Noah (2014)

After all of the hype has died down, I finally took the plunge and rented the Darren Aronofsky film Noah (2014). The reality of the work lies somewhere in between the Christian pastor rubes who were sucked in to endorsing the film and the shrill detractors who used even good parts of the movie as fodder for criticism.

I will give you the straight skinny on what to take away from the work (and, yeah, I’m going to spoil the crap out of it to do it).

Noah was the brainchild of writer/producer/director Darren Aronofsky along with his Harvard frat buddy, Ari Handel. Handel is an interesting character and even has a Wikipedia entry. Torn between “science” and the “silver screen”, it’s easy to see which won out (I’m sure his good Jewish mother was not happy).

Handel grew up in a Jewish family in Newton, Massachusetts. He was born in Zürich, Switzerland, while his father was studying abroad, but he only lived there for about a year. Handel also did an internship for Nova at WGBH, the Boston PBS station. He has a PhD in neurobiology from New York University.^[1] Torn between science writing and science education, he eventually became a film writer in an attempt to become a better communicator of science…

Along with films like Black Swan (2010), The Wrestler (2008) and Pi (1998), I’m sure Aronofsky fancies himself the next Steven Schmeilberg.

If you haven’t figured it out by now, yes, both men are resoundingly Jewish and that is the perspective you’re going to get, along with heaping doses of mysticism, gnosticism and kabbalah.

As a result, this movie has dangerous perspectives for Christian neophytes. Sadly, in America, that’s most Christians.

However, I am not recommending Christians avoid the movie any more than they avoid anything else that comes from Helliwood, just be learned about what I’m going to show you.

The movie opens with prose filling in the gap from Adam to Noah and, already, we depart from common Biblical interpretation with the idea that Cain was sheltered by angels directly involved with humans called “the Watchers”.

Nearly all of what we know concerning “the Watchers” comes from extra-Biblical texts like Enoch, Jasher, the Book of the Giants, the Book of the Watchers and more. Many of these documents are actually mentioned in Canon but didn’t quite make the cut. Jashar is mentioned in Joshua 10:13 as well as II Samuel 1:18 while Jude 14-15 (Jude is a 1-chapter Book) mentions the prophecy of Enoch found in I Enoch 1:9 (some editions have this passage as Chapter 2 verse 1).

It was also about these men that Enoch, in the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied, saying, “Behold, the L-rd came with many thousands of His holy ones, to execute judgment upon all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.” ~ Jude 1:14-15 New American Standard Bible (abbreviation added for respect)

So why not just go to Amazon, buy all of these and catch up on what you’ve been missing?

Firstly, because what is now called “Enoch” or “Jashar” or “Jubilees” may not be the same as what the Bible is mentioning.

In the same way that people write stupid e-mail forwards that say, “Pass this on and it will work for you!”, scurrilous authors have been known to ascribe their creations to famous people just to get themselves more coverage. The works that have made it into the modern Protestant Bible have been cross-referenced by a shocking number of manuscripts with very little change between them.

The amazing preservation of the New Testament documents can perhaps be appreciated best by comparing the evidence for their authenticity with that available for the works produced by the classical writers of antiquity.

One of the greatest textual critics of the past was F. H. A. Scrivener (1813-91). … In 1883 (prior to numerous more recent manuscript discoveries), Dr. Scrivener wrote:

As the New Testament far surpasses all other remains of antiquity in value and interest, so are the copies of it yet existing in manuscript and dating from the fourth century of our era downwards, far more numerous than those of the most celebrated writers of Greece or Rome. Such as have been already discovered and set down in catalogues are hardly fewer than two thousand [more than five thousand now]; and many more must still linger unknown in the monastic libraries of the East. On the other hand, manuscripts of the most illustrious classic poets and philosophers are far rarer and comparatively modern. We have no complete copy of Homer himself prior to the thirteenth century, though some considerable fragments have been recently brought to light which may plausibly be assigned to the fifth century; while more than one work of high and deserved repute has been preserved to our times only in a single copy. Now the experience we gain from a critical examination of the few classical manuscripts that survive should make us thankful for the quality and abundance of those of the New Testament (1833, 3-4). …

In more recent times, the late F. F. Bruce, who served as professor of biblical criticism and exegesis at the University of Manchester, stated:

The evidence for our New Testament writings is ever so much greater than the evidence for many writings of classical authors, the authenticity of which no one dreams of questioning. And if the New Testament were a collection of secular writings, their authenticity would generally be regarded as beyond all doubt. It is a curious fact that historians have often been much readier to trust the New Testament records than have many theologians. ~ The New Testament Compared to Classical Literature, Wayne Jackson, Christian Courier

But here’s the funny thing about Apocryphal and Deuterocanonical sources on the Watchers—they all say that these were bad dudes. Just about everything they taught men ended up harming us. Far from the idea of Prometheus the giver of fire punished for his compassion or Lucifer the bearer of light and knowledge, man’s increase in technology and understanding only exacerbated his sinful nature.

