Noah Movie: From 3 Guys Who Have Seen It.

Okay, so three respectable Christian leaders have seen the Noah movie because Paramount is trying desperately to keep bad press from hurting their release within the religious community. Fair enough.

The three men were at the NRB and had a panel discussion about the film. But they also posted their views.

John Snowden, an advisor on the film wrote “Why People of Faith Can Embrace the Noah Movie.” He’s paid by Paramount, but let’s be fair to him, he did seek to try to influence the movie for the better during his consultation. But he was almost only positive.

Phil Cooke, a filmmaker and media consultant, wrote, “Should Christians Support the Movie Noah” in the Huff Post. His conclusion was that whatever negatives of the movie are outweighed by the positives, and we should all see it and use it as an opportunity to dialogue about this Biblical subject while we have the chance. Very thoughtful challenges.

The last guy, Jerry Johnson, president of NRB was in my opinion the most balanced in his presentation of Five Postive Facts About Noah, and Five Negative Features About Noah.

I say this because his view represents what I think most movies are, a mixture of good and bad elements. And he acknowledges both with fairness.

His five positives are:
Noah’s context among all films is positive.
Noah knows its place among Bible films.
Noah follows the basic plotline of the biblical story.
Noah takes some key Gospel doctrines seriously.
Noah takes some textual elements literally.

His five negatives are:
Noah’s main character does not ring true.
The environmental agenda is overdone.
The theistic evolution scene will be a concern for many.
The Nephilim concept seems convoluted.
Secondary biblical details are blurred.

Those first two were my biggest concern about the script that I had read. We will see if they have pulled back on the extremity of those depictions or not. As I’ve always said, I was analyzing a script, not the movie, and we will see if there is much of a change there.

I must say, several of these negatives are not issues for me.

Though I am not a believer in evolution, the evolutionary sequence is not bothersome for me, because I know there are many intelligent and godly Christians who have some good arguments for evolutionary creation that I respect. I am actually open to this as a possibility. I do not believe Genesis One has anything to do with scientific textbooks of material creation, so it has no bearing on whether evolution is true or not. It is an ancient creation story which does different things than our modern scientific minds who think God was explaining physics. As I understand it, if God is given the authorship of that evolutionary process, then that is entirely consistent with the Scriptures.

Also, the secondary biblical details that he mentions are not of issue either because they are ultimately consistent with the Bible anyway. Tubal-cain gets on the ark. But he is killed so he doesn’t survive on the ark. If the family clan was six, but then one girl was pregnant with twins, then that means there were 8 on the ark, hyper-literalists. Unless you are not pro-lifers. The point here is that those are consistent with the spirit of the text. I take some very similar liberties in my bestselling novel, Noah Primeval. So give us a break.

I’ve always said the most important issues are the original intent of the sacred stories, not always the details. But you know, even then, that is a matter of interpretation too. Because as I said, if the girl is pregnant on the ark, and those children will be the wives of the other sons, then that is consistent with the text. There are many examples of this in the Bible. For instance, there are four giants that were killed by David’s men in 2 Samuel 21:16-22. But then it concludes, “These four were descended from the giants in Gath, and they fell by the hand of David and by the hand of his servants.” Well, hyper literalists, the text earlier does not say David killed them at all, but that only his men did. So we understand that being “felled by David’s hand” is a NON-LITERAL way of saying David gets the credit for what those under him do. There are so many examples of this in Scripture.

The Nephilim concept is a personal issue for me, as you may already know by previous posts here and in future posts. What a wasted opportunity to finally bring to the screen and to the discussion about this very important storyline neglected in the faith community.

Not only do I write about this in my Noah novel, but I also just released a Biblical study book detailing the fall of the Watchers, the Nephilim and how their storyline flows through the entire Bible. It’s called When Giants Were Upon the Earth: The Watchers, The Nephilim, and the Cosmic War of the Seed.

Buy the novel Noah Primeval, here on Amazon.com in Kindle or paperback. The website www.ChroniclesOfTheNephilim.com has tons of way cool free videos, scholarly articles about Watchers and Nephilim Giants, artwork for the series, as well as a sign-up for updates and special deals.