John Mark Hicks

Book Recommendations by John Mark Hicks

I have been doing a lot of reading in this area for years and much more recently. In fact, the first week in October I finished the definitive history of the October 1974 war between Israel and Egypt in the south, and between Syria and Israel in the north. The book was Abraham Rabinovich, The Yom Kippur War: The Epic Encounter That Transformed the Middle East (Penguin Random House, 2017).

If you have an additional suggestions, as this is certainly not an exhaustive list or even necessarily the best books on the topic, feel free to add another or more in the comments.

 General Historical Introduction up to 2019.

Dov Waxman, The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: What Everyone Needs to Know (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019). Intentionally balanced and as about as objective as one can achieve.

Scholarly History of Palestine up to 2022.

Ilan Pappe, A History of Modern Palestine, 3^rd edition (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2022). Engages scholarly literature, details the history of Palestine, critiques both Palestinian and Israeli narratives, and provides critical assessment of key historical events and peacemaking attempts.

Contemporary Reflection on “Land” in Current Theological/Political Context.

Walter Brueggemann, Chosen? Reading the Bible amid the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2015). Drawing on both Israeli and Palestinian peace advocates, he critiques both “promised land” ideology and violence in the land, particularly focused on the militarization of the state of Israel. He discourages the use of the Bible as a direct support for the state of Israel and their inheritance as belonging to that state “forever.”

From the Jewish Perspective.

Yossi Klein Halevi, Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor (San Francisco: Harper, 2018). This Israeli author uses personal experience, history, and ethnic identity to describe what it is like to live in Israel. Often empathizing with Palestinians, he defends the need for a morally responsible and democratic state as a Jewish homeland in the Middle East.

Palestinian Perspective on Reading the Bible.

Mirei Raheb, Faith in the Empire: The Bible Through Palestinian Eyes (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2014). If you want to understand how Palestinian Christians see the conflict in the light of the Bible, this is probably the best book. He seeks peace from the conflict.

History of Zionist Settlement in Palestine.

Rashid Khalidi, Hundred Year’s War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017 (Picador Paper, 2021). Written from a Palestinian perspective, this book tells the story of Zionist settlement enabled by 20th century Western empires. It recognizes the mistakes by both Palestinians and Jewish settlers. It is a dispute about land, not religion or ethnicity.

Biblical Theology of Land in the Light of Jesus.

1. Gary M. Burge, Jesus and the Land: The New Testament Challenge to “Holy Land” Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2010). He denies that Christian Zionism is consistent with New Testament biblical theology. The promises that belong to Abraham belong to all those who trust in the Jewish Messiah, Jesus.
2. O. Palmer Robertson, Israel of God: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow (Philipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 2000).  He argues that Abrahamic promise is fulfilled through the Messiah in the Church, who is the Israel of God (Gentiles grafted into Israel), and, consequently, the state of Israel has no perpetual claim to the land they inhabit.
3. Darrell L. Bock and Mitch Glaser, eds., The People, the Land, and the Future of Israel: Israel and the Jewish People in the Plan of God (Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 2014). Multi-author work which covers the major concerns of those who propose Israel still has a future in the land, perhaps including the state of Israel, and, at the same time, seeking peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Season 1, Episode 2.

Available on Apple Podcast here.

Available on Vimeo here.

Stan Wilson, Haley Villacorta, David Villacorta, and I have begun a series of podcasts/videos about “The Chosen” produced and directed by Dallas Jenkins.

These conversations seek to explore one dimension of “The Chosen” per episode. This week we focus on Nicodemus in the first season.

Nicodemus is a seeker filled with wonder and the capacity to transcend his traditions. Yet, he cannot fully and publicly commit.

Join us for the conversation!

Season 1, Episode 1.

Available on Apple Podcasts here.

Available on Vimeo here.

Stan Wilson, Haley Villacorta, David Villacorta, and I have begun a series of podcasts/videos about “The Chosen” produced and directed by Dallas Jenkins.

