Writers & Movies

Writers & Movies

Many Bible stories have been made into movies, some successful, and some not. I tried once to watch one called ‘Noah’, but was horrified to see how little resemblance it had to the Genesis story! I was left wondering why the writers didn’t stick more closely to the Bible. Of course, not every writer sees the Bible as I do, i.e., as God’s infallible and inerrant Word. Indeed, writers who write books and articles attempting to disprove the Bible’s reliability are legion. Invariable they attempt to show the reader that the Bible is full of contradictions. Then there’s the plethora of writers who convincingly demonstrate the exact opposite!

The Bible was written by around forty writers writing over a period of around fifteen hundred years. Beginning with Moses writing the first five books of the Bible around 1400 BC and ending with the completion of the New Testament, probably before AD 70 and the destruction of the Temple. However, Genesis 5:1 needs to be noted, ‘This is the written account of Adam’s family line.’ The words ‘written account’ or ‘the book of the genealogy of Adam’ suggest the possibility that Moses inherited a ‘book’ dealing with the histories of Adam and his descendants all the way down to Noah and the Flood. For, Genesis 10:1 begins differently. There’s no mention of the word ‘written’: ‘Now this is the genealogy of the sons of Noah: Shem, Ham and Japheth. And sons were born to them after the flood'.

Who, ultimately, were the Bible’s writers writing about? We know the New Testament writers wrote about Jesus, but what about the Old Testament’s writers? Speaking to some Jews Jesus said, ‘You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they that speak of Me’ John 5:39. And, after His resurrection, Jesus spoke to a couple of His disciples on the road to Emmaus, ‘“These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me.” And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures’ Luke 24:44. Thus, Jesus also believes in the veracity of Scripture, and that He is the primary subject!

Jesus even referred to Jonah and the fish, that story that is so hard for some to swallow: ‘For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth’ Matthew 12:40. And, keeping in mind the ‘Noah’ movie with its invented storyline, Jesus says, ‘But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be’ Matthew 24:37-39. Thus Jesus treated Jonah and the fish, Noah and his ark, the Flood etc., as historical events featuring historical people. Therefore, if you are a writer and you are thinking of writing a screenplay about a Bible story, you ought to keep in mind what Jesus Himself thinks about the Bible, Old and New Testaments and their stories: they speak of Him!

Why needlessly get Christians offside by false portrayals of Bible stories? But more importantly, why get Jesus offside?