Review of the Movie Noah (2014)

Phred's Review on The Noah Movie (2014)

I did not have high expectations of The Noah Movie.  I am usually hesitant to watch a Hollywood movie based upon the Bible and history.  They're usually not that accurate.  We'll get to my comments on the movie in a little bit.

After watching the movie, I went on YouTube to see if there are were any documentaries or presentations about Noah and the flood.  I found Ken Ham's Noah Movie Review.  I like Ken Ham, so I checked it out.  Ken and his panel of six employees didn't like The Noah Movie.  Their recommendation was for people to not watch the movie.  Sorry Ken, I already watched the film.  I hope he doesn't find out I watch zombie and vampire movies.

A Modern Flood Legend

Ken Ham summed up this film very well.  This film is another "flood legend" that, like many flood legends around the world, includes aspects of local, modern beliefs of the people telling the... story.  The legend also contains original aspects of the account from Genesis.  With this in mind, let us continue.

In this modern age of western society, the greatest sin is the destruction that man is doing to the environment.  According to Grist, we're heading towards the looming climate apocalypse.  I do think we have sinned against God's creation, we haven't been doing a good job at taking care of it (Genesis 2:15).  American society is unsustainable to the environment and other countries in dire need.  It should be no surprise that the "great" sin that brought about God's judgement in The Noah Movie is man's destruction of the environment.

Movie Inaccuracies

The Noah movie is not Biblically accurate, even if the writers of the movie say it is.  If you would read Genesis, you find some major differences.  I'll stay away from the nit-picky things like the age order of Noah's sons, who rode the ark, length of the boat ride, etc.  The main differences between the movie and the Bible I will focus on is that the movie portrays animals and creation as innocent, the reason Noah was righteous, evolution and creation as the same, and God being distant and not talking directly to His people.

Innocent Animals

Animals and the rest of God's creation were cursed due to the sin of man, and death came to this world due to the sin of man (Genesis 3:17-19 and Romans 5:12).  The innocence of creation has been gone since God's judgement of Adam's sin. Genesis 6 says that all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth.  I am not sure if this passage includes animals, but it easily could.  

The reason for the flood was the wickedness of man and the existence of the Nephilim.  Man did not devote their lives to God but were instead wicked.  Sons of God and daughters of Man getting together and having kids, the Nephilim, were also wicked.  Who are the Nephilim, and where are they in the movie?  Lets talk about them later.

Why Noah was Righteous

What made Noah so righteous in the Bible?  Was it because of his love of flowers and dying "scaly deer"?  Genesis 6:9 says that Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God.  Noah had a relationship with God, the rest of the world did not.  Looking around Genesis for righteous acts, Noah was likely righteous and had a relationship with God because he was a good steward of the land (Genesis 2:15) and sacrificed the first born of his flock to God (Genesis 4:4 and Genesis 8:20).  Being a good steward of the land is very much in-sync with the movie, but the sacrificing the first born of a flock is not.  I did not see any animal sacrificing by Noah in this movie, which is vital for a relationship with God in the Old Testament times.

Evolution and Creation

Remember, I am discussing differences between the movie and the Bible, not science and the Bible.  I know some Christians believe in evolution and creation; I don't.  You could classify me as a young earth creationist.  Now that you know what kind of glasses I am viewing this movie from, let us continue.

When Noah talks about the days of creation, the movie showed creatures evolving after each day.  I see a couple things wrong with this part of the movie compared to Genesis.  The Bible says death does not occur until after man sins (Genesis 3:17-19 and Romans 5:12), and God wants a relationship with man (Genesis 6:9 and Hebrew 11:6).  How can you have evolution, natural selection, mass extinctions from an asteroid, death of countless species before the existence of death?  The simple, obvious answer, you can't.  A god that sets evolution into motion, and checks on us every few zillion years seems very distant and not relational.

