Noah, the Hollywood blockbuster disaster flick starring the surly Russel Crowe, is due to hit movie multiplexes in 5 days.
Crowe is infamous for throwing a phone at a New York hotel staffer in 2005, for which he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault to avoid jail time.
An early review from The Hollywood Reporter confirms previous descriptions of the movie as a gross reinterpretation of the biblical story, one that attributes the cause of the great flood to man’s abuse of the environment and global warming. In the words of the reviewer, Noah is “the original disaster story,” pushes “aggressive environmentalism” and “heavy-handed ecological doomsday messages,” has a “complete omission of the name ‘God’ from the dialogue,” and distorts the opening line of Genesis from “In the beginning God created heaven and earth” into “In the beginning there was nothing.”
Even worse than omitting God entirely from the dialog is the movie’s depiction of the fallen angels, that is, DEMONS, as good-guy helpers of Noah. In the words of the review:
“But by far the most startling apparition in this context are the Watchers, the so-called Nephilim, or fallen angels only glancingly mentioned in the Bible. Here they take the form of giant, ferocious-looking rock people … who not only come to Noah’s aid by doing the heavy lifting in building the ark but cut down, stomp on and otherwise decimate the hordes who eventually besiege the ark in hopes of climbing aboard at the last minute.”
Physicist Dr. Hugh Ross of Reasons to Believe has made a trio of videos about the Great Flood. This is Part One:
Here’s what the Bible says about the Flood:
Genesis 6:5-14
Yahweh saw that human wickedness was great on earth and that human hearts contrived nothing but wicked schemes all day long. Yahweh regretted having made human beings on earth and was grieved at heart. And Yahweh said, ‘I shall rid the surface of the earth of the human beings whom I created — human and animal, the creeping things and the birds of heaven — for I regret having made them.’
But Noah won Yahweh’s favor.
This is the story of Noah: Noah was a good man, an upright man among his contemporaries, and he walked with God. Noah fathered three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth.
God saw that the earth was corrupt and full of lawlessness. God looked at the earth: it was corrupt, for corrupt were the ways of all living things on earth.
God said to Noah, “I have decided that the end has come for all living things, for the earth is full of lawlessness because of human beings. So I am now about to destroy them and the earth. Make yourself an ark out of resinous wood. Make it of reeds and caulk it with pitch inside and out. This is how to make it: the length of the ark is to be three hundred cubits, its breadth fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits. Make a roof to the ark, building it up to a cubit higher. Put the entrance in the side of the ark, which is to be made with lower, second and third decks. For my part I am going to send the flood, the waters, on earth, to destroy all living things having the breath of life under heaven; everything on earth is to perish. But with you I shall establish my covenant and you will go aboard the ark, yourself, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives along with you. From all living creatures, from all living things, you must take two of each kind aboard the ark, to save their lives with yours; they must be a male and a female. Of every species of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that creeps along the ground, two must go with you so that their lives may be saved. For your part, provide yourself with eatables of all kinds, and lay in a store of them, to serve as food for yourself and them.”
Noah did this; exactly as God commanded him, he did.
Genesis 7
Yahweh said to Noah, “Go aboard the ark, you and all your household, for you alone of your contemporaries do I see before me as an upright man. Of every clean animal you must take seven pairs, a male and its female; of the unclean animals you must take one pair, a male and its female (and of the birds of heaven, seven pairs, a male and its female), to preserve their species throughout the earth. For in seven days’ time I shall make it rain on earth for forty days and forty nights, and I shall wipe every creature I have made off the face of the earth.”
Noah did exactly as Yahweh commanded him.
Noah was six hundred years old when the flood came, the waters over the earth. Noah with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives boarded the ark to escape the waters of the flood. (Of the clean animals and the animals that are not clean, of the birds and all that creeps along the ground, one pair boarded the ark with Noah, one male and one female, as God had commanded Noah.)
Seven days later the waters of the flood appeared on earth. In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, and on the seventeenth day of the month, that very day all the springs of the great deep burst through, and the sluices of heaven opened. And heavy rain fell on earth for forty days and forty nights.
That very day Noah and his sons Shem, Ham and Japheth boarded the ark, with Noah’s wife and the three wives of his sons, and with them every species of wild animal, every species of cattle, every species of creeping things that creep along the ground, every species of bird, everything that flies, everything with wings. One pair of all that was alive and had the breath of life boarded the ark with Noah, and those that went aboard were a male and female of all that was alive, as God had commanded him. Then Yahweh shut him in.
The flood lasted forty days on earth. The waters swelled, lifting the ark until it floated off the ground. The waters rose, swelling higher above the ground, and the ark drifted away over the waters. The waters rose higher and higher above the ground until all the highest mountains under the whole of heaven were submerged. The waters reached their peak fifteen cubits above the submerged mountains.
And all living things that stirred on earth perished; birds, cattle, wild animals, all the creatures swarming over the earth, and all human beings. Everything with the least breath of life in its nostrils, everything on dry land, died. Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out, people, animals, creeping things and birds; they were wiped off the earth and only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark.
The waters maintained their level on earth for a hundred and fifty days.
Genesis 8
But God had Noah in mind, and all the wild animals and all the cattle that were with him in the ark. God sent a wind across the earth and the waters began to subside. The springs of the deep and the sluices of heaven were stopped up and the heavy rain from heaven was held back. Little by little, the waters ebbed from the earth. After a hundred and fifty days the waters fell, and in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. The waters gradually fell until the tenth month when, on the first day of the tenth month, the mountain tops appeared.
At the end of forty days Noah opened the window he had made in the ark and released a raven, which flew back and forth as it waited for the waters to dry up on earth. He then released a dove, to see whether the waters were receding from the surface of the earth. But the dove, finding nowhere to perch, returned to him in the ark, for there was water over the whole surface of the earth; putting out his hand he took hold of it and brought it back into the ark with him.
After waiting seven more days, he again released the dove from the ark. In the evening, the dove came back to him and there in its beak was a freshly-picked olive leaf! So Noah realised that the waters were receding from the earth. After waiting seven more days, he released the dove, and now it returned to him no more.
It was in the six hundred and first year of Noah’s life, in the first month and on the first of the month, that the waters began drying out on earth. Noah lifted back the hatch of the ark and looked out. The surface of the ground was dry! In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry.
Then God said to Noah, “Come out of the ark, you, your wife, your sons, and your sons’ wives with you. Bring out all the animals with you, all living things, the birds, the cattle and all the creeping things that creep along the ground, for them to swarm on earth, for them to breed and multiply on earth.”
So Noah came out with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives. And all the wild animals, all the cattle, all the birds and all the creeping things that creep along the ground, came out of the ark, one species after another. Then Noah built an altar to Yahweh and, choosing from all the clean animals and all the clean birds he presented burnt offerings on the altar.
Yahweh smelt the pleasing smell and said to himself, “Never again will I curse the earth because of human beings, because their heart contrives evil from their infancy. Never again will I strike down every living thing as I have done. As long as earth endures: seed-time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.”
Psalm 104:1, 5-9
Bless Yahweh, my soul, Yahweh, my God, how great you are!
You fixed the earth on its foundations, for ever and ever it shall not be shaken; you covered it with the deep like a garment, the waters overtopping the mountains.
At your reproof the waters fled, at the voice of your thunder they sped away, flowing over mountains, down valleys, to the place you had fixed for them; you made a limit they were not to cross, they were not to return and cover the earth.
~Eowyn
