I love history, but more than that, I love watching history-based movies and yelling at the screen when they are wrong. Some of these errors are intentional, and some are mistakes due to carelessness. Our understanding of history changes over time. But the errors in historical movies are themselves revealing. Why did the writer or director make that choice when the reality was also interesting, sometimes even more interesting?
Some errors are due to the expedience of storytelling. You simply can’t include everything. Timelines get compressed. Characters are morphed into one person because there isn’t time to develop all the characters equally. We recently finished (re)watching The Tudors, and this specific tactic was used when Charles Brandon married the king’s sister without permission. It’s true that this occurred, but the king had two sisters in reality, and in The Tudors, these sisters were merged into one which created a lot of downstream inaccuracies. These weren’t significant to the story being told in the series, though.
I recently (finally) watched the 1962 Mutiny on the Bounty, featuring Marlon Brando as Fletcher Christian. It was better than I expected, but also not as historically accurate as the 1984 film The Bounty, featuring Mel Gibson as Fletcher Christian and Anthony Hopkins as Captain Bligh. I’ve also been reading about the actual history of the mutiny, so it’s fresh in my mind. A few of the errors that leaped out to me in the 1962 version:
Bligh and Fletcher were actually friends before Fletcher was assigned as first mate, which is accurately portrayed in the 1984 film. Bligh actually chose him for the assignment, although Christian was younger than he was and from a higher class. The 1962 movie instead says that Bligh didn’t and would never have chosen the foppish Christian and that he resents being forced to take him as first mate. Why is this error made? The 1962 movie apparently wants to make a statement about class that history was ambivalent about. The film portrays Fletcher in a more positive light than Bligh as a result of his superior breeding. Bligh’s cruelty is directly linked to his lack of nobility. His spiteful jealousy of Fletcher’s higher class is also portrayed as a motive in goading Christian to rebellion so he can exact his revenge on him with a court-martial and hanging. So, basically, the movie wants us to believe that goodness goes hand in hand with being born into privilege. The lower classes deserve bad things because they are petty, cruel leaders.
The botanist, Brown, (who eventually follows Christian) joins the expedition because he is excited to solve world hunger using the Tahitian breadfruit plant which is a miracle plant. That sounds great and all, but the reality (which is only alluded to briefly, and then quickly overpowered by a recitation of these loftier motives) is that England wanted cheap food for their enslaved population in Jamaica, the final destination of the Bounty. That’s basically common knowledge to anyone who knows anything about The Bounty, but the 1962 film wanted to cast the crew’s (and England’s) motives as noble and great, not just a way to ensure the success of slavery and capitalism through colonization and exploitation.
At the end of the film, the mutineers have landed on Pitcairn (which is clearly Hawaii and portrayed as a huge paradise, not the rugged tiny rock in the middle of the ocean with no beaches that it really is), and Christian has nobly decided that they must return to England to make their case to the crown that the mutiny was justified, and to tell the other side of the story so that Bligh doesn’t get to lie his way out of it. A rogue mutineer sets the Bounty on fire, and Christian, ever the selfless hero, enters the burning ship to rescue the navigational equipment, suffering fatal injuries in the process. Close up on Brando’s suffering face while his Tahitian bride looks on with love and grief, cue emotionally stirring music. This ending is, however, total crap for so many reasons. First of all, the decision to burn the Bounty was not done by a rogue actor; Christian and other had agreed it needed to be done so that they would escape detection. The idea that Christian wanted to return to England to stand trial is utter poppycock! So, again, why is the movie rewriting the story? It appears to be designed to show faith in the British government and systems in general, to illustrate that we as citizens can get justice if only we abide by the rules established by society. And how did Christian actually die? He was butchered in an uprising by some of the mistreated Tahitians that the mutineers treated as slaves, literally calling them “blacks,” and whipping them as Bligh had whipped them. The mutineers were hardly the enlightened British citizens the movie portrays. While Christian didn’t participate in these actions, he didn’t reign them in either.
