What The Chosen Gets Right (And Wrong): Archaeology, Pharisees, and Color (Jeffrey Garcia) Ep. #225

Dr. Dru Johnson (00:00)
Did you ever wonder what biblical scholars and archaeologists think of the show The Chosen, that one about Jesus? Well, this week we’re going to talk to a Center for Hebraic Thought Fellow, Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo Garcia, who is an archaeologist or he works on archaeological digs at Bethsaida in the Sea of Galilee. He’s a scholar of first century Judaism.

and he’s going to tell us what he thinks about what is great and really well done by the Chosen and then things they could probably work on including maybe the clothing of the Pharisees in the show. He’ll talk about that and more coming up next.

Dr. Dru Johnson (00:40)
Were there Pharisees at Bethsaida, this place where you’ve been digging for the last few years?

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (00:47)
Yeah, this is a good question. know like, there is a push in certain works to suggest that the Pharisees were primarily a Jerusalem phenomenon or that they were the ones in my sort of watching of…

extra stuff with the chosen they talked about this pharisaic Jerusalem connection and that maybe these were the the ones who were really sort of antagonistic towards Jesus and i’m not sure about that so because we find them in the Galilee there’s no reason to suggest that the Pharisees are not going to be in the area of the Galilee which includes Elaraj Bethsaida

Dr. Dru Johnson (01:16)
Hmm.

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (01:32)
and Corazine and Capernaum and all the ones on the western side of the lake. And ⁓ I think you separate them if you’re maybe using rabbinic tradition, although I don’t off the top of my head know rabbinic tradition that suggests that, or if you’re espouting an older idea that suggests that the Galilee and Jerusalem were two separate worlds in terms of their Judaism.

We now know based on archaeology and texts that’s no, that really wasn’t the case.

Dr. Dru Johnson (02:03)
Yeah. Yeah. And it’s hard to believe anybody who’s been to the Galilee, it’s difficult to believe any anybody who lived or operated along the sea wasn’t going to all of the spots that you could see by eye shot on the sea. It’s not like it was this long trip over to this other village. Right. Yeah. So this work at Beside, I guess it’s not controversial anymore, but there was

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (02:16)
⁓ absolutely. Absolutely. 100%.

Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Dru Johnson (02:31)
I don’t know if it is a controversy. It’s just that there was this place that people used to call Bethsaida that always had a cloud of suspicion over it. ⁓ And then because it didn’t make sense that they would go way up this hill pretty far away if they were fishermen. And ⁓ what I actually don’t know what led people to like drop pickaxe and start digging in this location right on the edge of the Sea of Galilee, which is El Arraj or Bethsaida today.

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (02:39)
Right.

So for a while, Elaraj had been considered a contender for Bethsaida. So there was a local fisherman well versed in the New Testament ⁓ who would regularly go around the shores looking for areas where there were ports for ships from the first century. And he had suggested early in a biblical archeology review magazine that Elaraj was ⁓

Dr. Dru Johnson (03:06)
Okay.

interesting.

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (03:28)
Bethsaida or was a good contender for Bethsaida because when you went there, there were monumental remains just on the surface. So there were, you know, Roman capitals of pillars just sitting there on the ground, right? No digging necessary. ⁓ That idea sort of went by the wayside for various reasons. And the contending, the other Bethsaida, which was across the highway, about two miles away from where we are, became ⁓

Dr. Dru Johnson (03:39)
Hmm.

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (03:58)
primary identifier for Bethsaida. ⁓ And unfortunately, the problem with that site is that there wasn’t a lot of Roman evidence. And we hear in Josephus that Herod Philip raises, you know, ⁓ Bethsaida to a polis, a Roman polis. ⁓ And the site, the other site ⁓ at Tell had just a large amount of ⁓ Iron Age remains. It’s a beautiful Iron Age site.

And has great remains in terms of the Old Testament, but in terms of Roman remains, didn’t have a lot. So there were a small group of people who were like very interested in digging there. And in 2015, there was a survey with a Galilean archaeologist, Moti Aviam. And when they, the survey, you just go down several centimeters to see what’s there, right? Pottery and this stuff. And once they found, you know, Roman pottery and other things, the director of the dig,

Dr. Dru Johnson (04:48)
Hmm.

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (04:53)
Moti Aviam was interested in doing a full season. And that’s sort how it began.

Dr. Dru Johnson (04:59)
How, and that was 2016, 2017, somewhere around there?

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (05:02)
So the

survey was in 2015. The first season was two years later. I may have my years off. It’s been a while since we’ve been there. 2014, 2015 was the survey. And then two years later, we had our first season.

