How come no Biblical elements in Stargate?

[DarkProphet]

How come there is no biblical elements in Stargate?

They have elements of Egyptian (Ra, Anubis, Osiris, Seth, etc.), Hinduism (Nirrti), Zen (Oma's monk), Chinese (Yu the Jade Emperor), Arthurian (Merlin, Morgan), Greek (Athena, Cronos) and Norse Asgard (Thor).

But they didn't include Moses, Enoch, Elijah, etc. Any ideas why? Biblical figures are very much part of ancient civilizations. Well there is one exception - Baal. The prophets of Baal faced off against the prophet Elijah in the Bible. But that's only a very small representation and they didn't really give a detailed bio of Baal in the series.

 

[sidious618]

Too controversial, I'd imagine.

 

[Harvey]

Stargate has never been interested in igniting political controversy with conservative viewers. Thus, it's incredibly pro-military (considering everything, at least SG-1 related, has the Air Force's stamp of approval, this is not a surprise) and, religiously, only takes on beliefs that are easy (and uncontroversial) targets.

 

[Kpnuts]

No thanks

 

[Jono]

In one SG1 episode they visited a planet with humans that were christians and an Unus was acting as an emissary of satan and demanding human sacrifice.

 

[David cgc]

In which Teal'c offered his opinion that no Goa'uld assumed the persona of the Judeo-Christian God because He was too prone to acts of mercy for the Goa'uld's psychotic asses to be able to pull it off. And, if you think about some of the stuff that He did, that's saying something.

 

[RoJoHen]

I can see it now...

Jesus' tomb was actually a Goa'uld sarcophagus.

And his Ascension into Heaven was really him being kidnapped by Asgard beaming technology.

I did find it really funny in Season 9-10 how they tiptoed around this point. Holy Grail...immaculate conception...
What's the first thing that comes to mind? Mitchell thinks of Merlin, and Teal'c thinks of Darth Vader.

 

[TemporalFlux]

They never explicitly mentioned Biblical stuff, but the whole ascension / ancient thing was dancing all around it. Basically, ascension was the path to heaven while other Biblical figures could be relegated to surviving ancients in the vein of Merlin, Hak'tar, etc. (even Jesus could explained away as an ascended ancient who descended while retaining power - ala Orlin during season nine's "The Fourth Horseman").

Given their ideas, tying the ancient storyline directly to Christianity or any existing religion would have been very controversial; and Stargate was just never the show to raise controversy like that.

 

[DarkProphet]

I gues Sokar the Devil would be considered a biblical element.

They never explicitly mentioned Biblical stuff, but the whole ascension / ancient thing was dancing all around it. Basically, ascension was the path to heaven while other Biblical figures could be relegated to surviving ancients in the vein of Merlin, Hak'tar, etc. (even Jesus could explained away as an ascended ancient who descended while retaining power - ala Orlin during season nine's "The Fourth Horseman").

Given their ideas, tying the ancient storyline directly to Christianity or any existing religion would have been very controversial; and Stargate was just never the show to raise controversy like that.

Good point. I noticed that they skirted around that issue. I guess they didn't exactly talk about heaven in the series. But they did mention that even the ascension wasn't "final". They talked about "further" enlightenment even after you were ascended suggesting that the journey to enlightenment is never-ending.

If you look at the miracles in the Bible, don't you get the impression that the Ori Priors were inspired by the biblical prophets? Powers of healing, bringing about plague, etc.

 

[USS Kongo]

If you look at the miracles in the Bible, don't you get the impression that the Ori Priors were inspired by the biblical prophets? Powers of healing, bringing about plague, etc.

Yes, I felt this as well. But they were presented on Stargate as being false prophets who used their advanced tech to sway (or scare) people into following them.

It's interesting how, on the surface, Stargate can almost be seen as being anti-religious--until you realize the writers were careful enough to walk a very fine line by having the SG-1 characters fight "false gods" who created their own religion--or cults--strictly for for their own personal gain, by having people worship them. This was basically what the Goa'uld, and later the Ori, were doing.

As mentioned above in this thread, the main religions of earth were pretty much left alone on the series.

 

[Brent]

I for one am glad they did not.

 

[David cgc]

It's interesting how, on the surface, Stargate can almost be seen as being anti-religious--until you realize the writers were careful enough to walk a very fine line by having the SG-1 characters fight "false gods" who created their own religion--or cults--strictly for for their own personal gain, by having people worship them. This was basically what the Goa'uld, and later the Ori, were doing.

It's even better than that. "Children of the Gods" subtly revised the premise from the movie. In the movie, Ra was the original Ra. The ancient egyptians did not have a god called Ra until he came along. In CotG, Daniel mentioned that the Goa'uld adopted preexisting mythological personas. So one could say that all the old gods from SG-1 were real, but had already went from the mortal world when the Goa'uld started to impersonate them, if one needed to reconcile an less mainstream belief system with the show.

It sort of reminds me of the story of Cortez being mistaken for Quetzalcoatl when he arrived in the new world, now that I mention it.

 

[cultcross]

It's even better than that. "Children of the Gods" subtly revised the premise from the movie. In the movie, Ra was the original Ra. The ancient egyptians did not have a god called Ra until he came along. In CotG, Daniel mentioned that the Goa'uld adopted preexisting mythological personas. So one could say that all the old gods from SG-1 were real, but had already went from the mortal world when the Goa'uld started to impersonate them, if one needed to reconcile an less mainstream belief system with the show.

