“Hand of God” helped Mark Burnett and Roma Downey create success story The History Channel’s “The Bible”-VIDEO

“Weird things happened” on set of show made “The Bible” a success

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Still from Roma Downey and Mark Burnett's mini-series "The Bible" on the History Channel

Photo by History Channel

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“The Bible” producers Mark Burnett, who created the reality tv show “Survivor” and actress Roma Downey believe the show’s success happened with help from the “hand of God.”

The History Channel’s new series “The Bible” has become a big success with more than 13 million viewers of its first episode on March 3. The show is a surprise winner for its timeslot on Sunday night.

The Daily Mail reports in an interview before the season’s premiere last Sunday, Mark Burnett said, “The hand of God was on this. The edit came together perfectly, the actors came together perfectly, it just comes to life.”

The producers say that the cast and crew noticed a couple of “weird things” that occurred on the hit series’ set in North Africa. In one scene Jesus tells the priest Nicodemus, “The Holy Spirit is like the wind” and then Burnett says, “At that moment, a wind, like as if a 747 as taking off, blew his hair, almost blew the set over and sustained for 20 seconds across the desert.” He says, “Everyone just looked at everyone like ‘What just happened?’”

In another scene 48 snakes appeared at the base of the cross where Jesus was to be crucified. The production had hired a ‘snake wrangler’ to keep snakes off the set and he usually found one or two snakes per day. The scene was risky due to dangers involved in mocking an execution.

During the scene of Jesus’ baptism, part of the actor’s irreplaceable costume came off and floated away. The producers were afraid that the costume had been lost. Burnett said, “Four days later, a kid showed up from many, many, many miles away, who had been seeking us through the desert to return this to us. He didn’t know what it was why he should seek us, but he felt he had to return it.”

“The Bible” airs in two hour episodes on Sunday night on the History Channel. The finale will air on March 31, Easter Sunday.

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