Dr. Dru Johnson (05:15)
Okay, and I imagine the first season there’s a lot of pressure because if you don’t find really anything of significance then maybe you don’t have the funding to go on?

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (05:24)
Yes, that is, ⁓ I remember the first week the group got together and we’re talking about, you know, what our experience, it was my first archeological dig. And we just all sat there, like within the first couple of days and we were like, what are we doing here? Right? Cause we’re right on the surface. We’re digging, you know, we’re not finding any sort of, you know, Holy grails, let’s say. ⁓ And we found, think at the top level, we found, you know, ⁓ sugar factory.

from the Crusader period, right? ⁓ So yeah, there’s a, and there were like large sugar jugs and they’ve been reconstructed. But of course, because that wasn’t what we were looking for, it sort of was like, you know, it’s a lot of work, it’s hot. Why are we not finding you at Bethsaida immediately? And that sort of, that was the beginning of dispelling the idea that, you know, this is gonna be a very quick find. The one good thing we had at El Arraj was that

Dr. Dru Johnson (06:13)
Mm.

Hmm.

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (06:23)
There wasn’t and it was it’s a nature preserve. So there aren’t any subsequent settlements. Let’s say after the Crusader period There were some Bedouins who lived in the area ⁓ But there’s nothing significant so our first layer lucky for us unlike anywhere else like Jerusalem or any other excavated city our first layer was Crusader so we were already jumping back a significant amount of time

Dr. Dru Johnson (06:48)
Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Because, ⁓ so yeah, normally every inch you go down, you’re hitting ⁓ layers, ⁓ in history. And then you have, usually in Jerusalem, it’s like a whole layers of Muslim, different dynasties of Muslim, ⁓ Umayyads and this. ⁓ okay. And so what did you find? I’m interested to know, like, what’s the thing that tipped you? Like, what’s the thing when people said

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (06:58)
Right. Right.

Exactly.

Dr. Dru Johnson (07:14)
Okay, this actually might be Bethsaida. Was it the the size of the structures or were they particular finds?

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (07:18)
Yeah, I think the first thing.

So the first couple of things, I mean, the big things were within the first couple of seasons, we found evidence of a Roman bathhouse. And that sort of indicated that there was a significant amount of building there in the Roman period. That this may be indication of a polis. I know Stephen Notley is now working on that whole idea of what does it mean to be elevated to a polis? And we had a number of.

Dr. Dru Johnson (07:47)
Right, A bath house, so

this would be like, sorry, there’s a delay here, so I’m not trying to cut you off. Bath house would be like a number of like clay flutes or all the clay piping under, is that what you found or? Okay.

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (07:52)
No, go ahead.

Nice one.

Right, right, so we found

a floor mosaic and then we found evidence of these tubules that you have in a Roman bathhouse. So it wasn’t like we found an entire structure, right? Somewhere along the line, somewhere along the line it was destroyed and we found pieces of it, right? ⁓ That didn’t really settle anything. What ended up happening is as we dug down layer by layer,

Dr. Dru Johnson (08:07)
Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (08:30)
We got down to the Byzantine level and then began to identify the elements of various churches or a church and a monastery according to the director of the dig. As we kept going, the sort of feature of El Arraj, which we already had thought we had cinched it, but a couple of years ago, we found a large medallion inscription.

Dr. Dru Johnson (08:39)
Hmm.

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (08:56)
⁓ That was like any other inscription in the church. It was dedicated to this individual named Constantine who had paid for the paving of a floor right as a dedicatory inscription and it basically Was speaking about praying for his sons ⁓ and that ⁓ the chief of the Apostles and it references the chief of the Apostles and the holders of the keys of heaven And

we realized after you just do a survey of Christian literature, there’s only one individual that is named the chief of the apostles and that is Peter. ⁓ And this is sort of the hook in all of this is that there was a report by a early pilgrim ⁓ who suggested or stated that he had visited a church that was built over the house of Peter and Andrew.

Dr. Dru Johnson (09:29)
Right.

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (09:51)
when he did his journey, this was like eighth century CE, right? When he did one of his journeys to the area of the Galilee that he had won, he went to a church and that church happened to be built over the house of the two apostles that the gospels say came from Bethsaida. So the discovery of the medallion inscription and then ⁓ the apse of the church.

Dr. Dru Johnson (09:52)
Okay.

Right. Wow. Okay.

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (10:16)
⁓ sort of felt like we were now moving into the area of sort of confirming that this was Bethsaida. That was also coupled with discoveries of homes ⁓ from the Roman period.