Lastly, the role of women as portrayed in the 1962 film omits the agency of the women, some of whom were forced to join the mutineers when Fletcher tricked them into coming aboard for a post-mutiny party, then cut the anchor while everyone slept off their drunken revelry. When they awoke, it was too late to go back. Tahitian “brides” were assigned to the men. While Tahitian culture at the time was non-monogamous and promiscuous by British standards, the brides did mostly go along with this, keeping their own sexual affairs secret if they weren’t sanctioned by their captors. When one of the women was accidentally gored by a goat, the sailor she had been assigned to was angry that he now had no assigned “wife,” and he demanded Fletcher assign a replacement. As one of the women had given birth to a daughter, the sailor said he was unwilling to wait until the girl was ten years old, an age he deemed appropriate. Fletcher’s solution was to take one of the wives from one of the Tahitian men, re-assigning her to the British sailor. While he referred to their new society as democratic, the hierarchy was clearly British sailors > Tahitian women > Tahitian men. Only the agency of the British sailors was protected. The film portrays all the relationships as consensual and idyllic, erasing the troubling reality.
I also went to see the biopic Napoleon this weekend, which contained quite a few historical errors as well. Since this is a newer film, I’ll limit how much I discuss particulars. Perhaps the best scene in the entire film is the Battle of Austerlitz in which the enemy is forced onto a frozen lake, then bombarded. The scene is gorgeous and memorable, and the battle tactics are devastatingly clever. Unfortunately, it’s not true. There is no lake at Austerlitz, just a bunch of puddles. There were no mass drownings as depicted so beautifully in the film. Dang it. Ridley Scott, in directing the movie, was far more interested in beautiful images than historical accuracy, and in this case, I can’t really fault him. That scene was breathtaking.
Other historical inaccuracies of Napoleon included Josephine actually being 6 years older than Napoleon, but the film pairs a much much older Joaquin Phoenix, who is not even remotely convincing as an upstart 20-something gunner (his acting is great, but he’s no youth) with the luminescent, scene-stealing Vanessa Kirby (who played Princess Margaret in The Crown). The real Josephine had lost all her teeth due to too much sugar consumption growing up in Martinique! I’m not sure any actor is method enough for that level of accuracy, though. Additionally, Napoleon never fired on the Egyptian pyramids, but I did see firsthand when I toured there that he showed little regard for the architectural integrity of their ancient temples, using rooms inside thousands-of-years-old structures to stable his horses, drilling holes through priceless statuary and carvings for the convenience of his troops.
Written histories are often flawed, for all the reasons that are easy to imagine: human biases, nationalistic narratives, misunderstanding historical records, records that are written for political reasons (for example, at the temple of Ramses III in Aswan, Egypt, hieroglyphs claim that he killed a completely implausible quantity of his enemies), gaps in the historical record (did you know that there is no record of the Israelites in Egypt at all, except possibly the briefest mention in the Merneptah Stele?), presenteeism or anachronism (synagogues in the Book of Mormon when synagogues didn’t exist until around 500 years after Lehi left Jerusalem), ignoring diversity, cherry-picked sources, lacking context, language or translation errors, and of course, motivated reasoning by authors both contemporary and historical. For this reason, reading (or watching) history is often as interesting as knowing what actually happened; seeing the subjective viewpoint of the author or director is its own type of history.
Obviously, these are all things to pay attention to if you look at the history associated with Mormonism, religion in general, scriptural accounts, and truth claims. Catholics claim that St. Peter was the first Pope. Does this hold up to scrutiny? So many Cathedrals claim they have enough pieces of the cross that you could build an ark. The Coptic sites in Egypt claim that Jesus lived there as a baby, but the gospels disagree on whether he was even in Egypt. The Book of Mormon claims that natives rode horses and used steel, but the archaeological record shows these things were brought by the Spaniards over a thousand years later. While no historian can be completely free from bias, those whose motives are clouded financially or dogmatically should be understood in that light. The worst histories I’ve read are those that start with the end in mind, which is why I’m not interested in apologist or religiously motivated critics; both start with the end in mind (Mormonism is true / not true) and work backwards from there.
History is subjective in the way that everything related to humans and society is subjective. If you tell a story, someone else who was there will tell it differently. People sometimes just make up self-aggrandizing heroic tales, or conversely, the contrarian butchering of sacred cows. Some events have more evidence than others, multiple accounts from diverse perspectives, for example. The best historians let the record lead them to the weird realities rather than the comfortable narratives required by either the faithful (in religious apologetics), or in the case of 1962 Mutiny on the Bounty, the classist British government.
- Do you enjoy hate-watching historical media to find the inaccuracies?
