There are a variety of reasons as to why I wanted to write what amounts to a TV series based on the Bible. First, I love writing. I started with music, went to musicals, then plays, then screenplays, and then teleplays. I've always wanted to make a living at writing. When I read through the Bible sometime in 2003, I thought it would be really cool to arrange the whole thing in choronological order and tell it as a continuous story. Until now, we have had children's videos and standalone movies and mini-series (like The Ten Commandments, Samson and Delilah, The Passion of the Christ, Noah and the Ark), but these only tell a small piece of an enormous story. They, by necessaity, leave out huge amounts of back story just because there is no time to tell it. You must setup the story at hand, tell it, and get out.

I knew full well this was too huge for a movie, but I was uncertain if it would be big enough for a TV series. But I did know a series would give one the time needed to tell the stories thoroughly, and regular viewers would have the backstory necessary to give the stories additional meaning. But the first step involved my painstakingly rearranging the entire Bible into chronological order, and at the time, I did not have the time to undertake such a task. So, I put the idea in the back of my head with all the other story ideas I have undeveloped.

About six months later, my mother told me about a Bible study she was doing at her church using a "Daily Bible." I thought it was interesting because their goal was to read through the Bible in a year, talking about their weekly reading in this class. I, of course, thought this was a great idea. Then, she told me the Daily Bible they were using was arranged in chronological order! I was shocked. She said she'd get me one, and step one to my dream was in place.

It was another six months before the idea resurfaced. The church I attend distributes a magazine called the Pentecostal Evangelical. There was an article in there about a man who decided a good way to study scripture was to write it out, since you remember more of what you write than what you read. I thought this was also a cool idea and after writing out a little of it, my mind drifted back to the series idea. I knew I would not have the devotion to write a little of the Bible every day, but I would be able to study it intensely to write from it.

So with this in mind, I got together my Bibles, extra-canonical works, and reference material and had at it. I knew all the conventions used in Bible stories to this point that throughly annoyed me (like using a narrator to tell all the weird inbetween parts and to setup stories) and threw them out. I wanted a story told by the characters in their situations. The only charancter to be able to move into every episode would be God. So, I wrote the first episode using the Bible for the backbone, and an extra-canonical work called the Book of Jashar for info to fill out the Genesis stories. It worked well, so I went on. At this point, I have a better understanding of Genesis than I have ever had before. It brings to me a whole new viewpoint of the world. That man wrote his Bible in 40 years. I will write mine in as many episodes as it takes. I hope you enjoy it.