Dr. Dru Johnson (10:45)
Okay. maybe the assumption, tell me if this is wrong, but the assumption is that if you have a whole church, like a formal church structure built on top of the site, like people aren’t just going out building churches for no reasons in this region, that that must have been some kind of pilgrimage site, right?

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (11:01)
No, right.

Right, exactly. And we do have the other churches that we have around the Galilee are because of pilgrimage. So something significant is claimed to have happened there.

Dr. Dru Johnson (11:11)
Okay. ⁓

⁓ Correct my memory. So there’s also an octagonal structure at Capernaum, or Capernum, that is supposedly over the house of, is it Peter’s mother? that, did I have that right?

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (11:20)
There is. Yeah.

So the octagonal structure is situated sort of focused in on one room of one of these insular homes that are in Capernaum. And it has been suggested from the early excavations that this is where Jesus healed Peter’s mother-in-law. ⁓ So then it sort of transitioned over to being Peter’s house. ⁓ Steve Notley actually has an article on

Dr. Dru Johnson (11:46)
Yes. Okay. Mother in law. right.

Right. OK.

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (11:55)
on Peter’s house and dealing with the various ⁓ things that are happening with identifying that as Peter’s house. What do we have at Bethsaida? What do the ancient sources tell us?

Dr. Dru Johnson (12:05)
Wow. ⁓ Okay, so ⁓ I’m a little ⁓ averse to when people say like, you know, can’t you feel the power where Jesus walked and all this kind of stuff? And I’m like, I’ve spent a lot of time in Israel. I’ve never felt the power. I felt the majesty of creation there. It’s very beautiful. And the sense of awe that like, wow, this really happened. And this is kind of where it actually happened, like, you know, in a battlefield or something like that.

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (12:26)
Sure, sure.

Dr. Dru Johnson (12:35)
But you’re sitting there spending a lot of your day right alongside the lake there. Any New Testament insights come to you when you spend that much time right there? I mean, you’re not just a tourist passing through, you’re actually like hanging out, spending time in that nature. So yeah, do you understand anything differently from spending the time there?

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (12:55)
I mean, I think every bit that I’ve learned of traveling in the land is gonna add some kind of like 3D context ⁓ to the gospels. The experience is interesting because during really hot days, we go swimming ⁓ in the lake. ⁓ So experientially, it is significant when you’re reading the accounts of the fishermen and…

Dr. Dru Johnson (13:04)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (13:23)
Peter walking on water and the miracles. I’m not sure I would say, like you said, you you’ve experienced the power of, I don’t know, the presence or the power of divinity there, but there is something significant about experiencing the land and then reading the New Testament.

Dr. Dru Johnson (13:42)
Yeah. Also, this may be folklore, but I feel like I’ve read in more than one place that it’s possible that fishermen would not have been able to swim in deep water here. Have you ever heard this this thesis?

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (13:57)
I’ve not.

Dr. Dru Johnson (13:59)
⁓ okay. It may be just cobbled together from the fact that Peter Sinkson thinks that he’s going to drown, which might indicate that he couldn’t swim. ⁓ Yeah, I’ve heard this with seafarers. Yeah, well, I’ve heard it about Roman seafarers in the Mediterranean that ⁓ there was this kind of ⁓ problem that a lot of people could not swim. I don’t know why or if it was true. Okay. Another legend to track down. Okay, so…

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (14:05)
⁓ okay. Lack of swimming ability.

Mm-hmm.

interesting.

Yeah, right.

Dr. Dru Johnson (14:28)
We wanted to talk about The Chosen a bit. ⁓ I think The Chosen, I’ve only seen a couple episodes. I thought they were very creatively good storytelling. I mean, it was done really well. ⁓ The thing that struck me the most instantly was when they look out at the lake in the surrounding territories and I’m just like, well, that’s not the Galilee.

That’s not even close to what the Galilee looks like. Standing on a cliff, you know, looking over into the sea and that kind of stuff. ⁓ Yeah. So I wonder, it’s wild to me that the Galilee is actually a very heavily, and once you’ve been there, you know exactly what it looks like. I mean, you could probably see a picture of it and go like, that looks like the Sea of Galilee, because it’s a pretty notable, it’s like the Grand Canyon here. Like it’s a notable place. ⁓

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (14:59)
Yes. Right.

Dr. Dru Johnson (15:25)
When you think about shows like The Chosen and other shows like them, ⁓ what do you think is the benefit of that kind of storytelling? And then as an archaeologist, what are the things that kind of rub you a little bit the wrong way? Or if anything does, I’m assuming there will be some things that you might nitpick about.