- Can you think of examples of “bad” histories? What motives do you see behind these errors?
Discuss.
Wheat & Tares 
There was a real Battle on the Ice in 1242 between whom we now call Russians and whom we now call Germans — this battle is portrayed in the 1938 movie Alexander Nevsky. A historian might say that portrayal had some deviations from raw truth, but those deviations influenced history (if history means the way the populace remembers the past) and, for a large part, the movie is the history. I recommend the 1938 movie as wonderful and powerful art, even though it was commissioned for a propaganda purpose.
There were understandable reasons why Shakespeare portrayed Richard III the way he did, but I love Josephine Tay’s The Daughter of Time because it investigates the historical inaccuracies of the play and discovers who Richard III really (or more likely) was.
Despite it being critically acclaimed, The Wind Rises is my least favorite Studio Ghibli film. It’s a fictionalized biopic of Jiro Horikoshi, a Japanese aircraft engineer. In the movie, the engineer essentially chooses his career over spending time with his dying wife. Which is certainly a choice some people might make, but nothing like what happened in real life. In my opinion, such a fictional and (to me) disagreeable choice warrants an entirely fictional character.
I issue my strongest possible condemnation to the entertainment industry’s constant disregard of history when it makes so-called historical films. The Bounty and Napoleon are egregious examples.
Both so-called films insert wanton, uncontrolled licentiousness into the stories. There is no recognition of the strong moral values of the times.
And, as pointed out in the OP, the films utterly disregard the true ages and physical appearances of the people involved. The people are presented as young, impossibly beautiful specimens, when in reality, they were worn and haggard and grew up with poor nutrition.
What is utterly distressing is that parents are letting young children view these purient films. Much harm will come of this, many k my words.
JPS’s strongest condemnations related to history are assigned to the entertainment industry? Really? This is an LDS discussion board. You don’t have just an issue or two with the way the COJCOLDS has presented its own history? The name Joseph Fielding Smith doesn’t earn a zero stars in a 5 star rating for his performance as Church historian for 49 years? Ripping the 1832 account of the First Vision out of a Joseph Smith journal and hiding it in a vault until the Tanners went public doesn’t earn your strongest condemnation? I’m no defender of the “entertainment industry” but at least they don’t claim to be the Lord’s true x.
Love watching history based shows and I love learning history. It’s almost always more nuanced and complicated than we think, and watching a show inevitably leads me to read about what I’ve watched.
Some shows are more accurate than others. Band of Brothers is one of my favorite depictions of WWII and seems pretty accurate, but it helps that they had a huge budget and 10 hours to work with. Amazing Grace is a great movie and the book is even better and the real history is more interesting still. Hamilton has fun music and has hints of truth in it, but is largely fiction. At church I heard multiple people talk about The Greatest Showman as if it were an authorized biography of PT Barnum, when in reality he wasn’t all that admirable.
I just visited Rome for the first time last month and was reminded of the saying that history is written by the victors. It’s too soon to tell who will write the history of the LDS or even the USA. I have a feeling that the LDS will become a curious footnote in religious history books.
At my age, I just generally like yelling at the TV screen! The local news gives me plenty of reason to yell. Historical movies are not high on my list of yelling, as I figure they know the real history but are changing it for artistic reasons. The local news writers get no such grace.
Josh H: JCS’s most recent comment does feel a little rusty. His satiric trolling can be hilarious, though.
JCS: This particular criticism is funny in that it’s clearly (and intentionally) way off the mark, swatting a gnat while swallowing a camel (as Josh points out). Also, the history in The Bounty is far superior to the history in Brando’s Mutiny on the Bounty (historians agree). Claiming that the danger is in portraying the characters as attractive is actually pretty funny (this is almost always the case with Hollywood, and Fletcher Christian was not actually super attractive, unlike a young pre-anti-semitic-rant Mel Gibson). However, the licensious behavior of the mutineers and Polynesians is accurate because Polynesian culture was more or less a “free love” society, so long as you stayed in your social hierarchical lane.
As to kids being exposed to these films, good luck getting kids to watch a historical biopic! Maybe if Timothee Chalomet was in it. But yes, Josephine was portrayed by the stunning Vanessa Kirby despite being toothless and 6 years older than Napoleon, so that’s an accurate critique. Historical people are sometimes ugly. Actors seldom are, except for “character actors” who are not cast in romantic roles.
