Beyond the Ten Commandments: Films You Didn’t Realize Were Scriptural

Beyond the Ten Commandments: Films You Didn’t Realize Were Scriptural

The Ten Commandments - Film - 1956

Historically, Christian films have transported viewers back to biblical times, following the events of the bible with relative accuracy. These canon stories– like The Ten Commandments, The Story of David, The Greatest Story Ever Told, or even The Prince of Egypt– create a window into the lives of the characters from history who had real, tangible interactions with God that shaped the world as we know it today. This traditional view of biblical movies is largely rooted in a historical, non-fiction (or at least creative non-fiction) genre of storytelling. However, creative biblical movies and TV shows that use the content from the Bible as the basis of fictional works have been on the rise in recent years, from The Book of Eli to Lucifer or even Supernatural. 

These fictional stories about the Bible, angels, demons, God, and prophecy aren’t the only modern fiction that uses scripture as the basis of the story arc. Of course, this idea of creating fiction from biblical ideas isn’t new. From Dante’s Inferno to Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, authors have been using creative writing to illustrate core ideas from the Bible for centuries. Here are two modern films that most people don’t know are scriptural.

Doctor Strange

Doctor Strange - Film - 2016

Marvel captured the attention of the superhero community with the modern cinematic rendition of Doctor Strange, who is known as the Master of Mythic Arts. Originally introduced in the 1963 Strange Tales series, the character was later given his own comic series in 1974 with the story of Strange’s battle against demonic forces. On the surface, the story appears to be about a character with pagan beliefs and a connection to black magic.  The story of Doctor Strange, however, not only draws on deeply rooted Christian concepts with the base story of conversion laid out by Stan Lee in the original comics, but also uses imagery and creative film techniques to emphasize the Christian ideas of the film director Scott Derrickson. 

Derrickson talks about these Christian influences in an interview with Image Journal in 2016. He acknowledges the mystical elements in the film while clearly defining these spiritual elements as purely fictional representations of the spirit world. The more important aspect he focuses on is the spiritual journey that Steven Strange goes through in learning to separate the material world from the spiritual world. 

“My interest in the spiritual planes of existence within the movie was rooted in the practical human effects of belief, which, in my experience, is that faith can help propagate growth in the face of trauma. And so I’m very interested in the relationship between trauma, understanding, belief, and growth.” 

There is also imagery that Derrickson discusses, such as Strange’s injured hands. 

“… For Doctor Strange what matters is his scarred hands—which is an iconic religious image. But more specifically, his broken hands are the image of his identity loss.”

Yet, the scriptural references extend even further into deeply embedded concepts of sacrifice and redemption as Strange evolves from the materialistic– someone who only values what he can see– to the conversion to the spiritual– the greatest sorcerer of all time.

“In my observation of the world, there are two paths. One of them leads you toward becoming worse and one toward you becoming better… he is able to [become better] because he has good teachers and finds himself in a community that tells him that even when his hands were working just fine, he didn’t get it. He was coming from the wrong place entirely. Without significant loss he couldn’t have seen that.” 

The scriptural ties to Doctor Strange extend back even further than the Christian director, though. When Stan Lee wrote the original story, he incorporated core concepts of spirituality, community, spiritual leaders, and more that were later woven into the dialogue of the film. Of course, we see the recurring idea of conversion and spirituality in the Ancient One’s lessons of metaphysical planes of existence, which Strange initially tries to explain away as psychedelic drugs. But it also explores the concept of morality when Strange, now a believer, has to grapple with the realization that the Ancient One hypocritically used the power of the Dark Dimension. 

Overall, the further a viewer gets from the fictional events and magic of the story, the clearer the picture of scriptural roots becomes. Doctor Strange's scriptural parallels are endless, including the human desire for eternal life, struggle, sacrifice, the meaning of life, service to moral and ethical truths, and so much more. 

Se7en

Se7en - Film - 1995

Oftentimes, viewers see the R rating on a film and instantly assume it can not be related to Christian values. Yet, the bible itself is full of content that would be considered “R” rated today, such as violence, immorality, and substance abuse. The 1995 film Se7en is a prime example of an R-rated film that is directly related to the Bible. The story follows detectives who are tracking down a serial killer. Ultimately, the killings are based on the victims’ association with one of the seven deadly sins.  

The seven deadly sins, lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride, have come to be recognized through Christian tradition and acknowledged in church history. However, there are direct references in the Bible to each of these sins, particularly in Proverbs and Galatians. Even so, Andrew Kevin Walker, the writer for the film, said that he had to do research on St. Thomas Aquinas to really learn about the seven deadly sins more deeply. In the commentary of the film, he even mentioned that he thinks the film helped to educate viewers on the concept. 

“I love the fact that I think now more people can name [the seven deadly sins] than maybe used to be able to because Brad Pitt was in a movie about them.” 

With that in mind, the movie could be considered a modern reimagination of Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, though no one involved in the production of the movie made this connection. Walker said in a 2015 Uproxx interview that he had based the film on the culture shock of moving to New York City from a small town. While this isn’t a direct link to scriptural concepts, it reflects a common theme regarding sin and civilization throughout the Bible. The Israelites struggled with this same concept of culture shock in the book of Joshua when they came back to the promised land, and again, several times, throughout the book of Judges when they went through brutal trials of faith and conflict with cultures that worshiped other gods and idols. 

Beyond the direct reference to biblical sins and Christian values, Se7en may have played an even more important role in scriptural storytelling. The film was among the first religious thrillers to make waves in Hollywood. Critics believe that this was one of the keystone films that paved the way for countless religious horror and thriller films that followed. 

Scripture Everywhere

It seems as though viewers can find pieces of the bible in any genre of film if they know how to look for it. Whether there are direct links to Christian ideas like the seven deadly sins or more abstract connections to concepts like conversion and morality, connections emerge almost anywhere. In many cases, critics and movie reviewers will speculate on the imagery or symbolism in a film to try to decipher these connections. Yet, the simple truth can often be found directly from the source. The writers and directors of these epic stories provide concrete proof of these speculations, showing us exactly where these connections were drawn.