a vhs player (remember those) it was amongst their sparse collection of tapes so I say it a few times as a teenager. It is also on TV in the UK every few years, around easter time for some reason.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
Good film, but not as good as the book by all accounts but can't really compare because ive only read the bible.

My parents had a vhs player (remember those) it was amongst their sparse collection of tapes so I say it a few times as a teenager. It is also on TV in the UK every few years, around easter time for some reason.
They used to do Ben Hur at that time here too.

Good stories, but that is all I that they are.
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
Good film, but not as good as the book by all accounts but can't really compare because ive only read the bible.

My parents had a vhs player (remember those) it was amongst their sparse collection of tapes so I say it a few times as a teenager. It is also on TV in the UK every few years, around easter time for some reason.
Not only do I remember the VHS players but before those they had Beta players. ;)
 

SomeRandom

Still learning to be wise
Staff member
Premium Member
Quite like the movie. It’s a stone cold classic imo.
I’m neither Jewish or Christian so I cannot comment on its accuracy.
But there’s a gravitas to it that’s undeniable.
It’s also very impressive set wise.

I also greatly enjoy the “remake” Prince of Egypt. It was quite impressive to me that a family friendly movie could pull off the human drama driving the story whilst not really sacrificing that much. Since it had to be a bit more religiously neutral.
 

Altfish

Veteran Member
Our cable went out a couple of days ago so my husband went looking for movies and pulled the movie The Ten Commandments (1956) off the bookcase, which is one of his favorite movies. We have seen the movie many times but it has been years since I watched it.


I soon realized that I am not the same person I was when I last watched it because I cried through practically the entire movie. I know I have said that I am not religiously inclined and that I don’t like God very much but after watching this movie I realized that is not really the case.

I never read the Torah or the Old Testament, only bits and pieces of it, but now I am inspired to read it all, as soon as I have time. I also want to say that I now believe that Judaism laid the foundation for the religions that came later – Christianity, Islam, and the Baha'i Faith.

I have a whole new appreciation for Moses and the Jewish people and Judaism after watching this movie, so I guess it was a good thing our cable went out. :)

If anyone of the Jewish faith or anyone else wants to weigh in on how accurately the movie depicts the Jewish history I would be very happy to hear from them. How much of the movie was just Hollywood? Call me naive, but I believe that those miracles could have happened by the power of God.
Is it correct that you couldn't watch it on the Sabbath?
 

Audie

Veteran Member
I kind of like the "idea" that an omnipotent God could part the waters even if He didn't, but who knows? ;)

I watched it from the same perspective as
you might for a movie about some ancient
Oriental god-king myth.

Scenes like the guy jumping up on
the sacred ststue to direct this group
to go here, or that to go there- no way.

That "slaves" would have so much wealth
to take along? Things like that kinda messed with my willing suspension of disbelief.

But of course, its just a story, with no
(Zero) evidence of any sort to indicate its true.
(Ron Wyatt and his chariots notwithstanding!)

I was not much of a student of Christianity
as a kid in HK where the religion is a small
minority, alien and weird).

The impression I got of that God was
NOT very favourable!

He sends death and misery to countless
Innocent people (excuse me ma'am, but
like, I'm an angel, God sent me, so I will
have to trouble you for that baby you are hiding,
I will just be a moment chopping him up)

Drought, locusts etc while not even
allowing Pharoah to change his mind?

Drowning all those soldiers wasn't
necessary either. What kind of people
make up a story like that, what kind of
'god" is such a psycho?

I cannot see enjoying anything in that
movie, it left me feeling kind of ill and
utterly revolted.
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
Drowning all those soldiers wasn't
necessary either. What kind of people
make up a story like that, what kind of
'god" is such a psycho?

I cannot see enjoying anything in that
movie, it left me feeling kind of ill and
utterly revolted.
Be careful....you might become revolting.
I grew up surrounded by Christians. Theirs seemed a
strange, wrong, authoritarian, cruel & outrageous religion.
 

capumetu

Active Member
Our cable went out a couple of days ago so my husband went looking for movies and pulled the movie The Ten Commandments (1956) off the bookcase, which is one of his favorite movies. We have seen the movie many times but it has been years since I watched it.


