Does God want Noah to commit infanticide in the upcoming movie?
I’m reading the new book, Noah: The Real Story, my interest piqued on the topic in large part due to all the chatter about the upcoming movie, Noah, opening March 28.
The movie has a blockbuster budget of $130 million and features a stellar cast: Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Anthony Hopkins, and Emma Watson.
Very few people have read the script or seen the movie, but the book I’m reading includes a summary by movie critic Brian Godawa of a script he read in the fall of 2013.
Potential spoiler alert…
So in that version of the script there was an infanticide element. Quoting from the book:
Noah decides the only reason God preserved him and his family is to make sure the animals on the ark return to the earth safely. If mankind disappeared, “it would be a better world.” His family should have no more births so that humans will eventually die out and then “the creatures of the earth, the world itself, shall be safe.” But one of his daughters-in-law is pregnant. If it is a boy, Noah will let it live; but if it is a girl, it will be killed. The woman gives birth to twin girls and Noah sets out to kill them both while the animals on the ark help pin down his family. but he is too weak to carry out his task. ‘I can’t do it,’ he says to himself and to God. “I am sorry.”
This, of course, places God at the most extreme end of environmental whacko-ness, upends His plan of salvation, and reverses the real close of the Noah story, wherein God tells him, “be fruitful and multiply; populate the earth abundantly and multiply in it” ~ Genesis 9:7.
So we shall see if that blasphemous plot line made the final cut. I’ve read Paramount Pictures is quite nervous about Christian reaction to the movie. At this point, from what I’ve read and seen, it should be:
One viewer, who declined to give his name because Paramount required him to sign a nondisclosure agreement, echoed the sentiments of others by criticizing the depiction of Noah as a “crazy, irrational, religious nut” who is fixated on modern-day problems like overpopulation and environmental degradation.
Russell Crowe didn’t help:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkTJm32bODs[/youtube]
View the trailer here.
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
Projection.
Typical of Hollywood. smh
The Wolf of Wall Street slipped the noose of a NC-17 rating, which would have clearly communicated it’s gross level of pornographic content and protected children from that adulterous indulgence. If money can get away with that then, basically NOAH is a film to be outright boycotted by all Christians… just to kill the opening weekend and send a major point home to hollywood, don’t f with Noah. Don’t f with the Bible. If money talks then speak their language if that’s the rebuke/evangelical message to send out. Then if you still want to watch this blaspheme take place on the big screen, wait until it’s almost out of theaters if you must, but ultimately it’s one to watch, if anything, at home, where you can turn it off and ’nuff said. Gimmie Shelter is the one that should be shown in Mega Churches. Noah, like all God’s great prophets, was defined in part by his great humility. Not because he could ‘get the job dumb,’ haha I mean ‘done’. Yeah, save yourself, leave noah to those who believe they have money DNA, lol-I mean MONKEY DNA-darwinists who think evolution somehow became a fact without being proven because they don’t mind being content with being in the dark about truths since that is more of a certainty than the possibility of seeing the light. At least this one made it out of the brown paper bag in the reviews. Oh, Gimmie Shelter…!
I attended a great workshop a few years ago where we learned what the Jewish people call a midrash. When dicussing themes and characters of the Jewish bible, the “whatifs” can really get far out. What if Adam argued with the Lord before leaving the garden, for example, what would he have said? What might the Lord have said?
I’m goingto try and keep an open mind, and meet this film where it is, like we try to meet people where they are. What do a bunch of god-denying filmmakers think of the flood story today? And isn’t it just a little wonderful that thousands of years later, people are still talking about it?
I honestly have never, EVER in my life heard of Noah portrayed as a bad guy until now. Thanks, Mr. Crowe, for that one. Quite the creative (and inaccurate) stretch. Maybe he should try reading Scripture for this one instead of a script? Just a suggestion.
I never expect Hollywood to get things right. They will take even people’s autobiographies and add in crap that never happened. Maybe we should stick with watching animated films about woodland creatures or something.