These conversations seek to explore one dimension of “The Chosen” per episode. This week we focus on Mary in the first episode in the first season.

We see the dramatized interaction between Jesus and Mary in that episode as a proclamation of the good news of God in Jesus.

Join us for the conversation!

Situation: the rise of trans people, especially among children (e.g., adolescent girls)

In 2007, there was only one pediatric gender clinic in the US; now, there are 300+ gender clinics (plus some services, like Planned Parenthood, dispense testosterone, depending on state laws, to minors without parental permission or a therapist note). Britain has seen a 4400%+ rise in incidences of gender dysphoria among adolescent girls (mostly teens) since 2014. This is called “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria” (ROGD, teen girls with no prior history of gender dysphoria).

Gender Dysphoria: Severe discomfort with one’s biological sex.

1. Classic/Typical Dysphoria:  appears in 1 in 10,000 (0.01%), overwhelmingly in males, begins in early childhood (2-4 years), persistent insistence on possessing the “wrong body,” and most experience same-(birth)-sex orientation. Typically, 75% become comfortable with their sex (most identify as Gay), while others transition to their desired sex (socially and/or medically).
2. Social Contagion: “Trans Kids” (recently, they are mostly adolescent girls who have a long history of sharing their pain through self-harm, eating disorders, and anxiety about their bodies that is exacerbated by affirmation from authorities and social media influencers). In 2018, 2% of High Schoolers identified as transgender. Transition follows this form (not all fully complete it): (a) Self-identification and social transition (changing names, pronouns, gender expressions); (b) Puberty Blockers (when they have not yet gone through puberty); (c) Cross-Sex Hormones (androgens/antiestorgens; estrogens/antiandrogens); (d) Medical Transition (top surgeries; bottom surgeries).
3. Activists: reshapes culture through the lens of gender ideology so that trans people are not only legally protected from harm but culturally affirmed and given space to flourish (e.g. sports, etc.).

Recommended Printed Resources

Abigail Favale (Roman Catholic), The Genesis of Gender: A Christian Theory.

Helen Joyce (atheist), Trans: Gender Identity and the New Battle for Women’s Rights.

Abigail Shrier (Jewish), Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters.

Mark Yarhouse (evangelical), Understanding Gender Dysphoria.

Debra Soh (atheist), The End of Gender: Debunking Myths about Sex and Identity in Our Society.

Preston Sprinkle (evangelical), Embodied: Transgender Identities, the Church, and What the Bible Has To Say

Recommended YouTube Lectures/Podcasts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWbxIFC0Q2o Abigail Shrier lecture

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSKQfATa-1I Abigail Shrier and Jordan Peterson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xUrtNW6Fzo Helen Joyce

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqZmx265N80 Helen Joyce

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WejfXjzFaMI Helen Joyce

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UubVmdppBY Helen Joyce and Abigail Favale

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-al2JOnxCM&t=3275s Abigale Favale and Preston Sprinkle

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkas5PkJzMs Abigale Favale

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-_b9eqrFZQ&t=342s Abigale Favale

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PB6mgJkhBEU Mark Yarhouse

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzDrJT_X2M8 Lisa Littman (Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bu8amCC4_wk Debra Soh

Question:  What is “gender”? How is it related to biological sex?

• a social construct that varies from culture to culture;

therefore, gender is a fluid state without objective boundaries.

• a matter of self-identification based on a sense of self;

therefore, gender is grounded in a subjective sense of self (even “innate”).

• a fixed biological reality;

therefore, gender is grounded in and tethered to one’s biological sex.

Gender Definition

Gender is a comprehensive word that includes (a) social elements (which are culturally fluid in so many ways) and (b) struggles to identify (as some wrestle with their discomfort with their bodies and their self-image), but (c) ought to include biology as its objective ground and basis.

Much of current discussion excludes the body from such grounding or collapses the body into social construction or self-identity (e.g., male brain in a female body). Yet, binary biology is part of the ground of gender, and social constructs mimic this to one degree or another across cultures.

