The movie NOAH starring Russell Crowe is coming out at the
end of the month and I am anxious to see it.
These kinds of movies are usually very popular with American
audiences having been raised on Bible stories. My wife still watches the Ten
Commandments movie every time it is shown…tradition?
I am more interested in how the Bible story is portrayed and
the dramatic license that the director takes with the story to make it more
appealing as a movie.
The movie NOAH has been previewed to a number of religious
audiences to see how accepting they would be of the way the Bible story is
portrayed on the screen and, I suppose, the movie could be altered if the
reaction was very negative.
It was interesting to read that many in these audiences of
religious people were quite ignorant of the NOAH story as told in the Bible but
were quite familiar with the cute story of Noah and the animals they learned as
children…remember the invention of the rainbow as the sign everything is OK?
Many objected seeing Noah drunk and naked…not something they
expected from a man that saved the world…but drunk and naked was the way the
Bible described him.
I can understand why this part of the Noah story is never
emphasized by religion teachers; it’s complicated and controversial.
Basically, Noah plants grape vines after the flood, makes
wine and drinks it. He gets drunk and removes his clothes before passing out in
his tent. His son Ham sees him naked and tells his brothers who cover him up
while averting their gaze from his “nakedness”.
When Noah sobers up and finds out that Ham saw him naked, he
curses not Ham but Ham’s son Canaan saying that he and his people will always
be subservient to the rest of the brothers…got it?
This particular passage has been interpreted in a number of
ways for like ever…everything from a justification of the invasion of Canaan by
the Jews to a justification for black slavery (Ham populated Africa).
More on the movie and the story after I see it.
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