The Dark Ages was a time cheerfully bereft of the complex, almost metaphysical questions television production has introduced to bewilder mankind.
I was reminded of this while looking over a monograph I once wrote on the subject of the early church in Anglo-Saxon England.
It related the activities of the very first synod, held in Hertford in the year 672, which made a number of clear ecclesiastical laws, or canons, in regard to the activities of church members.
The synod was called by Theodore of Tarsus, who was dealing with a populace recovering from a particularly severe visitation of the plague.
Heathen temples were being rebuilt, and the sin of simony was rampant.
The synod, as most will remember, made sure the Roman method of calculating the date of Easter was adhered to; confined the activities of bishops to their own diocese; protected monasteries from the interference of bishops, and restrained abbots and clergy from wandering from place to place.
And that must have seemed enough, at the time, to set right a wayward world.
But it was not.
It was not, because just 1341 years later, new problems have arisen.
One of those is whom to choose, and with which accent, when one is casting Noah for a miniseries called The Bible.
The Bible is billed as an epic retelling of the greatest story ever told (over five consecutive nights, with powerful performances, exotic locales (Morocco, actually) and dazzling visual effects) to entertain and inspire the whole family.
Even little Jimmy, who is beginning to listen to rap music.
Especially little Jimmy.
The role, and the accent of Noah, must have caused some argument.
What sort of accent should he have as he tells the story of the world beginning with: ''In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth''?
''And the earth was a formless void,'' he screams to his frightened children as his leaking ark (filled with animals with remarkably efficient reproductive systems - not an impotent goat among them) is thrown from wave-top to wave-top.
It's powerful stuff; an Australian, for instance, just wouldn't do.
Instead, the producers of the series based on a book written about events in the Middle East chose someone who sounds exceedingly Scottish.
He doesn't quite say ''God warned me; he told me to build a boat, och aye'' - but he could.
It wouldn't really have made The Bible any sillier than it already is.
That, my friends, would take some very real effort, because The Bible is a relentlessly awful piece of television.
It will feature on Vibe from December 23 until December 27.
Watch something else.
- Charles Loughrey