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (15:40)
So I think one.

No, think the big benefit is that as ⁓ culturally we’ve become more visually oriented, that it’s a benefit to see the scriptures that we often ⁓ read maybe in a wooden way because it’s text, right? To see that come to life and to have individuals that you hold dear acting out ⁓ actually pretty well. think the acting in The Chosen is really good.

⁓ that this is In my going over of the show for some of the stuff that I’m writing, they do some things really well. ⁓ I’ve told my students for years that you need to have, often the New Testament doesn’t give us the detail that we want. So you sometimes need to have this sort of artistic

Dr. Dru Johnson (16:15)
Yeah, yeah, it’s impressive.

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (16:44)
License to try to put the images together, right? And I often tell my students as well. I think at some point there may be a line that you cross ⁓ But I have to say that that one of the things that I’ve liked about the chosen is ⁓ The color they bring to the surroundings the the the previous movies on Jesus are often very sort of muted and beige if you will

Dr. Dru Johnson (16:50)
Mm-hmm.

yeah.

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (17:13)
a beige filter

Dr. Dru Johnson (17:14)
Yep.

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (17:15)
so that people are wearing colors and these sorts of things makes it look like a very more lively environment. ⁓ The individual that plays Jesus, Jonathan Rumi, does a fantastic job. ⁓ The drama is palpable, the joy is palpable. So it’s a very interesting approach. With all these things, however, as I tell my students, it’s really difficult for me to watch because it’s hard to turn off my professional eye. ⁓ This is…

Dr. Dru Johnson (17:30)
Hmm.

Right.

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (17:43)
This is what I do for my career. So it’s really hard to just sort of suspend disbelief and not sort of dig in somewhat to the nuances that are present.

Dr. Dru Johnson (17:53)
Hmm. Yeah, I, for me, the, I think it’s the first episode. ⁓ and again, I’ve only seen a few episodes and the few that I saw, really appreciate it. I thought were very powerful, ⁓ storytelling. But when a woman and maybe Peter’s wife, I don’t remember who she walks out of a bedroom and into the kitchen holding a candle. And I’m just like, yep, no bedrooms, no kitchens.

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (18:05)
Yeah.

Dr. Dru Johnson (18:21)
and probably not a candle in her house to light things. It’s like that old saying, we three kings of Orient are, there weren’t three, they weren’t kings, and they weren’t from the Orient, kind of thing.

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (18:26)
Yes.

That’s right. That’s right.

There are, I mean, there are, it’s interesting. I remember when the first season one came on, it took a while for me to sort of watch it. ⁓ And we watched the first episode and then watched part of the second. And I had like three pages of notes. So I was like, this may take me too long to watch this. So I would have to find another method to try to get into this material.

Dr. Dru Johnson (18:51)
Ha ha ha!

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (18:58)
But the first one was interesting to me was when the tax collector Matthew ⁓ becomes a disciple, he’s also writing the stories along the way, right? ⁓ Essentially going with the Matthews and eyewitness sort of idea. And eyewitness to the point that he’s actually writing the stories not as they go along, which is really interesting to me. Because I usually tell my students these things are happening in a heavily oral environment.

Dr. Dru Johnson (19:09)
Right. Yeah.

Right. Yeah.

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (19:27)
⁓ and probably being written later. So we probably don’t have someone walking around, know, writing their gospel as they walk and travel. But it’s still an interesting way to sort of figure out how this happened.

Dr. Dru Johnson (19:37)
What is it?

Yeah, and that seems to me a really good use of an art form like this where it’s creative speculation ⁓ and then it provokes you to think, like I’m sure before that I had never thought about whether Matthew actually wrote things down. Where would he get the materials? Was Matthew literate? Well, he’s a tax collector, so he probably is literate, so that’s not completely out of, or at least somewhat literate. ⁓ So it actually provokes you, I think the…

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (19:56)
Right. Right.

Okay.

Dr. Dru Johnson (20:08)
The greatest use of this is it provokes you to go back to the text and think about what could be possible and what might be too much speculation. But I often fear that the TV show becomes the text for people. ⁓ And I don’t know if that’s true. It’s just one of my sinking speculations and fears.

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (20:21)
Yep. Yeah, your fear is

my fear. That’s precisely what I worry about. That we switch over to what is an interpretation. It’s interpretation of a text, right? And that that interpretation becomes what is the story and what is the text and what things look like. ⁓ And so I think you’re absolutely right. The creative benefit is that it’s sort of

Dr. Dru Johnson (20:28)
Okay. ⁓

Great.

