![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/227\/2014\/03\/noah-poster-us.jpg\" "\\"noah-poster-us\\"")
<\/a>Three men who have actually seen Darren Aronofsky\u2019s Noah<\/a><\/i> took part in a panel discussion of the film at the National Religious Broadcasters convention nine days ago. And now all three men have basically issued ten-point statements responding to the film.<\/p>\nThe first to do so was John Snowden<\/a>, a biblical advisor to the film whose treatise \u2018Why People of Faith Can Embrace Noah<\/i>\u2019 was actually distributed at the event itself before it was posted online a few days later.<\/p>\n The second was Jerry Johnson, who gave Christianity Today<\/i> a list of five positive things about the movie<\/a> last week and now, as of yesterday, has provided them with a spoiler-filled list of five negative<\/i> things about the movie. More on that in a minute.<\/p>\n And the third is Phil Cooke, whose article \u2018Should Christians Support the Movie Noah<\/i>?<\/a>\u2019 is now up at the Huffington Post. (The HuffPost version of the article is divided into nine points, but the version at Charisma News<\/a> \u2014 which is where I first saw the article \u2014 is divided into ten, so it fits the basic pattern here.)<\/p>\n Intriguingly, in addition to saying that \u201cChristians need to see the movie\u201d, Cooke says the movie\u2019s \u201cunabashed look at sinful, grotesque humanity, and the extraordinary saving grace of God\u201d reminded him of Catholic novelist Flannery O\u2019Connor.<\/p>\n Back to Johnson and the five \u201cnegative\u201d things he listed yesterday<\/a>. While he explains each of these points in more detail at Christianity Today<\/i>, the basic points are these:<\/p>\n A few quick points in response, if I may.<\/p>\n First, there\u2019s no question that the character of Noah himself will be darker than many people expect; Russell Crowe himself has said as much<\/a>. But it\u2019s kind of hard to say that the film\u2019s depiction of Noah deviates from the Bible\u2019s description of him when the Bible actually doesn\u2019t say all that much about his personality in the first place.<\/p>\n Johnson says, \u201cIt is hard to reconcile this character with the \u2018righteous\u2019 man described in Genesis 6 or the man of \u2018faith\u2019 described in Hebrews 11.\u201d But what does \u201crighteous\u201d even mean? I addressed that question from one angle two weeks ago<\/a>, and now Brian Godawa \u2014 one of the stronger critics of Darren Aronofsky\u2019s film (or, rather, of an early draft of the film\u2019s screenplay) \u2014 has addressed it from another<\/a>:<\/p>\n One of the only things Genesis says about Noah\u2019s actual character is that he was \u201ca righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God\u201d (Gen. 6:9). The New Testament clarifies this meaning by noting Noah as an \u201cheir\u201d and \u201cherald\u201d of righteousness by faith (Heb. 11:7; 2Pet. 2:5). The popular interpretation of this notion of \u201crighteousness\u201d is to understand Noah as a virtually sinless man too holy for his time, and always communing with God in perfect obedience. But is this really Biblical? Would Noah have never sinned? Never had an argument with God? Never had to repent? As a matter of fact, the term \u201crighteous\u201d in the Old and New Testaments was not a mere description of a person who did good deeds and avoided bad deeds. Righteousness was a Hebrew legal concept that meant, \u201cright standing before God\u201d as in a court of law. It carried the picture of two positions in a lawsuit, one \u201cnot in the right,\u201d and the other, \u201cin the right\u201d or \u201crighteous\u201d before God. It was primarily a relational term. Not only that, but in both Testaments, the righteous man is the man who is said to \u201clive by faith,\u201d not by perfect good deeds (Hab. 2:4; Rom. 1:17). So righteousness does not mean \u201cmoral perfection\u201d but \u201cbeing in the right with God because of faith.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n There\u2019s more at Godawa\u2019s post, and I recommend checking it out. The upshot of it all, though, is that there is plenty of room to believe that someone like Noah was \u201crighteous\u201d but had his dark side as well. And as for the movie\u2019s Noah being a man of \u201cfaith\u201d, well, he builds the Ark when God tells him to, doesn\u2019t he?<\/p>\n Second, regarding the \u201cenvironmental agenda\u201d, opinions will vary as to whether there\u2019s too much of it or not enough, so I won\u2019t get into that here. (For what it\u2019s worth, \u201cDr.\u201d Ted Baehr, no liberal he, has also seen the film and stated that \u201call of the hyper-environmentalism that\u2019s being reported\u201d is \u201cnot in the final movie<\/a>.\u201d)<\/p>\n But I do want to respond to one of Johnson\u2019s points here, where he states that killing animals is also condemned within the film \u201cas a departure from the lifestyle in the Garden of Eden.\u201d<\/p>\n It is true that the early chapters of Genesis record some<\/i> killing of animals prior to the Flood; God himself gave Adam and Eve \u201cgarments of skin<\/a>\u201d when he banished them from Eden (and this skin, as far as I know, is traditionally assumed to have come from dead animals, and was not something God created out of thin air), and their son Abel kept flocks and offered an animal sacrifice<\/a> that God found pleasing.<\/p>\n But the animals that are killed in this film are killed for food, and mankind is not given explicit permission to eat meat until after<\/i> the Flood, when God makes his covenant with Noah<\/a> (\u201cEverything that lives and moves about will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything\u201d). And even then, God places restrictions on how the meat is to be eaten, restrictions that are binding on all of Noah\u2019s descendants and were still enforced by the early church<\/a>.<\/p>\n So as I understand it, it is not uncommon to say that humans were meant to be vegetarian during the period covered by the early chapters of Genesis. And if the film suggests that the killing and eating of animals before<\/i> the Flood is something only the bad guys would do, then, well, there may be a traditional basis for that.<\/p>\n Third, regarding the film\u2019s evolutionary creationism \u2014 I resist the term \u201ctheistic evolution\u201d because, as Denis Lamoureux and others have pointed out, it lets the wrong noun \u201cdominate the phrase<\/a>\u201d \u2014 not only is it a non-issue to me, it\u2019s actually one of the sections<\/a> in the script I read last year<\/a> that got me truly excited to see this movie.<\/p>\n Finally, regarding the Nephilim\u2026 well, Johnson\u2019s key objection involves a spoiler, so I won\u2019t get into that for now, either. But suffice it to say that, yes, it appears that the film has<\/i> revised some of the existing traditions about the Nephilim, but those traditions are themselves so strange that any filmed depiction of them would probably strike many people, Christian or otherwise, as really out-there.<\/p>\n To put this another way: Last week, Johnson said the fact that \u201cNoah<\/i> takes some textual elements literally\u201d was one of five positive<\/i> things about the film, and one of the ironies here is the fact that some viewers who insist on a literal interpretation of Genesis are actually objecting to the film\u2019s quasi-literal take on some of the less familiar passages in Genesis (and the Jewish legends that build on those passages), from the vegetarianism before the Flood to Noah\u2019s drunkenness afterwards.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Phil Cooke says “Christians need to see the movie”, while Jerry Johnson supplements his list of five positive things about the movie with a list of five negative things about the movie.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1116,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1241,1947,1937,143,55,63,1936,401],"class_list":["post-14903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-brian-godawa","tag-flannery-oconnor","tag-jerry-johnson","tag-nephilim","tag-noah","tag-noah-2014","tag-phil-cooke","tag-ted-baehr"],"yoast_head":"\n\n