The story of Noah is myth. This
is not to say that it is false. Myth denotes a genre, a way of telling a story,
not the integrity of the story itself. It wasn’t really until the 1st
century AD that philosophers (namely Plutarch) strongly began categorizing myths as
falsehoods, but even prevailing up through the first few centuries was an
understanding that this genre could be either a true or a false narrative. For
instance, Clement of Alexandria describes the Apostle John’s writings as “a
myth, but not just a myth.” It just so happens that the Scriptures have had a
tendency of proving all of these other myths false, and we as a culture have
come to associate the entire genre likewise. But this shift in cultural
vernacular has not changed the fact that the true story of Noah as found in the
Bible is written in mythic style.
This has several implications for
the story, but the primary item I wish to bring forward is that myths are highly
selective in the details they choose to recount and the way in which they are recounted.
As with most Hebrew narrative, chronology may be shifted to emphasize similar
events, details may be repeated, and terms may be exchanged for more or less
common ones. These stories should be consumed much more like a Christopher
Nolan (or Darren Aronofsky) movie than like a NatGeo documentary. That being
said, the text in question is by no means deceptive, but it clearly has left
out some fairly large details. This is presumably because they did not go with
the overall literary ebb and flow the author had in mind. For an example of
this read 1 Pet 3:18-20 and 2 Pet 2:5. Peter, in his epistles, has deemed to
reference the story of Noah twice and on both occasions gives us details that
appear nowhere in Genesis. The first snapshot given to us (1 Peter) is
very strange—disobedient spirits in prison? What? Theologians have been
scratching their heads over it for centuries and have a variety of
explanations, but suffice it to something happened which is not present
in the Genesis text. And that’s okay. It was not necessary for that
particular telling of the events.
The proclaiming/preaching
that occurs in 2 Peter is very understandable. It makes complete sense that
Noah, this man who seems to fill both a Patriarch and Prophet role amongst the
peoples, would have things to say about his lifestyle. It is such a natural
conclusion that regularly when the story of the flood is told, we include Noah
preaching to crowds of mockers. Yet in the Genesis story, Noah is strangely
silent. In fact, he doesn’t speak until he gives the blessings and curse upon
his sons. And then he dies. These two scenes from Peter should remind us that
no, we don’t have every single detail of how things happened. The danger that
we all run into when teaching, discussing, or filming stories like these
is that we have a tendency to fill in extra details. So often we fill in things
that could have happened. And the question becomes: Did Aronofsky tell
the story in a way that it could have happened?
Man and the Earth
I am aware of Aronofsky’s
religious views and his statement of Noah being the first environmentalist. And
whereas I am not willing to give him full credence on such a statement I do
believe that he has picked up on something which is easily passed over during a
reading of Genesis 1-9—the connection of man (ʾadam) with the earth (ʾadamah).
There are really two words at the start of Genesis consistently used for
ground/land/earth. The first, ʾadamah, which is often translated ground
is generally referring to the substance of the earth, the
actual soil. The second, ʾerets, is often translated land (like
the LAND of Canaan) and generally refers to the location or “the space
in reference.” Both of these terms appear peppered throughout Noah’s story. By
contrast, the ʾerets is the main subject of Genesis 1, but ʾadamah
is the main subject of Genesis 2.
The ʾadam is formed from the dust of the ʾadamah
(Gen 2:7)
The LORD God cause out of the ʾadamah trees to
grow (Gen 2:9)
The LORD God forms from the ʾadamah the animals
(Gen 2:19)
But it should be noted that ʾadamah
does not really have a nice connotation by the time Noah comes on the
scene.
Cursed is the ʾadamah because of you (Gen 3:17)
. . . Till you return to the ʾadamah, because
from it you were taken
God sent him out from the Garden of Eden, to cultivate
the ʾadamah from which he was taken. (Gen 3:23)
He said, “What have you done? The voice of your
brother’s blood is crying to me from the ʾadamah. Now you are cursed
from the ʾadamah, which has opened
its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. When you cultivate
the ʾadamah, it will no
longer yield its strength to you. (Gen 4:10-12a)
After this we are given some history on Cain and
his family, then introduced to Lamech and his sons. One of these sons is
Tubal-Cain. Since Tubal-Cain was a metal worker and one of the possible
meanings for his name is “You will be brought/lead by the spear,” his character
makes a lot of sense in the movie. Lamech becomes the next murderer in the
narrative. His statement of killing a “man for wounding” him and then a “boy
for striking” him shows us that the violence among men is increasing and
worsening. To expand it further, there is also a legitimate theory that the
sons of Cain began eating meat (which would be seen as a bad thing since the
killing has extended beyond mankind) while others did not. While I am not
willing to say this is a solid fact, it has some merit since God seems to have
to tell Noah that meat is on the menu after the flood.
