The Film Noah and the Flood

'Noah and His Ark' by Charles Willson Peale, 1819This film ‘Noah’, which was released recently in Brazil, presents a view that is inconsistent with the interpretation that the Church gives the episode of the flood and God’s covenant with Noah The film brings an interpretation that has nothing to do with the vision of the Church.Consider this.

The four chapters of Genesis (6-9) narrate the biblical flood and an expression of sin means that, beginning with Adam and Eve go spreading increasingly. This story contains, as you may notice when you read carefully, repetitions and contradictions. Exegetes (biblical scholars) conclude that the narration is a fusion of two documents (sources Priestly and Yahwist P J) keeping each their own details without which the sacred author would have to concern himself in harmonizing them with each other. This shows that the sacred author was not concerned with minor details, and aimed rather to a deeper sense, a religious message.

In the traditions of ancient peoples for nearly 290 ancient flood stories, and all with a common base: there is a major catastrophe because of a great offense against the divinity. The element of punishment that kills men and animals can be water, fire, earthquake, etc..

In Babylon there are four similar versions of the flood, similar to the Bible. Note that Abraham was derived from Mesopotamia. In the eyes of science there is certainly no one universal flood.

When the biblical text speaks of “whole earth” and “all men” it does not speak in a geographical sense, but religious, hyperbolic (Gen 41,54.57; Dt 2.25, 2 Chronicles 20:29, Acts 2:5) ie. mankind to the sacred author was reduced to those that transmit religious values ​​of humanity.

The message of the story of the Flood (Genesis 6-9) wants to show the following: God is holy and pure;God is just; can not let evil prevail; God is gracious; He invites us to conversion before correcting us. The flood marks the end of a period of religious history of mankind and marks the beginning of a new era; it is like the beginning of a new world, where God makes a covenant with Noah, the “father” of the new humanity.

Noah is a picture of Christ. Noah saved humanity by the wood of the ark, Christ will save you by the wood of the cross, from the flood of sin. Noah’s ark is a picture of the Church; just as no one survived outside the ark, no one is saved outside the Church. All who are saved, even if they do not belong to the Church, are saved through Christ and the Church, yet do not know it;

Flood waters are a figure of Baptism by water that gives life to the faithful and erases sins; the flood, as new creation, prefigures “the new heavens and new earth” (2 Peter 3,5-7.10) that there will be at the end of history.

As you can see, this vision of the Church has nothing to do with the vision presented in the film ‘Noah’.

Prof. Felipe Aquino

Professor Felipe Aquino is a doctor of mechanical engineering from the Universidade Estadual Paulista and is a teacher in the area Universidade Federal de Itajubá and was director of the Faculdade de Engenharia Quimíca de Lorena of the School of Engineering of Lorena, University of Sao Paulo for 20 years. He and his wife for 40 years Maria Zila (founder of the Cleofas Publishing) live in Brazil. They have five children and 9 grandchildren. 

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