On March 14–15, scholars from around the United States gathered at the Joseph Smith Building to discuss the global sensation The Chosen. The occasion was The Chosen Conference, the first academic conference on the popular historical drama that premiered in 2017. These academics spoke not only to their peers but also to hundreds of people from the community who attended the conference.

What Is The Chosen?

Given that more than two hundred million people have seen The Chosen thus far,[1] you’re likely familiar with it, but just in case, here’s a quick overview: The Chosen is the first multiseason television show about Jesus Christ and his disciples. It portrays the life of Jesus Christ through the perspective of those who knew him, including Mary Magdalene, Peter, and other disciples. The show aims to offer a fresh and personal portrayal of Jesus, emphasizing both his humanity and divinity.

Created, directed, and cowritten by Dallas Jenkins, The Chosen has gained popularity for its high production values, engaging storytelling, and respectful approach to its subject matter. While it’s true that much of what appears in The Chosen is not scriptural, that’s intentional. At the very beginning of the first episode in The Chosen, a disclaimer states, “The Chosen is based on the true stories of the Gospels of Jesus Christ. Some locations and timelines have been combined or condensed. Backstories and some characters or dialog have been added. However, all biblical and historical context and any artistic imagination are designed to support the truth and intention of the Scriptures. Viewers are encouraged to read the gospels.”

Although some people are concerned about the fictional aspects of The Chosen, it is also true that visual depictions of the Savior can motivate us to return to the scriptures and study them with greater intensity. According to Jenkins, this has been the result of The Chosen. He said, “We hear every day from literally thousands of people around the world who say, “I’m reading my Bible more than I ever have before. I feel closer to Jesus than I ever have before from watching this show, and it’s causing me to want to dig in more in my prayer life and in my Bible reading.’ And I don’t see how that can be a bad thing.”[2]

Seasons 1–4 of The Chosen were released from 2019 to 2024,[3] and three additional seasons are planned for release in 2025, 2026, and 2027). The first four seasons focus on Christ’s Galilean ministry, leading up to the triumphal entry. Season 5 will portray the events from the triumphal entry to Christ in Gethsemane, with seasons 6 and 7 depicting Christ’s Crucifixion and Resurrection.

With its increasing popularity, it was only a matter of time until an academic conference would be convened to discuss the show. So how is it that the first academic conference on The Chosen occurred on BYU campus?

A Conference Is Born

The Chosen Conference began with a happy accident. On December 24, 2022, my family sang Christmas carols at a local retirement home. Afterward, as we visited with the residents, I learned that one of the residents was the mother of Brad Pelo, the president and executive producer of The Chosen.

I told the woman how much I admired her son’s work, and she responded, saying, “My son is coming to visit me in about an hour. You should come and say hello to him.” I took her up on the invitation, which started a relationship with Brad that led to me asking him a few months later what he thought about the idea of gathering a group of scholars from across the country to talk about The Chosen from an academic perspective. Because The Chosen represents a diverse set of Christian viewpoints, the goal was to have academics from a variety of faith traditions come and share their various insights.

Brad encouraged the idea and said that if we were able to hold our conference either in Texas or Utah, we could include a tour of The Chosen set as part of our conference (The Chosen uses two sets, one in Texas and one in Utah).

But how to find scholars interested in The Chosen? My next step, and I admit this was not the most professional approach, was to look up news articles that had been written about The Chosen and search for scholars who had been quoted in those articles. I developed a list of about twenty-five scholars and began emailing them to see if they would be interested in helping plan the conference.

Eventually we developed a conference steering committee comprised of Dr. Paul Gondreau (Providence College), Dr. Thomas Hibbs (Baylor University), Dr. Douglas Huffman (Biola University), and me. We originally explored hosting the conference in Texas but eventually determined it was more feasible to host it at Brigham Young University.

The committee advertised the conference through various channels, and we received several proposals for presentations. Our final program included fourteen presentations from scholars coming from ten different institutions around the United States.

The Set Tour

The Chosen Conference began on March 14, with a tour of The Chosen set in Goshen, Utah, for the visiting scholars and their guests. Beginning in season 2, many scenes from The Chosen were filmed on this set, which is owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The set was originally built to film the Church’s Bible videos. Yet, from the beginning of this set’s existence, space was created for interfaith collaboration.[4]

Brad Fogarty, vice president of talent for The Chosen, led the tour and was able to show us where specific scenes had been filmed. One memorable spot was the Pool of Bethesda, where Jesus (portrayed by Jonathan Roumie) healed a man who had been ill for thirty-eight years. Our set tour also included a surprise visit from Giavani Cairo, the actor who portrays the Apostle Thaddaeus.