Interestingly, the show always paid lip service to this idea, presumably to avoid controversy, but the way the Goa'uld are portrayed strongly suggests that this was merely conjecture on Daniel's part and the opposite (the movie backstory) was true, at least for the Egyptian gods. Otherwise, for example, why is every Goa'uld ship pyramidal and full of hieroglyphic wall decoration? Clearly designed to emulate Egyptian design ethics in Daniel's take on it all, so why do Yu and Cronus fly such vessels? To me it seems more likely that the Egyptian religion, in SG-1 world, was taken from the Goa'uld, rather than the other way around.

It sort of reminds me of the story of Cortez being mistaken for Quetzalcoatl when he arrived in the new world, now that I mention it.

Good point.

 

[DarkProphet]

It's interesting how, on the surface, Stargate can almost be seen as being anti-religious--until you realize the writers were careful enough to walk a very fine line by having the SG-1 characters fight "false gods" who created their own religion--or cults--strictly for for their own personal gain, by having people worship them. This was basically what the Goa'uld, and later the Ori, were doing.

It's even better than that. "Children of the Gods" subtly revised the premise from the movie. In the movie, Ra was the original Ra. The ancient egyptians did not have a god called Ra until he came along. In CotG, Daniel mentioned that the Goa'uld adopted preexisting mythological personas. So one could say that all the old gods from SG-1 were real, but had already went from the mortal world when the Goa'uld started to impersonate them, if one needed to reconcile an less mainstream belief system with the show.

It sort of reminds me of the story of Cortez being mistaken for Quetzalcoatl when he arrived in the new world, now that I mention it.

That is a very good point. The Goauld only took on the personas of already existing god templates so you can say they were imposters and nothing to do with the actual earth religions.

But the Ori struck me as a general template for any fundamentalist religion gone wrong (i.e. forced conversions - believe us or die attitude).

 

[Broccoli]

I did find it really funny in Season 9-10 how they tiptoed around this point. Holy Grail...immaculate conception...
What's the first thing that comes to mind? Mitchell thinks of Merlin, and Teal'c thinks of Darth Vader.

I do like Sam's reaction when that conversation played out. Going from memory here, but Vala/Daniel asks if anyone's even heard about a immaculate conception before. Sam nods knowingly. Teal'c goes for the Star Wars joke. Mitchell mentions Merlin, which shocks Sam. My impression of the scene was the Sam thought of Jesus. Her reaction (and how well known Jesus' story is in society today) indicates it.

 

[USS Kongo]

It's even better than that. "Children of the Gods" subtly revised the premise from the movie. In the movie, Ra was the original Ra. The ancient egyptians did not have a god called Ra until he came along. In CotG, Daniel mentioned that the Goa'uld adopted preexisting mythological personas. So one could say that all the old gods from SG-1 were real, but had already went from the mortal world when the Goa'uld started to impersonate them, if one needed to reconcile an less mainstream belief system with the show.

It sort of reminds me of the story of Cortez being mistaken for Quetzalcoatl when he arrived in the new world, now that I mention it.

That's interesting. I haven't seen CotG in quite some time, and had forgotten that. Now you can clearly see the reasoning behind the change: If they left it that the Goa'uld were the real gods of the various ancient cultures--who turned out to be false--then what about the other god of the modern day, mainstream faiths?

Personally, I think the TPTB did the right thing by avoiding what could have been a major minefield.

Sean

 

[OmahaStar]

They had to avoid controversy. They took mythology from older religions and used them just fine, but to take current myth (seven days? really?) would have been just too "controversial" ... One fictionalized "religion" is much the same as the other, isn't it?

 

[Michael Chris]

If you're talking creation, it's six days.

Anyhow, they're trying to avoid major controversy and loss of viewership depending on how it was handled.

 

[Star Wolf]

They had to avoid controversy. They took mythology from older religions and used them just fine, but to take current myth (seven days? really?) would have been just too 'controversial'... One fictionalized 'religion' is much the same as the other, isn't it?

When this question was asked a fewe months ago I was the last post in a dying thread. To stray into Nuetral Zone territory consider Islam accepts the Old Testament Prophets and stories as being from God. Should a TV show casually say it is all fictional. Well people have died because of a cartoon of a later Prophet and threats have been made because of depictions of what they consider the Prophet Jesus.

As a producer do you take the risk of violence or just call the show religion Origin?

 

[Jimmy_C]

Stargate has never been interested in igniting political controversy with conservative viewers. Thus, it's incredibly pro-military (considering everything, at least SG-1 related, has the Air Force's stamp of approval, this is not a surprise) and, religiously, only takes on beliefs that are easy (and uncontroversial) targets.

They've taken jabs at the Bush administration before. The reason they are pro-military is because they rely on the Air Force for support. They made the NID as a way to tell anti-military stories without actually involving the military. Sokar was the Christian Devil, and the entire Ori arc were pretty much a take on the Jewish-Christian-Islamic religion.

That said, just because something is controversial doesn't mean it is easy or even a good take on it. Controversy for the sake of controversy is also an easy way out.