There is a lot of Hollywood hype these days about the movie, “Noah” with Russell Crowe. I have very mixed feelings about this sort of thing. On the one hand, the trailers are intriguing. It looks like an action-packed thriller with some interesting actors. It might be worth seeing for those reasons alone, if you like that kind of movie.

On the other hand, movies about biblical stories are fraught with problems, not the least of which is accuracy. Hollywood tends to take incredible liberties with scripture, which is understandable since scripture is usually very succinct and would hardly make for a full-length film. The principle danger, it seems to me, is that people who don’t know much about scripture put more stock in the movie than in the Bible.

It’s no secret that I am not a literalist when it comes to the Bible. As I’ve said before: I take the Bible too seriously to take it literally. (That’s not original, but I can’t remember who said it first.) In fact, I believe that taking scripture literally, especially in selective bits and pieces, contributes to grave distortions. And don’t even get me started on the issue of translations from the original languages into English!

Enough of my soapbox. If you decide to see the movie, let me know what you think. I hope you’ll take time beforehand to read the story of Noah in the Bible. It begins in Genesis at chapter 6, verse 5, and goes through chapter 8; not long at all. (If you’re looking for the part about the rainbow, skip over to chapter 9, verses 12 through 17.) Who knows – maybe I’ll go see it, too. But I won’t be thinking of it as scripture; maybe more as science fiction.