And these “Watchers” weren’t too nice about it, either. Not content to simply “watch”, they forced genetic experimentation on humans by raping women and creating weird hybrid offspring that they then possessed and ruled with, in the cruelest fashion, slaughtering and eating animals at first (created by G-d as companions for Adam) and eventually eating men.

And it came to pass when the children of men had multiplied that in those days were born unto them beautiful and comely daughters. And the angels, the children of the Heaven, saw and lusted after them, and said to one another: “Come, let us choose us wives from among the children of men and beget us children.” And Semjaza, who was their leader, said unto them: “I fear ye will not indeed agree to do this deed, and I alone shall have to pay the penalty of a great sin.” And they all answered him and said: “Let us all swear an oath, and all bind ourselves by mutual imprecations not to abandon this plan but to do this thing.” Then sware they all together and bound themselves by mutual imprecations upon it. And they were in all two hundred; who descended in the days of Jared on the summit of Mount Hermon, and they called it Mount Hermon, because they had sworn 7 and bound themselves by mutual imprecations upon it. …

And all the others together with them took unto themselves wives, and each chose for himself one, and they began to go in unto them and to defile themselves with them, and they taught them charms and enchantments, and the cutting of roots, and made them acquainted with plants. And they became pregnant, and they bare great giants, whose height was three thousand ells: Who consumed all the acquisitions of men. And when men could no longer sustain them, the giants turned against them and devoured mankind. And they began to sin against birds, and beasts, and reptiles, and fish, and to devour one another’s flesh, and drink the blood. Then the Earth laid accusation against the lawless ones.

And Azazel taught men to make swords, and knives, and shields, and breastplates, and made known to them the metals of the earth and the art of working them, and bracelets, and ornaments, and the use of antimony, and the beautifying of the eyelids, and all kinds of costly stones, and all colouring tinctures. And there arose much godlessness, and they committed fornication, and they were led astray, and became corrupt in all their ways. Semjaza taught enchantments, and root-cuttings, Armaros the resolving of enchantments, Baraqijal (taught) astrology, Kokabel the constellations, Ezeqeel the knowledge of the clouds, Araqiel the signs of the earth, Shamsiel the signs of the sun, and Sariel the course of the moon. And as men perished, they cried, and their cry went up to heaven … ~ excepts from I Enoch, Chapters 6, 7 and 8

Even when they taught seemingly benign skills like writing, it only helped man be lead further astray. They reveled in debauchery and furthered the practice by teaching women how to kill their unborn, bastard children.

The name of the fourth is Penemue: he discovered to the children of men bitterness and sweetness;

And pointed out to them every secret of their wisdom.

He taught men to understand writing, and the use of ink and paper.

Therefore numerous have been those who have gone astray from every period of the world, even to this day.

For men were not born for this, thus with pen and with ink to confirm their faith;

Since they were not created, except that, like the angels, they might remain righteous and pure.

Nor would death, which destroys everything, have effected them;

But by this their knowledge they perish, and by this also its power consumes them.

The name of the fifth is Kasyade: he discovered to the children of men every wicked stroke of spirits and of demons:

The stroke of the embryo in the womb, to diminish it; the stroke of the spirit by the bite of the serpent, and the stroke which is given in the mid-day by the offspring of the serpent, the name of which is Tabaet. ~ I Enoch Chapter 68 (some editions show 69)

This “Samyaza” mentioned above was one of the stars of Noah.

In the movie, the fallen angels were depicted as light beings (which is a good interpretation), but having “helped” man with knowledge (like warfare, rape, slavery and abortion) were cast down from Heaven and encrusted by the dust of the Earth to become rock people.

These, are what we are told in the prelude, are what “sheltered” Cain and his offspring. The Cainites (not to be confused with the Canaanites) used their advanced knowledge to create cities. Both they and their technology spread evil throughout the world.

So which is it, Darren? Did the secret gnostic knowledge of the Watchers help or harm mankind? Those who watch the Watchers in this film might get confused.

The Cainites were contrasted with the Godly line of Seth. In an interview with “Religion Editor” for the Leftist propaganda hub Huffington Post, Paul Raushenbush, Aronofsky told his adoring Jewish sycophant this was an important part of his story:

If you look at the genealogy of the 10 generations of Cain and 10 generations of Seth, a lot of the names leading up to Noah are repeated. So, we thought, “Hmm, maybe we just ignore that and say Noah is a descendent of Cain, the original murderer.” And then we said, “No, let’s honor what the text says and make Noah a descendent of Seth, and that there was a split and that Adam had three sons Cain, Able and Seth.” And it worked out well because it allowed us to have Cain’s line and the descendent of Cain and the idea that Seth’s line was the priesthood that was there to defend creation. Most people forget about Seth and that Noah is a descendent of that line.

This is reminiscent of a popular Christian heresy that states the reproductive mischief between fallen angels and women started when satan seduced Eve and she bore Cain. How else could Cain be capable of murdering his own brother?!

There are several problems with this, not the least of which is that Scripture clearly says that wasn’t the case!

