{"id":14541,"date":"2014-02-27T07:33:40","date_gmt":"2014-02-27T15:33:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/?p=14541"},"modified":"2014-02-27T07:33:40","modified_gmt":"2014-02-27T15:33:40","slug":"noah-the-biblical-advisor-speaks-and-new-photos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2014\/02\/noah-the-biblical-advisor-speaks-and-new-photos.html","title":{"rendered":"Noah<\/i> — the biblical advisor speaks! (And new photos.)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a>Last week, there was a lot of noise about a small group of \u201cfaith-driven<\/a> consumers<\/a>\u201d slamming Darren Aronofsky\u2019s Noah<\/a><\/i> even though none of them had seen the film. This week, Christians who have<\/i> seen the film have started to come out in its defense, sort of.<\/p>\n

The Blaze<\/a> reports that the National Religious Broadcasters hosted a panel on the film at their media convention on Sunday night, and three men who have seen the film took part in the discussion: NRB chief Jerry Johnson, media consultant Phil Cooke and former youth minister John Snowden, who has served as the film\u2019s biblical advisor since April 2012.<\/p>\n

From the sound of it, all three men were clear that they didn\u2019t endorse every single detail in the film, but they didn\u2019t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.<\/p>\n

Johnson, it seems, was the most critical of the three, partly because the film expresses a form of evolutionary creationism<\/a> and partly because Noah, who questions whether humanity ought to be saved at all<\/i>, comes across as a little \u201ccrazy\u201d.<\/p>\n

However, Johnson did acknowledge that the film \u201ctakes sin very seriously\u201d.* And, not surprisingly, he urged evangelicals to keep their criticisms in check, not so that they could engage with the film\u2019s deeper themes, but so that they can use the film as a witnessing tool: \u201cWhy don\u2019t we turn it into something evangelistic?\u201d<\/p>\n

Snowden, on the other hand, distributed a treatise entitled \u2018Why People of Faith Can Embrace Noah<\/a>\u2019, which has since been published by The Christian Post. (Beware: he reveals, or at least hints at, one or two plot points that are kind of spoiler-ish.)<\/p>\n

Snowden offers ten basic points for curious Christian viewers to keep in mind, and based on what I\u2019ve seen and read so far, I agree with just about all of them. <\/p>\n

For example, Snowden describes how, when he first read an early draft of the script, he was \u201cparticularly impressed\u201d with the script\u2019s \u201cexploration of judgment and mercy\u201d \u2014 and that dovetails quite well with my own reaction<\/a> to an early draft of the script.<\/p>\n

I also find myself thinking that item #4 on his list \u2014 \u201cIt Keeps Closer to More of the Text Than You Might Have Imagined\u201d \u2014 is reminiscent of an article<\/a> that Robert Davis wrote for Paste<\/i> magazine prior to the release of the first Sherlock Holmes<\/i> (2009) starring Robert Downey Jr., in which he wrote that \u201cnot everything in the trailer that\u2019s causing some people to roll their eyes is a whole-cloth invention.\u201d Sometimes people have an image<\/i> of a character in their minds that is influenced as much by other people\u2019s interpretations of the text as it is by the text itself \u2014 so when they come across an unconventional interpretation that is, itself, rooted in the original text, they reflexively mistake their image of the character for the original thing.<\/p>\n

Anyway, if you don\u2019t mind a possible spoiler or two, Snowden\u2019s article is worth a read.<\/p>\n

Incidentally, the image above is a new poster<\/a> for the film that was released in Japan. It\u2019s very similar to the international posters I rounded up here<\/a> and here<\/a>, but it also seems to depict a plant of some sort that was missing from the other posters.<\/p>\n

Also, Entertainment Weekly<\/a><\/i> has a new article on the film that begins with an anecdote from the set but focuses mostly on the controversies that have already been covered in my previous posts. The article does come with a new photo or two, though:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2013<\/p>\n

* One of the more bizarre claims made by Chris Stone, the guy who heads the \u201cfaith-driven consumer\u201d movement \u2014 and who, lest we forget, hasn\u2019t even seen the film<\/i> \u2014 is that the film \u201ctake[s] the sin element out<\/a>\u201d of the story. Uh, really? Then why does he think God is sending the Flood? Why does he think that Noah questions whether humanity deserves to survive, to the point where people like Johnson find the character a little \u201ccrazy\u201d? I would also dispute his claim that \u201cthe central part of Christianity\u201d is that \u201cman is inherently evil<\/a>\u201d; we\u2019re fallen, yes, but that\u2019s not the first or most important thing about us, and anyway, shouldn\u2019t the central tenet of our faith have something to do with, oh, I dunno, God? And that\u2019s before we get to the fact that the Noah story is just as much a Jewish story<\/a> as it is a Christian one.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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