Who, outside of those studying it, raised with it or converted to it, knows about the Bible? Dan Brown fans! A documentary with a Da Vinci Code-invoking name is clearly needed.

The Bible’s Buried Secrets is one of the most boring documentaries ever broadcast, and it should be ashamed for taking something as potentially wonderful as age-old religious doctrine and reducing it to this.  The name suggests that they’ll be investigating secrets. But they aren’t – that might have made a decent documentary.

Dr Francesca Stavrakopoulou chooses a Bible story and investigates the truth behind it. She is a doctor of religion and theology, and reminds us of it every few seconds – whether to show-off or to justify why she is on TV is a mystery, although both of them feel pretty likely.

Looking as much like a presenter – young, attractive, clever – as possible has not made her a presenter. Every line she delivers is repetitive and monotonous.  This is why there are presenters.  They can present.

The content was pretty standard; it did everything it had to do to be a documentary. This week she looked at King David’s city, not the most interesting Biblical story, but it’s something people have heard of. But stuffed with fact after fact, the information was impossible to process, and again, the presentation dragged it down. This is the TV equivalent of a pamphlet.

A far better documentary was Leaving Amish Paradise. Okay, so it was about the Amish, so it had freak show look-at-them value, but it was also a genuinely better-crafted documentary. Following Trouble in Amish Paradise, where narrator and director Andrew Tait looked at the lives of Amish couples – Ephraim and Amanda, and Jesse and Elsie – who were considering leaving. This examines their lives today.

Ephraim and Amanda are now living just outside of their old home, Ephraim works as an Evangelical preacher. Neither makes any money, they pay rent through manual labour and hope that God will give them food during winter. Jesse and Elsie sit stoically in their Amish home, reading letters inviting them to be excommunicated.

Both couples have converted to Evangelicalism. They can’t stay Amish and believe that they’ll get into heaven. It’s obvious, just from that, that leaving doesn’t mean they embrace modern culture. The women still cover their heads; Ephraim still has a beard – though he added a defiant moustache.

This documentary looks at how lives change, how they don’t, and the reality of leaving your past. Holding onto their faith and each other as they lose everything else, they’re brave but impossible to admire. Living on God’s provisions means that their daughter can’t have chemotherapy – God will cure her should she fall ill again.

This is a good documentary because it makes you want to understand. Where it fails is explaining, but it’s entertaining enough that you don’t notice. And Tait can present like a pro.