Anecdote Noah's Ark

I was with my oldest son recently and he told me this story which I thought was interesting but am finding hard to draw a moral from. I have only been to Felixstowe once. It must have been some time in the nineties and I was there to preach at Bethesda Baptist Church. In the afternoon I went for a walk with a man whose name I do not recall. As we walked near the beach he picked up a brown pebble that had a grain and he told me that it was fossilised wood.

Well, I took the pebble home and showed it to my son and carefully explained how it had been formed (taking a creationist viewpoint). Anyway, he told me that in school the next day he showed it to his teacher and announced to her that it was an original part of Noah's ark! His teacher was very good about it and suggested that may be he had got something wrong, which he clearly had. Perhaps the moral is how easy it is to miscommunicate. I certainly managed to that time and put two people in a rather awkward situation.

Noah

(Paul Gamston or Russell Crowe?)

I was able to see the new film Noah yesterday afternoon. I have sent this review to Evangelical Times.

 

Noah 12A, a Paramount Pictures production in cinemas from April 4

 

One of my pet hates is the dinky sort of “Noah's ark” you see in toy shops and in children's books. The ark in Paramount Pictures new film Noah is nothing like that. It is a hulking great thing and when the animals come into it and it floats on the surface of the water in a worldwide flood, it is a great sight to behold. However, that is probably the best that can be said for a film that most Christians will be very disappointed with. The very fact I need to use the term spoiler alert here will give a hint at how far from the Bible account Darren Aronofsky's film strays.

Turning biblical narrative into a cinematic experience is fraught with difficulties. The very statement “12A Contains moderate violence, injury detail, threat” seems a little weird. We know that a feature film will never simply follow a narrative but needs to build in its own dramatic tensions. We were pleased not to have to hear an actor giving the voice of God and we were not surprised to see Noah's wife (Jennifer Connolly) given such a big part. We were willing to allow a large part to Shem's wife (Emma Watson, famous from the Harry Potter films) too and we can see that there is some room for argument on how Methusaleh, Lamech and Ham are presented and on whether Noah became a grandfather while on the ark. (The film takes us from Noah's childhood to his drunkenness and repentance with backward glances to the earlier chapters of Genesis). We can even overlook inaccuracies such as ignoring the 120 year gap between the command to build the ark and the flood.

What is much harder to stomach is the blatant rejection of the biblical narrative in favour of a wholly fictitious presentation of Noah (Russell Crowe) as a man with a death wish against humanity and an ark containing seven people not eight, one of them a villainous Tubal-Cain (Ray Winstone – who else?) who stows away for months only to be murdered before the Ararat denouement!

One of the problems with suggesting, as the film does, that Noah wanted to kill his own grandchildren and so leave the human race with no future is that far from creating dramatic tension, anyone who is thinking about the plot will be utterly unphased by all the drama that those playing Noah, his wife and daughter-in-law pour into their parts as the very fact that we are here watching the film dictates the eventual outcome.

Perhaps we simply have to accept that when those who are unwilling to treat God's Word as sacred are let loose on the Scriptures they will almost inevitably go wrong, sometimes, as here, spectacularly wrong. The theological problems with this film are there from the outset and throughout. We open with the hopeful words “In the beginning there was nothing”. Everything in the believer cries out “actually, in the beginning there was God” but you say “okay this is as near as we are likely to get from such a source”. A few frames in, however, we are introduced to “The watchers” an angel-like race who are fallen and yet redeemable and who help Noah build his ark. This is highly problematic as is the makers inability throughout to distinguish between the miraculous and the magical. Even when we get a count down of creation the idea that the sun and moon were made on the fourth day is firmly rejected, regardless of what Genesis may say on the matter.

Perhaps the biggest problem with the film is the way the Bible's chief theme of Messiah has been completely removed. The chief characters in the film come over as clones of 21^st century man in all his ignorance and arrogance not as antediluvians who are longing for Messiah to come. This is both anachronistic and verging on the blasphemous.

I was able to see this film ahead of time thanks to the efforts of an organisation called Damaris Media. Led by Nick Pollard, it seeks to capitalise on the existence of films such as this one by encouraging discussion of the gospel with people who see it. (See their website here http://www.damaris.org). The groups aims are most laudable and they have produced excellent materials to accompany the film. I just wonder if the task of getting from the fiction that is the film Noah to the story in Genesis will be a step too far in most cases. We do not have to tie our hands behind our backs before we evangelise. Of course, some people will see the film anyway and Damaris may be a help in highlighting how to take discussion forward.

Noah Conference at the John Owen Centre

I haven't been able to report until now on the John Owen Centre conference on Noah, partly because I have been suffering with toothache (I actually missed Stephen Clark's Lloyd-Jones lecture on Noah and the future on the Monday night, though I hear it was good).

On day one we had Steffen Jenkins and Garry Williams looking at Noah in a biblical theological way. Steffen simply looked at the text in Genesis 6-9 and spoke of the context in Genesis 1-5, the ruin of creation while God remained steadfast in purpose (6:1-8), Noah the new Adam and Noah's new world the global foundation of all future salvation. Garry looked at the Noahic Covenant dissenting from VanDrunen (see elsewhere on this blog) and arguing that it is redemptive.

