{"id":1300,"date":"2014-08-12T20:59:37","date_gmt":"2014-08-13T00:59:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/midwestapologetics.org\/blog\/?p=1300"},"modified":"2014-08-13T09:13:37","modified_gmt":"2014-08-13T13:13:37","slug":"revisiting-the-noah-film-after-being-mocked-in-newspaper-editorial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/midwestapologetics.org\/blog\/?p=1300","title":{"rendered":"Revisiting the Noah Film after Being Mocked in Newspaper Editorial"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"I<\/a>

I decided to watch the film again to see if my initial reactions were accurate.<\/p><\/div>\n

Recently the Courier Journal newspaper (Louisville, KY) ran an editorial piece that mocked the Ark Encounter project and my detailed review of the Noah movie<\/a> that was posted on the Answers in Genesis website the day after the film opened in theaters.<\/p>\n

As content manager of the Ark Encounter, I was part of a team of researchers who viewed this film and then participated in a live webcast review<\/a> of the movie the next night. I was also responsible to write our detailed review<\/a> with the assistance of friend and colleague, Roger Patterson.<\/p>\n

Now that the film is available to rent, I decided to use a free Redbox code to watch it again. I wanted to see if I had overlooked certain points, misunderstood what had been shown\/said, or just been caught up in some sort of group overreaction to the film. Having the ability to pause the movie and talk about it with my family helped minimize these issues that could have led me to be unfair in my previous criticisms.<\/p>\n

There were plenty of inaccuracies throughout the film, and the preview was intentionally deceptive. For example, there is a scene in the film where an army of men charges toward Methuselah while trying to slaughter the fallen angels\/rock monsters. Methuselah sends out a blast of fire that consumes the people but saves the rock monsters. But in the preview, the rock monsters are deleted from the scene. The same is true with one of the Ark-building scenes shown in the preview\u2014there are no rock monsters in the preview, but they do appear in the same scene in the film.<\/p>\n

But rather than dwelling on these matters, I want to comment on three main points before addressing a statement from the hit piece in the Courier Journal. If you want my full review, complete with a listing of numerous errors in the film, please read it here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Paramount\u2019s Noah<\/em> Movie: Noah Is a Madman<\/strong><\/p>\n

One of the major problems with the film is that it portrays Noah as a man who bears very little resemblance to the biblical Noah. Both are men. Both had a large boat to survive a global Flood. And both had a wife and three sons. That\u2019s about where the similarities end. Notice, I didn\u2019t say that Paramount\u2019s Noah<\/em> \u201cbuilt a large boat,\u201d since he never really is shown building the Ark (the fallen angel\/rock monsters do that for him while he kind of works around it).<\/p>\n

The editorialist mocked one of my statements about artistic license in my detailed review<\/a>. I explained that we don\u2019t have a problem with artistic license and that we used it at the Creation Museum and will use it at the Ark Encounter. After all, we don\u2019t know what Noah looked like, what he wore, how he spoke, etc. The editorialist wrote, \u201cApparently it just depends on who\u2019s the artist and how the license is being used.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the record, I had no problem with Russell Crowe being the actor to portray Noah. It was refreshing to see someone who didn\u2019t look like a frail old man with a long white beard on the Ark. But here\u2019s the problem with the artistic license being used in the film. The character of Noah was made into a raving lunatic who wanted every single person on earth to die\u2014his family included. He even wanted to murder his own grandchildren. These are not even close to the actions of a righteous man who built the Ark for the saving of his household (Hebrews 11:7).<\/p>\n

I explained my position on artistic license in an earlier blog post<\/a>, so I won\u2019t repeat everything here. The issue isn\u2019t who is taking artistic license, but what liberties they are taking. In this film, Noah is practically the opposite of how the Bible describes him. Would it qualify as artistic license to make a film about Hitler or Arafat and show these men as devout Zionists? Could I make a film about Darwin where I portray him as the world\u2019s foremost young-earth creationist and call it artistic license? Of course not. These would be examples of an abuse of artistic license, and that\u2019s exactly what Darren Aronofsky did with Noah<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Paramount\u2019s Noah<\/em> Movie: God Is Evil<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is by far the worst of the errors in the Noah<\/em> film, and it is absolutely blasphemous. The deity portrayed in this film is evil, cruel, uncaring, cold, harsh, and distant. The only \u201cprayer\u201d we see in the movie from Noah results in Noah\u2019s determination to slaughter his grandkids. The visions the film\u2019s deity sent to Noah were cryptic rather than the straightforward instructions revealed in Genesis 6. Furthermore, the film\u2019s god used the brutal process of evolution by which trillions of creatures would live, suffer, and die long before sin ever even entered the world. Thus, according to this view, man is not to blame for the fallen condition of the world\u2014God is, because that\u2019s the way He made it.<\/p>\n

