After the History Channel set cable viewing records with the debut of 'The Bible' and continued to be a ratings juggernaut over the 5 episode epic event. Now, revelations have surfaced about some strange events that took place on the actor's set.

Producers and creators Mark Burnett and his wife Roma Downey sits down with EW and said, “The hand of God was on this…. the edit came together perfectly, the actors came together perfectly, it just comes to life.”

However, he also revealed that “weird things happened during filming,” he said. “Everybody would look at each other like, “Whoa.”

A mighty desert wind
“There’s a scene with Jesus and Nicodemus, when Nicodemus comes to Jesus in the night. It’s a very still night, not a breath of wind, and we’re on the edge of the Sahara desert in a palm grove in an oasis… Jesus says, ‘The Holy Spirit is like the wind.’

At that moment, a wind, like as if a 747 was taking off, blew his hair, almost blew the set over and sustained for 20 seconds across the desert, and the actors didn’t break — they kept going. And everything stopped. Everyone just looked at everyone like, ‘What just happened?’”

The missing frock
“We had hundreds of craftsmen working [on making costumes], and the most important costume was Jesus’ costume. Every time, at the end of the day, the costume’s got to be taken away to be maintained. So when we were doing the baptism scenes, it’s completely immersed in water.

During it, a portion of the costume came away. We shot this in a giant reservoir on the edge of the Sahara desert, so we’re never going to find this again. It’s really bad. Every time you lose something, you’ve got five months ahead, and you can’t replicate these costumes. 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.”

Cobras at the cross
“We had a snake wrangler every day on the set. I mean, we’ve got a couple hundred people shooting, and we can’t afford to have people getting bitten by snakes. Every day, this guy would find a snake or maybe two snakes, and remove them. On the day of the crucifixion, a lot of people prayed.

The cross was a huge thing. They prayed [for safety], ‘Imagine if this cross fell. The actor playing Jesus could be killed or badly injured.’ The snake man came to work that day — he’d gotten there early on the mountain playing Golgotha, and the bag of snakes [he was carrying] was the biggest bag I’d ever seen. He came to my wife and said, ‘Miss Roma, there were 48 snakes.’

He found 48 cobras and vipers hidden within the rocks around the cross.”

During the filming of the crucifixion, Portuguese actor Diogo Morgado, who played the role of Jesus said,

"We shot the crucifixion sequence in three days. And I don't know how many hours I stood there. But it was really excruciating.  I was on the cross, I can tell you that at one point I stopped, and I looked around, and I looked at everybody working, trying to do their best, I looked at their eyes, and suddenly it struck me … I just saw my whole life in a flashback in front of my eyes.

He went on to say:

It's so strong when you feel that you're where you should be, you know, and you feel that this is what you were kind of … that you were born to, at one point, to touch people's hearts. If the goal of an actor is to tell the best story ever, there's no higher story than Jesus Christ. It's the ultimate love story."

 

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The Bible - History Channel
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Whether or not you believe these were on-set miracles or just mere coincidences, one thing is certain — The Bible’s ratings are , in fact, pretty divine. The series airs on the History Channel Sunday nights at 8 PM Central Time.

One small side-note: An actual invasion of locusts has swarmed Egypt the day after the series premiered.

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