Brief notes on the trailer for The Chosen: Season 3

Miracles, sermons, hometown rejection, and political intrigue loom on the horizon as Jesus appoints the Twelve and sends them out two by two.

Oct 17, 2022

The Chosen’s third-season premiere is coming to theatres next month, and today we got our first trailer for the season itself. Behold:

Bits from the gospels that definitely seem to be included here:

The raising of Jairus’s daughter, and the healing of the bleeding woman as Jesus is going to Jairus’s house (Mark 5:21-43, Matthew 9:18-26, Luke 8:40-56).
John the Baptist sends his followers to ask if Jesus is really the one they have all been waiting for (Matthew 11:1-18, Luke 7:18-35).
The appointing of the Twelve (Mark 3:13-19, Matthew 10:1-4, Luke 6:12-16).
The feeding of the 5,000—the filming of which was livestreamed back in June (Mark 6:30-44, Matthew 14:13-21, Luke 9:10-17, John 6:1-15).

Bits from the gospels that might be included here, but I’m speculating a bit:

I’m guessing the image below depicts the centurion and his servant, the latter of whom is healed from a distance by Jesus (Matthew 8:5-13, Luke 7:1-10). It looks like the centurion might, in fact, be Gaius, the Roman officer who has a soft spot for Matthew. I don’t think we’ve ever seen Gaius out of his uniform before, and I can’t quite tell if that’s his face from this angle. Still, it’s possible.

We know that Jesus will visit Nazareth in Episode 3 of this season, and that there will finally be some sort of reference to his brothers. (We don’t know yet if the show will clarify whether they are his half-brothers, stepbrothers, cousins, etc.) Based on this trailer, I’m guessing that Jesus will visit Joseph’s tomb and be rejected by his siblings and/or his fellow Nazarenes, in scenes that may or may not combine elements of Mark 3:21, 6:1-6; Matthew 13:53-58; and Luke 4:16-30. (Or maybe that tomb Jesus seems to visit is actually John the Baptist’s?)
Tombs, of course, were prohibitively expensive, and only the wealthy could afford them (I talked about this in my notes on the Season 2 finale), so it doesn’t really make sense that a poor carpenter like Joseph, much less a hermit like John the Baptist, would have been buried in one (unless they had a patron, the way Jesus was briefly buried in a tomb belonging to Joseph of Arimathea). Is it possible that the tomb we see here belongs to someone else? Maybe even Lazarus, who was introduced in last year’s Christmas special? I doubt it—I don’t believe I have ever seen the raising of Lazarus depicted as something that happened at night before, and if that story was going to be depicted this season, I would expect it to be featured much more prominently in the trailer. Certainly more prominently than the raising of Jairus’s daughter, maybe on par with the feeding of the 5,000.

A few other quick thoughts:

Season 2 ended with Jesus stepping out from behind a curtain and onto a stage to deliver the Sermon on the Mount. Season 3 will apparently depict the actual Sermon… and it looks like Jesus will step down from the stage and into the crowd. Which almost makes me wonder why Nathanael built the stage in the first place.
Jesus tells one of the Jewish leaders, “I am the Law of Moses.” This sounds like one of the “I am” statements from John’s gospel—“I am the bread of life”, “I am the good shepherd”, etc.—but it isn’t. It’s certainly in character, though; if anything, the biblical Jesus was even more provocative than that, e.g. when he told his fellow Jews, “Before Abraham was born, I am!” (John 8:58). In that passage, Jesus was clearly alluding to the name of God that was revealed to Moses (Exodus 3:14)—“I AM”—and, in doing so, he was basically saying that he was God himself.
The series continues to suggest that these characters were more well-off than I suspect they actually were. In addition to the tomb that some member of Jesus’ peasant family might be using, consider this shot of Simon Peter’s wife Eden bathing in what appears to be a mikvah, surrounded by candles; it certainly looks beautiful, but an awful lot of resources are going into a single bath:

The political intrigue is stepping up. We see Shammai address the Sanhedrin on the need to deal with Jesus, and we see a figure who may or may not be Pontius Pilate. (The latter figure is wearing what looks like a gold wreath. I’m not sure that any Roman prefect would have worn the wreath as a matter of course; it appears to have been something that Romans were awarded to celebrate specific achievements.) Will we meet any of the Herods, too? So far, the series has avoided any direct depiction of the political elites of that world—the highest-ranking figure we’ve seen so far is an officer named Quintus—but of course, the series will have to introduce Pilate, at least, by the time it gets to the Crucifixion.

One other interesting detail: at the show’s official website, there is a photo of the cast that appears to show the male disciples paired off in the same way that they will be paired off when Jesus sends them out two by two (as per Mark 6:7-13)—Simon Peter with Judas, John with Thomas, Big James with Little James, etc.

Is Jesus really that much taller than his disciples? Is Simon Peter stepping on the edge of Jesus’ sandal?

Those are the first thoughts that occur to me. Did I miss anything significant?

As mentioned in the video—and as we’ve known since August—the first two episodes of Season 3 will get a theatrical release on November 18, one month from tomorrow. Tickets will be available at the show’s website next week Tuesday, October 25.

After that, the rest of the season will apparently start streaming in December.

The Chosen recaps:

The Chosen can be streamed via VidAngel or the show’s app (Android | Apple).

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