Four years ago reality TV mastermind Mark Burnett set out with his wife, actress Roma Downey, to take on the momentous task of recreating the Christian Bible into a 10 hour television series. Their finished work, "The Bible," which debuted on the History Channel on March 3, breathes life into five classic stories from the Holy Scriptures in a two hour time span. Each weekend, a new chapter of the series will premiere on the History Channel with the finale ending on Easter Sunday.
Burnett, who has found great success producing hit TV shows like "Survivor," "The Voice," and "The Apprentice," said that he felt driven to produce and direct this series because there's a growing "Biblical illiteracy" among young people. "It's like saying you never heard of Macbeth or King Lear," he said. "In school, you have to know a certain amount of Shakespeare, but no Bible. So there's got to be a way to look at it from a pure literature point of view. If it wasn't for the Bible, arguably Shakespeare wouldn't have written those stories," he said.
Downy described the project as "maddeningly complicated and extraordinarily hard work," but added that they are excited to debut to a global audience. "Nobody has taken on the broad vision from Genesis to Revelation, and I think we probably realized at midpoint why no one had done it before," she said. "It was maddeningly complicated and extraordinarily hard work. We approached it humbly, but we were exhilarated by it."
Although "The Bible" has met the approval of renowned faith leaders like Rick Warren and Joel Osteen, other critics have casted a dark shadow over "The Bible." A review by The New York Times said "The Bible" was not believable to those watching. It said feelings behind created the miniseries "may be sincere" but that the end result "shows a lack of faith in the power of the biblical stories." "The real Bible is a layered, often lyrical epic in which personal journeys are intertwined with collective ones, and human failings bump up against human strivings," reads the NYT.
In addition, an article published on The Christian Science Monitor said that the material in the series is not suitable for children who are not allowed to watch movies like "300" and the Twilight the series. The report also said that the adaptation does not add anything new and fresh from the stories of the Bible, instead it just highlights the traditional scenes that are already seen on television.
Watch the trailer below.
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