Genesis 5 gives us Noah’s genealogy, and in this
record we see the struggle of humanity in the solemn statement of death after
death after death. So when Noah (whose name means rest) is born, his
father says:
This one will give us rest from our work and from
the toil of our hands from the ʾadamah which the Lord has
cursed. (Gen 5:29b)
Clearly, some bad
things have gone down involving this word. Now, man was blessed to be fruitful
and multiply on the earth (ʾerets), and this is important to know
since as the blessing is passed down, ʾerets is regularly the word used.
But in Genesis 6, when man begins to multiply it is neither fruitful nor
on the ʾerets.
Now it came about, when men began to multiply on
the face of the ʾadamah
(Gen 6:1)
It’s a small change, but by taking this
now painful word—ʾadamah—and inserting it where ʾerets would
normally occur we are instantly alerted that something is not right. And sure
enough, there are sons of God and Nephilim (fallen ones) and men-of-renown
(most likely the old primitive warlords) everywhere. This is another place
where theologians are left scratching their heads. There are many theories, one
of which being The Watchers, which is not too different from what actually
occurred in Aronofsky’s movie. But whatever it was, it was bad enough that God
removed his Spirit and limited lifespans.
Then the Lord saw
that the wickedness of man was great on the ʾerets, and that every intent of the thoughts of
his heart was only evil continually.
The Lord was
sorry that He had made man on the ʾerets, and He was grieved/vexed in His
heart.
The Lord said,
“I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the ʾadamah, from man to animals to creeping things and to
birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them.”
(Gen 6:5-7)
There is a
powerful connection between the relationship of God ßà man and the
relationship of man ßà earth. He put man
on the earth to stewards and vice-regents for His land (Gen 1:28). This carries
over into the Mosaic covenant where the people are told that if they follow the
LORD the land will be blessed, and if they do not the land will be cursed. The
state of the land is a litmus test for the hearts of man.
This passage says
that the LORD was sorry (lit. regretful/repentant) for what He has
done. And it vexed his core. These two statements alone are chilling. He has
seen what man has done, the man whom He turned out of the garden. And now He
sees that the space is so corrupted that the substance
must be cleansed.
The land, both the
ʾerets and the ʾadamah are a key part of the story. After
the flood is done, we are told in 8:13 that when Noah looked out the ʾerets and
the ʾadamah were dried up. The verb used has a more negative
tone, like a dried riverbed or cistern. It is not, for instance, the verb used
in Exodus when they crossed the sea on dry land; it is not a beneficial
dryness. The space and the substance were parched
and desolated. It’s not until the next verse (which is almost two months later)
that the ʾerets is returned to its Genesis 1 description of dry land (which
is definitely seen as a good thing).
If we move down to Gen 6:21 we
see a very similar scene as in 6:5-7. Once again, even though He has just
purged the land of the wickedness of man, we have the LORD considering in His
heart the evil of man’s heart. And He comes to a decision:
I will never again curse the ʾadamah on account of man, for the intent of
man’s heart is evil from his youth; and I will never again destroy
every living thing, as I have done.
(Gen 6:21)
The word curse (qalal)
or despise is not the same kind of curse (ʾarar) used in Gen
3:14, 17; 4:11; 5:29; 9:25. The word used here in Genesis 6 is also used in
Exodus 21 of despising one’s parents. It is damning detestation of someone or
something. So God looks down at the earth, which is more or less back in order,
and realizes that the heart of man is still the same —even after all that
destruction and all that cleansing—and the implication is that He must reckon
the ʾadam and the ʾadamah separately for the sake of the land.
This is an aspect that Aronofsky’s film does a good job of portraying. A mere tree-hugging
environmentalism (even if Aronofsky may think so) is not the goal. It’s a matter
of His stewards using their authority to decimate His monument to
His glory.
