Biblical Israel just wasn’t diverse enough.
The story of the rise of David, a shepherd boy, into a hero, a king and one of the great religious lyricists, is a phenomenal drama that Hollywood has fumbled again and again. For different reasons.
1951’s ‘David and Bathsheba’ was the typical clunky overdramatized spectacle of the era and the less said about Richard Gere as David the better. NBC’s Kings was an interesting, but baffling TV series, setting the struggle between Saul and David in a modern-day New York City ruled by kings.
Amazon Prime ‘House of David’ is more repugnant, but that has more to do with our own age than anything else. Our age is woke, Amazon Prime’s originals are particularly woke and ‘House of David’ starts out by jettisoning the Jewishness of the story in the most woke way possible by replacing both Saul and David with Arab Muslim actors.
David, traditionally seen as a redhead, becomes the latest ‘ginger’ to bite the dust and be replaced by what woke Hollywood decided is a more diverse appearance.
I recently wrote about a William Tell adaptation bringing in Muslim characters to show how diverse 14th-century Switzerland was. Biblical Israel was also apparently a very diverse place. But in typical woke DEI fashion, that diversity only goes one way, sidelining people who ‘look’ the wrong way and replacing them with more ‘diverse’ Arab Muslims who look the right way.
Woke replacement theology stems from the conviction that Jews are colonial invaders in Israel and the Arab Muslim invaders are the legitimate residents. Having transformed Jesus into a ‘Palestinian’, the next inevitable stage is an Islamic reading in which King David is ‘Daoud’, a Muslim, not Jewish figure.
There is no reason why King David needs to be played by a Jewish actor and the role rarely has been played that way. No more than Saul needs to be played by a Jewish actor. But replacing them both with Arab Muslim actors in a movie that was filmed in Greece and was certainly not a case of staffing lead roles with locals is not a coincidence, it’s a deliberate statement of the woke view of history.
Amazon Prime has long made a point of its diversity quotas which are even more militant than those of any other streamer leading to Rings of Power, a Lord of the Rings multicultural knockoff series, and now a King David story with the protagonist recast to symbolize the replacement of the Jewish population.
What’s at stake in such narratives is that they deny cultural history. The conviction that people in the Middle East must have looked like the Arab Muslims who would later go on to conquer it reverses history. It also covers up the Islamic conquests that actually made much of the Middle East look the way that it does.
An Islamic ‘David’, like an African Cleopatra, also pushes the false genocidal notion that ‘native peoples’ are more authentic as they get darker, and more invasive as they get lighter. This kind of thinking helped justify the ISIS atrocities against the Yazidis, who in many cases had light hair and eyes. It’s used to justify a good deal of the woke racism today.
Woke replacement theology feeds racism and antisemitism. It justifies genocide. And it shows a complete disrespect for the culture and the biblical narrative that it claims to be interested in.
somehistory says
In the Bible, humans are strongly warned against ‘adding to or taking away’ from its very words. There will be consequences.(Rev. 22)
Putting mozlums in such positions as Kings Saul and David, is an abomination. The Bible employs the word “abomination’ for things that are “abhorrent” to God.
The Bible says that “Davd was a man after God’s own heart.” Both those kings, and later ones, were said to be ‘sitting on the Throne of Jehovah.”
mozlums would be screaming….and committing….bloody murder if amazon or any other company/person made any changes to their book of demon filth.
Jews and Christians….the two groups that have great respect for God’s Word , are being maligned and slandered and libeled….
Faithful ones will wait on God Almighty to set things right. There will be “retribution” and Divine Justice.
Not just for this, but for all of the evil being committed on earth today.
James Lincoln says
Excellent post, somehistory.
somehistory says
Thank you very much, James. I appreciate your responses. 🙂
James Lincoln says
Excellent post, somehistory.
crown says
Ah, well, you know how these people in Hollywood and wokeland like to play a little loose with the Bible.
I mean, I suppose they didn’t consult with Genesis 16:12: “And he [Ishmael] will be as a wild ass among men; his hand will be against every man and every man’s hand against him”. Ishmael of course being the supposed progenitor of the Arab people. Never a truer word was spoken in the Bible.
SKA says
Faith wire.com reports Michael Iskander as being Christian though he is certainly of Egyptian origin. At least this series is not infiltrating Muslim doctrine the way Netflix’s “Testament of Moses” did by introducing the Quran’s anachronistic and out-of-place “Haman” as Pharaoh’s vizier.
One thing about this film that I found really unfitting was using the geographic setting of Greece for shooting, showing deep valleys and steep mountains unlike the actual geography of the Holy Land. However the portrayal of David son of Jesse as a “bastard,” and thus as some sort of outcast, I found to be deeply repugnant as nowhere in the Biblical account of David is he anywhere anyone other than the youngest son of Jesse.
SKA says
Not sure if my attempted earlier comment was posted so I will repeat an important point here: A more deeply repugnant feature of the “House of David” script was casting David as an illegitimate son of Jesse – literally called “a bastard” in the script.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
But David was from the House of Isaac, whereas muslims were supposedly from the House of Ishmael. How do they then end up in the House of David?
Of course, all this side-steps the evidence that the original muslims were most likely Turks in Buqhara and Arabs in Baghdad, and that islam hadn’t spread to the Arabian peninsula or the Levant the way it is often assumed
SKA says
Most disgusting aspect of this script is it naming David as a “bastard” – an illegitimate son if Jesse. And therefore an “outcast.”
40 rounds says
TV is unwatchable anymore. The left has an absurd and grotesque view of western culture and history. I watch k dramas because I find myself not yelling at the TV and the women are good looking
Rufolino says
Leftists and globalists want to undermine history by rewriting it.
This all helps to weaken, dissolve, and erase nations, which globalists want to get rid of.
Globalists hate national history. Which most people enjoy & love.
James Lincoln says
Yes, 40 rounds.
It’s pretty much impossible for me to watch anything on network TV made within the last 10 or so years.
Their masks were totally taken off around 2015 / 2016 during the lead up to the 2016 US Presidential Election.
gravenimage says
These days, save for a few things like Game of Thrones a couple of years back (I’d read the books first), I find myself watching classic films on TCM more than anything else.
Ramy says
Michael Iskander is an Egyptian Copt.
After the brutal slaughter of 21 Copts by ISIS in Libya in 2015, much of the West came to know that Copts are Orthodox Christians dating from the time St Mark brought Christianity to Egypt. They are ethnically NOT Arabs – they are Pharonic Egyptians. They have endured religious persecution since the time of the Arab Muslim invasion of Egypt in the 7th century, but have managed to preserve their faith.
SKA says
I am willing to set aside issue of whether he was well cast in physical appearance in favor of judging his acting. I read a nice write up of him in on Highwire site and I thought his acting quite good. At least he is singing his psalms in Hebrew.
Alice says
Dear God, please preserve historical accounts as all history is being re written.
May the Coptic christians find favor in Your sight!
Rufolino says
Leftists and globalists want to undermine history by rewriting it.
This all helps to weaken, dissolve, and erase nations, which globalists want to get rid of.
Globalists hate national history. Which most people enjoy & love.
ChuckyMartel says
I couldn’t take it seriously when they made David look like a Pakistani.
gravenimage says
‘House of David’ Replaces Jews With Muslims
……………………………………..
Just disgusting “wokeness”. How is this more authentic using invading–and antisemitic–Muslims in key roles?