Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Religious Music & Entertainment
Of course Noah isn’t “biblically accurate”, nor should it be.

Of course Noah isn’t “biblically accurate”, nor should it be.

Last updated on: June 28, 2014 at 12:13 pm by Peter T. Chattaway

Of course Noah isn’t “biblically accurate”, nor should it be. 2014-06-28T12:13:30-07:00 Peter T. Chattaway

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Last week, The Hollywood Reporter claimed — on the basis of reports from unnamed “sources” — that a conflict was brewing between Paramount Pictures and Darren Aronofsky over how to edit the upcoming Bible movie Noah.

Aronofsky, an obsessive director of movies about obsessive people — and a director who had worked almost exclusively on low-budget indie movies prior to this — reportedly wants to stick to his original, and somewhat subversive, take on the story. Paramount, on the other hand, is reportedly getting nervous about the “troubling” and “worrisome” response to the film at various test screenings, and so, eager to protect their $125 million investment, they want to make some changes to the film that would make it more palatable to audiences in general — and to the religious audience in particular.

Now Fox News has posted its own story on the controversy, and their anonymous source, as summarized by the reporter, has apparently claimed that Paramount wants to make the film “as biblically accurate as possible”.

Ugh. That phrase again.

Beyond that, the alleged “insider” also told Fox News that “Paramount is trying to keep [the film] on track.”

Okay, let’s clear up a few things here.

First, Aronofsky is not making this film as a favour to Paramount. He is not a director-for-hire who became attached to a project that the studio was already working on (the way that, say, Ridley Scott got involved with the life-of-Moses movie Exodus over at 20th Century Fox). Noah is a passion project that Aronofsky has wanted to make since he was in high school. He co-created a graphic novel about Noah to show what a film of his on this subject might look and feel like. He wrote a screenplay on spec that formed the basis for the film that Paramount eventually agreed to make. If anyone knows whether the film is “on track” or not, it is Aronofsky, not the studio.

Second, this is not a Christian story, except to the extent that the Christian scriptures include the Jewish scriptures and thus include a story about Noah as well. This is a fundamentally Jewish story that has been developed quite extensively in the Jewish tradition — through apocryphal scriptures, rabbinic literature, and so on — and since Aronofsky himself is Jewish, I am quite keen to see how he adds to this tradition. If evangelical Protestants can go nuts for a deeply Catholic film like The Passion of the Christ (2004) — which amplifies the role of the Virgin Mary while adding some uniqely Mel Gibsonian elements — then surely they can, at least in theory, accept a movie about Noah which reflects both centuries of Jewish tradition as well as the themes and concerns that are of particular concern to its own director.

Now, this is not to say that the themes and concerns that are of particular concern to Aronofsky will resonate with evangelical audiences, let alone that evangelical audiences will agree with his treatment of those themes and concerns. But, provided that Aronofsky does not use the movie to contradict the Bible outright — and the script I have read suggests that he will not do this — then surely we can learn from a film that challenges some of our preconceptions about this story. Surely we can learn from a film in which Noah becomes so obsessed with following what he believes to be God’s will that he begins to do things that are, in the words of Noah star Russell Crowe, “not even nice.” Noah is a flawed character, even in the Bible, so instead of complaining about the movie character’s flaws, as it seems some test audiences are doing, why not use those flaws as a springboard to think about the ways in which we sometimes overinterpret God’s will for our lives, or the lives of others?

Now, to be sure, the movie does seem to have a number of “inaccuracies”. To cite a trivial example, the Bible says Noah’s son Shem was almost 100 years old when the Flood happened, but in the movie he’s played by 21-year-old Douglas Booth. And while the Bible says all three of Noah’s sons took wives with them aboard the Ark, only one of them does in the script that I read. And yes, it does seem that the film will indicate that mankind was punished partly for what evangelicals might call its poor stewardship of Creation, which the Genesis story never even mentions. But on the basic points — that fallen mankind was violent and sinful, that God sent a Flood as punishment, and that God is the ultimate source of both justice and mercy — there is no disagreement between the Bible and the film that I have detected so far.

Now, admittedly, the studio may have raised some false hopes here.

When Paramount first announced that it was financing Aronofsky’s film in April 2012, those of us who were at least vaguely familiar with Aronofsky’s graphic novel scratched our heads at the declaration, in Paramount’s press release, that the film would be “a close adaptation of the Biblical story”. And that was before movie bloggers started posting reviews of the screenplay, pointing out its deviations from the text and some of its more wildly creative elements! Did Paramount not know what was in Aronofsky’s script, or did they not know what was in the Bible? One thing is clear, at any rate: Paramount was marketing the film with an eye towards the “Passion dollars” audience from the get-go — and they might have over-sold it.

