A new biblical series will depict the Book of Genesis through the eyes of the book’s most well-known women. “The Faithful: Women of the Bible” follows the stories of Sarah, Hagar, Rebekah, Leah, and Rachel and how each of these women, and their descendants, shaped the story of salvation.
The three-week event will begin airing on March 22 on Fox and end on Easter Sunday, April 5.
René Echevarria, executive producer and showrunner of the series, told EWTN News that the creators “set out to try to tell these stories in an emotionally grounded way and really try to understand what their lives were like — what their emotional lives were like.”
“One thing that emerges is that all of the three stories that we chose to tell … all of these women stumble,” he said. “They’re trying to figure out how to proceed in life against different complicated circumstances — sometimes encounters with the divine that are asking them to do difficult things — and so that was our sort of North Star, was always to try to understand them on an emotional level.”
The filmmaker highlighted the idea of the relatability behind these stories and how they resonate with modern audiences, especially that of Sarah and Abraham, who were unable to conceive a child for decades.
Echevarria shared that he and his wife struggled with infertility for several years. They realized they needed to place their trust in God’s plan for them. Eventually, they were blessed with three children.
Actress Minnie Driver as Sarah in Fox’s “The Faithful: Women of the Bible.” | Credit: Fox Broadcasting Company
He also pointed out the importance he and his team placed on staying true to Scripture.
“Our guiding principle was that if we were going to dramatize some part of the story, a scene, let’s call it, that’s described in the Bible, then we’re going to dramatize it the way it’s described and including dialogue if there is some,” he explained.
“If we choose not to show something from the Bible, we wanted to make sure that there was nothing that we didn’t present that would make those sort of off-camera scenes impossible to have had occurred,” Echevarria added. “And then the rest was filling in the blanks. The Bible can be very specific, but it can also be profound in its silences … We need to do the research to find out about life at that time to fill in those gaps.”
Echevarria said he hopes viewers are reminded that the men and women in these stories were “flawed, strong, people dealing with extraordinary circumstances and sometimes they made mistakes and yet God always made a good work of it.”
Reflecting on the release of the series being during Lent and the start of Easter, Echevarria said: “We’re coming out of a time for many of us, a time of fasting, a time of reflection.”
“We all love Christmas but Easter is the heart of our faith, isn’t it? So to be able to present these stories, which are the beginning of the Easter story in a sense, the beginning of God’s unfolding story, and his love for his children, and how he set it all in motion 4,000 years ago through Sarah and Abraham.”