Now the man had relations with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain, and she said, “I have gotten a manchild [with the help of] the L-RD.” ~ Genesis 4:1 (abbreviation added for respect)

No, there’s no easy way out. True bloodlines from Adam all have murderers in them, right on down to you and me.

The “lines of Seth” and the “lines of Cain” were the source of a different heresy that was popularized by the likes of Augustine and others because the traditional interpretation of angels mating with women was an embarrassment to them.

Now it came about, when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of G-d saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose. Then the L-rd said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.” The Nephilim were on the Earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of G-d came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown. ~ Genesis 6:1-4, New American Standard Bible (abbreviation added)

“—wives for themselves, whomever they chose” is a Hebrew euphemism for “they raped and defiled at will”.

As a result, they fabricated the nonsense that the “sons of G-d” were Sethites and the “daughters of men” were Cainites. This is ridiculous for any number of reasons, not the least of which is that from the Book of Job to any relevant Hebrew text of that age, “sons of G-d” implies a direct creation of YHWH. There are only 3 answers to that; Adam and angels. The third is quite mind-blowing, really; anyone who is Born Again by the Blood of Jesus Christ becomes a “son of G-d”.

There are several reasons why we need to pull back on demonizing Cain and his offspring. As Dr. Chuck Missler notes, Scripture tells us that several of Cain’s decedents were given Godly names. Why tell us this if they were wiped away in the Flood? Perhaps for the same reason that Cain was exiled and not executed—some of them were Godly people marred by sin but not condemned. We may be shocked to find a Cainite or two in Heaven when we get there, perhaps even a repentant Cain, himself.

So, as Ari Handel also told HuffPo’s Raushenbush:

At the heart of it is the big question—why is Noah spared? Why do we have wickedness punished at the beginning of the story and almost the very same words are used to say that wickedness will not be punished in the future? What does that change and how to understand it? …

For two guys who are supposed to be well-educated Jews, I’m surprised how much they didn’t pull from Scripture when it was right in front of them.

Normally, I avoid the pseudo-Shakespearian of the King James like the plague but it’s good not to get too reliant on one translation and for this verse, the KJV is best:

Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with G-d. ~ Genesis 6:9 KJV (abbreviation added for respect)

That word “perfect” is tā·mîm, in the Hebrew and implies a physical perfection of Noah’s genealogy. We see the word show up again in Exodus 12:5 describing the physical perfection required of the Passover lamb! Noah was chosen for two reasons;

1. He loved the L-rd.
2. His bloodline was not tainted by the Watchers which couldn’t have been possible had satan defiled Eve.

Genetic purity is the mortar of the Gospel Message: Jesus Christ is the G-d/man who’s miraculous advent combines a Divine Nature with pure human DNA. In order to qualify for the Redemption His blood-sacrifice offers, you, too, must be pure human. Angels can not be redeemed, nor can hybrids.

Yet we are fast approaching a time when human beings will no-longer be recognizable as such. We are under constant bombardment by electromagnetic energy and it has recently been found that as little as 50 minutes of an active cell phone next to your head can damage your brain and change your DNA. Nanoparticles found in your food, sprayed on you from above, injected to you from the clinic are doing the same.

So from the very beginning, our movie is not squaring with information critical to your spiritual well-being. “Knowledge” isn’t helpful to man, love is.

Knowledge makes arrogant but love edifies. ~ I Corinthians 8:1

In another really bizarre twist, we see Noah’s father Lamech, conducting a rite of passage with him, using the magical molted skin of the serpent from Eden.

Lamech wraps it around his arm, “activates” it, then reaches out to touch his son.

This is an ancient technology used in allowing unclean spirits to cross over from their dimension to ours, and it may even be used for enslaving human souls.

Some Hebrews considered the magic (witchcraft) of the Bacchae to be the best evidence of Dionysus’ Satanic connection, and, while most of the details are no longer available because Dionysus was a mystery god and his rituals were revealed to the initiated only, the Hebrew prophet Ezekiel made an important statement about the “magic bands” (kesatot) of the Bacchae, which, as in the omophagia [ingesting blood for transfer of DNA], were used to capture (magically imprison) the souls of men. We read, “Wherefore thus saith the Lord God; Behold I am against your pillows [kesatot, “magic bands”] wherewith ye there hunt the souls to make them fly, and I will tear them from your arms and will let the souls go, even the souls that ye hunt to make them fly” (Ez. 13:20). The kesatot was a magic arm band used in connection with a container called the kiste. Wherever the kiste is inscribed on sarcophagi and on Bacchic scenes, it is depicted as a sacred vessel (a soul prison?) with a snake peering through an open lid. How the magic worked and in what way a soul was imprisoned is still a mystery. Pan, the half-man/half-goat god (later relegated to devildom) is sometimes pictured kicking the lid open and letting the snake (soul?) out. Such loose snakes were then depicted as being enslaved around the limbs, and bound in the hair, of the Bacchae women. ~ Dionysus: The Psychotic Aspect Of The Demon Apollo/Osiris, Thomas R. Horn, NewsWithViews.com

Lamech is shown as a kindly man, instructing his adolescent son, Noah, in the ways of the Sethite protectors of Creation until he is brutally murdered by a young Tubal-Cain, who then steals the serpent relic for himself.