And as more Christians respond unfavorably to this totally non-biblical retelling of the biblical account, I’m thinking it will just give Hollyweird more reason to paint us as hateful kooks. When the truth is, if you’re deliberately choosing to retell the epic story written in Scripture inaccurately, you should expect that people are going to be offended.
Okay I have no idea how the infanticide deal would be gotten out of Noah’s story in the Bible, even if you add in Apocrypha there’s nothing like that regarding Noah as far as I am aware. Sounds like they are deliberately going for controversy and should be ignored. I don’t like Noah’s story because of the Ham thing, but they could at least try for historical accuracy (as in what’s actually been written in the Bible and passed down for generations) if they wanted their film to be successful in the US. Sheesh. People should completely ignore the movie if they find it offensive.
If they wanted a disturbing “God wants someone to kill a kid/their kid” story why not Abraham? Lol, there are lots of stories in the Bible that would be plenty controversial without making one up. Actually in the current climate Sodom and Gomorrah, told exactly as stated in the Bible, would be super controversial. Yeah, yeah, artistic license and all that, this has been done to plenty of religions and tales from all different cultures, but I think they are just going to mess up their US market.
You see? the evil one is still influencing mankind and distorting God’s inspired work. (But, he won’t succeed)
“The Wolf of Wall Street slipped the noose of a NC-17 rating, which would have clearly communicated it’s gross level of pornographic content and protected children from that adulterous indulgence. If money can get away with that then, basically NOAH is a film to be outright boycotted by all Christians… ”
That’s not how ratings work in the US. The Wolf of Wall Street didn’t get an NC-17 because they edited out the content that pushed them over the “R” rating into an NC-17. What happens is the censors view the movie, the producers get a list of things that show why a movie is rated a certain way, and they can accept the rating or edit and then resubmit the movie for a new rating. And why would anyone let their children watch TWOW anyway? Lol.
But you are right that money talks when it comes to the box office and what movies executives will green light (which is why we get ten million sequels and very few edgy or original movies). So if people really don’t want these types of movies made for mass market (independent films are a bit different) they should vote with their pocketbook. Which is why I think they’ve messed up their US market. “The Golden Compass” was made after a book with atheistic and anti-religious themes, and they only made it after carefully scrubbing it of all those themes because they didn’t want to tick off the Christians in the US (and they ruined the plot by doing this). And they can’t even make the next two because it’d be near impossible to scrub it of an atheistic message. So I think this movie will bomb if word gets out they interpreted it in a controversial way.
DLPL, I’ve also struggled to understand Ham’s crime and punishment. I suspect there is something cultural about his sin that’s been lost to us over time. I wish someday to sit among some rabbis and ask about these kinds of things!
There’s a big error eagerly set upon by racists that Ham’s descendants were cursed. There are almost 200,000 hists for “Ham’s sin” on Google. The explanation I like is that this is all the result of a grammatical misunderstanding. The sin was apparently Canaan’s, and that is why Israel was later told to push the Canaanites out 9f the Promised Land.
http://rcg.org/questions/p097.a.html
Maybe the moral of the story is: If you see your father or your granddad passed out drunk, keep your mouth shut?
It just seems to be an upsetting moral to me. Not because of the racism (I’ve seen people use the Curse of Ham thing against black people before, but I don’t think that’s in the Bible’s text at all).
I just hope Mr. Crowe doesn’t go down the same path as Mel Gibson. And what the heck are some of Nicholas Cage’s recent movies supposed to be!
“sigh”
Sounds like the screenwriters applied Extremist “Humans are Vermin” stuff they learned in college or elsewhere!!!
When will the hollywood guys figure out…the Christians/and I suspect many orthodox or conservative Jews/ want faithfulness to their Book?
Guess some Culturally Isolated “Don’t Need to Research My Audience” Hollywood Elite guys put this movie together.
You are right, Jack, the bible doesnt mention Ham’s or his children’s skin color.
It would be funny if the comedy starring Steve Carell turned out to match the biblical account more than this newer, more expensive story.