Commenting on the tour, Dr. T. Adam Van Wart, associate professor of theology at Ave Maria University, said, “Touring the set was an exciting and eye-opening experience. I had no idea how creative and resourceful the crew was in maximizing the set and its features. It has been fun after the conference to rewatch the show and see the actors walking exactly where we all had been.”

Keynote Addresses

After the tour, the visiting scholars gathered in the Joseph Smith Building for dinner, followed by keynote addresses given by Stan Jantz and Brad Pelo. Stan Jantz is the president of the Come and See Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to ensuring that all seven seasons of The Chosen are globally accessible, available for free on The Chosen app, and eventually translated into six hundred languages. The Chosen app currently features more than fifty different dubbed languages. Jantz shared a video showing multiple different language dubbings of the scene from The Chosen in which Christ healed the man who was let down through a roof (this video is available at comeandseefoundation.org). It was truly inspiring to see how an increasing number of people can now interact with The Chosen in their native languages.

In his keynote address, Brad Pelo shared how he began to be involved in The Chosen. In 2019 Pelo was an executive at Bonneville Communications, a media company owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Pelo became aware that Dallas Jenkins was looking for a place to film season 2 and invited Jenkins to visit the Goshen set, still unsure whether permission for use would be a possibility.

After touring the set, Jenkins described it as “one of the best TV sets I’ve seen in my life” and expressed feeling the presence of God. He later commented that “I felt like God was laying it on my heart very strongly that ‘You are going to impact lives in this place. People around the world are going to be impacted by the things done on this set.’”[5]

However, the Church did not yet have procedures in place to authorize the external use of the set during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to an initial rejection of the request to lease the set. However, after Jenkins secured an audience with Church leaders to discuss the project, the First Presidency quickly granted approval for The Chosen to use the Goshen set. Pelo left Bonneville in 2020 and later became president of The Chosen.

Presentations on The Chosen

The following day there were fourteen academic presentations on various aspects of The Chosen. The first presentation was given by Biola University professor Dr. Douglas S. Huffman, who spoke about how The Chosen strives to balance authenticity, plausibility, and relatability. Huffman, who serves as one of the theological advisors and script consultants, helps ensure the historical and biblical accuracy of the show. He shared several examples of how The Chosen strives for historical accuracy, while acknowledging that sometimes, to make the show relatable to others, it adds additional details not found in the scriptural text (For example, all the dialogue is in English, a language that did not exist at the time of Christ!).

Later that morning Dr. Gaye Strathearn, associate dean of Religious Education at Brigham Young University, presented on the topic of “The Women of The Chosen.” She pointed out that women play a prominent role in The Chosen. In speaking about the female characters in The Chosen, Dallas Jenkins stated, “One of the things that we’re very proud of with the show is—and I don’t think we’re creating this, we’re revealing something that sometimes people forget is—just how much Jesus honored women in a time period and a culture that wasn’t always as honoring as you might expect.”[6]

In highlighting women, The Chosen frequently uses artistic license to fill in the narrative gaps in the New Testament text (along the lines of Huffman’s “historical plausibility,” described above). For example, the New Testament infers that Peter had a wife when Jesus heals Peter’s mother-in-law (Mark 1:29 and parallels), but it is otherwise silent on this unnamed woman. The Chosen therefore creates a major storyline around a character called Eden who plays Peter’s wife. In a powerful scene, Jesus converses with her acknowledging that he asked Peter “to make sacrifices and leave things behind in order to follow [Jesus].” Then he continues, “You are one flesh with Simon. He cannot make sacrifices that are not also yours. You have a role to play in all of this. . . . I see you.” While this conversation is not historical, it does highlight a true message—that Jesus Christ sees and values each one of us, including women.

Just before lunch, Dr. Joel R. Gallagher from the Catholic University of America, gave a presentation titled “The Chosen in the Classroom: ‘I Know That Power Has Gone Out From Me.’” Gallagher discussed how scenes from The Chosen can breathe life into classroom conversations.

As recounted by Deseret News reporter Hanna Seariac, “Gallagher addressed the audience saying, “You’re all here quite voluntarily, and you’re here because you love ‘The Chosen.’ You’re interested in the course material,” Gallagher said. “It’s not always the case with undergraduate students.”