Now, not to give the bloodline curse any credence, but I have to warn you—there are an Enoch and a Lamech in both lines of Cain and Seth.

The Cainite Lamech is the first to take two wives to himself and then brags to them that he has murdered a youth for wounding him, and he claims the protection of Cain, 10 fold.

If Cain is avenged seven fold, then Lamech seventy-seven fold! ~ Genesis 4:24

He sires Tubal-Cain by his 2^nd wife Zillah, who is listed in Genesis 4:22 as the “forger of all instruments of bronze and iron.”

There’s that technology thing again.

Extrapolation to mythical proportions of Tubal-Cain is important to the Free Masons:

He was the inventor of edge-tools, and introduced many arts into society which tended towards its improvement and civilization. Tubal Cain is the Vulcan of the Pagans, and is thought to have been closely connected with ancient Freemasonry. Faber says that “all the most remarkable ancient buildings of Greece, Egypt, and Asia Minor, were ascribed to Cabirean or Cyclopean Masons,” the descendants of Vulcan, Dhu Balcan, the god Balcan, or Tubal Cain. Oliver says, “In after times Tubal Cain, under the name of Vulcan and his Cyclops, figured as workers in metals and inventors of the mysteries; and hence it is probable that he was the hierophant of a similar institution in his day, copied from the previous system of Seth, and applied to the improvement of schemes more adapted to the physical pursuits of the race to which he belonged.”

For these reasons Tubal Cain has been consecrated among Masons of the present day as an ancient brother. His introduction of the arts of civilization having given the first value to property. Tubal Cain has been considered among Masons as a symbol of worldly possessions. ~ Lexicon of Freemasonry, Albert Gallatin Mackey, p. 361

In The Antiquities of the Jews, Flavius Josephus notes—

Tubal exceeded all men in strength, and was very expert and famous in martial performances…

His depiction in the movie (played by Ray Winstone) as warrior/king is not without merit.

Next we’re introduced to glowing rocks that can explode, create fire, become mortars or rockets shot out of tubes, all kinds of useful things! They’re called “tzohar” and the Cainites wreck the landscape mining them.

I am not an environmentalist but I am a conservationist. Humans are pigs, especially smokers. To a smoker, the world is your ashtray and to unfettered humans, world resources are there for the taking.

If that word “tzohar” sounds familiar, here’s where you may have seen it before:

The Zohar (Hebrew: זֹהַר, lit. Splendor or Radiance) is the foundational work in the literature of Jewish mystical thought known as Kabbalah.^[1] It is a group of books including commentary on the mystical aspects of the Torah (the five books of Moses) and scriptural interpretations as well as material on mysticism, mythical cosmogony, and mystical psychology. The Zohar contains a discussion of the nature of God, the origin and structure of the universe, the nature of souls, redemption, the relationship of Ego to Darkness and “true self” to “The Light of God”, and the relationship between the “universal energy” and man. Its scriptural exegesis can be considered an esoteric form of the Rabbinic literature known as Midrash, which elaborates on the Torah. ~ Zohar, Wikipedia

Probably about now, you’re thinking, “Wow, dude. Why did you keep watching?” The answer is, “Because I was on the treadmill and didn’t want to hurt myself jumping off.” I hate to tell you, I’m glad I kept watching because there were aspects of the film that touched me.

HARMONY

Most illiterate Christians don’t know that G-d’s original intent for man was that both he and all of Creation would be vegetarians (Genesis 1:29-30), and that the animal kingdom was meant to be companions for him. The Creator further attached Adam to them by placing His handiwork before the man and having Adam give them all names (Genesis 2:18-20)!

The shedding of blood and the killing of what lives is a direct result of sin. Too many Christians lust wantonly after meat and modern society completely insulates them from the brutality of slaughter for consumption. Those who hunt for sport are feeding the killer inside of them. Their hardness of heart has the Creation crying out for them to awaken from their dead state (Romans 8:19).

Am I channeling a bit of “liberal granola”? Let’s just call it “compassion”. Thanks to modern society, it is near-impossible to live as a functioning vegetarian but it would do a Christian well to put the breaks on eating like a Neanderthal (please pronounce as TAL not THAL) and examine what it means to eat meat.

The movie jumps ahead to a grown Noah played by Russell Crowe as he forages the countryside with his sons Shem and Ham. Ham reaches to pick a flower because “it’s pretty” and Noah instructs him that the flower has a purpose, it sprouts, blooms, spreads seeds and sprouts again. They collect only what they need and leave the rest alone. I liked that scene.

But then the Cainites show up. They’ve wounded an animal they were hunting, desperate for the taste of flesh. Noah takes off after them and comforts the dying creature which turns out to be some kind of armadillo/dog. Some have suggested the scales were more reptilian. I’m trying to be kind. I don’t doubt that animals were different in this time, I just don’t know if that was a good depiction.