Righteousness, Favor, and the Voice of God in Pagan
Practices
Bringing it back to the beginning
of the story: when the LORD looks down and sees all of this evil, there is one,
Noah, who finds favor (grace) in His eyes. We are told that he is righteous/just,
blameless in his time/generation (i.e. among everyone around him), and
that he walked with God. This last statement is fascinating since, even
though the English translation is not particularly unique, the exact wording in
Hebrew only appears for one other person—Enoch. This is one of the several ways
the author tries to show us just how good Noah was compared to everyone else
drawing breath: good like Enoch…but apparently not enough like Enoch to be
spared of death. We really don’t know much else about Noah. From Hebrews 11 we
know that he condemned the world. This is very evident in the film where he
condemns the world so much that he believes even he and his family must die. ʾAdam is what contains the evil and
the earth must be cleansed of ʾadam. Noah
has several prophet-role characteristics, and considering that prophets regularly
embodied the suffering of God, the movie does interesting things by having Noah
embody the sorrow and indignation at the evil he sees. Though the Noah from the
movie does some bad things (and I am not sure that willingness to kill one’s
own children is too farfetched, considering Abraham was also willing to do the
same thing), it should be remembered that finding favor in God’s eyes doesn’t
mean being perfect. Look at the rest of the people next to Noah in Hebrews 11.
Abraham was a liar. Jacob was a manipulating cheat of the worst caliber. Even
more so it says that Gideon, Barak, and Samson did righteousness. David was at
the least an adulterer, at the most a rapist and murderer, and Samuel was such
a terrible father that his sons drove Israel to beg for a king. And this is the
often times horrifying truth of God’s grace: that truly miserable
creatures like ourselves are given favor from God. And I’m not sure why we
should think Noah was any different.
The first thing he does when he
gets off the ark is make some sacrifices (Gen 8:20-21). What’s important to
understand is that the kind of sacrifices he makes are whole burnt offerings (ʿolah)
meaning they were completely incinerated. It’s important because after a man
and his family have just been spared from sure and complete annihilation, one
would think he would express some gratitude to the God who made it all
possible. But ʿolah aren’t offerings intended for thanksgiving (tōdah),
and God does not like it when the two get switched around (that’s actually a
big part of the issue in Micah 6:6-8). But the text tells us that this offering
pleased God. And it’s even more interesting because ʿolah were meant for
the atonement of sin. Now, the point of sin offerings is so God doesn’t kill
the sinner for what they’ve done. And all the wicked people have been dead for
quite some time now. And yet God is glad that Noah made this sin offering. And
then immediately decides that man’s heart is so evil that ʾadam and ʾadamah
cannot be reckoned together.
We must distinguish between some
things we know for certain from the text and some things we do not know for
certain from the text. We know for certain that God talked to Noah. We do not
know for certain how He did it. We may read the phrase “walked with
God,” which in itself is linguistically tricky and many scholars still are not positive
as to what it means, and immediately import hymnal verses of walking and
talking with a fluffy Jesus in a garden. But we really shouldn’t do that.
The dialogue between God and the
Patriarchs (or their families) is a very sticky subject and multiple occasions
look like something we would never expect—they look downright pagan. In the
movie, Methuselah gives Noah a drink that sends him into a vision, and Naameh
(Noah’s wife) divines with tea or some other leaf that Ila (Shem’s wife) is
pregnant. This sort of thing very likely did happen. We see Rebekah beseeching
God with incense, Abraham planting trees and people meeting God under trees and
on mountains (trees were like little natural shrines, and mountains were
‘closer to heaven’ which gave rise to the high places in 1-2 Kings). These
things may seem innocuous now, but they were packed with theological relevance
then. Even Joseph had a divination cup. Though these kinds of things were bad
in a post-Law context, God spoke to them on terms they would understand then
(which is not too different from what Methuselah says in the movie). Keep
in mind that Noah is pre-Law, meaning before the time God spelled out how and when He
wanted the people’s communication.
As I said earlier, Noah’s voice
is strangely silent in his own story. It is absent until the cursing of Canaan.
Is it because he never responded vocally whenever God spoke? Possibly. There
is, I believe, a more likely answer where the myth genre really comes into
play. The story of Noah is clearly being told at a much later date than the
flood, probably written down and crafted by Moses from oral tradition of some
sort, and this is generally the thought in many Evangelical circles. So, as was
stated, the author has taken great care to tell the story in a certain way (not
a false way, just a certain way) to make a point. The author has also imported,
to a degree, an authorial omniscience—rooted in post-Mosaic knowledge—to the
story. A simple evidence of this is the referencing to clean and unclean
animals, which aren’t defined until Leviticus 11.
