The Bible: a new miniseries based on the Best Selling Book

So last night the History miniseries The Bible debuted and I was surprised at how much fun it was to watch. The last time that the Bible was really in anyone mindset was the late 50s until the early 60s when all the Bible epics (The 10 Commandments, The Robe, Greatest Story Ever Told and others) were made. In fact in 1966 they began the process of turning the whole Bible into movies but it lasted only one film which covered the first 22 chapters of Genesis (The Bible: In the Beginning) unfortunately there were no sequels made. We’ve had seen the stories of Joseph, Moses and Jesus told billions of times but never in the same miniseries. Well, yes they skipped over Joseph and may be skimming over parts of the Bible but that is expected. The 5 part two hour miniseries event air on Sundays until Easter. This miniseries is the product of a married Catholic couple Roma Downey (Touched by an Angel) and Mark Burnett (Survivor). The impetus of the project was Roma and Mark’s re-watching of Cecil B DeMille’s Ten Commandments for the first time since they were children. Roma and Mark’s children have asked that the series not be lame. Mark Burnett believes that this is the most important project he has ever been involved with. This project spans the whole Bible from Genesis to Revelation telling two to three stories a night. I think it if unfortunate that it is only a 5 week event, but thankfully they will skip over some of those dry books, Numbers and Deuteronomy, specifically and will only tell the Jesus story once and not 4 times. The producers of this miniseries consulted a wide range of people pastors, academics, a major evangelical leader, a rabbi and a Catholic cardinal for ideas as to how to make the story work as The Bible just gives a rough outline for many of the stories. So it isn’t just a story for one of the religions but for all of the Jewish and Christian. I personally hope that this is only the beginning both on television and on the movie screen. I have heard that Hollywood is now re-opening up the Bible to get ideas for movies. There is a Noah movie by Darren Aronofsky coming out in 2014, Steven Spielberg and Ridley Scott are working on movies about Moses and the Exodus, and there are rumors of a movie about the Virgin Mary, asa a prequel to Passion of the Christ, and Will Smith directing a movie inspired by the Cain and Able story. It would be nice if there is a reemergence of Biblical heroes in pop culture, or at least some cultural awareness of the Bible and people in it.