DNA is information in shockingly digital form and sin (scientifically known as “entropy”) loses information across time and generations so early canids were probably super-dogs and not scrawny armadillo/reptile things. By the way, that is just one of thousands of reasons macro-evolution is being seen for the farce that it is.

The three hunters attempt to go through Noah to their prize but he takes down all three, answering the question of the third—“What do you want?”—with “Justice,” and then the scene ends and we are lead to believe, he got it.

Ham asks why the men wished to kill and eat the armadillo/dog and Noah says, “Because they think it gives them strength. They have forgotten that strength comes from the Creator.”

They then hold hands and pray over the remains (I couldn’t tell if they were man or beast).

I hate to tell you, folks…I liked that scene, too.

Soon Noah is disturbed by visions and realizes he must speak with his grandfather Methuselah (played by Anthony Hopkins).

During the weird serpent-skin blessing Lamech gives to boy-Noah, he recounts for him his lineage and that comes from Genesis 5. I am again indebted to Dr. Chuck Missler for some fascinating insights into the names from Adam to Noah.

Dr. Missler’s adage is that everything in Scripture, no matter how seemingly inane or without meaning, has purpose—right on down to names of people and places. As Christ said in Matthew 5:17-18, He intends to fulfill the most insignificant “yot” or “tittle”.

First there was Adam and “Adam” has invariably been translated to mean “dust”, “earth” or “man”.

Adam’s sons were Cain and Able but Cain slew Able. Later, Adam “knew” his wife again and she bore him Seth and then explains in Genesis 4:25 for us that Seth means “appointed” because he was “appointed to replace Able.”

But replace Able in what?

Is it possible that the devil filled Cain with rage and jealousy over his brother in order to halt the lineage from which the Messiah would come?

More from Dr. Missler (link provided at the end):

Seth’s son was called Enosh, which means mortal, frail, or miserable. It is from the root anash, to be incurable, used of a wound, grief, woe, sickness, or wickedness.

It was in the days of Enosh that men began to defile the name of the Living God.

Most of your Bibles will tell you in Genesis 4:26 that “men began to call upon the Name of G-d” but that makes little sense. Sin was taking men away from communion with G-d, not towards Him and this interpretation is shared by both Christian and Jewish scholars alike—it was at this time that men began to profane the Name; ha Shem.

Next was Kenan. Enosh’s son Kenan, has a meaning of sorrow, dirge, or elegy.

His son Mahalalel has a name that means the Blessed G-d.

It was after the birth of Mahalalel’s son Jared, that some scholars believe the Watchers began to pursue their reproductive mischief and Jared means “shall come down”.

Jared sired Enoch—yes, the “Enoch” that seems to have given us so much of this information somehow though whether the books we have today were his is still up to debate. He got his advanced knowledge from the L-rd, not Watchers. He was so close, “walking with G-d”, that G-d simply took him (Genesis 5:24). Many understand this to mean that Enoch was raptured bodily into Heaven without seeing death.

“Enoch” means “teacher”.

Enoch’s son was Methuselah. Methuselah was the oldest man recorded in Scripture, living 969 years. If you do the math and pay attention, you see that the Flood came the same year Methuselah died. Aronofsky’s movie has old Methuselah happily embracing the waters and being killed by them but scholars believe (and I agree) that Methuselah’s death preceded the Flood as a harbinger to it. One clue is his very name which can be translated “his death shall bring…” It was testimony to the Grace and Mercy of YHWH that He extended the longest possible limit to His Judgment.

This was a difficult time for Godly people and many of these names show it. Lamech, Methuselah’s son, is no different and you can see that in English derivatives like “lament”. Lamech has been translated as “despairing”.

But his son Noah had a purpose—that’s another high point for the movie. It is a message that is repeated several times. “Noah” means “rest” or “comfort”.

When you put the names of Genesis Chapter 5 together, they give you an astounding message:

Man [is] appointed mortal sorrow. The Blessed G-d shall come down teaching that His Death shall bring the despairing, comfort.

MYSTIC METHUSELAH

Again, I want to be charitable to our two Jewish friends but I don’t know if I’d go as far as they do with the secret knowledge they credit Methuselah with having.

At one point, a young Methuselah defends the Watchers, hunted by the Cainites, with a fiery sword that produces a wall of flame. He can touch the forehead of Noah’s young son and put him to sleep. On the journey to find Methuselah again for wisdom, Noah and his family adopt a girl, wounded by roaming raiders. They somehow know that the ugly stomach laceration she suffers from, has made her barren. Later on, at the request of Noah’s wife, Methuselah mystically heals her.

Look, I’m all about the idea that Adam, today, would be a real übermensch in both mind and body. We have no idea what was lost in knowledge or genetic purity from him to us. But I have to say that it went a little over the top when Methuselah helped Noah understand his visions and his mission by giving him some funky peyote tea. Narcotics and soothsaying are strictly forbidden in Scripture for a reason. One of the “works of the flesh” listed in Galatians 5:20 is “sorcery”—pharmakeia, in the Greek. These, too, are used as vehicles for unclean spirits to pass over from their prison to our freedom. Loyal angels, however, have no such restrictions.

