I finally sat down and too the time to watch the movie that
I have read about for months now. The reviews have been in for some time and
from I what I had read, Christians did not like this movie. However, I was not
convinced by what I read that Christians had a really good reason for hating it
the way the articles I read seemed to imply. My initial thought was that the
movie probably took a few liberties here and there but was probably close to
the biblical account as far as it goes. Well, I could not have been more wrong.
From the very beginning, the movie Noah showed very little similarity to the
biblical record of what actually happened.
First, I want to focus on the positives. Trust me, that
won’t take much space. Men were depicted as exceedingly wicked. There was a
great flood produced by the wrath of God. There was an ark. There was a man
named Noah. All the animals were gathered into the ark. I am probably missing a
small element here and there but that is the gist of it. The details of Noah
ignore the biblical account almost entirely. I did notice that Hollywood
managed to get the scene of Noah’s drunkenness mostly right as a detail.
Clearly, Hollywood had some objectives in mind when they created this project.
The inclusion of mystic components, such as the watchers is
clearly a departure from the biblical record itself. Most of the information is
derived from the Pseudapigraphal books of Enoch in conjunction with the typical
Hollywood creative creative liberties. This calls into question the accuracy of
the biblical record itself, which is perhaps one of the main objectives of the
movie.
The second component of the movie is the complete inaccuracy
of details. The movie depicts Shem with a wife, Ham as single and Japheth as a
child. These are not in keeping with the biblical record. It would not be quite
a big deal if modern Christians actually read the Bible like it meant something
to them, but most do not. I can see thousands of pastors and Sunday school
teachers now having to clear up the incompetent and confused “Jesus lovers”
now. Yes, a bit of sarcasm is in order I think. If you have been a Christian
for a few years and don’t know enough about Noah that this movie confuses you,
then you deserve a little scorn. Grow up and stop being so lazy. If you are
interested in what God has to say, then prove it.
In addition, there were eight souls on the ark during the
flood. Noah, his wife, his three sons and their wives. The movie records Noah,
his wife, Shem and his wife, Ham, Japheth, and Tubal-cain. That is 7 souls: two
there were missing according to Scripture and one that was the product of
Hollywood imagination. According to Scripture, Tubal-cain and Noah were half
brothers, with Lamech as their father.
As the movie goes on, Noah is depicted as fanatic who sees
the wickedness of not only all “those” men, but also the wickedness in his own
heart. In one scene in particular, Noah is depicted as saying something very
profound: the wickedness is not only in them, but it is in us as well. While
his wife sees inherent good in humans, especially in her own children and her
self, Noah sees the wickedness as clearly as a man can see it. And Noah is
right! But Noah goes beyond what is considered biblical and begins to suffer
delusional thoughts that all men are supposed to die with the death of his
youngest son. This makes very little sense and the attempt to pain Noah is such
a light can be viewed as nothing other than Hollywood’s attempt to take a swipe
at traditional Christianity.
One final point worth making is the interesting
circumstances surround Ham. While Ham was clearly a heterosexual in the film,
one cannot help but wonder if the movie attempted to take a backhanded swat at
Christians in a most underhanded way. One of the “gay Christian” tactics that
is used by people like Matthew Vines is that traditional Christians want to
force gays to be alone and lonely. One cannot help but feel empathy with and
sympathy for Ham when Noah shows little concern that he will not have a partner.
I could not help but feel like the gay influence was saying in this scenario:
you see, this is how we feel. In addition, it was obvious that Noah was painted
in the worse possible light with is complete lack of emotion regarding Ham’s
circumstances. He was depicted and cold, distant, and uncaring. This is exactly
the approach used by homosexuals that desire to eradicate Christianity by
insisting gay Christianity is a possibility.
In addition, as one listen listens to Noah’s story of
creation during the flood with his family gathered around him, theistic
evolution is surely in view as the images flash across the screen. The message
from Hollywood is obvious. The Biblical account can be recast and retold in a
number of ways.
The movie Noah takes a swipe at the Biblical record from a
variety of perspectives. Not only does it mix the Bible with the
Pseudapigrapha, it mixes it with modern scientific hypotheses as well. The
Bible as it is simply cannot be trusted to provide a realistic and accurate
account of what really happened. Other sources are required. This is
antithetical of course, to the Christian view of the reliability and
sufficiency of Scripture. If I were to capture the learning objectives of Noah,
they would be as follows:
·
Introduce contradictory accounts of Noah and the
flood in order to help people understand that they should not rely solely on
the Bible as their source for human history.
·
Recast Noah as a delusional man with extremist
and radical ideas of his mission from God.
·
Look for opportunities to paint modern
Christianity as delusion, uncaring, cold, bigoted, and extremist just like
Noah.
·
Depict the liberal, high, lofty view of man as
the loving, caring, right attitude about man and use Noah’s wife as the
instrument. This furthers the cause of an anti-biblical philosophy of
leadership and props up modern feminism.
·
Help Christians feel the pain of the
consequences of their rejection of homosexuals, using Ham, a heterosexual as a
model of that hurt and Noah as an example of just how uncaring and callused the
Christian position is.
As one can see, the aims of the movie Noah are clear:
1.
Doubt the Bible
2.
Religion is delusional
3.
Christianity is uncaring and callused, inhumane
even.
4.
Man is the measure of all things.
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