Actors should never speak without a script and even then about 99% of scripts should not be used either. :)
I think it will probably be along the same lines, they pushed global warming theorizing and over-population in that as well… It just bothers me they are pushing this onto Christians to try to get the idea through their heads that lowering the population is more important than preserving it and increasing as God has willed-I agree-God said multiply the earth, not try to keep your numbers down, and there are theories that show that if we had done so instead of terminated millions upon millions of God’s poor tiny creatures he was having so much fun making in the womb-we would have more than enough of everything because the greenhouse gasses and other things would be contributing to more habitable growing environments. You have to consider God has a master plan-that’s not hateful. Wanting there to be a masswidespread boycott of this dumb movie is a kind of Christian sacrifice that we can be doing to honor our Creator’s TRUTH for US-whom he LOVES. This Darenovsky guy is a true artist, albeit an atheist one, and he is not to be honored for misleading scripture. That’s a condemnation of his soul-especially to the extent of which he has driven his purpose which is to promote a one world agenda-I am not afraid of the left painting me as hateful-I ahve seen what their pro-abortion, pro-sharia law attitude is sending us in the mail. THAT is what I am afraid of, and for those against the will of God, I am afraid twice the more-for His justice is the magnitude of all fury. I feel bad for them, and I want to send them a message. If money is the language they speak, then as Christians we can pull together and we can denounce them a strong opening weekend, which is a big mercator projection for them as to how “successful” they are. I don’t think that’s selfish or hateful, It’s like-WAKE UP, DUDE THE FLOOD IS COMING. Talk about getting on an arc, how about the ARC of GOD’S HOLY LOVE! The flood is coming, are you getting ready?
I wonder if Ken Ham endorses it.
“It just bothers me they are pushing this onto Christians to try to get the idea through their heads that lowering the population is more important than preserving it and increasing as God has willed”
Nah, what they are doing is trying to be edgy and controversial and get people talking and hopefully seeing the film. If they are pushing an extreme environmentalist message, I bet it’s secondary to the almighty dollar (especially with a big name star like Crowe). Like I said, I think it might backfire on them.
“I just hope Mr. Crowe doesn’t go down the same path as Mel Gibson.”
Am I the only person who feels kinda bad for Gibson? I mean, I realize he’s said and done some absolutely awful things, but I listened to his tapes of him cracking up and I really think he’s got some serious mental health issues going on. I hope he is seeing a therapist. I would hate to be his PR team.
No I feel bad for Gibson. He got drunk alot and should not have been driving drunk on a regular basis. But the talking smack part is pretty understandable because he was basically talking smack about his bosses in Hollywood. He had no idea what he was up against by making a movie about Christ, and even less of an idea of what he was up against my making a massively successful classic epic drama on the life of Christ. He was faced with of alot of hate as a Catholic in Hollywood, and he got drunk alot and vented alot and he got tied to the Democratic Parties bumper, then dragged behind their media lap dog’s truck for it. I really don’t equate that with one who is promoting the ending of a human beings life before that tiny human ever sees the light of day! Nor is any worse than creating outright lies that shape laws, in order to entertain abortion-eugenics-agendists at the box office. http://blogs.answersingenesis.org/blogs/ken-ham/2013/11/19/dont-be-taken-in-by-the-noah-movies-promotion/ This link is from Dyanne Gonzales.
It would appear that Ken Ham doesn’t like it one little bit.
I feel awful for Gibson. Honestly.
But we’re probably not going to see the movie. I mean, mostly because we don’t go out to the theaters alot (we did get a rare date night and saw Frozen lol). But still. I’m not sure that I’d rent it, either. Maybe, though.
The infanticide aspect is disappointing because, as others have mentioned, there’s actually stories that includes that (Abraham; Solomon with the two women, etc). They are probably trying to ante up the drama and edginess of it. I mean it’s HOllywood. What can we expect?
The Old Testament God was pretty wicked….
AMC is playing ‘Braveheart’ right now, speaking of Mel Bigson, and “Gladiator’ with Russell Crowe just ended.
Ken Ham…. Don’t forget about Jack Ham.
Sadly, IMO, The Curse of the Bambino has ended. Does The Curse of Ham continue?
Gerald,
I hate to break it to you, but that Old Testament God is the same One shown in the New Testament to be Christ.