Forget not to show love unto strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. ~ Hebrews 13:2, American Standard

The flip side to the coin is the brilliant way Aronofsky portrayed communication with G-d. It was extremely subtle and, often, desperately asked questions were left unanswered right up until the very minute an answer was needed (at least for the Sethites—Cainites just got rained on).

What was Noah’s mission? —To save the “innocent”; the animals.

But the animals, too, have lost their innocence in sin. One need only look to the modern animal kingdom to see behaviors that defy explanation except via sin, killer whales that “play” with their prey, chimps that attack viciously and without reason. Even those same Hebraic ancient texts tell us that the Watchers mixed animal DNA and it was this very hybridization that contributed to the creation of monstrous hybrids—readily-possessed organic portals. From Persia to Greece, Assyria to Egypt we see depictions of animals mixed with animals and with men. They may not really have looked like that on the outside, but they sure did on the inside.

ON A MISSION FROM GOD

So now Noah knew what he had to do, but how to get it done?

Scripture is silent on just how the massive undertaking was accomplished but Aronofsky decided to keep his Watchers involved and although they started out ready to kill or imprison Noah with his family just because they were humans who were probably rebelling against G-d like the rest, it was Magog who started helping them. Eventually, the crusty old Samyaza was convinced when miraculous springs provided a new forrest for ark wood.

It is fascinating that “Magog” would be chosen as a Watcher name. At least, that’s what IMDb claims. The subtitles I watched claimed the Watcher was “Og”. Maybe he was “Gog”. All of those names have sinister overtones.

Years later, their task nears completion and the animals start to show up.

I do like how they arrive for Noah in the movie; one day, waves of birds appear. Time elapses and then a great many reptiles and insects slither and flutter aboard. Finally come all of the mammals great and small.

Here, too, our film-makers make the same mistake so many Biblically-illiterate Christians make. How many of each animal did Noah bring onboard the ark? If you answered “two”, you are wrong. It was “two of the unclean and seven of the clean” (Genesis 7:2).

The price of sin is death and it must be atoned for in blood. This began with the first sacrifice in the Garden used to clothe Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:21) and it is an excellent supposition that whichever animal it was, was dear to one or both of them.

Yet, they were all imperfect shadows of the ultimate Sacrifice of the Cross (Hebrews 10).

How did the animals manage the journey once on the ark? —Noah and his wife “Naameh” (played by Jennifer Connelly) made a sleep potion for them all. Again, a little mystic but I still acknowledge that the film was attempting to bridge the credibility gap in favor of the Biblical account.

Russell Crowe was a good casting choice for the hardened bastard, Noah, but Connelly didn’t transmit the appearance of what I would’ve thought Noah’s wife to be—a little too thin and frail.

However, the age was right and the acting was excellent. We get a lot of emotion from the troubled mother looking out for her children and future grandchildren. Incidentally, there is a “Naamah” listed in Genesis 4:22 as the sister of Tubal-Cain and daughter of the murdering polygamist Lamech, not Noah’s daddy, Lamech. The book of Jubilees claims Noah’s wife was “Emzara”.

And speaking of grandkids, there is much ado about how only Shem’s rescued raider victim, “Ila” (played by Emma Watson) has been provided as a wife and the other two boys got bubcus. Worse, “Ila” is barren (until mystical Methuselah lays hands on her). The resolution to it all is another deft touch by the movie that I think was done well and is true to how the L-rd usually does things.

But they haven’t left yet. As the rains start, Tubal-Cain decides it’s time to make his move on the ark. He’s got a plan to get past Noah and his Watcher buddies and a big battle takes place—evil hordes of men attacking poor giant Watchers.

The reality given by Scripture is quite something else and we see some of that in how a teenage King David takes on a monstrous Nephilim called “Goliath”. Those hybrids were raining terror on the inhabitants and it took nothing less than the Hand of G-d to cut them down.

As the men overwhelm the Watchers, they give up their spirits and are taken by the Creator back into Heaven!

I’m afraid that’s not how it works. Redemption is extended to humans. Angels who have rebelled don’t get a second chance. This is a mystery they long to understand (I Peter 1:12). When I first saw this in the movie I was annoyed, angry and chuckled ruefully but it is not something to laugh at. There are beings who are consigned to damnation with no way out. Our lives on this Earth are filled with Grace allowing us to change the course of our destinies and we should hold that with humble reverence.

Redemption for the Fallen Ones is a myth spun from Kabbalah.

It occurred to me that a mystical tradition more closely related to Judaism, called Kabbalah (which the singer Madonna made popular a decade ago or so), surely would have held a similar view, since it is essentially a form of Jewish Gnosticism. I dusted off … my copy of Adolphe Franck’s 19th century work, The Kabbalah, and quickly confirmed my suspicions:

“Before they were beguiled by the subtleness of the serpent, Adam and Eve were not only exempt from the need of a body, but did not even have a body—that is to say, they were not of the earth.”