Gallagher said he uses The Chosen to ask questions around how Jesus was impacted by the events that unfolded in the Gospels. As his first example, Gallagher spoke about the healing of a woman with an issue of blood. The woman reaches out to Jesus to touch his hem because she believes he has the power to heal.

Gallagher said, “We see Jesus, something happens to him in turn. Apparently, he’s almost knocked off his feet. He’s knocked off balance. Something has touched him emotionally.” Gallagher said this scene can be used to start a conversation about what happened when Jesus said his power went out of him and to talk about what healing meant for him.”[7]

Later that afternoon, Dr. Matthew Grey, associate professor of ancient scripture at Brigham Young University, spoke on the topic of “Excavating The Chosen: An Archaeological Perspective on the Series and the ‘Authentic’ World of Jesus.” Grey highlighted some of the historical challenges with creating cinematic portrayals of Jesus Christ and shared details from his archeological studies that can expand our understanding of what villages such as Capernaum really looked like at the time of Christ.[8]

After the final presentations and a closing prayer had been offered, the scholars lingered in the auditorium for nearly an hour, greeting audience members and continuing conversations on the impact and meaning of The Chosen.

Personal Reflections

For me, one of the best things about this conference was the opportunity to interact with scholars who are deeply faithful to their own religious traditions. One conference participant captured my feelings when he wrote to me, saying, “As a theologian with family ties and a personal history in Catholicism, evangelical Protestantism, and the Latter-day Saints, I was incredibly pleased to discover the new avenues for interfaith conversation that an artistically driven show like The Chosen and events like this conference make possible. There were, of course, deep and significant theological differences present among the conference’s many participants. But this conference made it possible for us to establish new relationships around a common appreciation of The Chosen wherein genuinely fruitful dialogue about those differences might begin. In a time and culture wherein so many people are looking for reasons to argue and separate, it was nice to participate in something that was so clearly striving for a collective appreciation of something truly beautiful.”

My personal highlight came during a lunch conversation with a faculty member who teaches at a Christian college on the East Coast. He said, “I don’t know very much about your church, but after this conference, I’m sure of one thing—you guys believe in Jesus Christ.” Yes, we do!

In reflecting on the conference, Huffman wrote, “The Chosen is a work of art. And like any artwork, it calls for the viewer to interact with it, to interpret it, and perhaps to be interpreted by it. In such interpretative endeavors, sharing reflections with others can be beneficial for us as individuals and for our communities. Jesus is truly a captivating figure, and it is helpful to interact with people who differ from me in my view of him. Such interactions remind me that Jesus is not to be ‘owned’ by any particular perspective. He, in fact, desires to own each of us.”

Notes

[1] Michael Foust, “The Chosen Crosses 200 Million Viewers Worldwide: ‘Just Extraordinary,’” Crosswalk.com, March 26, 2024.

[2] Dallas Jenkins, interview with Morgan Jones, All In,podcast audio, July 29, 2020, https://www.ldsliving.com/all-in/dallas-jenkins-behind-the-scenes-of-the-chosen.

[3] The pilot episode was released in 2017.

[4] In the dedicatory prayer offered on August 2, 2011, Elder David A. Bednar specifically petitioned the Lord to touch the hearts of other film producers, saying, “We also ask Thee to bless other believers in the film industry that they will be touched and influenced to inquire how this set might be used to further goodness and righteousness through the earth. We pray that all may have an understanding through the power of the Holy Ghost that the hand of the Lord has been and will continue to be over this inspired effort.” The Jerusalem Set, Goshen, Utah, Remarks and Dedicatory Prayer, August 2, 2011, CR 1038 1, Church History Library, Salt Lake City.

[5] “Outside Filmmaker for ‘The Chosen’ Gets Unprecedented Access to LDS-Owned Set,” Fox 13, April 17, 2022.

[6] Deborah Evans Price, “‘The Chosen’ Creator Dallas Jenkins Opens Up About the Heart of the Hit Series (EXCLUSIVE),” Yahoo!Life, February 1, 2024.

[7] The report of Gallagher’s presentation comes from Hanna Seariac, “Inside the Interfaith, Academic ‘The Chosen’ Conference Held at BYU,” Deseret News, March 18, 2024/.

[8] For a more in-depth account of what Capernaum would have looked like, see Matthew J. Grey, “Simon Peter in Capernaum: An Archaeological Survey of the First-Century Village,” in The Ministry of Peter, the Chief Apostle, ed.

Frank F. Judd Jr., Eric D. Huntsman, and Shon D. Hopkin, Editors (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2014).