Toad: I’m with you. Watching a historical film or series makes me go searching for “the rest of the story.” One of my favorite podcasts is The Rest is History, by two British historians who discuss various episodes in history. There is always more to the story, and they point out many of the fallacies in various accounts (or point out why an account is dubious). I’ve already got The Bounty Trilogy teed up to read after I finish The Far Land.
Tygan: Yes, Richard III has always bothered me for its inaccuracies, but it is a great play nonetheless. Unfortunately, too many think it’s an accurate depiction of Richard III. Fortunately, quite a few successful historical novels have taken a more nuanced crack at these events, and these books are much more enjoyable, IMO. Not everyone agrees Richard III was the unrepentant villain Shakespeare portrays, although the majority do agree he had his nephews killed. (Other theories are interesting, if not necessarily convincing).
Hawkgirl. This post is one of your many bests. Your writing skills are excellent and the subject matter is always presented in an accurate and honest manner. I never miss an opportunity to read your posts. Don’t ever stop your contributions to this site and thank you.
I envy your knowledge of history–It’d take me three lifetimes to catch up with you.
I think it’s important to make a distinction between knowing the facts surrounding a specific historical event and the ongoing discovery involved in uncovering the history of an ancient civilization. The latter is always subject to change depending on what new data is discovered in the ground or in the historical record while the former tends to be codified more swiftly because of its comparatively narrow range of relevant data–though there is often disagreement vis-a-vis the interpretation of said data.
I love history, but I actually don’t watch movies about history. I like big thick books with lots of footnotes.
What I find interesting is that some apologists openly acknowledge anachronisms in the Book of Mormon. From Mormon apologies Ted Dee Stoddard:
“The word horse in the Book of Mormon represents what is known as an anachronism. Simplistically, an anachronism is (1) an error in chronology; especially a chronological misplacing of persons, events, objects, or customs in regard to each other; (2) a person or a thing that is chronologically out of place; especially one from a former age that is incongruous in the present.”
And then he goes on to entertain the idea of tapirs being horses and how Joseph Smith’s translation wasn’t a real translation.
I love studying the history of the Americas. From since it was first populated by humans to the present days. I simply can’t see how anyone in their right mind would come away with the impression from studying the Americas anywhere in any pre-Columbian time period that there seems to have been Christians and Jews here who kept written records and histories. Sorry, ancient American religions were completely different from what is described in the Book of Mormon. The ancient Americans most certainly didn’t write historical prose as if Thucydides or Herodotus had visited the ancient Americans and taught them to do investigative history.
I like historical media overall. I do like to find inaccuracies in movies and such and try to figure out (1) what really happened and (2) why they got it wrong. Was is artistic license, propaganda, time/budget constraints, new information that wasn’t previously available, etc?
A lot of times the real stories are even more incredible than how they’re depicted.
I suppose my favorite is historical fiction that places fictional characters in historical events and places. This can give the author room for imagination while holding true to historical realities. Bernard Cornwell often does a good job of this.
Funny enough, I’ve been on “Age of Sail” and Napoleon kick lately. One of my favorite films in that space is probably Master and Commander. Peter Weir did a good job of keeping it historical and reasonably true to the source material. The books are a fascinating glimpse into naval life during the Napoleonic period.
“The Duellists” is another interesting Napoleonic-era movie also directed by Ridley Scott (it was his first feature film, and he’d only made TV commercials up to that point). It did a great job of capturing the drama and feeling of duels in that era, even though it might not be historically perfect.
I have “The Wager” by David Grann up next on my shelf, which is about the historic mutiny on the ship “Wager” in 1741 – I just heard that Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio have acquired the screen rights for it.
Jack: Your comment reminded me of a trip we did over 10 years ago to the Lamanai ruins in Belize. There have been a lot of Mormon tourists there, apparently, and when the guide found out we were Mormons, he switched gears and started telling us the story of Lehi and the origins of the Book of Mormon as if Lamanai was settled by them, which is of course not knowable. I suppose church members are excited by the Book of Mormon sounding name “Lamanai.”