God's Relationship with Man

In the movie, God communicates to Noah through dreams and visions, which is fine except for the fact that God didn't say anything to Noah like He did in Genesis 6:13.  God doesn't say any words to Noah, but keeps on giving Noah signs that he didn't always see or interpret correctly.  God's and Noah's relationship seemed distant.

God having a distant relationship with His people is easy for western society to believe.  We don't feel the need to rely on God for anything, when we already have "everything".  Many of us don't believe in anything supernatural and spiritual.  We are in a spiritual wasteland.  With the belief in evolution, we don't believe God HAS to do anything for us to continue as we "always" have.  It should be no surprise that this movie portrays God's relationship with man as distant.

God does want a relationship with Man, since He created us (Genesis 3:8-9).  Again, a primary reason for the judgement of man is because we don't walk with God (Genesis 6:9).  In the movie, God should have talked to Noah like He did in the Bible.  There would have been a lot less confusion as to what God's will is for Noah and the ark.  That would have changed some major plot progressions in the movie.

Inaccuracies Conclusion

The reason I spent a lot of time talking about the inaccuracies of the movie, is because I think these inaccuracies shed light on what righteousness is in our society and how it thinks God relates to us.  The main reason that Ken Ham and his employees don't want people to see this movie, is because it is not accurate to the Genesis account.  Ken Ham's review mentioned that people will get confused about what is true in the Bible, believe what the movie says, and will likely not check the Bible for the movie's accuracy.  Christians should always be checking the scriptures if we are told something that may be contrary, and I think Christians can use this movie to talk to non-Christians about God who have watched this movie.

Cool Ideas from the Movie

Now that I'm done bashing the movie, lets move on to what was pretty cool about the movie, which include the Watchers, the weather, and Love winning.

Watchers

In case you don't know, the rock monsters were actually the 200 fallen Watcher angels from The Book of Enoch, which is where the fallen Watchers are talked about extensively.  Ken Ham did not take much time in his review of this movie considering Enoch as I felt he should have.  Ken and his panel seemed to dismiss Enoch, because it is not a part of scripture. The text still likely contains some truth and many early Christians, including Paul, believed much of Enoch (1 Cor. 11:10).  My argument is that just because a text is not part of the Bible, it does not mean that nothing in that text is valid.  The Book of Enoch or another book like it may have been referenced throughout the Bible (1 Cor. 11:10 and, Jude 14).

According to the Book of Enoch, the 200 Watchers took human wives and taught forbidden knowledge.  The offspring from the union of Watchers and women are the Nephilim.  Enoch does not mention the fallen Watchers getting rock bodies -- turning into the Nephilim -- from teaching people "forbidden" knowledge. I have seen modern interpretations of the forbidden knowledge to mean modern science and modern knowledge.  I firmly believe this forbidden knowledge was much more spiritual than we imagined, and is much more dangerous for man -- or half man -- than we expect.

Hypercanes!

While the flood was occurring, the camera zoomed out to the world, and we saw the world was covered in hypercanes.  The movie shows that the flood was global.  I thought it was pretty cool to see how the movie developers envisioned how the would could have been globally flooded.

As the movie suggests, I believe that the flood was global. According to the Bible, Noah had 120 years to build the ark (Genesis 6:3).  If the flood was local, all current local floods make God out to be a liar when He promised to never caste the same judgment upon the earth (Genesis 8:21).  And if the flood was local, why would Noah need all kinds of animals and build a boat?  If the local flood was 120 years away, Noah could move and the animals could migrate.

Love Wins

Ken Ham's review says that God wanted Noah to kill the baby girls.  God never "said" He wanted to wipe out man.  He made Ila fertile, and she had twins by God's grace.  Noah couldn't see the error of his ways because God was distant, and Noah did not see the signs from God -- in the movie.

In the end, Noah could not kill the little girls because he was overwhelmed with love.  Love won.  God is Love (1 John 4:8), which means God won.  Any Bible-based, Hollywood movie that has love winning by the end, has grasped the Bible's primary teaching.