I watched the trailer for the new film, Noah, eagerly anticipating what had the potential of being a monumental epic telling of one of the most fascinating events in the history of the world.
I mean, the promise of a worldwide flood. A man taking 50-75 years to build a seaworthy vessel large enough to hold male and female varieties of every kind of animal (and even more sacrificial animals). Noah, the animals, and Noah’s family entering the ark. 40 days and nights of rain. One year on the ark. Total annihilation of life outside the ark.
Why stray from that?
News has been made by the director’s choice to include environmentalist views in the movie. But that isn’t even what caught my attention in the trailer. I saw an army amassed against Noah, of which the Bible speaks not at all.
There’s the problem.
I am completely aware that dramatizing a historical event is complicated. There are mundane aspects of every event that do not make good cinema, and need to be amplified for effect.
Why, though, do you need to amplify a worldwide, cataclysmic flood that destroys humankind?
That story is complete as told in the Bible. It really needs no embellishment, and the story is worthless if amplified to inaccurate proportions.
The makers of this movie have access to the same Bible I have, and there are scholars that can aid in the production of an epic telling of the actual events surrounding the flood.
The difference?
To them, it’s apparently just a story.
Anyone that cares to defend the Word of God will not cavalierly change what it says. They will guard the veracity of their product by telling the stories of the Bible the way the Bible tells them.
As I found out while writing this post, the trailers tell little about the context of the movie. I’d encourage you to read this article on Christianity Today. The actual content is actually worse than the trailer lets on.
Theistic evolution? Nephilim as rock giants? A stowaway? Two of Noah’s sons don’t bring wives on the ark? “Magical” objects? It would have been a magnificent movie without all of that.
That’s the Noah movie for which I’ll continue to wait, I guess.
Not a Camouflaged Soul 