Customer Reviews

Greatest Heroes of the Bible Collection

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If you are looking for a realistic depiction of the stories in the Old Testament...this isn't it. Though the stories do present good lessons on morality...some actors ruin the atmosphere of the films. Basically these seem to be low budget movies. The movies reviewed by other people in this collection are good but don't buy the whole series.

Since the Bible doesn't contain a full blown script of what was actually said and all the small details what actually happened, the directors of these films took some artistic license by filling in the blanks. It seems like they went a little overboard with their artistic license, but my guess is that the importance is in the fact that people will perhaps gain a little interest in the Bible and read it for themselves and fill in their own blanks if they feel it necessary. Much of the dialogue, and even story line, doesn't appear in the Bible but your own reading of the Bible will help understand the real stories.

While many of the stories were interesting to watch, they slanted the truth so much as to confuse anyone who doesn't read the bible. Truth is distorted to such an extreme that the original story loses its intended meaning. Not worth serious viewing.

They are what they are: old TV episodes of an occasional Sunday night series. They are artistic interpretations of the Bible stories often interpolating another fictional parallel story to teach the particulars inspired by the original Source. Production values vary. The casting is a Who's Who of Show Biz Has Beens circa twenty years ago and it's fun to spot familiar faces in different settings. These programs are family-appropriate and make especially good after-church Sunday viewing. Each story is about 45 minutes long with Moses and Abraham being two episodes.

Was looking for an animated version, got this collection of short movies.
They were donated to the Religious Education group at the Church. They are good for 10-14 year olds.

Save your money and time; this is conceivably the worse Bible series I have ever seen and I've seen them all.

The acting is horrible, directing is abyssmal, sets are repeated from one story to the next as are the stars playing different characters, costuming is laughable (draperies with curled fringes for cloaks, colors and patterns not possible for the times, to cite just two problems), inaccurate Bible-story rendering, hand-to-hand combat that couldn't hurt a gnat, Aryan "stars" for Israelite characters, miscasting, ......please, don't even let your children see these films. And for God's sake, don't watch it yourself if you value your mind. I wish I could get a refund.

There are better Bible stories to be had. I recommend on DVD "The Bible Series Box Set" from 2000 instead. There are only 4 DVD's and it doesn't cover the same or as many subjects and has minor flaws, but you will be considerably better served than by buying *this* travesty of an awful series.

Never before in the history of mankind has there been more blond haired, blue-eyed Hebrews in the middle east! I say this tongue in cheek of course. This short lived TV series which took place in the late 1970's was filmed in Paige, Arizona. Sure it looked like the middle east but the continuous use of practically the same sets every 3rd episode, a minority of extras as a crowd of hundreds of thousands of Jews and the glowing angels may be an indication of their budget but I do applaud the attempt. The series employed actors that were well known television stars in the sixties and seventies that lost their income once their series ended. It was either this The Love Boat or Fantasy Island. Hey! Potsie has to eat too!

You can see my other reviews in this series under Greatest Heroes of the Bible separate episodes here on Amazon.

"Moses"

The Moses episode opens with Moses going to Sinai "struggling" and I mean struggling to get up that Arizona bluff (I don't think Marley was that young at the time this was filmed) almost gets crushed by paper mache rocks, encounters the burning bush minus the sheep (Exodus 3:1), confronts Pharaoh (Campanella) with his brother Aaron (in the Ten Commandments, the former actor is replaced by Richard Mulligan of Empty Nest, Soap fame), doles out the 10 plagues with Hebrew slave/skeptic (Gorshin) as his tormentor. Good performances by Campanella and first Aaron.

Others in the series included Victorian Principal (Esther), Erin Moran (a rebel against Babel), Donny Most of Happy Days (the first of two Daniel's), Ted Cassidy/Lurch (Goliath), Barry Williams (Jacob)and Eve Plumb of The Brady Bunch (Noah's daughter), Tyne Daly (Solomons girlfriend), Ron Palillo/Kotter (rebel against Babel), Robert Vaughn (Darius), Joseph Campanella of One Day at a Time (Pharaoh) and Frank Gorshin "The Riddler" from the Batman TV series.