I soon realized that I am not the same person I was when I last watched it because I cried through practically the entire movie. I know I have said that I am not religiously inclined and that I don’t like God very much but after watching this movie I realized that is not really the case.

I never read the Torah or the Old Testament, only bits and pieces of it, but now I am inspired to read it all, as soon as I have time. I also want to say that I now believe that Judaism laid the foundation for the religions that came later – Christianity, Islam, and the Baha'i Faith.

I have a whole new appreciation for Moses and the Jewish people and Judaism after watching this movie, so I guess it was a good thing our cable went out. :)

If anyone of the Jewish faith or anyone else wants to weigh in on how accurately the movie depicts the Jewish history I would be very happy to hear from them. How much of the movie was just Hollywood? Call me naive, but I believe that those miracles could have happened by the power of God.


As with any movie maam, they add a lot of drama. I like that movie very much, just some tidbits,
The Bible shows Pharaoh had the Hebrew babies killed to curb increases in Israelite population, but DeMille’s movie says it was to cut off the deliverer Moses while he was a babe.—Ex. 1:9, 10.
The Bible indicates Moses knew all the time he was a Hebrew, and because he knew he was he killed an Egyptian that was striking one of his Hebrew brothers. He fled from Egypt. But the movie has him exiled because when he is grown it is learned he is a Hebrew and loves the same girl as Pharaoh’s son.—Ex. 2:11, 12, 15.
The Bible first tells of the law to be written on human hearts in the prophet Jeremiah’s time, but DeMille runs ahead of God in this by about nine hundred years, having it said to Moses at the burning bush.—Jer. 31:31-33.
The Bible account shows that the Israelites used God’s name Jehovah and that it was specifically discussed with Moses, at Exodus 6:3, but the movie repeatedly refers to God’s name being unknown to the Israelites and it never is disclosed in the film.
The Bible, at Acts 7:23-30, shows that Moses fled Egypt when he was forty years old and was eighty when he returned from Midian. But the movie shows no such passage of time, keeping all the characters involved in love episodes wonderfully youthful, although Moses was allowed to age miraculously all at once, at the burning bush.
The Bible shows that Moses’ enemies in Egypt were dead when he returned, but the movie has his worst enemy sitting on the throne as Pharaoh.—Ex. 4:19.
The Bible tells of God’s determination to bring the tenth plague, the death of the Egyptian first-born. But in the movie this death of the first-born is Pharaoh’s idea, he intending to do this to the Israelites, and only then does God turn the tables on him by doing it to the Egyptian first-born.—Ex. 11:1-5.
The Bible record states that Pharaoh later pursued the Israelites to recover his slave labor, but DeMille says it was because Moses spurned the love of Pharaoh’s queen.—Ex. 14:5, 6.
It may be debatable whether Pharaoh accompanied his troops to the Red Sea or not, but if he did he died there, according to the Bible. But the movie let him survive that watery debacle and return to Egypt.—Ex. 14:28.
Did Dathan instigate the golden-calf worship at Sinai, and did the earth swallow him and others for that? DeMille says yes, but the Bible says no. Did those calf worshipers die that way at all? No, but by sword and plague. Dathan was not among them, for he and other rebels were swallowed up by the earth at a much later time and for an entirely different sin.—Ex. 32:27, 28, 35; Num. 16:1-3, 12, 25-32.
Ironically, where DeMille said he would depart from the Bible he actually did not. He said the people danced naked at the worship of the golden calf but he would clothe them; modern translations accurately show they did not dance naked but merely broke loose in unrestraint and unruliness.—Ex. 32:25, NW, RS, AT, Le.

If the Movie made you feel more spiritual, and motivate you to seek God, fantastic. But the Bible is certainly the best place to learn the facts about God.
 
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