Lovingly, we may care for and accompany adolescents who are caught up in this “social contagion” (just like female adolescents have been caught in other contagions exacerbated by social media, like cutting [self-harm] and eating disorders) in ways that compassionately and sympathetically address gender dysphoria. While there are genuine experiences of gender dysphoria (the classic cases), there is also such a thing as “social contagion” that rests on social constructions for gender fluidity and encourages adolescents who are uncomfortable with their bodies to reject their body’s sex and identity as another gender (nonbinary, trans, etc.).

We can lovingly process this dysphoria with people while, at the same time, affirming the biological grounding of gender in their embodied sex. It is a difficult decision to reject the reality of one’s body; I cannot imagine that struggle. I know it is terrifying for those who experience this struggle, and they want some peace about how to relate to their bodies. As people of peace, we listen, dialogue, and offer a vision of the gospel that heals wounds rather than creating them.

Theological Claim:  There are only two sexes (“male” and “female” per Genesis 1:27).

Biologically, male and female are binary because a body either has one type of gamete or another (sperm or egg). No known human being has ever produced fertility through both. This biological reality is affirmed in the Genesis identification of human beings as “male or female” as well as in the biology of creation itself. All mammals are either male or female. Intersexed persons (0.02% of the population) are not a third sex but variations within male and female sexes. There is no third sex. Some people (0.002%) are born with both ovaries and testicles, few are functional and never both.

Without biological grounding, “gender” (and even sex itself for some) becomes an internal sense that is expressed through social conventions or expressions. Consequently, not only gender but sex itself becomes a fluid category. As a result, there is no definition of male/female except one’s own internal sense of identification. Biological sex, then, is folded into gender such that “sex” is “assigned” at birth rather than a given, a gift from God.

People who transition, whether driven by classic dysphoria or by social contagion, sometimes detransition. Some who transition regret their decision; others happily embrace it. Whatever the case, the church may pursue a welcoming and healing strategy rather than exclusion, derision, and hate. The church must prepare for how it will help trans people and nurture them in the faith.

1. Read the post carefully. If you think you want to respond, read it twice more. As far as possible, understand the main point of the post, its argument, and its tone.

2. Before you respond, take a few moments, even minutes, or if necessary hours to pray, calm your soul, and refocus your heart. Do not offer an immediate reply as if you have thought about this for a matter of seconds. Give it a few minutes, or whatever time it takes to channel the emotion into something profitable, loving, and edifying.

3. When responding to a post, begin with affirmation. What do you appreciate about this post? Do you appreciate its curiosity, its point, its tone, its argument, or its search for understanding? Name what you appreciate about the post or the person.

4. Restate what you understand the point of the post is. It is helpful to think in these terms, “What I hear you saying is . . . .” Often we don’t hear as well as we think we do.

5.  When responding to the point of a post, state the response as succinctly as possible but with sufficient clarity and explanation. Make the point direct rather than circumnavigating the globe–direct, but kind and open to correction and dialogue. Refrain from long posts and cryptic ones. If it is too long, it won’t be read carefully. If cryptic, your expectation that the reader will fully understand is a hindrance to dialogue and may come across as smug.

6.  Deflections and defensiveness do not lead to healthy dialogue. Consequently, in your response do not deflect by changing the subject (“what about…?”) or becoming defensive (“do you think I’m stupid?”). Instead, address the point at issue directly. If you want to extend the point in a different direction, clearly identify that is what you are doing (“I know this is not your point, but I think it would be helpful to think about this as well in order to illuminate our discussion”).

7.  Don’t speak in absolutes; rather, speak out of the situated character of your thinking. For example, “in my experience,” “as it seems to me,” or “this is how I see it fitting into . . .” State your conviction, argue for it, and provide substantial reasons while, at the same time, demonstrating humility and openness to listening to the other.