Clearly the author, as do we, can
see the end of the story from the beginning. Noah, living the story, could not.
Because of the obscure and unfamiliar nature of dialogue with God during this
time I do not find it impossible to say that the way God’s instructions are
presented in Genesis may be polished ex post facto by Noah and/or his descendants.
Did Joseph understand the full extent of his dream of sheaves when he
immediately had it? Most likely not. Jacob had to tell him what the sun and the
moon represented. And this is indicative of a relationship with God, in that so
often the pieces are before us yet they do not make sense until we have been
brought through.
In the movie Noah at first
believes God will have mercy on his family, then seeing how evil he himself is,
comes to the conclusion that for justice to truly be meted out they would also
have to die. God tells Noah He will make a covenant with him, and it is not
clear whether Noah knew that was THE covenant. Covenant was a common civic word
and Noah, being just and blameless among his generation/time (both descriptors
having somewhat civic tones) could have well thought, in the moment, that the
covenant was a contract: Save my animals, don’t die in a horrific flood. The
thought of human multiplication only has a bad connotation at this point in the
story, and it’s not until after the ʿolah that God returns the hopeful
meaning to it. In short, Noah’s conclusion in the movie is actually not too far
out there.
To worsen things, God stops
talking to Noah during the flood. For three hundred days. About half way
through the text says that God remembered them, which calls my mind to
Zechariah, the prophet whose ministry was telling people who felt forgotten by
God in the midst of judgment that God actually remembered them. But again, the
author tells us God remembered them. God does not tell Noah this. And
even when Noah looks out and sees the land which is dry, God keeps silent for a
month and a half. I could see how after months of destruction, with such
silence once could feel forgotten, or worse—condemned.
Overall, this movie did a
wonderful job of undoing a pastel colored Noah’s Ark Flan-O-Graph. This is the
first real scene of God’s unfettered wrath in the Bible, written as an epic
myth, and we’ve turned it into a Mother Goose fairy tale. I do not say these
next few sentences lightly. I say them accurately and I do not advise children
to see this movie in any way, shape, or form.
The scenes of these tribal
kingship war camps are gut wrenching, accurate portrayals of the evil of the
time, with men being taken captive to fight in ruthless armies, young women
being traded as currency, and a king keeping his people so hungry that they rip
still living animals to pieces just to get some scraps of food (there’s a
reason God tells Noah to not eat meat with the lifeblood in it). The screaming
of people as their bodies smash on rocks and against the Ark while Noah and his
family fearfully huddle inside is a solemn reminder of the justice,
wrath, and mercy of God.
This is not meant to be a review
telling you to go or not to go see the movie. I am merely trying to address
some of the theological aspects/issues which have been brought to my attention.
I hope this essay has not hindered in any way, but helped in understanding more
the beautifully crafted story of our amazing God.
P.S.-the Watchers and Such
I would like to discuss the
Watchers more, but since I am already close to 4000 words I probably should not.
However, since they come from the Book of Enoch, thematically their appearance
in some way makes sense. Since we clearly don’t know many of the nitty-gritty
details of the story, Genesis as a whole likes to be unbelievably vague about
supernatural things, and we regularly see some form of angelic being assisting
the servants of God, I don’t find their inclusion in the movie all that
offensive. I do think, though, that the story of the Watchers is very likely
one of the “myths and genealogies” Paul is referring to in 1 Tim 1 and Titus 1,
so I suggest that all take his command to not devote oneself to them.
They are an interesting story, clearly included for crazy
volcano-angel-warrior-transformer-tinkerbellonsteroids cinematography, and
nothing more.
Also, whereas I feel this one to
be a stretch, the whole thing about the wives of Ham and Japheth being born
from Ila on the boat is, by the letter of narrative, acceptable. It’s not the
most compelling for me, per se, but they do use it as the lead into “Noah, God
is showing us mercy.” The reason it is acceptable is because the author of
Hebrews does something very similar. If you read Hebrews 7, apparently the
presence of biological substance is enough to qualify someone as “being there.”
This probably stems from 1) older thoughts on how bodies and souls were made,
and 2) our culture tends to associate the consciousness with the person, and
our bodies are vehicles…which is certainly not how every single author of the
Bible has seen it.
