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I know that movies can sometimes exaggerate and take licence with historical characters, but after watching the movie “Noah” a couple of years ago, I couldn’t help but notice that the writers succumbed to the common Hollywood stereotypical depiction of a loony prophet of God gone mad. I guess it wouldn’t be so bothersome if you knew that everyone was reading in the Bible to get the real story and that people, particularly young children, weren’t influenced by a movie that was an  assassination on the character of a great prophet of God, such as Noah was.  The scriptures read:

“But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord…Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God. (Genesis 6:8-9)

I kept waiting to see the depiction of such a man quoted above, but he never came on-screen. Instead, I saw a bitter, angry, unreasonable man, who apparently can’t receive revelation from God in his times of need.  In the end, he is schooled on the meaning of his life by a daughter-in-law who is barely out of her teens.

I don’t usually let such things bother me, but…somehow watching Russell Crowe scour around for several hours on-screen while portraying a prophet left me rather empty and a little angry. Why angry? Because I have associated with men of God my whole life and none of them were of such a nature. So, when I see Noah’s character assassinated in such a manner, I think of these great men I have known, and I want them portrayed as they really are. Human, but of the utmost Godliness. Flawed, but doing the work of the Lord with humility, kindness, gentleness, and love unfeigned. That is the type of men I have come to know while working in the church.

It’s a shame that the real men of God don’t seem to show up on the big screen. Perhaps that might be because the men of Hollywood have never mixed with the men of God so as to write about and portray their true character. And that is a loss for both them, and for the world at large!