8.  In longer posts (which are not typically recommended), it is sometimes helpful to enumerate the points you are making so that readers don’t miss them, confuse them, or conflate them. For example, I might respond to a post by listing three separate points. They may all three respond to the same argument, or they may be three different questions or issues related to the post. Enumerating them helps subsequent responders to precisely identify the referent of their response.

9.  Clearly state where you agree with the post. Then state clearly the point of disagreement(s). We will disagree. It should be understood that a statement of disagreement is not a personal insult; it should have no intention of offending the other. At the same time, the disagreement must be stated in a way that does not insult or intentionally offend the other (e.g., attack their character or intelligence).

10.  Kindness and gentleness are always good and healthy virtues. There is no place for name-calling or attaching a label to one who does not accept it or see themselves in that way. There is no virtue in beating up or shaming the other. Gentle correction is appropriate. Posting ought to assume one is willing to receive gentle correction, but unkind putdowns, labelling, or dismissals are unacceptable and counter-productive

11. In closing, express your love, commitment to dialogue, or your desire for peace between you and the other. One can say this simply, “Peace, sister” or more expansively, “thank you for your commitment to dialogue and understanding; that means so much.”

12. When do I stop replying/posting on a thread? Typically, two or three responses is sufficient to address a specific question with an appropriate give-and-take. FB is not a good place for extensive discussion and long posts. But here are a few pointers that have helped me: (a) when I feel frustrated and I cannot respond well with kindness, I don’t respond; (b) when I feel like we are at an impasse or at the level of a fundamental disagreement and we have both made our point; (c) when the time it is taking is not worth the effort in the light of other things I need to be doing (including resting); and (d) when I summarize my point, clarify, and “let it go” while acknowledging this will be my last word in this thread but inviting the other to offer a final reply.

To which polis do you belong?

I’m not asking in which geographical cities do we live, nor am I asking which nation-state do we inhabit? I am asking which polis shapes our identity, drives life, and defines our telos (the end toward which we live life)? Which polis gives our lives meaning and purpose?

Paul explicitly addressed this question with overt political language.

Philippi was a political settlement; it was a Roman colony, filled with retired legionaries.  This was a precarious situation for a new, fledgling community that confessed “Jesus is Lord and Caesar is not.” We might imagine political and personal harassment from neighbors, perhaps even economic oppression of various sorts. Living in this polis (Philippi) entailed hardship for those who professed and acknowledged they belonged to a different polis.

Paul identifies the Christian polis in Philippians 3:20. “Our citizenship (politeuma) is in heaven.” The term politeuma has the word polis (city) embedded in it.

We might render the term “commonwealth” or “state,” and it identifies a political relation. “Our citizenship is in heaven,” while others find their “citizenship” on earth. The contrast is stark. The Christian community derives its identity from the reality of God’s new creation, inaugurated by the resurrection of Jesus who reigns at the right hand of God.

More particularly, politeuma was often used, as Silva writes (WBC, cv. Phil. 3:20), “to designate a colony of foreigners or relocated veterans (BDAG) whose purpose was to secure the conquered country for the conquering country by spreading abroad that country’s way of doing things, its customs, its culture, and its laws.” In other words, it is a missional outpost whose purpose is to transform the surrounding culture. In other words, the heavenly politeuma breaks into the earthly politeuma for the sake of bringing heaven to earth. This is, in fact, the essence of the Lord’s Prayer:  “your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

This, then, is the real political struggle–the transformation of the earthly politeuma by the in-breaking of the heavenly politeuma.

How does this happen? What kinds of practices serve this purpose? How do people, who belong to a different polis, live in the midst of another polis?

We might imagine all sorts of possibilities. These are but a few, and the list does not advocate for any but simply identifies possibilities.

• violent revolution where we achieve a new polis by violence, thinking that we are doing this for sake of the heavenly polis.
• democratic processes where we fully participate in the earthly polis, including its passions (whether good or evil).
• isolationism where we disengage from the earthly polis and hope for others to join us.
• prophetic witness where we speak to the earthly polis out of the values of the heavenly polis, advocating for the interests of the weak.

