The official website claims that we believe this film is true to the essence, values, and integrity of a story that is a cornerstone of faith for millions of people worldwide. Um … they are mistaken. Though I havent seen the movie, I have a reviewed a couple of reviews—one pro and one con. The first review I read about the movie was from TheMattWalshBlog. After a snarky and sarcastic review of the movie (referring to the rock monsters as Giant Stone Gumbies”), Walsh correctly concludes that the film is excellent at what it sets out to do—make money. It does not attempt to adhere at all to the biblical account of Noah. About the only resemblance between the biblical Noah and that of the movie is that they both had the same name and built a boat. The biblical account of Noah (which begins in Genesis chapter six, if you’re interested) makes it clear that God’s mission and purpose for Noah and the ark was clear to Noah from the beginning and was never in doubt. Noah knew that he and his family were to board the ark to preserve humanity. He was never under any delusion that God wished to obliterate all of humanity. There is no indication from Scripture that any of the earth’s inhabitants were in any way enamored with Noah’s project, or gaining passage on it. Also, the biblical account of Noah includes God’s perspective that The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” I doubt that this perspective is well considered in the film. Apparently, what is considered evil in the film is man’s inhumanity because he dares to eat meat. (The irony of this statement never ceases to amuse me.) You will no doubt find it interesting, then, that, according to Scripture, men did not eat meat until after Noah left the ark! Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood” (Genesis 9:3-4 ESV). The second review I read was by Justin Chang in Variety, who claims that Noah gives us “a bold and singular vision of Old Testament times.” I can agree with that statement as long as Chang doesn’t include the word “accurate.” Chang praises the artistry of the film and I don’t have any quibble with that assessment. The film is certainly artistic and employs an ample helping of so-called “artistic license.” It is for this reason that I cringe when Chang asserts that the film is “undeniably sincere in its engagement with its source material.” He quotes colleague Brett McCracken asserting that “[Aronofsky’s] film respects belief and engages with it without hostility or condescension.” I suppose that is true if you consider the minute degree to which Aronofsky adhered to the biblical account as “engagement.” Chang lauds the film’s capacity to “[bring] us into sympathetic identification with a deeply flawed protagonist; and that forces us to grapple with the very idea of faith and exactly what it’s good for.” I have two problems with that. First, there’s no indication from Scripture that Noah was “deeply flawed.” On the contrary, Scripture explains that Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation,” and that Noah walked with God” (Genesis 6:9-10 ESV). There was that one instance after the ark had landed where Noah planted a vineyard and got soused, but even in that scenario, Scripture emphasizes Ham’s sin and doesn’t condemn Noah’s intoxication. Every indication was that Noah was minding his own business in the privacy of his tent. Secondly, it seems disingenuous to me to suggest that an atheist can make any meaningful contributions concerning “the very idea of faith and exactly what it’s good for.” I should think that an atheist has already made the determination relative to the value of faith—it doesn’t have any. Chang seems to ignore this incongruity, asserting instead that there was no reason why the challenge of biblical interpretation should be off-limits to a filmmaker just because he happens to be a staunch environmentalist, a brilliant fantasist and, yes, a self-avowed atheist.” We’ll have to agree to disagree on that score. Chang goes on to mock “the sort of Christian … who imagines that the proper care of the Earth is strictly the domain of those godless liberal tree-huggers; that our readings of the Bible should never stir in us a sense of wonder or supernatural possibility; and that the only artists who could possibly extract anything of value from a religious text are those who readily subscribe to its teachings.” I guess I’m glad, then, that I’m not that sort of Christian. Christian doctrine, as I understand it, does not abdicate “the proper care of the Earth” to godless liberal tree-huggers.” Rather, Christianity acknowledges that God intended us to have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth” (Genesis 1:26 ESV). If we disdain anything regarding “liberal tree-huggers” it is that they elevate the environment above the creature for whom it was created. I also question whether Chang’s characterization of a Christian who would suppose that reading Scripture should never stir in us a sense of wonder or supernatural possibility” is, in any real sense, a Christian at all. This is strictly a straw-man argument. And finally, I don’t doubt in any way, the ability of artists who don’t “readily subscribe to” the teachings of Scripture, to extract anything of value from them. I do, however, question their ability to accurately portray them. I also question the ability of Chang to question Aronofsky’s own assessment that Noah is the least biblical film ever made.” Chang dismisses Aronofsky’s “selective and apocryphal” appreciation of Scripture by noting how “wide-ranging and astute” it is, suggesting that treating the slender account of Noah’s ark as a sort of narrative prism through which the entire book of Genesis can be dramatically filtered,” is a singular act of brilliance that no believer could tease from the tangled web of Scripture. Though Chang claims to consider Scripture to be the Word of God,” he seems very comfortable allowing “competing interpretations” of it, including Aronofsky’s which he deems “beautifully simple and compassionate.” While Aronofsky’s interpretation may be as Chang has described it, one thing it is not is accurate. The central message of the biblical story of Noah is not that God was angry with the abuse mankind was heaping upon the environment, but that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually,” and that he did not deserve to be saved, but God mercifully chose to do so anyhow. Noah is probably an entertaining, well-crafted film. But I dismiss any contention that it even loosely adheres to any form of Scriptural accuracy.
Posted on: Wed, 02 Apr 2014 19:19:35 +0000
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