Paramount\u2019s Noah<\/em> Movie: The Fallen Angels Are the Good Guys<\/strong><\/p>\n

Not only is God shown as evil in the film, but to complete the reverse (or better perverse) morality in this movie, the fallen angels are the good guys. Yep, that\u2019s how they are depicted. They allegedly pitied man when he was expelled from Eden so these rogue angels decided to come and help man, and for that, they were sentenced to roam the earth as rock monsters. But in Scripture (Genesis 6:1\u20134), the angels who sinned at this time did it because they lusted after women. They weren\u2019t here to help man, but to pervert man.<\/p>\n

\"Early<\/a>

Early version of Aronofsky’s Watchers\/Rock Giants from the Noah movie. These fallen angels are actually the heroes of the film.<\/p><\/div>\n

Speaking of artistic license, I didn\u2019t really have too much of a problem with the rock monster concept (granted, I don\u2019t find it realistic, but I\u2019m willing to give points for originality), but I did have a problem with who they were and what they did. These fallen angel\/rock monsters are the ones who actually build the Ark. They are the ones that Noah depends on when the bad guy threatens to overrun Noah with his army. In the climactic battle sequence, the rock monsters slaughter people attempting to take the Ark from Noah. But that\u2019s not all. As they are killed off, the fallen angels\/rock monsters actually get released from their prison and are allowed to return to heaven.<\/p>\n

Courier Journal Misses Again<\/strong><\/p>\n

The editorialist went on to rant against the Ark Encounter project and the fact that it has received preliminary approval for a Kentucky tourism tax rebate. This tourism rebate has been the subject of false charges from countless skeptics and many media outlets. The Ark is not being built in any way by Kentucky tax dollars, but once the park is open, and if it meets certain attendance figures, then it will be eligible to receive a rebate on a fraction of the sales tax it has already paid in to the state.<\/p>\n

The article concluded with these statements.<\/p>\n

The story of Noah is terrifying. If you believe it as told in the Bible, none of us would have been on the boat. We would have been off the boat. As it was written (New International Version), \u201cEverything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died. Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; people and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds were wiped from the earth.\u201d [Genesis 8:22\u201323]<\/p>\n

Are they going to show that, too? Hard to see how that might attract out-of-state guests and have a positive impact on the state budget.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Again, as the person responsible for writing the content for the Ark Encounter, I can assure you that we most certainly do plan on showing this. We talk about it in the Creation Museum. In fact, that\u2019s one of the major points of building the Ark. Yes, we want to show people the feasibility of such a project\u2014that the animals would fit, that the boat could be built, that Noah could have cared for the animals, etc.\u2014so that people will see that Scripture can be trusted. But the point of doing all of these things is to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. To do this, we will naturally talk about the global judgment of the Flood as well as the upcoming global judgment of this world.<\/p>\n

We have no desire to hide that teaching. In fact, we wish more people, including professing Christians who deny the global Flood, would come to understand what the Bible teaches in this area, that they would repent of their sins, and that they would trust in the sacrificial death, burial, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ to save them from the coming judgment.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s one thing when journalists make a mistake, but it\u2019s an entirely different thing when journalists deliberately distort the facts, yank statements out of context, and then belittle those they dislike on the basis of their distortions. I realize this is from an editorial page, but the article represented some of the worst tendencies in modern \u201cjournalism.\u201d Rather than report the facts, this writer decided to push a propaganda piece designed to mock the Bible and those who believe its teachings.<\/p>\n

I pray that journalists like this, and all other scoffers, will humble themselves, repent of their sins, and call out for God\u2019s forgiveness made possible by the sacrificial death, burial, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recently the Courier Journal newspaper (Louisville, KY) ran an editorial piece that mocked the Ark Encounter project and my detailed review of the Noah movie that was posted on the Answers in Genesis website the day after the film opened … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,21],"tags":[68,30,16,25],"class_list":["post-1300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-reflections","tag-current-events","tag-gospel","tag-noahs-ark","tag-old-testament"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/midwestapologetics.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/midwestapologetics.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/midwestapologetics.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midwestapologetics.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midwestapologetics.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1300"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/midwestapologetics.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1306,"href":"https:\/\/midwestapologetics.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1300\/revisions\/1306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/midwestapologetics.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midwestapologetics.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midwestapologetics.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}