Newsbites: Bilhah in Joseph of Egypt! Way of the Wind! Carpenter's Son! Ruth & Boaz!
Israeli actress Moran Atias says Joseph of Egypt's Bilhah is the first "Jewish woman" she has played "in an American series". Also: updates on other films.
Moran Atias on playing Bilhah in Joseph of Egypt
Israeli actress Moran Atias says working on the Prime Video series Joseph of Egypt has allowed her to fulfill a long-time dream: playing a Jewish woman in a Hollywood production. The Israeli news site Ynet Global reports:
On her way home to LA, she’ll stop in New Mexico to wrap up filming for ‘Joseph of Egypt’, a Prime series in which she plays, for the first time abroad, a Jewish woman.
“I play Bilhah, Jacob’s wife, and my sister Shani plays Rachel,” Atias says. Before the shoot, she asked her sister to look it up on Wikipedia, “I’m your servant”, she told her.
“This has been a heartfelt prayer of mine for a long time. I’ve always wanted to feature a Jewish woman in an American series. Until now, I’ve played Arab characters, a gypsy, an American, a Latina, but never a Jew. Now it’s finally happening, and at such a challenging time.
“To be given this role now, when people feel their identity is being erased or trampled on, is a dream come true. I don’t like the word ‘explain,’ but for me, this is a way to continue our Jewish story through art. And, I’m fulfilling my dream of working with my sister.”
Strictly speaking, I don’t know that Bilhah would be “Jewish” per se. Even if you use that word to refer to all ancient Israelites—and not just those who came from the tribe or kingdom of Judah—Bilhah was basically pre-Israelite, as a concubine of Jacob’s who became the maternal ancestor of the tribes of Dan and Naphtali.1
Not only that, but it’s not clear whether Bilhah, who was Rachel’s servant before she became Jacob’s concubine, came from the same family or ethnic background as Jacob, the way his wives Leah and Rachel did. She could have been a foreigner like Abraham’s concubine Hagar or Joseph’s wife Asenath, but the Bible doesn’t say.2
Joseph of Egypt is the first live-action entry in the expanded “Chosen universe”. It does not have a release date yet.
Atias, incidentally, has already starred in another Bible movie that was shot in New Mexico according to the IMDb, said film being Rahab and the Ribbon of Redemption (2019). I can’t find any images or clips from that film online, but in any case, her character there, Rahab, was a Canaanite, not an Israelite—so definitely not “Jewish”.3
Will we never get to see The Way of the Wind?
An article in the Telegraph last Friday has been making the rounds, as it speculates that Terrence Malick’s Jesus movie The Way of the Wind—which was shot in 2019 and has been stuck in the editing room ever since—“might not be released at all”.
A few websites have been treating this article as news, but as far as I can tell, it has no new information. Even the eye-catching detail in the headline, about Jesus “smoking pot” in the film, comes from a two-year-old report that, itself, might be based on a misunderstanding. (It originated with an interview that one of the actors gave in French, and I have no idea how accurately it was translated, or how serious the actor was when he made the original statement.)4
So as far as I can tell, the Telegraph offers no new facts here, just one more expression of concern that Malick—who was 75 when he shot the film and turns 82 this month—might not get around to finishing the film in the time he has left.
New images for biblical (apocryphal) horror movie The Carpenter’s Son
Bloody Disgusting has some “exclusive images” from the upcoming horror movie The Carpenter’s Son, which is about Joseph and Mary and the teenaged Jesus.
Two of the images look to me almost like screen captures from the trailer, but the image above definitely isn’t. You can check out the others at the link here.
The film comes to North American theatres November 14.
Ruth & Boaz still hanging in there!
Ruth & Boaz may have dropped off the Netflix global top ten a few weeks ago, but it’s still got fans in two countries, at least.
The film—a modernization of the book of Ruth produced by Tyler Perry and DeVon Franklin—jumped back to #5 in Jamaica last week (October 27-November 2), which was its sixth week on the platform. It was #9 in Jamaica the previous week.
The film also clung to #10 in South Africa last week, which was identical to its position in that country the previous week.
Ruth & Boaz spent three weeks in the global top ten and got 28.5 million views during that time. Netflix has not released an official view count for the film since it fell off the global chart, but they’ll probably have more to say about the film’s viewership stats when they release their second-half-of-2025 “data dump” in early 2026.
Upcoming Bible movies and TV shows:
now-November 16, 2025 — House of David: Season 2 (streaming: Prime Video - Wonder Project)
November 14, 2025 — The Carpenter’s Son (theatrical: Magnolia)
November 16-December 7, 2025 — Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints: Season 2 part 1 (streaming: Fox Nation; St Peter episode November 23, 2025)
December 19, 2025 — David (theatrical: Angel Studios)
March 22-April 5, 2026 — The Faithful (television: Fox)
April-May 2026 — Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints: Season 2 part 2 (streaming: Fox Nation)
second half of 2026 — The Chosen: Season 6: Episodes 1-6 (streaming: Prime Video)
sometime in 2026 — Zero A.D. (theatrical: Angel Studios)
March 12, 2027 — The Chosen: Season 6: Finale (theatrical: Amazon MGM)
March 26, 2027 — The Resurrection of the Christ: Part One (theatrical: Lionsgate)
May 6, 2027 — The Resurrection of the Christ: Part Two (theatrical: Lionsgate)
March 31, 2028 — The Chosen: Season 7: Premiere (theatrical: Amazon MGM)
no release date specified — Jacob (theatrical: Angel Studios)
no release date specified — Joseph of Egypt (streaming: Prime Video)
who knows when Malick will finish it — The Way of the Wind (theatrical)
Bilhah’s association with the tribe of Dan makes the question of whether she’s “Jewish” all the more interesting, as there are theories to the effect that Dan might have been a Greek tribe—the Danaoi or Denyen—that was assimilated into the Israelite nation. Those who posit this theory have noted that the most famous Danite, Samson, has more in common with Greek heroes like Hercules than he does with other Hebrew judges.
For what it’s worth, later Jewish traditions do claim that Bilhah was a relative of Jacob’s on some level.
The Testament of Naphtali, versions of which go back to the Dead Sea Scrolls, says Bilhah was the daughter of a man named Rotheus who was “of the family of Abraham, a Chaldean”; presumably this is meant to indicate that he was part of the caravan led by Abraham’s father that moved from Ur to Harran a few generations earlier (Genesis 11:31).
The Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, which was written sometime around the 8th century, says Bilhah was the daughter of Jacob’s uncle Laban by one of his concubines; by this reckoning, she would have been Jacob’s first cousin, and half-sister to her mistress Rachel.
That being said, Rahab did marry an Israelite, according to later Jewish and Christian traditions—although they disagree as to who she married. One rabbinic tradition says she married Joshua. Matthew’s gospel says she married Salmon, the father of Boaz, and she thus became the great-great-grandmother of King David (Matthew 1:5-6).
I don’t speak French, but I question the accuracy of the original report and/or the seriousness of the actor’s statement because it was said at the time that Mathieu Kassovitz “plays a small role as Jesus’ brother John” and “has a scene where he yells at Jesus and tells him to stop smoking weed with his friends and to go help his mother with the cattle”.
This is an odd statement for at least two reasons: one, the biblical Jesus did have four brothers, but none of them were named John (Mark 6:3, Matthew 13:55); and two, Jesus and his father were “carpenters” (Greek: tektōn, “craftsmen”), not cattle-keeping farmers.
It is possible that Malick changed these details, of course. But Jesus being a “carpenter” in particular is such a well-known part of his bio, I’d be surprised if Malick did change it.