I asked him in Spanish what he really thought of the story he had just shared, and did he believe it. He got a sly smile and confirmed that no, he didn’t believe it, but he knew that Mormons believed it. The ruins at Lamanai date as far back as 1500 BC, so while some of the individual temples may coincide with Book of Mormon timeframes, the complex is much older. Only 5% of the ruins have been excavated. There’s certainly more to be learned about most of these Mayan sites, although I don’t personally hold out hopes that they will prove anything about the Book of Mormon. It seems like a great opportunity for historical grifts by tour guides and tour companies. When people want their stories confirmed, someone will be happy to sell them what they want even if they personally think it’s bad history.
To hear many far-right Evangelicals tell it, the USA’s founders (Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, Franklin, Washington, et al.) were all pretty much born-again Christians happily fulfilling God’s plan for America. Undergirding their Christian Nationalism is a barely disguised White Supremicism that excludes both recent immigrants and Indigenous People.
@Rich Brown: You’re absolutely right. The revisionist (fake) founding story of the US floating around in Christian nationalism and white Christian identity politics is one of the clearest examples of “bad history” relevant to us right now. It gets used to legitimize all sorts of horrible ideas and actions. There are similar pockets of politicized bad history at the other extreme as well. It’s bizarre to watch, especially in our age where information is more readily available than at any other time in history.
My favorite documentary about Napolean starred Jon Heder, and I feel like it was pretty flippin historically accurate.
With election denial and people’s divergent opinions about Jan. 6 when we actually see something with our own eyes and still can’t agree on it, how can we ever think that a movie is going to be historically accurate? Truth seems to have more to do with spin and getting people to agree with you than it has to do with “truth.”
It seems we are all like where “In A Few Good Men,” a soldier has died, and Lt. Daniel Kaffee (Tom Cruise) thinks Col. Jessup (Jack Nicholson) has something to do with it. In a heated courtroom interrogation, Kaffee says he wants the truth, to which Jessup barks, “You can’t handle the truth!”
Historical accuracy? This is Ridley Scott, the guy who made Gladiator. Supposedly he hired historians. Who can tell? Sequel is coming, Oh joy. What is expected with his films are spectacle and competent acting.
For most of my life, I’ve loathed big budget productions supposedly based on real people and events. Just move it to the future. Blade Runner and The Martian, two of the best movies ever made. (and how influential was Alien)
And now that I older, I like these “historical” films even less. Perhaps it’s all the propaganda masquerading as history. Glorious Founding Fathers this, and Founding Fathers that. Christian nation blah, blah. Genocide’s grand and slavery’s swell. And ban history books that aren’t “faith promoting”.
But in other ways I’m way more relaxed. I can now watch historically silly TV that knows it’s silly. I found Timeless to be a lot of fun. I bought Blu-rays of Doctor Who. Maybe in a few more years, I can force myself to watch Xena.
But when it comes to a historical drama with poetic license. I am impressed with Derek’s Jarmans “Edward ll” based on the play by Christopher Marlowe. It mixes historical and modern props. And has Annie Lennox singing Cole Porter. Still have my VHS tape. If only I had something to watch it on.
I hear there is a movie about Captain Moroni and the Standard of Liberty soon to be released… If Moroni looks like Donald Trump I don’t think I can watch that one!
Sure, the ongoing discovery of an expired civilization is going to reveal things. But to assume it is going to reveal things not yet suggested by the partial excavation of the civilization based on a supposed ‘record’ for which there is no evidence anywhere is complete foolishness. There’s no evidence that space aliens visited the Egyptians in what we know to this point, but I feel confident it will emerge because someone suggested it in a book.
@Old Man – Yeah I saw that. I’m honestly impressed that they bagged Billy Zane for that movie and got Trevor Morris to do the score. I kind of love that Zane’s character has a big Brigham Young beard and a West Country accent like Captain Barbossa in Pirates of the Caribbean. (I mean, why not? It’s already got an American white dude running around the woods in Greek armor holding a Roman sword with music from the guy who did Vikings).
Oops! The recently released film is not about Captain Moroni, it is about the other Moroni packing the plates around North America. The title is “The Oath”. I guess the director/actor did do a short film a few years back about THE Captain Moroni. I guess I just flunked Mormon pop culture, which is unforgivable because I life on the Wasatch Front.
D’oh! Solomon Spaulding, not Baird Spalding. Never mind.
