Goshen • Among the people in first-century Jerusalem, clad in sandals and broadcloth linen tunics, Dallas Jenkins stands out in a gray T-shirt and black pants.

Jenkins is the creator, director, writer and guiding light of “The Chosen,” the biblical TV drama that this month is shooting part of its seventh and final season at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Motion Picture Studios South Campus, outside Goshen in southern Utah County.

The actors in front of the cameras, playing Jesus’ disciples, wear the linens. So do dozens of extras — fans of the show who have traveled to Utah on their own dime to be part of it.

Jenkins and his crew members are in modern garb, often wired up with electronics that would be out of place in Jesus’ time. Jenkins is at the center of the action, headphones around his neck, directing a scene.

The set’s lighting and reflective screens kept people outside a small perimeter from witnessing what was being shot, but all could see Jenkins in near-constant motion. One moment, he was up close to his actors, the next he was darting back to his monitor as he called “action!” Assistants, a few feet away and out of camera view, silently gave the extras instructions on where to walk in the background.

When Jenkins and his crew were in Goshen this time last year, they were shooting Season 6, chronicling Good Friday, the last day of Jesus’ life. Season 6 will debut Nov. 15 on Prime Video with three episodes, with additional episodes rolling out Nov. 22, 29 and Dec. 6. The two-episode season finale, which will end with Jesus’ crucifixion, will be shown in theaters next spring.

The resurrection and what’s next

Season 7, which Jenkins said will debut sometime in 2028, covers what happened with Jesus’ disciples in the days after his death. The first two episodes, which also will be released in theaters, will end with Jesus’ resurrection — and six more episodes will show the events after that, covering 40 days as the apostles start putting Jesus’ teachings into motion.

Jenkins said character development, taking time to know the people around Jesus, has been “our specialty” through the show’s first five seasons. Season 6, he said, “was the first season where the story itself dictated how much time we could take on it.”

In Season 7, Jenkins said, “we’re not covering just one day. We’re covering at least 40 days, so that gives us a little more freedom to take our time with some of the character development.”

“The Chosen” uses the Goshen studios for scenes set in Jerusalem, the big city of the Holy Land. Jenkins points out that it’s the only show that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which owns the studios, has rented out to shoot anything other than its in-house content.

Because the 24 hours depicted in Season 6 were set primarily in Jerusalem, more of the season was shot at the Goshen studios. Some scenes were shot in Italy, and the show’s art department worked to make the Goshen studios’ exteriors match the Italian locations.

For Season 7, Jenkins said, much of the story happens in Capernaum, a fishing village on the Sea of Galilee — and his production company, 5&2 Studios, shoots at a replica of Capernaum at its Texas headquarters.

‘Pretty humble from the beginning’

The 5&2 name is a reference to the five loaves and two fishes Jesus used to feed the multitudes. Jenkins has a tattoo of the company’s logo on his arm. And if that lends itself to a “heart on his sleeve” metaphor, Derral Eves, the company’s chief strategy officer and one of the show’s executive producers, said it fits.

“He was pretty humble from the beginning,” Eves said, adding that, as the show has progressed, “in some ways, he became even more humble.”

Jenkins also has become more confident as an artist, Eves said.

“I just can’t imagine writing the words for the apostles and Jesus,” Eves said. “He’s more sensitive for his offering. He’s putting his all into it. … He’s super obsessive, because the only person that he cares about pleasing in this is God. So he takes it really, really seriously.”

Part of Season 7’s action, Eves explained, covers Jesus between the resurrection and his ascension into heaven. “Jesus comes back [to the apostles] and says, ‘What are you doing? I told you to go build my kingdom. Get to work,’” he said.

When “The Chosen” started, Jenkins directed four episodes of Season 1, without the budget to guarantee he could finish it. Still, he had an idea of a seven-season arc, ending with the resurrection and what followed. But he didn’t know then, he said, that it would happen.

“There’s a big difference between knowing and hoping,” Jenkins said. “I hoped that we would do Season 7. I had zero idea that we would get to the rest of Season 1, much less Season 7.”

What happens after ‘The Chosen’?

Eves, a Southern Utah University alum who has worked with Jenkins since the beginning, said the goal has been to tell “the greatest story ever told” by humanizing the message in ways viewers haven’t experienced before.

“The world’s already seen the best hits of Jesus Christ, or the movie from Jesus’ perspective,” Eves said. “But we’ve never seen it through the eyes of those who he called, and those who he interacted with. It’s literally more about them seeing and being impacted by the message and the Messiah, so you’re able to see their transformation.”

This storytelling approach sometimes brings criticism, Eves said. “There are certain people that want us to be purists, who don’t deviate one word from the Bible,” he said. More often, though, Eves said they’ve been told the show has piqued viewers’ interest in the source material.

Eves cited one time, a couple of seasons back, when Nathaniel (called Bartholomew in some of the Gospels) was called to be an apostle. After the episode aired, Eves said he was talking with staffers of a Bible app the production works with, and they told Eves they noticed an increase in queries about Nathaniel.

“It was one of the highest spikes they’d ever seen,” Eves said.

With Season 6 debuting in the fall and Season 7 in the works, Jenkins and 5&2 Studios are mapping out the next phase — which includes more stories inspired by the Bible.

Jenkins is an executive producer on “Joseph of Egypt,” an eight-episode limited series for Prime Video, which tells the Old Testament story of Joseph’s rise to power (minus the Andrew Lloyd Webber music).

After “The Chosen” wraps up, Jenkins said he aims to take a break to make something nonbiblical. The last time he did, he directed the 2024 holiday movie “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.” He also aims to make a three-season limited series about Moses, followed by a sequel to “The Chosen,” based on the Book of Acts, showing the work of St. Paul and the other apostles.

For now, with his crew filming in Goshen this month and in Texas for the rest of the summer, Jenkins’ attention is on bringing “The Chosen” to a conclusion.

“My superpower is that I actually am really focused on what’s in front of me,” Jenkins said. “I really don’t think ahead. I don’t think about goals or results. So that’s allowed me to survive going through seven seasons without thinking about, ‘Well, is the next season going to be here? Is the season after that going to be here?’ … What’s been helpful is that I’m not getting ahead of myself.”