'The Bible' Miniseries Earns Emmy Nomination; Roma Downey Calls It a 'Blessing'

By Jeff Schapiro, Christian Post Reporter Thursday, July 18, 2013

"The Bible" miniseries has been nominated for an Emmy Award in the "Outstanding Miniseries or Movie" category, it was announced Thursday morning.

History Channel's biblical miniseries will be competing with five other programs for the category's top spot, including FX Network's "American Horror Story: Asylum," HBO's "Behind the Candelabra," HBO's "Phil Spector," USA's "Political Animals" and Sundance Channel's "Top of the Lake."

The show, which was produced by husband and wife team Mark Burnett and Roma Downey, has also been nominated for "Outstanding Sound Editing for a Miniseries, Movie or a Special" and "Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Miniseries or a Movie" for its premiere episode, "Beginnings."

"What a blessing this is. Mark and I have poured our hearts and souls into this series," Downey said in an email to The Christian Post. "We have worked so hard for four years now, it has been a labor of love that deepened not just our faith but our marriage and our friendship. We are very grateful to the academy for recognizing the Bible series and we are thrilled to share this nomination with our cast and crew from all over the world who worked hard with us to bring the story of our Bible to the screen."

"The Bible" is one of the most popular miniseries of all time. Its first episode drew a staggering 13 million viewers, and the series helped propel the History Channel to become the top cable network in March. Once released to DVD, the show became the top-selling TV miniseries title ever when 525,000 units sold in just a week's time.

NBC announced at the beginning of July that it will partner with Burnett to bring a sequel, tentatively titled "A.D.: Beyond the Bible," to its network. The sequel will focus on the tumultuous events that followed the death of Christ, which Bob Greenblatt, chairman of NBC Entertainment, described as "utterly fascinating" in a statement.

Burnett is also working on putting together a three-hour long "The Bible" movie, which could be released sometime this fall.

The 65th Emmy Awards show will be aired live Sunday, Sept. 22 at 8p.m. ET on CBS.