We might find ourselves attracted to one of these, or perhaps several of them, possibilities (or another unidentified possibility). There are  many options.

The heavenly politeuma is our identity as disciples of Jesus, but it does not disconnect us from life. On the contrary, it calls us to live a particular kind of life amidst the earthly polis.

This is the real political struggle–which polis will shape our attitudes, actions, and practices.

Paul addresses the point in Philippians 1:27:  “Only, live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ” (NRSV).

This plea–imperative!–is more significant than the translation “live your life” offers. The root verb is politeuesthai, “to live as a citizen” (the word polis is present in the verb). This is a call to live out one’s citizenship; to live out of the polis to which they belong.

In the broadest sense, according Brockmuehl (Philippians, p. 97), this is a “deliberate, publicly visible, and…politically relevant act which in the context distinguished from alternative lifestyles that might have been chosen instead.” This is God’s politics. Belonging to a different commonwealth, a different kingdom, and a different polis, those who embrace the good news of Jesus as Lord and Messiah embody a different ethic, a different way of being, a different political agenda.

This is not dual citizenship. Disciples of Jesus, in contrast to others, belong to the new creation, to the heavenly polis. Our commitment is not to the nation-state in which we live, but to God’s new creation.

We have a political imperative:  “Above all, you must live as citizens of heaven, conducting yourselves in a manner worthy of the Good News about Christ” (NLT).

How do we so live? Paul does not leave us without some direction. Fundamentally, it is not about self-interestedness. Rather, it is about serving the other, considering others better than ourselves, and dismissing vain conceits for the sake of the other (Philippians 2:1-4).

This is embodied in the life of Jesus the Messiah, and we are called–as a community and a people–to become the gospel (see the recent book by Michael Gorman by that title), which is the life and ministry of Jesus.

We are called to serve others just as Jesus did, who–though he existed in the form of God–did not consider his equality with God something to use to his own advantage (NIV, NRSV). Instead, he poured himself out as a servant; he humbled himself and became obedient to the will of God, even to death on the cross (Philippians 2:6-8).

• Disciples of Jesus belong to a polis that is more concerned about the other than they are themselves.
• Disciples of Jesus belong to a polis that is just as concerned about Guatemala as it is the United States.
• Disciples of Jesus belong to a polis that is not interested in grabbing and holding wealth for the United States rather than sharing wealth with others.
• Disciples of Jesus belong to a polis that speaks up for the weak, oppressed, and persecuted, including the unborn.
• Disciples of Jesus belong to a polis that loves their enemies rather than spewing hatred against then and demonizing them, even when those enemies are political opponents in the United States.
• Disciples of Jesus belong to a polis that speaks kindly and gently rather than with violent anger or through disruptive intrusions.

The list could go on.

I don’t expect the earthly polis to conduct political campaigns by the values of the heavenly polis, but I do hope Christians who participate in the earthly polis do so with with the values of the heavenly polis.

Disciples of Jesus must clarify to what polis they belong, commit to how that polis supercedes all others, and–in the long run–no earthly polis can fully embody the heavenly polis.

We live in tense times, but the tension arises because self-interests war with each as they seek control of the earthly polis.

The real political struggle for disciples of Jesus is to engage the earthly polis with the values, attitudes, demeanor, and love of the heavenly polis. When disciples of Jesus become what they oppose, then the heavenly polis has no witness.

At bottom, whatever one’s earthly commitments to the political process are (whether Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, etc.), as disciples of Jesus our commitment to the heavenly polis is more fundamental, greater, and–in some sense–exclusive.

As Paul says, “live out your heavenly citizenship in such a way that you embody the good news of Jesus who poured out himself for the sake of others.”

Where we see hate, violence, intrusive disturbances, name-calling, war-mongering, bigotry, and fear, we know it arises from the earthly polis rather than the heavenly one.