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (20:51)
is supposed to sort of spark in you the desire to go back and read and consider what is the connection with the ancient world in these texts. know, it’s often like I tell my students, the New Testament is a text not written to you, maybe written for you, but it’s not written to you. There’s an initial audience that lives in that world, in that context. And how do we read in light of knowing that? And that’s not always an easy thing to do.

Dr. Dru Johnson (21:06)
Right. Right.

Yeah, I remember listening to an interview with, ⁓ his name just slipped straight out of my head. Dallas Jenkins. ⁓ who is, ⁓ is it Tim, Tim LaHaye and the other Jenkins? It’s his son, right? Jerry, Jerry B Jenkins. Thank you. Sorry. I came to Christianity after not knowing any of the Christian culture stuff. So it’s still kind of new to me. ⁓

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (21:21)
Mm-hmm.

Jerry B. Jenkins. Yeah, Jerry B. Jenkins.

I get it. Okay.

Dr. Dru Johnson (21:40)
But I remember hearing an interview with him about his process. Like, how do they know when they’ve gone? Like, how far do they go in speculation? It seemed to me that he had a very thoughtful process. He was fully aware that he had to speculate. Like, there’s no way to move text over to film without lots of speculation. I will also say my recent book, you know, because this is all about me, right? But my recent book, I do have some historical fiction.

where I, it’s a book on biblical law, but I wrote a story about two villages in the iron age trying to hammer out a death in the village according to the law. And I really did. It was like every sentence I stopped and had to think, I don’t know, would they say that? Would they do that? Would that, know, like she picked up the bread off that I’m like, well, I don’t know. Did they pick it up by their hand? Did they use taunt? Like every single word felt so dangerously speculative to me.

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (22:15)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Dr. Dru Johnson (22:35)
And at some point the editor just said like, look, you just gotta, you gotta get on with it. We’ll have some archeologists read it and see if, know, Cynthia Schaefer Elliott read it and she, she was okay with, okay with it. So, so yeah, if you want to work in that medium, you’re going to have to do lots and lots of speculating. So I wonder what would be those lines, you know, that line that you’re talking about, what would be the kind of cautions you want to, assuming that we have some creative artists who listen to this and are thinking about portraying biblical scenes in art.

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (22:44)
All right. Nice.

to.

Dr. Dru Johnson (23:04)
Where would you draw the life, the field and the fences for them, I guess.

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (23:09)
Yeah, I think a lot of the stuff I’ve sort of just said, you know, this is creative license. ⁓ And I know ⁓ there is a Dr. Laura Robinson, think her name is, ⁓ actually has spent a lot of time like looking at where some of these, you know, maybe quote unquote Jewish ideas exist or where they come from, they’re using in the chosen, which is a really good thing to do. ⁓ For me,

Dr. Dru Johnson (23:32)
Right. Right.

Yes.

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (23:37)
because

my training is Jewish studies, that is really sort of where I focus in on in particular, know, first century ancient Judaism. What did that look like? What traditions do we have? What traditions may have not been that ancient when they come from a later period? And in some cases, you can draw in later stuff. Like there’s a whole conversation about the use of the use of the word rabbi for teachers, but they seem to use that. ⁓

⁓ regularly, like in the show, not in our ancient sources. ⁓ For me, the concern is always that this othering of Judaism finds its way into ⁓ what the creator is trying to do, right? ⁓ Whether it be anti-Judaism or can reach the anti-Semitic label. ⁓

is open for discussion, but that’s of where I sort of am drawn to. In particular is the image of the Pharisees. ⁓ Because this is by far the most maligned group, historically speaking, when it comes to Christianity and Judaism. So for me, I wanna see how they are being portrayed. ⁓ What things are they using to depict them? And are we just sort of…

Dr. Dru Johnson (24:50)
yeah.

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (25:06)
carrying over the same old tropes that have existed now for hundreds of years.

Dr. Dru Johnson (25:10)
Yeah, so maybe you could talk about for people who’ve seen the show and for those who haven’t, what, you know, even the way they dress, the way they act, what’s their depiction of Pharisees on The Chosen and where do you think they nail it and where do you think they could do some more work?

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (25:26)
⁓ Again, what’s interesting with me is that I’m generally for the show, I’m generally interested in are they pitting Jesus as a group and his disciples, Jesus and his disciples as a group against the Pharisees? So it is a Pharisee Jewish, Pharisee Jesus argument, fight, debate, whatever it is. Unfortunately, they do seem to fall into a bit of that. ⁓

In particular, they sort of trade in the idea that the Pharisees dressed in black, very dark coloring. Now I will throw in, they do add traditional prayer shawls. And at some point Nicodemus says that he’s identified by this prayer shawl as a Pharisee, but they are quite literally the only group of all the Jewish groups, including the Zealots, that are dressed in these very dark colored robes, boxed hats.

