Mark Burnett (Survivor) and wife Roma Downey (Touched by an Angel) both say that working on THE BIBLE, a miniseries that premiered on the History Channel in March 2013, impacted their faith on a personal level.

Prior to THE BIBLE, Burnett says he thought of the Bible primarily as a book of rules. But through the course of this project, his perception has changed. He now sees the Bible as a book of “love and light,” he says, quoting I John 1:5: “God is light, and there is no darkness at all in him.” Working on this project, Burnett feels, gives him an opportunity to bring God’s love and light to others in a new and different way.

For Downey, THE BIBLE has bridged the gap between the people of the Bible, and people today. “It’s our story, we are those people, there is no separation,” she says. Our emotions, trials, challenges, doubts, fears, loves, and hopes are the same today as they were over 2,000 years ago. So, too, is the saving message of God’s redeeming love. “It’s all the same,” Downey says. “It’s our story, a mirror of our own life.”

Burnett tells a story about filming the scene where Nicodemus comes to Jesus, asking what he must do to follow him. As the actor portraying Jesus is telling Nicodemus he must be born again, he delivers a line about how God’s spirit is like the wind.

“And at the moment, on a calm night, 1:00 AM on the edge of the Sahara desert in an oasis, this wind starts,” Burnett says. “From nowhere. It just comes, and it sustains. And we all knew: that was God.” The actor playing Jesus did not break the moment, Burnett recalls, but the hairs on everyone’s arms were standing on end. “It was epic,” he concludes. “We knew that was God.”