"Review of Cecil B. Demille’s 1956 Movie, The Ten Commandments

By Craig Jones

December 13, 2010

This review compares Biblical scripture to the 1956 Paramount film The Ten commandments, to test how true the movie holds to Bible scripture. While the movie has some differences in accounts of scripture, they are limited, and not of a great magnitude as to discredit the films authenticity. This film is an epic adventure of the life of Moses, and the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt.

Some differences are as follows: The movie depicts a scene before God brings the last plague on Egypt, where Moses tells Pharaoh, “If there is one more plague on Egypt it is by your word that God will bring it.” The Bible states a different account in Exodus 10:28-29.

The movie also shows Pharaoh’s soldiers slaying all the first born males of the Israelites with swords. This is more like the slaughter of innocent people by Herod at the time of Jesus’s birth as described in Matthew 2. Exodus 1:22 states, So Pharaoh commanded all this people, saying, “Every son who is born you shall cast into the river and every daughter you shall save alive.”

In the movie Pharaoh was a “Lone” survivor as the Red Sea covered his entire army. Psalms 136:15 states: But overthrew (Pharaoh) and his army in the Red Sea.

The movie was well done and seems to hold to the major story of Exodus in Biblical scripture, according to this limited research"