And that is a tradition that doesn’t start in the chosen. That’s a tradition that goes to the early ⁓ movies about Jesus, that you present his enemies in dark colors for the reason that you want to present them as villains, right? Or as opposed. They are the opposition, right? And you can point them out. ⁓ The thing that I sort of really am like, we need to change this. And this is a bit more subtle. So I can’t say that

Dr. Dru Johnson (26:34)
Hmm.

Right. Right.

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (26:55)
that either Jenkins intention, you know, this was intentional or that the consultants that they have did this intentionally. ⁓ But what’s interesting is that ⁓ when people transition to speaking to Jesus, like Nicodemus in season one and Yusuf, who’s Nicodemus’ student in season three and season five, they wear lighter colors, right? They wear these, it looks like flats, but it has color in it.

It’s not the black big robes that they were wearing before. And it seems like when they come into contact with Jesus in a more of a friendly mode, that they are wearing colors that Jesus and disciples would wear and that everybody else in Judea is wearing as well, right? Because even the groups of priests have more color. ⁓ They’re gold, they’re oranges, blues, very vibrant.

Dr. Dru Johnson (27:50)
Hmm.

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (27:54)
whereas the Pharisees are generally in black. ⁓ The reason I sort of, the reason I sort of am drawn to that is are we carving out a new way ⁓ to draw this line between Jesus and the Pharisees? ⁓ And one of the things that concerns me the most is that Yusuf, again, Nicodemus’ student, who’s generally when he’s a Pharisee is dressed in black, has the same outfit on.

to warn Jesus or warn one of Jesus’ followers or go hear Jesus preach. He gets dressed in common clothes so his identity is hidden. He is disguised to listen to the words of Jesus. So while I can’t say this is intentional, there are things that become so prevalent that they become automatic without people realizing or being cognizant of what they’re doing. ⁓

Dr. Dru Johnson (28:34)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (28:53)
What it does is essentially draw this line that if you are interested in Jesus or a follower of Jesus, then you can’t be a Pharisee, right? You can’t, just from clothing alone, from the actual script, the same thing is happening, right? ⁓ And in reality, the image that we have in the gospels, and this has been talked about for generations now, at least since…

Dr. Dru Johnson (29:04)
Right.

Great.

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (29:20)
Judaism became a focus in New Testament studies, that this is not a fair representation of who the Pharisees were. ⁓ So that’s one of the things that I, there are smaller things that I sort of like, I wish you would done it this way, but that’s my own creative sort of like ⁓ hope to participate in the interpretation. ⁓ The thing I always fear is that we’re trading in tropes.

Dr. Dru Johnson (29:40)
Right, right.

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (29:48)
that have existed for generations. Because what happens is that in the history of Christianity, it’s not simply then Jesus against the Pharisees, it’s Jesus against Judaism. Because the Pharisees become a symbol of history for the Jewish people. ⁓ And that is more of a utterly dangerous trope.

Dr. Dru Johnson (30:06)
Yep.

It’s just a few stair steps down in the descent to like soft anti-Semitism and then possibly hard anti-Semitism. Yeah, I mean, I’ve been a consultant on a show before, as my daughter says, an Emmy nominated show. So there is that like, yeah, I had nothing. I just told them where they had clear factual errors. It was pretty easy. ⁓ there is also that thing that you realize when you’re an expert consultant.

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (30:13)
Right. Right.

Nice.

Dr. Dru Johnson (30:36)
Like you can tell them and then they choose to do whatever they want at the end of the day. So ⁓ even you can’t even hold the consultants necessary because they might’ve pointed this out. And I can imagine a creative ⁓ flow would say, well, no, we need something that visually distinguishes these people from the other people so that everybody who looks at them knows. you’re saying it’s subtle, but I have a daughter who was a film studies major.

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (30:39)
Right. Sure.

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Dru Johnson (31:05)
for her degree and ⁓ I’ve learned a lot about filmmaking from her and what you’re actually describing is very powerful film storytelling technique as you color things in particular, literally color them in order to color people’s opinion about these people. it is subtle but it’s more powerful than it is subtle I guess.

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (31:09)
Thank

Yes.

