Eusebius, the "Father of Church History" Darren Aronofsky and Ari Handel did not write the movie Noah using the Bible as their text, say Joel McDurmon and Brian Mattson. Instead, the movie was written based on an ancient understanding of the world found in the Jewish mystical tradition of the Kabbalah, which, says Mattson, is “essentially a form of Jewish Gnosticism.”
It’s not easy to explain the Kabbalah and Gnosticism in one paragraph. Gnosticism is a wide variety of beliefs in which the material world is thought to be by nature evil, and salvation is said to come through a higher or spiritual knowledge of the mysteries of the universe. Kabbalah, according to Wikipedia, is a set of esoteric teachings meant to explain the relationship between an unchanging, eternal, and mysterious Ein Sof and the mortal and finite universe (God's creation). As I said, it's not easy to explain in one paragraph . . . or a dozen, for that matter!
Various Gnostic teachings were condemned by the early church and Gnosticism probably would have died out if not for three recent events . . . and now a fourth.
First, in 1945 a library of more than fifty Gnostic texts was found at Nag Hammadi, Egypt, and the “Gnostic Gospels” were promoted as a new and suppressed look at the life of Christ, a clever marketing twist on the early church’s condemnation of Gnosticism.
Second, in 2003 The DaVinci Code, one of the bestselling books of all times, suggested that the Gnostic Gospels had as much—or more—validity as the New Testament. The book suggested that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married.
Third, in 2006 The National Geographic published a lead article on the discovery of a manuscript of The Gospel of Judas, which contains “the secret account of the revelation that Jesus spoke” with Judas Iscariot. The magazine said that Judas was the disciple who was the closest to Jesus and turned Him over to the authorities because Jesus had asked him to do so.
In spite of the headlines and press releases, there is nothing new about the Gnostic texts. In the second century, Irenaeus called the Gospel of Judas “fictious history.”
Now we are getting a $130 million picture of the story of Noah seen through Gnostic eyes, say McDurmon and Mattson. One example is the movie’s reference to “the Creator.” Most viewers will assume that refers to God. Some will realize the term Creator is consistent with the strong environmental theme that runs throughout the movie. But Brian Mattson explains that in Gnosticism, “the Creator of the material world is an ignorant, arrogant, jealous, exclusive, violent, bastard son of a low-level deity. He’s responsible for creating the ‘unspiritual’ world of flesh and matter, and he himself is so ignorant of the spiritual world he fancies himself the ‘only God’ and demands absolute obedience.” It's nothing like the God of the Bible.
Gnosticism had an influence on some Jewish thinkers and later on some early Christians. It almost died out for 1,500 years. It’s now making a resurgence
What Eusebius said in the fourth century about the Gnostic Gospels applies to the Nag Hammadi library, The DaVinci Code, the Gospel of Judas, and now to Noah: The “thought and purport of their contents are completely out of harmony with true orthodoxy and clearly show themselves that they are the forgeries of heretics . . . to be cast aside as altogether absurd and impious.”
It’s not easy to explain the Kabbalah and Gnosticism in one paragraph. Gnosticism is a wide variety of beliefs in which the material world is thought to be by nature evil, and salvation is said to come through a higher or spiritual knowledge of the mysteries of the universe. Kabbalah, according to Wikipedia, is a set of esoteric teachings meant to explain the relationship between an unchanging, eternal, and mysterious Ein Sof and the mortal and finite universe (God's creation). As I said, it's not easy to explain in one paragraph . . . or a dozen, for that matter!
Various Gnostic teachings were condemned by the early church and Gnosticism probably would have died out if not for three recent events . . . and now a fourth.
First, in 1945 a library of more than fifty Gnostic texts was found at Nag Hammadi, Egypt, and the “Gnostic Gospels” were promoted as a new and suppressed look at the life of Christ, a clever marketing twist on the early church’s condemnation of Gnosticism.
Second, in 2003 The DaVinci Code, one of the bestselling books of all times, suggested that the Gnostic Gospels had as much—or more—validity as the New Testament. The book suggested that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married.
Third, in 2006 The National Geographic published a lead article on the discovery of a manuscript of The Gospel of Judas, which contains “the secret account of the revelation that Jesus spoke” with Judas Iscariot. The magazine said that Judas was the disciple who was the closest to Jesus and turned Him over to the authorities because Jesus had asked him to do so.
In spite of the headlines and press releases, there is nothing new about the Gnostic texts. In the second century, Irenaeus called the Gospel of Judas “fictious history.”
Now we are getting a $130 million picture of the story of Noah seen through Gnostic eyes, say McDurmon and Mattson. One example is the movie’s reference to “the Creator.” Most viewers will assume that refers to God. Some will realize the term Creator is consistent with the strong environmental theme that runs throughout the movie. But Brian Mattson explains that in Gnosticism, “the Creator of the material world is an ignorant, arrogant, jealous, exclusive, violent, bastard son of a low-level deity. He’s responsible for creating the ‘unspiritual’ world of flesh and matter, and he himself is so ignorant of the spiritual world he fancies himself the ‘only God’ and demands absolute obedience.” It's nothing like the God of the Bible.
Gnosticism had an influence on some Jewish thinkers and later on some early Christians. It almost died out for 1,500 years. It’s now making a resurgence
What Eusebius said in the fourth century about the Gnostic Gospels applies to the Nag Hammadi library, The DaVinci Code, the Gospel of Judas, and now to Noah: The “thought and purport of their contents are completely out of harmony with true orthodoxy and clearly show themselves that they are the forgeries of heretics . . . to be cast aside as altogether absurd and impious.”
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