On Sunday and Monday, May 2-3, NBC broadcast a brand new version of the Biblical story of Noah and the ark (which held the highest rating for the week). At the very outset the viewer is warned (appropriately): “For dramatic effect, we have taken dramatic license with some of the events of the mighty epic of Noah and the Flood.” Dramatic license is far too modest a phrase for what was done in this miniseries. The liberties taken with the Biblical account make Max Lucado look like an unimaginative literalist.
Ordinarily, dramatic license from the entertainment media might mean inventing an old lover who surfaces after Noah’s commission to build the ark and serves as a temptation, which he must overcome. But, no, nothing that simple was contrived. The powers that be decided to make Noah and Lot contemporaries. In fact, it is Noah (instead of Abraham) who warns Lot to leave Sodom. This is not dramatic license; it is historic inaccuracy–and by 300 years! Those who know the Bible could not help laughing outright when Lot tells his wife that the destruction of Sodom is beginning–“just as Noah warned us.”
Apparently, their purpose for taking this “dramatic license” was to have God destroy Sodom first as a warning to the world. When people do not heed the warning, God then decides upon the Flood. Why anyone should have heeded the warning, however, remains a mystery, since there was no preaching whatsoever. Although the New Testament refers to Noah as a “preacher of righteousness” (2 Peter 2:5), he issues no warnings or pleads for the people to repent.
Those who produced this epic blunder either do not know the Scriptures or did not care. In the Bible the Flood came first, then the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah by fire and brimstone. That fiery termination serves as an example of “the vengeance of eternal fire” (Jude 7). In between those two events is the end of the world, which will also be by fire (2 Peter 3).
Listed as the writer was Peter Barnes; hopefully, he used an alias. This script was really, really bad. Sometimes, a little humor serves as good counterpoint to a serious production, but in this case it is as though someone found and used an old Henny Youngman joke book.
God broaches the subject of Sodom and Gomorrah being destroyed by telling Noah, “I have some rather shocking news.” Later, when Noah protests that the size of the ark is enormous, God says, “I think big.” Lot tells Noah, when traveling without his wife: “I usually take her with me. That way I don’t have to kiss her good-bye.” Ba-da-bing. Ba-da-boom. Noah tells Lot that he and his wife always were two peeves in a pod.
Lot and his wife were constantly ragging on each other. He tells her: “The trouble with you is somebody once told you to be yourself.” She says: “Man you must have been love at first sight, because if I had taken a second look, I would have turned around and ran.” He responds: “I didn’t know what happiness was until I married you; now it’s too late. That’s the way it is.” She remarks that he came out of obscurity only to go into oblivion.
Perhaps the introduction should have included a warning about the jokes in this movie. It is as though the writer spent a month watching stand-up comedians on television or consulted high school sophomores for gags. None of this material is fresh; it may predate the Flood, and it permeates the entire miniseries. Shem’s fiance asks him if his people believe in free will; he shoots back, “We have to; we’ve got no choice.”
The three priests who attempt to sacrifice Ham’s fiance to the rain god bemoan how difficult it is to find a virgin. When God intervenes to save her life and lightning starts hitting all around, one priest looks up and say, “Ya, ha. You missed me.” The next time lightning strikes his mouth. Another priest is struck blind, and the third one cannot hear. The scene closes with all of them in pain, looking like the three monkeys: see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.
There are even two prolonged death scenes that were intended to get laughs. Lot stabs someone who says he has something he always wanted to tell Lot. “It’s…It’s…It’s–” and then he dies. Even Get Smart was funnier than this. In another death scene, the man who was stabbed makes a speech beginning with words to the effect that life has always been unfair to him.
Noah and his wife, Naamah (in case the reader has always wondered), try to list ten righteous people in Sodom, Noah’s home town. He can’t think of any men except Lot. He asks her for some women’s names. “Sure, there’s, uh, no, not her; well, there’s, uh….” And so it goes. Even God is given cheap one-liners: “I would have liked a second opinion, but who could I ask?”
There were so many of these that remarks concerning them must be brief.
1. Sodom is destroyed because of its violence. Not a mention or a condemnation is made of homosexuality (except for Noah’s reference to a man of the city who liked young women and another who liked young men).
2. When Noah wonders if Sodom will actually be destroyed, God asks him if he needs a sign. Lava begins to flow down the mountain, and God asks, “Is that sign enough?”
3. As already stated earlier, Noah and Lot are not contemporaries (except in this production); it was Abraham who bargained with God and the angels who warned Lot to flee the city.
4. When Lot and his wife depart from the city, they do not have two daughters with them; they are alone (with no indication of any left behind).
5. Sodom was destroyed just after sundown instead of early in the morning.
6. Lot’s wife wants to look at the destruction to see her snooty neighbors and their homes burn. When Lot refuses to allow it, she complains, “You never let me have any fun.” When she breaks loose and turns around, she becomes a pillar of salt. Lot thoughtfully removes her wedding ring and then takes a finger for a souvenir.
7. Ten years later Lot happens upon Noah building the ark. He believes in the power of God but just cannot live righteously.
8. Noah tells God that there is not enough time to finish the ark (the Bible allows for 120 years, Gen. 6:3). He goes to sleep muttering some numbers. The next morning the trees that Noah’s sons had cut have all been sized, planed, stacked, and numbered so that Noah can easily assemble them.
9. The pagans have a rain god, and they accuse Noah of having stopped the rain. The Bible says nothing about the phenomenon of rain on the earth prior to the Flood; there was a mist that went up from the ground (Gen. 2:6).