That over-selling, incidentally, continues in the trailer that has been shown at various Christian conferences — and which was leaked to the internet literally as I was writing this post. (You can currently watch it at Gawker, though probably not for long.) The trailer plays up Noah’s one-man-against-an-army heroism, without giving any hint of the “dark, complicated” aspects of the character that Aronofsky has been talking about for years, and the second half of the trailer is set to a worship song by Kim Walker-Smith — as if to say the studio was actively trying to make Noah look like just another crappy Christian movie, albeit one with a large visual-effects budget.

And now, supposedly, the studio is going to try to make the film more “biblically accurate”. And that’s a huge problem, for at least three reasons.

First, who trusts a movie studio to make a movie “biblically accurate”? Especially a movie studio that had already looked at Aronofsky’s script and declared, on that basis, that the movie would be a “close” adaptation of the biblical story?

Second, there is the theological problem of insisting on “biblical accuracy” in adaptations of the Bible when even the Bible itself isn’t always “biblically accurate”. Just look at the four gospels, and how they disagree on various points, and how they sometimes borrow from each other (and the Old Testament) while making slight changes to the bits they borrow. (To cite one of the more obvious examples, the very first chapter of the New Testament says there were 14 generations from David to Jeconiah, but the Old Testament says there were 18.) That sort of thing is perfectly acceptable within the writing conventions that existed when those scriptures were written. But the mindset which insists on “biblical accuracy” above all is likely to miss what the authors were trying to say to us through the changes that they made.

Third, as I wrote nine years ago, there is the artistic-appreciation problem:

It is quite telling that the only way many Christians know how to defend a work of art is to assert that it is an “accurate” adaptation of scripture, as if to minimize its artistry or creativity. It is even more telling that many Christians make this assertion even when the work of art in question contains several elements that are quite definitely not accurate.

I wrote that in response to the hype surrounding The Passion of the Christ — and I quoted it earlier this year during the run-up to The Bible — but it applies to other films as well. We need to keep our thinking caps on. We need to be sensitive to the nuances of different adaptations of the biblical story. Instead of treating films as boundary markers — where this film is approved for uncritical consumption by “our” group, while that film is dismissed out of hand as one of “their” films — we need to be able to approach each film with a willingness to discern which bits come from the Bible, which bits don’t, and how God might be speaking to us through both.

So, let’s hope the studio allows Aronofsky to make his film the way he envisioned it. And let’s hope that Christian audiences, instead of demanding a piece of mindless entertainment that leaves their souls untouched, will allow the film to challenge their ideas about faith, love, justice, mercy, stewardship, heroism and all the rest of it — assuming, of course, that the film is good enough to warrant that sort of attention.

passion of the christ

russell crowe

shem

Previous Post

October 22, 2013

Our first glimpse of Christian Bale as Moses in Exodus

Next Post

October 24, 2013 Ben-Hur remake gets a rewrite, starts shooting in spring

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Anglican Planet Articles BC Christian News BC Report Bible Movies Bible Review Blog Books & Culture Campus Times CBC Radio Christianity Today ChristianWeek Essays Faith Today Festival Cinemas Guide Film Journals Georgia Straight Interviews MB Herald National Catholic Register Salvationist Today's Christian Two Chairs Ubyssey Uncategorized Vancouver Courier Vancouver Sun

Select a Month August 2025 April 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 May 2024 February 2024 December 2023 May 2023 March 2023 November 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 September 2019 July 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 April 2012 January 2012 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 November 2003 October 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 January 2003 December 2002 November 2002 August 2002 July 2002 June 2002 May 2002 March 2002 January 2002 December 2001 November 2001 September 2001 August 2001 July 2001 June 2001 April 2001 March 2001 February 2001 December 2000 November 2000 October 2000 September 2000 August 2000 July 2000 June 2000 May 2000 April 2000 March 2000 January 2000 October 1999 August 1999 May 1999 April 1999 February 1999 January 1999 December 1998 November 1998 October 1998 August 1998 July 1998 June 1998 April 1998 March 1998 January 1998 November 1997 September 1997 July 1997 June 1997 April 1997 March 1997 February 1997 January 1997 December 1996 October 1996 September 1996 June 1996 March 1996 February 1996 January 1996 April 1995 November 1994 September 1994 September 1991

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What does the Bible say is better than gold?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Strength Bread Wine Wisdom