On day two we had Ian Hamilton on the faith of Noah, Mark Garcia in America (by the wonders of modern technology) on Noah, the church and the sacraments (on ravens, doves and rainbows) and Geoff Gobbett on Noah the preacher for preachers.

It was all very interesting and stimulating. I'm sure most of us are not as well thougt through as we ought to be on Noah and his covenant. Steffen Jenkins (a new name to me) was perhaps the most stimulating with his very thorough exegesis of the Scriptures in Genesis regarding Noah. Garry Williams and Mark Garcia were also very interesting. The conference as whole was a blessing and the discussion of a good standard. Around fifty were there. The recordings are worth looking out for.

Here are some quotations that struck me

Steffen Jenkins quoted Gordon Wenham saying "The call of Abraham is the answer to the problems of the world" (See Theological Interpretation of the Old Testament: A Book-by-Book Survey)

Ian Hamilton quoted Bavinck saying, in his Dogmatics (III) “common grace and special grace…flow in a single channel” and Calvin on Romans 4:20 " Let us also remember, that the condition of us all is the same with that of Abraham. All things around us are in opposition to the promises of God: He promises immortality; we are surrounded with mortality and corruption: He declares that he counts us just; we are covered with sins: He testifies that he is propitious and kind to us; outward judgements threaten his wrath. What then is to be done? We must with closed eyes pass by ourselves and all things connected with us, that nothing may hinder or prevent us from believing that God is true."

Geoff Gobbett quoted George Orwell (in the novel 1984) "In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act." and Boris Johnson writing several years ago in response to a horrible crime

"Bourgeois Britain is going through a bit of a panic about the role of God in society, largely fuelled by nervousness of Islam. Attacks are made on faith schools, or on BA staff who wear the cross, and the idea seems to be that we can only voice reservations about one religion if we bash them all impartially.

That is why Richard Dawkins is having such a soaraway success with an atheist tract called The God Delusion, ...

Alert readers of this column will know that my own faith is a very feeble tinsel object. I sometimes think there might be some kind of celestial radio signal, but it is about as intelligible as Radio Tirana. ... My only thought, as I stare at the faces of Carty and Brown, is that, if we throw out religion, then we lose a useful tool in changing lives. You and I lead comfortable existences, full of pleasure and interest, and generally so heavily regulated that we do not face that many moral challenges. We may feel that we do not have much of a spiritual void to fill.

But look at these creeps, the shambles of "sperm fathers" and gang warfare and violence. It's not so much that they have been deprived of love, but that they have been deprived of authority of any kind, and our feminised paedophile-obsessed culture means there is less and less chance that they will find a male role model in the classroom.

However ludicrous it may seem, religion sets boundaries; it suggests to bad and loveless people that they are loved. It provides a framework.

Of course it would be nice if Carty and Brown were not recruited to some militant Islamic group; it would be nice if they turned to the good old milquetoast Church of England. But it doesn't really matter. We can't just string these people up. We can't flog them. We are forced to incarcerate and hope for the best.

Before we go all the way with Dawkins and chuck out religion, we should look at the savage and remorseless faces of Carty and Brown, and reflect that, if we are to have any hope of changing them for the better, then God is a useful card for society to keep up its sleeve." (See article here)

Noah Conference

Hoping to be at the Noah Conference at the John Owen Centre Monday and Tuesday. More here. A little bird told me one of the sessions will be on Skype.

Lord's Day January 20 2013

A busy two days means I've not been able to report on last Sunday until now. I preached on 2 Peter in the morning, having looked at the first three verses on false teachers the week before. I began by remarking that if anyone was unsure whether we needed to be warned about false teachers they have only to consider what has been reported about Steve Chalke, a professedly Evangelical Baptist, saying that in certain cases homosexual relationships are perfectly biblical. It would be unfair to label Chalke a heretic quite at this point (even though he has already given cause for concern with his denial of penal substitutionary atonement) but one begins to wonder where this will all end. The morning message was a wide ranging but solemn one on judgement and salvation. In the evening I preached on secret sins, leaning heavily on the work of Puritan Obadiah Sedgwick, I trust, dealing with the people before me. Numbers were down rather, especially in the morning, as the older folk weren't out due to the snow on the ground. We hope to have baptisms next Sunday evening.

Noachide laws

In a letter from a man seeking to witness to Jews that I read recently he say that in conversation with a Jew he was asked if he kept the Noachide laws. He explains

"The seven Noachide laws prohibit the worship of other gods, blaspheming the name of God, cursing judges, committing murder, incest and adultery, theft, and eating flesh with blood in it. A number of scholars have concluded that the regulations for Gentile believers laid down by the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15:19,20 are very similar to the Noachide laws."

More here.

Hebrew Noah

Spent a brilliant day at the John Owen Centre today looking at Genesis 6-9 with eight others (mostly recent ex-LTS) under the expert guidance of David Green. Previous days have been well attended but this was something of a test as we had to pay for the privilege this time. I think everyone would have agreed that it was money well spent. Once again it struck me that there are many things in the Hebrew text almosty impossible to detect by any other means. David works incredibly hard to prepare these days. By riding on his tails as we do a great deal of time is saved as although at a push I could possibly do the work myself I guess it would take me most of the week. The next one (on Abraham) is on March 16. Nice to have fellowship with the other men, all of whom I know to some extent. Ben Midgeley had a wonderful story of a recent conversion which I had only heard a slightly garbled account of.