by Megan Toombs
Communications and Outreach Coordinator, Cornwall Alliance
January 15, 2014
Was Noah a violent, murderous environmentalist who experienced an anthropogenic apocalypse? Did God hate humans because they destroyed His earth?
Not according to the Bible.
Darren Aronofsky, director of the new movie Noah, starring Russell Crowe, clearly didn’t read his Bible very carefully—or didn’t like what he read.
The movie Noah changes a story of love and redemption into an environmentalist propaganda piece about humans destroying the earth, and a call for human extinction.
Brian Godawa, who read the original script, reports that in it the earth became a desert with no rain because of human actions like hunting animals for food and sport. Never mind that the Bible says there was no rain because a mist rose from the ground (Genesis 2:6)—i.e., humidity and water vapor in the pre-flood world made rain unnecessary.
The Noah of the Bible is “…a righteous man, blameless in his generation.” The Noah of the movie script, as Godawa reports, is a shaman who avoids other people and “maintains an animal hospital to take care of wounded animals or those who survive the evil ‘poachers,’… Noah is the Mother Teresa of animals.”
Godawa makes the movie’s message clear:
Noah has himself become a bit psychotic, like an environmentalist or animal rights activist who concludes that people do not deserve to survive because of what they’ve done to the environment and to animals. Noah deduces that God’s only reason for his family on the boat is to shepherd the animals to safety, ‘and then mankind disappears. It would be a better world.’ He concludes that there will be no more births in this family so that when they start over in the new world, they will eventually die out, leaving the animals in a humanless paradise of ecoharmony and peace. As Noah says, ‘The creatures of the earth, the world itself, shall be safe.’
Darren Aronofsky missed two key parts of the Biblical story when he decided to create this movie based on the worldview of radical environmentalists.
First, God put man over the earth to steward it. Genesis 1:26–28 states:
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
God gave man dominion, which means that, in order of importance among creatures, man comes first. Environmentalists, of course, don’t agree. Godawa pointed out that the ethic behind Noah’s belief that his family should not procreate was “The same as all environmentalist activists: The ends justify the means. ‘We must weigh those [human] lives against all creation.’” Environmentalists like Aronofsky believe that man only damages the earth, but we know better.
Humanity being made in the image of God has the ability to innovate and create. When God gave man dominion over the earth, it was because under the stewardship of man the earth is more productive.
Second, Noah the movie is a story of death and destruction rooted in evil. The Biblical story of Noah is one of both just judgment and gracious redemption.
Genesis 6:7–8 states, “So the Lord said, ‘I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.’ But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.”
God the Creator was justly angry that the people, made in His image, were evil and no longer worshipped Him. But God had grace on Noah. This doesn’t mean Noah was without sin, but it does mean he had faith. As Genesis 6:9 states, “Noah walked with God.” God, through His mercy, saved Noah and his family, and thus the human race as well as the remainder of the animals.
This is one of the many amazing stories that show God’s awesome plan. God did not use the righteousness of Noah solely to save the human race and the animals from the flood. He used it in His plan for the ultimate redemption of creation through Jesus Christ.
In Far As The Curse Is Found: The Covenant Story Of Redemption, Michael D. Williams points out that the story of Noah is another example of God’s overarching redemptive story, and His covenant with man. God in His providence saved Noah to create the line that would lead to Christ. People, fallen and sinful, did not know, or care, that they needed redemption, but God cared, and He saved Noah and ultimately the rest of His creation. He covenanted with Noah and all of the earth never to destroy it again with water.
Williams contends, “the inclusion of the animals and the very earth within the covenant emphasizes that the scope of God’s redemptive program is as wide as his creational work.” God “also reaffirms man’s covenant place within creation, in phrases intentionally reminiscent of God’s commission of Adam as a covenant representative.”
Genesis 9:1–7 states:
And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea. Into your hand they are delivered. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man. “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image. And you, be fruitful and multiply, increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it.”
The command God gave to Adam He repeated to Noah. The story of Noah is not the environmentalist story of destruction, it is a story of grace—God’s grace given to a fallen creation that will ultimately lead to redemption.
My comment:
I haven’t seen the movie. As I am writing this, the top story on the national news is a warning coming from the United Nations about the threat of global warming. I know that the Bible says that “the Earth is wearing out like a garment.” I attribute this to the sin of man. I know the movie will probably make a lot of money. I won’t be seeing it until my local library has it. Until then, I would like both sides to have their say. This side isn’t seen in many places these days.
cr
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Posted by Chris 
WEEKLY WRAP-UP FOR 2-27-2016
February 27, 2016I Hope you had a chance to click on the previous post to hear other voices speak out against ungodly forces at work in Norway.
If you want to know more about this situation, click on Delight in Truth’s blog in my blogroll. At the moment, his focus is on this problem and you can learn much about it there. It is nice to see the church coming together to fight injustice.
I’ll share two things that I read this week. I hope this helps you in our upside-down world that is not the Christian’s home:
1 Why are the nations in an uproar
And the peoples devising a vain thing?
2
The kings of the earth take their stand
And the rulers take counsel together
Against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying,
3
“Let us tear their fetters apart
And cast away their cords from us!”
4
He who sits in the heavens laughs,
The Lord scoffs at them.
5
Then He will speak to them in His anger
And terrify them in His fury, saying,
6
“But as for Me, I have installed My King
Upon Zion, My holy mountain.”
7
“I will surely tell of the decree of the Lord:
He said to Me, ‘You are My Son,
Today I have begotten You.
8
‘Ask of Me, and I will surely give the nations as Your inheritance,
And the very ends of the earth as Your possession.
9
‘You shall break them with a rod of iron,
You shall shatter them like earthenware.’”
10
Now therefore, O kings, show discernment;
Take warning, O judges of the earth.
11
Worship the Lord with reverence
And rejoice with trembling.
12
Do homage to the Son, that He not become angry, and you perish in the way,
For His wrath may soon be kindled.
How blessed are all who take refuge in Him!
– Psalm 2
And…
1 My son, if you will receive my words
And treasure my commandments within you,
2
Make your ear attentive to wisdom,
Incline your heart to understanding;
3
For if you cry for discernment,
Lift your voice for understanding;
4
If you seek her as silver
And search for her as for hidden treasures;
5
Then you will discern the fear of the Lord
And discover the knowledge of God.
6
For the Lord gives wisdom;
From His mouth come knowledge and understanding.
7
He stores up sound wisdom for the upright;
He is a shield to those who walk in integrity,
8
Guarding the paths of justice,
And He preserves the way of His godly ones.
9
Then you will discern righteousness and justice
And equity and every good course.
10
For wisdom will enter your heart
And knowledge will be pleasant to your soul;
11
Discretion will guard you,
Understanding will watch over you,
12
To deliver you from the way of evil,
From the man who speaks perverse things;
13
From those who leave the paths of uprightness
To walk in the ways of darkness;
14
Who delight in doing evil
And rejoice in the perversity of evil;
15
Whose paths are crooked,
And who are devious in their ways;
16
To deliver you from the strange woman,
From the adulteress who flatters with her words;
17
That leaves the companion of her youth
And forgets the covenant of her God;
18
For her house sinks down to death
And her tracks lead to the dead;
19
None who go to her return again,
Nor do they reach the paths of life.
20
So you will walk in the way of good men
And keep to the paths of the righteous.
21
For the upright will live in the land
And the blameless will remain in it;
22
But the wicked will be cut off from the land
And the treacherous will be uprooted from it.
-Proverbs 2
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