Testament – The Story of Moses review: Netflix’s feeble faith-based docudrama preaches to the choir

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It’s a classic Campbellian story, one that has inspired everything from direct adaptations such as The Ten Commandments to pieces more tangential, such as War for the Planet of the Apes and Dune. Having sentenced himself to a self-imposed exile after killing a cruel Egyptian taskmaster, Moses journeys across the Red Sea, where he is contacted for the first time by Yahweh, the Hebrew God. Yahweh sends Moses back to Egypt with instructions to free his people, the Hebrews slaves who’ve lived under the Pharaoh’s thumb for hundreds of years. This puts Moses in direct conflict with the Pharaoh, whose family had adopted him as a child and raised him as one of their own.

Unlike the earlier docudramas released by Netflix, The Story of Moses doesn’t censure skepticism, and on one memorable occasion, speechlessness. “I have remembered my people, I have heard their cries,” God said as He urged Moses to return to Egypt and liberate his people, who’d been suffering for centuries. A theologian can’t help but interrupt: “My first reaction is, what took you so long?”

While it doesn’t have any room for actual atheists, The Story of Moses highlights just how fluid the interpretation of religious texts can be. It invites scholars of Christianity, Judaism and Islam to comment about some of the most widely known stories from the Book of Exodus. For instance, when Moses asks for his brother Aaron’s assistance in spreading God’s message, several experts interpret this as a sign of his ineloquence. His request can also be viewed as evidence of vulnerability, or of a lack of pride. “I just wish the Bible came with footnotes,” a rabbi sighs.

Another commentator offers some more interesting context. Moses is an Egyptian name, he says, and for someone with an Egyptian name to emerge from the wilderness and claim to be the liberator of the Hebrew people wouldn’t be too different from a man named Kareem appearing before modern-day Jews and insisting that he’s their saviour. As a Bible studies professor says midway through the series, “The true drama of the Book of Exodus isn’t between Moses and the Pharaoh, but between Yahweh and the Gods of Egypt.”

The battle truly heats up in episode two, which focuses on the Ten Plagues. This is when God, purely in order to prove his power, put the people of Egypt through a series of unspeakably violent attacks. The Ten Plagues ended with God claiming the life of every first-born male child in Egypt, including Rameses’ own son. Trying his best to explain this act of wanton cruelty, one rabbi says, “Everyone loves a redemption story, but I think God is telling us that some people are so bad that they lose the ability (to redeem themselves).” The same rabbi says, mainly to justify God’s actions to himself, that the Pharaoh reminds him of Adolf Hitler. None of these devotees, however, can come up with an explanation for what happened at the end of God’s cruel demonstration of power. “What kind of vengeful god would allow that?” a pastor asks rhetorically. “I’ll be honest, there’s no good answer for that.”

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One person describes this assault as ‘a crazy Hollywood horror movie’, although at no point does The Story of Moses resemble a real film. As has become the norm for shows like this, the production is noticeably spartan — the sets look plastic, there’s a limit to the scope, and despite the inherent ambition of adapting such an expansive text, the constraints can always be seen and felt. But what the show can’t communicate through visuals and an engaging narrative, it does via its panel of experts. They’re a biased bunch, of course, but not necessarily blind.

Testament: The Story of Moses
Director – Benjamin Ross
Cast – Avi Azulay, Dominique Jade Tipper, Mehmet Kurtulus, Ishai Golan
Rating – 2.5/5