“Our citizenship is in heaven.”

May it be evident for all to see!

May God have mercy.

Three prayer requests.

1. Pray for comfort and peace in Paris, but also in Beirut which was bombed the day before, families on the Russian airliner, and for Syria and Iraq where people suffer on a daily basis from the violence of ISIS. Let us serve them as we are able.

2. Pray God will “break their teeth” (Psalm 58:6) and defang their power; pray God will put things right and reveal a sense of divine justice amidst this violence. Let us give our anger to God.

3. Pray for a heart to love refugees, immigrants, and others who come to the West as they escape the violence of Syria and Iraq; pray God will give us a love for our neighbors rather than anger. Let us treat our neighbors with goodness and mercy.

May God have mercy!

Fuller article here.

My response to the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States regarding same-sex marriage has been published on the Lipscomb University College of Bible and Ministry page. Originally, it was two separate Facebook posts, but is now a single piece.

Exodus: Gods and Kings is filled with amazing special effects, wonderfully depicts the cultural situation (clothing, geography, architecture), and generally follows the biblical storyline.

Epic “biblical” movies are always imaginative creations. The Ten Commandments with the beloved Charlton Heston used a lot of imagination in telling the Exodus story, though it arguably followed  the biblical “script” more closely than did Gods and Kings.

When telling the biblical story visually, however, imagination is imperative and unavoidable.  Storytellers–whether verbal or visual or cinematic–tell the story in a particular way to make a contemporary point. We might hope that there is some degree of faithfulness to the overt lines of the story (and this is the case with Gods and Kings generally), but the intent is to tell the story in the present for a contemporary audience. In other words, if Exodus had been written last year, how might the story have been told while still retaining the main features of the reality it portrays? I suppose it could look like this movie. Maybe. At least one version of it.

Whatever one might think about the explicit divergences from the biblical story (e.g., the conversation at the burning bush is too limited in the movie, the omission of the opening confrontation between Moses and Pharaoh, absence of Pharaoh-Moses interaction about the plagues, etc.), the story is told to make a point(s) for contemporary audiences.

I heard several points, but here are my major takeaways.

1. Israel wrestles with God. Nun, Joshua’s father, demonstrates a tenacious hopeful faithfulness as he expects divine deliverance though he is uncertain as to when. In the movie, Israel waits for God, prays to God, and hopes in God, even as their suffering abounds and increases.

At one point, Moses–still a prince of Egypt–reminds the viceroy, who supervises the slaves, of the meaning of the word “Israel” (one who wrestles or strives with God). Moses is fully aware of this, and when he encounters God this becomes a prominent theme which grows within the drama.

Moses both argues and cooperates (or even abstains from action) with God. Moses wrestles with God. He objects to God’s decision to kill the children of Egypt (and perhaps we even nod our heads in agreement), but ultimately Moses accepts God’s decision (even when confronted by Pharaoh as to why Moses serves such a God).

This wrestling reflects some of the best of Jewish tradition. We see it in Exodus 3-4 and Exodus 32. We see it in Psalms 30 & 88, as well as in Job 7:7-21 and other places. It is part of the history of Judaism.

Israel wrestles with God. There is tension, and there is faith as well as honesty. God seeks human cooperation and honors the dignity of human freedom. One of the final scenes highlights this when Moses buys into the divine regulations we know as the “Ten Commandments.”

Rather than depicting the God-Moses relationship as a sanitized submissiveness, Gods and Kings reflects the raw reality that the book of Exodus depicts.  Moses wrestles with God, and so do we.

2. Jewish Holocaust Relived.  Forced labor. Burning bodies. Racial slurs. Summary executions. Genocidal pogroms.

The movie allows us to enter into the experience of slavery. We remember not only that ancient slavery, but the Nazi Holocaust as well.  The parallels are vivid. We are incensed with a righteous indignation, and we cry with the Israelites for justice and deliverance.