Franck quotes from the Zohar, one of Kabbalah’s sacred texts:

“When our forefather Adam inhabited the Garden of Eden, he was clothed, as all are in heaven, with a garment made of the higher light. When he was driven from the Garden of Eden and was compelled to submit to the needs of this world, what happened? God, the Scriptures tell us, made Adam and his wife tunics of skin and clothed them; for before this they had tunics of light, of that higher light used in Eden…” …

I discovered what Darren Aronofsky’s first feature film was: Pi. Want to know its subject matter? …

Kabbalah. …

The world of Aronofsky’s Noah is a thoroughly Gnostic one: a graded universe of “higher” and “lower.” The “spiritual” is good, and way, way, way “up there” where the ineffable, unspeaking god dwells, and the “material” is bad, and way, way down here where our spirits are encased in material flesh. This is not only true of the fallen sons and daughters of Adam and Eve, but of fallen angels, who are explicitly depicted as being spirits trapped inside a material “body” of cooled molten lava.

Admittedly, they make pretty nifty movie characters, but they’re also notorious in Gnostic speculation. Gnostics call them Archons, lesser divine beings or angels who aid “The Creator” in forming the visible universe. And Kabbalah has a pantheon of angelic beings of its own all up and down the ladder of “divine being.” And fallen angels are never totally fallen in this brand of mysticism. To quote the Zohar again, a central Kabbalah text: “All things of which this world consists, the spirit as well as the body, will return to the principle and the root from which they came.” Funny. That’s exactly what happens to Aronofsky’s Lava Monsters. They redeem themselves, shed their outer material skin, and fly back to the heavens. Incidentally, I noticed that in the film, as the family is traveling through a desolate wasteland, Shem asks his father: “Is this a Zohar mine?” Yep. That’s the name of Kabbalah’s sacred text.

The entire movie is, figuratively, a “Zohar” mine. ~ Sympathy For The Devil, Dr. Brian Mattson

As springs burst up through the ground, finishing off the invading army, Tubal-Cain manages through his indomitable spirit of conquest to hack into the ark and collapse.

Did anyone manage to avoid the just cleansing of the Flood? The Bible may hint at one hybrid who did just that.

Deuteronomy 3:11 states that Og, king of Bashan was only remnant of the undead Rephaim. That same verse tells us he slept on a bed of 9 cubits by 4 cubits. A “cubit” has the street measurement of a man’s elbow to the tip of his middle finger, averaging about 17 ½ to 18 inches. An Egyptian Royal cubit was 20 inches. That would’ve made Og’s bed 15 feet long and Og, himself, about 13 feet tall. Did he find a way to weather the Flood?

HOMICIDAL HERO

So if Noah is on a mission to save Creation from all of mankind, because all man is infected with sin (a very Christian concept, by the way), we have a problem. Mystic Methuselah has enabled Shem’s wife to conceive and conceive she does. In order to properly carry out his task, Noah must become Abraham and end his own line.

Prior to this, he was happy to simply let his family die a natural death, and mankind with them. But if “Ila” bears girls, they could become wives for his other sons. He must maintain his discipline, stay true to the Judgment of the Flood, and kill his grand-daughters.

I’m not nearly as aghast at this plot twist as so many of my Christian brother critics are. It does logically keep the suspense going along with Tubal-Cain stowing away.

Is it harsh?

Read your Bible.

Live your life dedicated to Yeshua of Nazareth where you chose what He tells you over what’s easiest for you.

You will never, ever despair, but you will learn what “harsh” is all about.

Like Abraham, Noah spares killing his twin grand-daughters by an excellent bit of writing from our movie-makers.

The whole idea of “innocent” animals and unredeemable, sinful man is honest but has a resolution our Jewish writers can not see.

In the Huffington Post interview, Raushenbush asks Aronofsky and Handel:

If you were giving this film as a sermon, what would its title be?

Handel: Noah.

Raushenbush: C’mon, at least give me a colon.

Aronofsky: Noah: What It Means To Be Righteous

Raushenbush: That’s yours? “Noah: The Wickedness of Man”

Handel: But that’s only half of the story.

Aronofsky: The other half is the goodness

Handel: This is about mercy and justice.

Aronofsky: It could be Noah: Mercy and Justice.

When “Naameh” pleads for the life/lives of her grandchildren to Methuselah, asking him to intervene with Noah, he asks, “Who is ‘good’ and who is ‘wicked’? … The choice will still fall to Noah.”

As a quick aside, I have to admit having a bit of compassion for the lead actor in the film—far from needing my compassion, Russell Crowe is a child in a millionaire’s body but he seemed rather defensive in an interview I watched and he repeated a line from the movie regarding why Noah was chosen, not because he was “good” but because he could get the job done. Actually, he was chosen because he was “good” (loved the L-rd) but being a harsh, disciplined prick was probably true as well!