Yeah, think the reason I’m using the word subtle is because ⁓ Dallas Jenkins has a video, I don’t know during what season it was made, as well as some of his consultants where they’re speaking ⁓ kindly about the Pharisees and that they understand that there’s a history there of, ⁓ it doesn’t say anti-Semitism specifically, but there’s a history there of maligning the ⁓ Pharisees ⁓ incorrectly.

and that we need to do better in presenting Jesus and his world, essentially. ⁓ And for me, that’s a plus. So this is why I of step back and say, is this just something that is so ingrained in Jesus movies ⁓ that it’s very hard to sort of pull out of it?

Dr. Dru Johnson (32:18)
Yeah, it’s, you know, the same kind of subtle technique in older Jesus and Old Testament movies as well is the holy characters speak in a British accent and then normal people speak in an American accent and then the evil people speak in a Semitic accent, ⁓ which happens sometimes, unfortunately. Yeah. So. Go ahead.

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (32:36)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

I mean, what is interesting that, go ahead.

what’s interesting ⁓ is that the, if you remember Jesus of Nazareth, I tell my students this all the time, the six hour movie with Jesus of Nazareth ⁓ with the British Jesus, ⁓ they specifically, the director specifically told him not to blink while he was on camera.

⁓ to make himself look stranger than everyone else or like other than everyone else. So he doesn’t blink once in the entire movie.

Dr. Dru Johnson (33:13)
That’s crazy. And so you know who else doesn’t blink? Like that’s a psychopathy thing, right? Like people don’t blink at all when they talk. No, I don’t know. I might be making that up. But if you’re talking to somebody who doesn’t blink, like you definitely think there’s something going on there. Like, are you high? What is going on here? Yeah, it does make you wonder like if we could ever have…

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (33:27)
Right, right.

Dr. Dru Johnson (33:39)
a film that you and I would look at and go like, ⁓ that was a really solid film on Jesus. Or if like you’re just picking your poisons at this point, you know.

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (33:44)
Right.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, I hope. I mean, I think what they’ve done ⁓ with The Chosen is in many ways amazing. It has huge popularity. It has been translated into any number of languages. I forget how many it was at this point. ⁓ My concern, though, is if you use the trope, then how many languages, how many communities are you communicating that to?

in terms of Jesus and Pharisees, right? And there’s a lot of work being done on the Pharisees, really good, edited volume on the Pharisees, Paul Sloan’s book that deals with this sort of thing. ⁓ So my hope is that that stuff that comes out of sort of the academic world that is sort of more positive would find its way to sort of trickle down into how we put this together creatively.

Dr. Dru Johnson (34:44)
And not even, you know, I would like to give a plug just for the New Testament authors that they portray a complicated story of the Pharisees. You know, the one that it was a Pharisee and it says a Pharisee came and warned Jesus to flee because they sought to kill him. Right. So someone and they’re members of the early Jesus community. They’re the ones who are helping to make decisions. the acts 15 Paul Sloan and I talked about all of this just within the New Testament. You have a complicated portrait.

⁓ And so I don’t think we’re asking for anything more here than to reflect the complications that are given in Scripture.

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (35:14)
Yes.

Right, I, I mean, like the Acts 15 text is my favorite, because it speaks about the Pharisees who come to believe. Right, it’s Pharisees who come to believe and there’s no indication that they’ve given up the membership card, right, that they’ve had to give up the membership card. They’re just part of the community, right? ⁓ The way I tell my students usually to think about is, know, let’s take your large denominations in the United States. Like I do some work with the Assemblies of God, right?

Dr. Dru Johnson (35:28)
Right. Most people don’t pay attention to that. Yeah.

Yep.

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (35:50)
I think it’s the second largest evangelical denomination in the United States. If you went to each individual community of Assemblies of God, you would find that there are varying approaches into various subjects, depending on what that subject is. ⁓ They all have sort of like a common approach. Like I think in ancient Judaism, you know, obviously God, the temple, ⁓ and the law.

were sort of the three big sort of like, we overlap on this. And then how they interpret each of those things can vary widely depending on which community you’re part of or which community you’re inside of ⁓ and that they’re gonna be differing opinions, right? ⁓ And I think that’s important to understand that when we see the Pharisees, we’re not speaking about, you know.

Dr. Dru Johnson (36:30)
Hmm.

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (36:41)
one gang that had one idea that all followed it loyally and even to use that language is a little bit ⁓ pejorative to say gang but but one group of individuals you know who thought one way and were a monolith because as you say in the gospels itself we get different different ⁓ a more complex view of who this group was

Dr. Dru Johnson (36:51)
Right.

