[Mark] Burnett [reality TV producer and co-producer, with his wife, Roma Downey, of the series “The Bible”] was excited about the fact that Rick Warren, the evangelical pastor, was planning to show clips from the series at Saddleback, his megachurch in California. “One of the things that we’ve learned making this is that there is massive Biblical illiteracy in this country—like, embarrassingly,” Burnett said. “I’m not kidding. We’ve come across people who thought Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife, that Sodom and Gomorrah were married.” Earlier this month, Burnett and Downey published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal titled, “Why Public Schools Should Teach the Bible.”
— Emma Allen, The New Yorker Talk of the Town, March 18, 2013, “Swords and Sandals: Prime-Time Scripture”