The denial of evolution seems preposterous
I brought my 9- and 10-year-old boys to see Noah, the biblical blockbuster starring Russell Crowe and Emma Watson aka Hermione from the Harry Potter movies. It seemed like a safe bet: portents of doom, ark building, natural disaster but ultimately, heroic survival and a new beginning. What could possibly go wrong? Janey Mac. Quite a bit.
The movie is desperately silly but let’s just say they constructed the case for destroying mankind very well. We are left quite convinced that the descendants of Cain were a thoroughly bad lot.
Besides cruelty of a gruesome kind, there’s a heavy lathering of environmental crimes. The focus on man’s essential wickedness left me a bit queasy and I watched the children nervously to see if it was too much for them. As usual they surprised me. Despite the overwhelming bleakness and the modern parallels we’re invited to draw, the lads stuck it out and engaged in conversation for weeks about the implications.
The central plot, leaving aside the flood, was how Noah’s sons were to reproduce. With one female infertile, and all the others drowned, how would mankind continue after the deluge? The unsatisfactory Hollywood ending created an imperative to consult the actual Bible to compare narratives.
Possession
We discovered that in Genesis, the sons were already in possession of wives and children. Also, in the original text, God and Noah have regular conversations about what is to come and what Noah must do. In the movie, the communication is more oblique. Noah has dreams or see signs, and must interpret what God wants. This creates a fascinating dilemma because it turns out that on one key point, Noah gets it very wrong.
If you intend seeing the movie this is the point where I’m obliged to issue a spoiler alert. Stop reading now if you like suspense.
Since the writers conflate two narratives and an interesting sub-plot they impel Noah to make a shocking if ultimately erroneous conclusion. Between the unredeeming wickedness of man; the shortage of fertile women and an interesting sideline in militant vegetarianism (which has a biblical logic; apparently Noah didn’t eat meat): Noah concludes that God wants him to save the animals but his family is destined to be the last of mankind. Obviously this is a tad depressing and he goes mad and turns into a bit of a villain.
Fortunately, a pep talk with Hermione sorts everything out and all ends sort-of well. But I think the point is that in the absence of verifiable instructions from God, men running around the world telling us what they think he wants is bad news for everyone else.
Anti-evolution
This is just one of the messages of the film that has enraged a small if vocal peculiar constituency of evangelical Christians in the US. In my effort to learn which parts of the movie were faithful to the original text and which were inserted to liven up the plot I came across a website called Answers in Genesis.
The writers believe that Genesis is literally true and for instance, are anti-evolution. This is a significant movement in America with campaigns to teach Genesis alongside evolution in schools. Needless to say they were appalled by the wilful errors in the plot and recommended that their adherents avoid the film, which includes a scene of Noah describing the creation of the Earth.
It features a flashback of the Big Bang and fish crawling out of the ocean and ultimately the development of apes and man.
This endorsement of evolution outraged the site’s authors who encouraged their faithful to boycott the film since they “are called by our God to use our time and resources wisely”.
For those who argue that it’s just a film that should be enjoyed, they say: “This idea is contrary to the commands of Scripture – we are called to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.”
Obviously, there is much in every religion that requires faith in the supernatural but this denial of evolution seems particularly preposterous. But the awareness that people really think like this reminded me that Catholicism doesn’t obligate us to negate science.
I remember clearly being taught evolution in primary school and contiguously, that Genesis was metaphorical. Our teacher offered the entirely rational explanation that the story of the Earth being created in seven days was told by ancient people in order to explain their origins in the absence of science. But we were also assured that this wasn’t in conflict with faith in God, because evolution is in itself a miracle.
Noah is a silly film, but not half as silly as insisting the opposite – that Genesis is literally true.
Anyway, go see the film. The questions it raises make for entertaining inquiry and conversation.