Noah Historical Accuracy

Historical Analysis of Noah

Emma O’Neil

CHW3M0-B

Ms. Kuypers

May 16th, 2014

Noah

It was once said “if you don’t remember history accurately, how can you learn?” Accurate portrayals of historical Hollywood movies are more or less unheard of. These movies show a false representation of what occurred in the time period, making it hard for people to know fact from fiction about the past. The movie Noah, despite its best efforts, is not historically accurate because it does not follow the events as outlined in Genesis, has many essential character differences, and ignores the Mesopotamian origins of the story. When comparing Noah to Genesis, it differs greatly in both key events and morals. In Genesis,
Shem, Ham, and Japeth are the three sons of Noah who, in the bible, all have wives who are brought onto the ark with them. In the movie, Shem is the only son with a wife – Ila. Ila is one of the main characters in the movie and her barrenness is an essential conflict throughout the film. In the bible however she is rarely mentioned, except as Shem’s wife, “And Noah went in, and his sons, and his, wife, and his sons’ wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood.” (Genesis, 1962, p. 4). Also in Genesis, Noah is said to be six hundred years old when the flood finally arrives. “In the six hundredth year of Noah 's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.” (Genesis, 1962, p. 4) He is also said to live to be nine hundred and forty years old. In the film, Noah looks as if he is about fifty years old but no real date is given to his age. His sons too, are all young men, while in the bible they would have been over hundreds of years old. Lastly, “watchers” have been added to the movie. In the bible, Noah appears to have built the ark by himself with the help of his family. In the film however, Noah seeks help from the “watchers” – fallen angels who came to earth to help humanity but were ultimately punished by God and turned into giant rocks.
Gilgamesh is the first written story ever found to date, written in 2000 BCE. The epic tells the story of the king of Uruk, Gilgamesh, and his quest to find eternal life. During that quest, he speaks to a man who has lived through a great flood, just like the one told in the bible. The Mesopotamians would have believed in a great flood occurring at some point because of their geography. The Tigris and Euphrates lined what used to be Mesopotamia (now present day Iraq). These rivers frequently flooded and according to Cohn’s (1996), “In ancient times this phenomenon gave rise to a powerful tradition: it was believed there had once been a flood so overwhelming that nothing was ever the same again.” (pg.1). Noah does not include any Mesopotamian or Middle Eastern origins. The characters in the movie were European, white males and females. This was highly unlikely given that the origins of Genesis started in 1600 BCE, when Moses was alive. It is also believed that the story of Noah dates back to Mesopotamia because of Irving Finkel. He has been examining a Babylonian tablet written in cuneiform for over twenty years. Just this year he found that the tablet dates back to around 1750 BCE and contained a detailed explanation on how to build an ark: "Draw out the boat that you will make on a circular plan; Let her length and breadth be equal ... I The wild animals from the steppe, Two by