God expresses this righteous anger more than any other character in the movie. In explaining why the plagues, and particularly the last plague, were necessary, God points to Pharaoh’s arrogance and the treatment of Israel. The plagues are not about vengeance but justice and to secure the release of Israel from the holocaust they were experiencing.

The cry for justice rebounds through the history of the world. The slave conditions remind us that Africans were enslaved as forced labor in the Americas. The movie reminds us that racial slurs, summary executions (lynchings) and genocidal pogroms (mob violence) are part of our own American story.

As viewers sympathize with Israel in their suffering, perhaps we learn to sympathize with enslaved Africans, enslaved women in sex-trafficking, and the injustice pervasively present in the world even now. Perhaps our sense of righteous indignation is renewed.

3. Not by Israel’s sword, but by the Lord’s right hand. This biblical theme emerges in the movie. It is present in Psalm 44:3, Psalm 20:7, and Hosea 1:7 as well as other places.

I wondered early in the movie why Moses carried a sword rather than a staff after the burning bush encounter. Indeed, the staff is absent until after Israel crosses the sea.

Moses approaches the situation as a general who intends to train an army of freedom fighters. (The biblical story highlights Moses’s violent nature–he kills an Egyptian.) Moses will liberate Israel by his own might, ingenuity, and sword. He wages a guerrilla campaign against Egypt.  Of course, this is nowhere present in the biblical text.  This is a place where the script writer takes creative liberties in order to make an explicit point, which is nevertheless a theme in the canonical story and in the history of Israel.

God allows Moses to pursue his ineffective strategy until God decides to assume the reins and effectively move Pharaoh to liberate Israel. The plagues, depicted as natural events (though implausibly explained as such by Pharaoh’s own “scientist”), are divine acts that humble Egypt before Israel’s God. Egypt experiences horrors, and they now know how Israel feels in its horrendous bondage.

At bottom, violent revolution, which Moses chose as his strategy, is rejected. God uses the chaos of nature–a form of uncreation where God turns order into chaos when his creative activity turned chaos into order–to achieve the divine purpose.

The movie depicts human violence in negative terms, and in the biblical story human violence does not deliver Israel from Egypt.

Further, it is a purpose that is frustrated at times by Pharaoh’s own stubborness and idolatry (not only does he serve other gods but also thinks of himself as a god). Pharaoh’s hard heart increases the drama of the plagues. Human sin and rebellion creates further hardship (which is not unlike what sinful environmental practices do as well). Resistance to the will of God has consequences–for the nation, for people, even for children.

God delivers. We do not deliver ourselves. God remembers the promise to Israel and faithfully acts to redeem them from bondage. Moses’s freedom fighter strategy is discredited. Rather, Moses learns to trust in God’s mighty hand, and so we trust as well.

In my last post, I offered a reading of the biblical flood story, and now I offer an interpretation of Noah, the movie.

Like the biblical story itself, the movie is not a children’s movie.  It is about violence, ecological disaster, and the struggles of a man to fully discern God’s intent as the Creator judges humanity.

The movie has clear links to the biblical story–there is an ark, Noah is the main character, the Creator is judging the world, violence has filled the earth, and there is a flood to cleanse the evil–but the movie is not a “biblical movie,” that is, it does not intend to retell the flood story within the boundaries of what is known in Scripture or even how Scripture interprets the story.  The biblical story “inspires” the movie, but the movie is not the biblical story. Nevertheless, it is an imaginative retelling of themes that are part of the biblical story.

The movie functions, existentially (and thus theologically), as social commentary on human injustice against both the creation and humanity itself. It highlights ecological disaster and human violence. These are the great evils that grieved the Creator and for which the Creator will push the reboot button on the cosmos.

Due to human violence, the earth had become an environmental wasteland. The once green and beautiful earth had become a barren rock with little vegetation. The Creator invested humanity with dominion, and humanity used that dominion for its own sake. Humanity devoured the resources of the earth (including eating the flesh of animals), and this spiraled into violence against each other (including cannibalism). Human dominion was exercised through violence and injustice rather than through loving care.