Who is “wicked”? Paul quotes from Psalms 14 and 53 to make the point that everyone is.

What then? Are we better than they? Not at all. For we have previously charged both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin.

As it is written:

“There is none righteous, no, not one;
There is none who understands;
There is none who seeks after G-d.
They have all turned aside;
They have together become unprofitable;
There is none who does good, no, not one.”
“Their throat is an open tomb;
With their tongues they have practiced deceit”
“The poison of asps is under their lips”;
“Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.”
“Their feet are swift to shed blood;

Destruction and misery are in their ways;
And the way of peace they have not known.”
“There is no fear of God before their eyes.” ~ Romans 3:9-18 NKJV (abbreviation and capitalization added to correct lack of respect)

For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But G-d demonstrates His own Love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His Blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to G-d through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His Life. And not only that, but we also rejoice in G-d through our L-rd Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation. ~ Romans 5:6-11 New King James Version (abbreviation and capitalization added to correct lack of respect)

But back to our movie where, at several points, Noah has a vision of standing in blood—powerful.

Not killing his grand-daughters and the stress of what he endures causes Noah to despair. There is a climactic battle that finishes Tubal-Cain but continues Ham’s path toward a cursed future.

After they hit landfall, Noah enters a self-imposed exile. He finds grapes and drinks himself into a naked stupor.

In the movie, Ham never comes near his father, he appears to alert his brothers who cover him up without looking. In Genesis 9:20-27, we sense that Noah was very angry with what Ham had done and curses his offspring, Canaan. This is never covered in the movie and Noah getting drunk from grief resonated with me. Scripture always seemed to imply that it was wanton drunkenness but I like this interpretation much better.

Many see the curse of Canaan as relating to why Ham’s black African offspring have suffered so much across the ages. You will have to do your own research and come to your own conclusions.

I was surprised at how delicate this was handled in the movie—you don’t even realize Ham has done anything wrong.

Some Hebraic commentaries imply some really nasty things, both heterosexual (as to why it is Canaan and not Ham that is cursed) and homosexual. We will never know.

The movie ends with “Ila” restoring Noah from his perceived failure by reaffirming that he was chosen for a reason. Looking on the internet has shown me that this “Emma Watson” girl is some kind of pop star so good writing has kept my annoyance factor for her down, especially this scene.

“THIS MEANS SOMETHING…THIS IS IMPORTANT”

Like Richard Dreyfus staring at a mound of mashed potatoes in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, I have to tell you that all of these topics are relevant today.

As I said in the beginning, I wouldn’t think to subject a baby Christian (at whatever their actual age), to watching this movie lest by watching they think highly of the Watchers. But I was actually glad I did and, who knows…if I see it in the bargain bin a year from now I’ll think long and hard on it.

But the reality of the Bible states the very thing Aronofsky turned on its head—the role of the fallen angels—was the foundation of why the Earth was judged. Their sexual sin and DNA tampering was the final straw for YHWH.

Think you’ll ever see “Samyaza” and the rest? Don’t count on it. The technology and knowledge they used may have caused them to go into immediate imprisonment (note the connection to the gross immorality of Sodom and Gomorrah).

…if G-d did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment; and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; and if He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly lives thereafter; and if He rescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men (for by what he saw and heard that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds), then the L-rd knows how to rescue the godly from temptation… ~ II Peter 2:4-9, NASB (abbreviation added for respect)

…angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the Great Day… ~ Jude 6

Was that the end of it?

No.

From the very beginning, we are warned that this took place in the time of Noah “and also afterward…” (Genesis 6:4).

After the new Israelite nation was freed from slavery in Egypt, they came to the Promised Land of Canaan. But 10 of the 12 spies came back to Moses with a “bad report”—the land is filled with giants who devour its inhabitants and we are like grasshoppers in their sight (Numbers 13:33). Did you know it was this reason that they were punished to wander the desert for another 40 years? —Because they were terrified by the monstrous hybrids they were to go to battle with.

For generations critics of the Bible have mocked the instructions of YHWH to kill every man, woman and child (and sometimes even beasts) but the DNA tampering makes it all fall into place. In Deuteronomy 20 He actually goes as far as to say “kill everything within this epicenter of effected tribes but those on the outskirts, spare the women and children…” (see verses 15 and 16 but read the whole chapter).

Anyone who studies modern “aliens” or “alien abductions” soon falls into perverse stories of reproductive experimentation. Have the Watchers returned? Are they building another army, this time to dispossess the Godly from the whole Earth?

Perhaps an even more important question is, “Have they found Tubal-Cain scientists to fill in the gaps left by the imprisoned Fallen Ones?”

In Matthew 24, Jesus sets the conditions to warn us of when His Return was imminent.

But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of Heaven, but My Father only. But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. ~ Matthew 24:36-37

Looks like we’re already there.

150 Human Animal Hybrids Grown In UK Labs: Embryos have been produced secretively for the past three years.
Daniel Martin and Simon Caldwell, Mail Online, 15:18 EST, 22 July 2011