Yeah. And I mean, I find it even true with my own students. Like where I have a student who’s really bright and gets most of the material, but then kind of takes a side trail on something or goes really left-hand turn on something. I often will spend more time critiquing that weird turn that they made because they are so close to the kingdom, as it were. The kingdom of what I think could be a better version of their own thinking. ⁓

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (37:10)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Right. ⁓

Dr. Dru Johnson (37:31)
And so even Jesus’ rebukes, I now even see as like, at least partially, almost like a, you know, Toby with Michael on the office, if you know that duo, like, come on, Michael, like, you know better, we’ve talked about this, you know? So there might almost be some inclusive rebuking because you’re so close, like, get behind me, Satan kind of feel to it, yeah.

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (37:43)
Yes.

Right, right.

Yes.

Yeah,

years ago when I was ⁓ a college student, I had studied with Stephen Notley. ⁓ And he was sort of going over this sort Pharisee traditions that we’ve had that exist within the church. And he said, you know, you could actually see Jesus’ approach to the Pharisees as an intrafamilial thing kind of happening, which is what you’re touching on with Toby and Michael. And I told my students, I was like, when you’re close to someone, you can speak to them in a way.

Dr. Dru Johnson (38:15)
Right.

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (38:23)
that you wouldn’t speak to the general general populace because you know them well enough. ⁓ So like I bring up my sister, I have a younger sister, three years younger. I say if my sister did something that I thought was wrong, I’d be able to speak to her in a much more stern way than I would one of my students who I don’t know or be more open way that I approach her.

Dr. Dru Johnson (38:27)
Mm.

Right.

Yeah, now that makes perfect sense. ⁓ So when are you leading tours back in Israel? What’s the situation there?

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (38:54)
So, I had a tour in November, but it shrunk and then, ⁓ so that’s not happening, unfortunately. ⁓ I am looking for tours in the spring, ⁓ if everything ⁓ goes well. ⁓ Tourism, I guess, will be coming back soon, you know, if everything goes well in country with the plans.

Dr. Dru Johnson (38:55)
Sounds tricky.

Mm.

Sound. Sound’s okay.

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (39:21)
and ⁓ hoping to get actually, I’m actually working on trying to get students to Turkey as well. Turkey is one of the most ignored countries and we have so much of the Bible happening there.

Dr. Dru Johnson (39:33)
Yeah. And so if somebody goes on a tour with you, like they get to go to all these sites and you’re like, you’re the expert talking them through everything. How much do you, maybe, maybe you shouldn’t say this on a podcast, but how much do you let your Israeli tour guide talk?

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (39:38)
Absolutely. Yeah, so Yeah, so

Wow,

right. So every trip ⁓ has guides, regardless of what country we’re in. When we’re in Israel, ⁓ we work with guys that are like really knowledgeable ⁓ in their particular field. But when it comes to teaching New Testament and usually teaching ancient Judaism, I’m the one that takes that on. ⁓ However, when I work with Israeli guides, especially, I mean, several of them are my friend.

I want the students to hear their voice as well. When it comes to, know, naturally because you’re in country, modern Israel will come up and the things that are happening. ⁓ And that’s where I’m particularly ⁓ strong on like they need to hear your voice because you have skin in the game, you live here, this is your world. So try to help them to understand the complexities of it.

Dr. Dru Johnson (40:20)
Right, yeah.

Yeah, ⁓ it’s even I always tell people calling them a tour guide is often it’s a misnomer because ⁓ some Israeli tour guides I’ve worked with are just prolific in their memory and their understanding and their layered layers and contacts. Yeah, it’s kind of amazing. And some of them won’t shut up about it.

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (40:49)
Mm-hmm.

Absolutely.

Yeah, that’s true.

You know, doing one of the things with doing tours when you’re responsible to like, be the teacher, you realize how much tour guides have to keep like the layers of history from the modern period going back all the way to the ancient Near East, right? And and you’re right, I have worked with tour guides. Yeah, I have have worked with tour guides that are just I’m gonna let you know what’s going on. ⁓

Dr. Dru Johnson (41:17)
my goodness.

Yeah, it’s impressive.

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (41:29)
I’m gonna keep going, keep going, keep going.

Dr. Dru Johnson (41:32)
Yeah.

What’s that band direction? Okay.

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (41:34)
Yeah.

Dr. Dru Johnson (41:37)
Well, Dr. Jeff Garcia, thank you so much for your wisdom. I’m so glad that you are a fellow at the Center for Hebraic Thought and that we can lean into you whenever we need your help.

Dr. Jeffrey Arroyo García (41:49)
Yeah, thank you so much. It’s been an awesome time. I love talking about these topics.