Unique Audio Bible Took Four Years, 600 Famous Actors, to Complete

Teresa Neumann : Nov 13, 2009
Rick Kogan - Chicago Tribune

"I was scared to death I might make a mistake, maybe with issues of translation. This was a huge mountain to climb."

(Chicago, Ill.)—Inspired by the film, The Passion of the Christ, JoBe Cerny—most famous as the voice of the Pillsbury Doughboy—has just completed his ambitious dream of producing an audio version of the King James Bible in its entirety. (Photo by: Abel Uribe / Chicago Tribune)

Called The Word of Promise Audio Bible, the set of 79-CDs—which took four years to complete at his production company Cerny/American Creative—runs 98 hours. Six hundred actors were used in its making, including Jim Caviezel as the voice of Jesus, Richard Dreyfuss (Moses), Gary Sinise (David), Marisa Tomei (Mary Magdalene), Stacy Keach (Paul), Louis Gossett Jr. (John), Joan Allen (Deborah), Max von Sydow (Noah) and Luke Perry (Judas).

As noted in the Chicago Tribune report, Stefano Mainetti wrote the score for the project, Michael York narrated, and British actor Martin Jarvis provides the voice of God.

Cerny reportedly saw his mission as one that "turns these characters into real characters, have them played with full emotion, with context. To put these in the moment in time when these words were first spoken."

According to the report, to do this "he was in frequent consultation with theologians and linguists, reading and re-reading the Bible, 'trying to bring these passages, these people to life.'"

"I was scared to death I might make a mistake, maybe with issues of translation," he is quoted as saying. "This was a huge mountain to climb."