Tikvah
Editors’ Pick

May 25, 2023

The Gospel Comes to Streaming Television—without Demonizing Jews

The Chosen could alter how a whole generation of Christians envisions the Jewishness of Jesus.

Now preparing for its fourth season of a projected seven, the series The Chosen aims to portray the life of the founder of Christianity as told in the gospels. Faydra Shapiro admits that when she first became aware of the show, she assumed that it would at best be “cheesy” and at worst an all-too-typical “Christian evangelistic tool that ends up making the Jews out to be the bad guys, the dramatic foil for some new message, the ones responsible, the persecutors.” Then the producers asked her to serve as a Jewish adviser for upcoming episodes, and she watched those already aired:

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