TOW #23 - Ken Ham: The Unbiblical 'Noah' is a Fable of a Film by Ken Ham

Noah is a 2014 film in which a man is given a divine mission to save creation from a great flood by building an Ark. Based on the famous Bible story...or is it?

                 

            Ken Ham makes it clear that he is not a fan of the recent movie "Noah" in his article "Ken Ham: The Unbiblical 'Noah' is a Fable of a Film." Ham, who reveals himself as an Creationist and a believer of the biblical account of Noah and the Flood, admits that Noah may be the worst film that he's ever seen and argues that it is a very inaccurate account of the story from the Bible. He further claims that the film insults many aspects of the Christian beliefs, and that because of this, Hollywood will "have a much harder time in marketing future biblically themed movies to Christians.

            The key technique that Ham uses to defend his position is the comparison between  the movie and the actual Bible. The author first admits that to some degrees, the movie did have Biblical references. It is true that Noah and his family's names were all accurate, that the Ark in the  film was "true to the massive biblical proportions," and that there were many animals that boarded the Ark. However, the Ark illustrated in the movie did not look like a seaworthy vessel, and there were far more animals in the ark than the needed pairs of each kind of animals. Unlike the Bible which explains that the sins that the people committed were rebellion against God and man's atrocity to man, the film depicts the people's destruction of the earth as the main sin. Ham also points out that for a movie that is supposedly based on Christian ideas, it does a horrible job depicting Noah, who apparently gets the idea of building the Ark after drinking some kind of potion, and his grandfather Methuselah, who is like a witch doctor. To further prove that there are signs of "biblical fidelity" in the film, he compares the openings of the film and the Bible. The two seem to have very different ideas about the existence of God because while the former starts out as "In the beginning there was nothing," the latter starts out as "In the beginning God [...]." Ham also believe that the directors of the film got the message of the story wrong, because in the Bible, the account of the Flood is about judgment, mercy, and salvation, while the account in the film was solely focused on judgment. Just for the record, Ham still does not understand why some Christian leaders have recommended this movie when the movie is "so anti-biblical that it will do more harm than good in relation to the Christian faith and the Word of God."

            Using comparisons to effectively guide through his arguments, Ham successfully asserts that the film Noah is a very inaccurate account of the famous story from the Bible, and that the movie may offend many Christians with its pagan ideas. Through his argument, Ham's audience of Bible-believers would be able to understand that watching the movie  is not a great strategy of evangelism, and that they should find some other forms of biblical entertainment instead.