The Arrogant ignorance of Goyim, specifically on the mitzva of Moshiach. Just brain-dead stupid. The Mitzva of Moshiach as defined by the opening Mishna of the 11th Chapter of Sanhedrin, together with its Gemara teaches: the Mitzva of Moshiach expressed through the baali t’shuva as a time oriented commandment based upon Moshe traveling to Egypt to take Israel out of Egyptian slavery.
Moshe, a baali t’shuva, argued with HaShem that HaShem send someone else! The vile ignorance of arrogance: Goyim who assume that the noise new-testament defines the mitzva of Moshiach. Xtian church (war criminals) attempt to equivocate their new-testament abomination as “ONE” with the T’NaCH. Which, their-after their avoda zarah replacement theology then attempts to replace the T’NaCH with the “blood libel” slander “OLD” testament narishkeit-bullshit.
Except the Platoon of Mr. Stone and Full Metal Jacket (dramatically filmed) all the film on Vn war were historically wrong)
Absurd to think that translations duplicate the original. The opening 6 letter word of the Torah – בראשית this word holds words within words. This trait known as a רמז in Hebrew. ברית אש\brit fire; ראש בית\Head of House ב’ ראשית\Two Beginnings. Beside the טיפש פשט\bird brained common translation of “In the Beginning”.
Sophomoric undergraduate scholarship hangs like Saddam Hussein’s head, upon the hangman’s rope of translations. But translations do not define abstract terms. The טיפש פשט which translates ברית as covenant. Beyond incompetently stupid. The term brit refers to a sworn oath. To swear a brit oath requires the Name revealed in the opening Sinai Torah revelation commandment. The Xtian bible never once writes the Name revealed in the first Sinai commandment. Worse still, it duplicates the Sin of the Golden Calf!
Aaron translated the Spirit Name revealed in the 1st Sinai commandment to the word אלהים\Gods. The Torah speaks in the language of Man. The language: Golden Calf, only a metaphor. Just as dreams require interpretation so too the Torah visions organized into word-metaphors.
The Spirit as expressed by the revelation of the Name as found in the 1st Sinai commandment – not a word. Lips pronounce words but cannot declare Spirits. The perversion of the Spirit Name to a common word – easily pronounced by the lips of Man – the interpretation of the word-metaphor “Golden Calf”. Knowledge how to pronounce the Name requires a Torah mitzva/midda precedent. This idea known as מידה כנגד מידה or measure for measure. The Church declaration “not under the law” fails to distinguish Torah common law from Roman statute law. A fundamental error, which Xtianity Universally has never grasped. Torah common law stands upon the foundation of comparable case/rule precedents, learned from Primary sources of equal authority.
The church has denied the Oral Torah common law legal system which interprets the Written Torah by means of Oral Torah logic; which compares Torah commandments as similar Case/Rule legal precedents with the aim to comprehend the intent of the Torah language itself. This Oral Torah logic system completely and totally different than the logic formats developed by the ancient Greek philosophers: Plato and Aristotle. This fundamental error, Xtian scholars likewise Universally failed to comprehend.
Convenant cannot mean brit b/c the latter constitutes as a formal oath sworn alliance. To cut a Torah brit requires the Name combined with מלכות. This term, Goyim mistranslate as “kingship”. What proves that the translation of kingship as a false translation of מלכות? To swear an oath by way of making a formal blessing requires both Name and מלכות. Yet the “blessing of the Cohonim”, the mitzva known as “kre’a shma” and the Shemone Esrei all lack the word “king”. Therefore מלכות does not translate unto the word “king”, but rather the dedication as holy of tohor middot. Middot interpreted as different spirits which enter the soul. The metaphor of the soul compares to a open window which permits breezes to pass from the outside to within the house itself.
Swearing a Torah oath by means of a blessing, stands separate and apart from saying verses from the Book of Tehillem/Psalms. The latter does not swear a Torah oath by which to cut a brit “alliance”. All generations of Xtian scholarship has Universally failed to catch their gross sophomoric errors wherein their believers trust in inferior and utterly mediocre translations which pervert the intent of the Hebrew/Aramaic T’NaCH. An equivalence error, on par with the Xtian replacement theology which attempts to supersede their new testament counterfeit, with the Hebrew T’NaCH: with their new and old testaments avoda zarah. The latter term defines the 2nd Sinai commandment and Xtian sophomoric scholarship mistranslates as “idolatry”.