10. When time ran short again, God finished the ark for Noah and his sons.
11. When the rain begins to fall, it burns people (acid rain?). Noah and his family do not enter the ark until after it has rained nearly 40 days.
12. The three sons are not married to the young women until the voyage is completed (but it’s all right; God forbade procreation on the ark for man and beast). The three fiances are named Miriam, Ruth, and Esther.
13. The men bring the women to the ark in the rain. Ruth wants her mother to come with her (which she seems willing to do), but she is forbidden.
14. The sons close the door of the ark instead of God.
15. Observing the compatibility of the animals with each other, it is observed the fox shall lie down with the lamb. [Psst: It’s a lion, fellas, a lion.]
16. After the ark has been afloat several days, a pedlar comes by on a paddle-boat raft, and they do some trading. At this point one wonders if Delilah will drift alongside the ark with her paddle-boat beauty salon. But then, maybe no one would take this production seriously if such absurdities occurred.
17. LOT RETURNS LEADING A FLEET OF PIRATE SHIPS!! In their first assault on the ark the pirates actually board the ark, but Noah and his family valiantly hold their own, and when some of the animals take an interest in the controversy, the pirates retreat. They launch, however, fireballs which threaten to burn the ship. When Noah calls to the Lord for help, the Lord sends a tornado which creates a tsunami that capsizes the fleet and douses the deck of the ark. As Lot drowns, he is laughing maniacally.
18. Lot is not only living in the wrong century; he is mischaracterized tremendously. At their second meeting, Lot tells Noah: “I’d worship Him too if He wasn’t so strict on rules and regulations. Next time you talk to the Lord, thank Him for saving me, and tell Him I’m sorry I wasn’t worth saving.” His spiritual destruction is inconsistent with one whom the Bible describes as “righteous” (2 Peter 2:7).
19. Noah protests that mankind does not deserve to be wiped from the face of the earth no matter what they have done.
20. There is a rainbow prior to the flood (which nobody notices); afterward they all see one, but the significance of it is not mentioned.
21. Noah performs a marriage ceremony (as ship’s captain) for his three sons after the ark lands but before they exit.
22. The sons discuss mutiny, and one of them fights Noah. All eight of them see a collective mirage. All of them are likewise driven to madness.
23. God decides to destroy the eight survivors, also, but Noah amuses God by whistling; so He changes His mind and lets them live.
24. Today’s “animal rights” philosophy was included when one fiance says, “I wonder if the animals will still be our friends.” Another replies, “Yes, if we treat them as friends.” There is no mention of God putting the fear of man in animals (Gen. 9:2).
25. Noah is presented as having a drinking problem. He comments that it doesn’t affect his work. Later, he buys from the floating pedlar some antediluvian moonshine–for medicinal purposes.
This erroneous epic anticipated criticism of their Biblical faux pas’s. In one scene Noah wishes that someday they might meet a scribe who would chronicle for them the destruction of Sodom. His wife says, “Oh, you can’t trust them. Scribbling scribes have a very bad reputation. By the time they finish the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, they’ll probably say we weren’t even there.” [After the city is destroyed, she does her Cheech and Chong imitation, observing, “Up in smoke.”]
The reader will probably not be surprised to learn that the theology of those who produced this miniseries was also skewed. Early on, one of Noah’s young sons asks, “But if God created people, why did He create them so they broke his laws?” His mother replies, “Some questions don’t have answers, Ham.” The answer is free will. The alternative is being an automaton.
Noah questions God’s judgment: “Why, when you created us, you made us free to sin, was this some great mistake?” God answers: “I hoped you’d become a nation of prophets.” He then tells Noah that He will disappear for awhile to think things over, which carries anthropomorphism a little far.
Noah asks: “If mankind was so bad, Lord, why didn’t you populate the earth with angels?” God answers: “The trouble with angels is: though they can’t deteriorate, they can’t improve.” So what about mankind after the judgment? Will not the same be true of us?
Lot states a deterministic philosophy: “What a bright world this is, Noah, if we don’t lose our hearts to it, but everyone does.” Not everyone does–permanently.
The final speech reflects upon the omniscience of God and flatly contradicts the Scriptures. In a final moment before Noah leaves the ark, God speaks to him: “Perhaps I went too far. I’m one, eternal, perfect, but I can be wrong. Don’t ask me to explain, Noah. I saw humanity destroyed, and I know that is not the way. I need man as much as man needs Me. We fulfill each other. So there has to be a covenant between us, one with another.” Noah asks if He will refrain from smiting man again. God replies: “I will keep silent and not destroy. Mankind is more than capable of destroying itself, Noah. It doesn’t need any help from me.”
If God can be wrong, what else has He been wrong about: morality, perhaps? There is a difference between God’s choosing NOT to explain something and being UNABLE to do so. God never learned not to destroy mankind, for He will do it again–by fire (2 Peter 3). Although those involved in this miniseries may be unaware of it, God retained water for the Flood from the creation (the windows of heaven). He certainly never drew the conclusion that destruction was not the way. His judgments and punishments are just.
Although man is certainly egotistical enough to think God needs him (for entertainment purposes, such as whistling?), the Scriptures do not so declare. We would not exist without His creation and without His sustaining of us. With better theology, historical accuracy, and a less trite dialogue, Noah’s Ark might have been worth watching. One cannot even term it Biblical fiction, however; it is Biblical fantasy.