Noah appears in the movie as a defender of the earth, the animals, and of mistreated humans (he rescues a young girl from death and raises her as his own). He lives within the chaos of a barren (rather than “good” earth) as a righteous person who remembers the story of the Creator and passes it on to his children. His family is light within the darkness, but it is threatened by the darkness. And though yet faithful to the Creator, the family wonders whether or when the Creator “will make things right.” When will the Creator put an end to human violence?

The flood is the Creator’s answer. Noah discerns this through dreams, and with the help of some “transformer rock angels” (my wife’s phrase) the family builds an ark for the preservation of the animals and, seemingly, humanity. But this is where the story takes an awkward though existential turn.

The second half of the movie focuses on Noah’s angst that arises from his perception of the divine intent. Noah, thoroughly disgusted with human evil, believes that the Creator intends to annihilate humanity even as the Creator preserves the creation. In Noah’s mind, the creation is more important than humanity, and humanity has not only been dethroned but must also be eliminated as a threat to the creation. Noah believes that God preserves his family only for the sake of the animals, and once the animals are safely in the new world after the flood, then the Creator will watch over the slow death of humanity itself as Noah’s line dies out (Shem’s wife is barren, and the other two sons have no wives).

The moviemaker adjusts the biblical story in order to create Noah’s angst, and this enables the second half of the movie to focus on the drama of mercy over justice. Noah, as the one in whom the Creator has invested the future (as the Creator originally did with Adam and Eve–who failed!), will not fail his Creator. He will complete the task and ensure that humanity will die out. He knows–he thinks–what the Creator wants, and he will obey. He is, after all, from the line of Seth.

As a result, Noah becomes what the flood judges. He becomes an unmerciful and violent man, which is exactly why the Creator is flooding the earth! He leaves Ham’s woman to die, trampled by humanity’s rush for self-preservation. He violently protects the ark from assault. He announces his intent to kill any female child born from the union of Shem and his wife. He destroys any hope that Shem and his wife might escape the ark. Noah has no mercy, which is exactly how he understood the Creator. He thinks he is fulfilling the Creator’s desire.

The climax of the movie is when Noah holds a raised a knife above his twin granddaughters. Here he struggles to do the will of God, as he understands it. And here he defies the Creator. He cannot kill his granddaughters. He ultimately fails to do the will of God; he fails like his ancestors Adam and Eve. Consequently, once upon dry ground where humanity can flourish once again, Noah drinks himself into a stupor and shames himself. He medicates his guilt with wine.

In time, however, Noah realizes that God never intended to destroy humanity. He should have learned this from his own grandfather, Methuselah, who healed his barren daughter-in-law. He should have listened to the different and merciful interpretation of the Creator’s intent that his wife voiced–she thought in terms of both justice and mercy. He should have seen the gift of life in his daughter-in-law’s womb as the Creator’s new beginning rather than a threat to the new creation. Noah was so blinded by the human condition–so blinded by humanity’s inhumanity–that he could not see the Creator’s gracious gift to his own family and the Creator’s merciful intent to preserve humanity.

In the end, however, Noah does recognize this. He renews covenant with his wife, and he invests in Shem the lineage of Seth. Noah now understands that creation has been renewed, and the Creator has graciously offered a new beginning. Noah tells his children to “be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth.” The Creator has given humanity a second chance!

But as we look at the world humanity has created since that time, have we done any better? I think the movie asks this question. Will human violence against the environment and each other once again call for judgment? Is humanity headed toward an apocalypse, or will we learn to balance justice and mercy? Will we embrace the vision of creation embedded in the film’s storyline? Not a bad question to raise!

Clearly, the filmmaker did not intend to follow the biblical script. That would’ve been a short movie! He made the story more about Noah than the Creator.

The biblical story, however, is about the Creator rather than Noah.  It is the Creator who grieves humanity’s violence. The Creator acts to end human violence. The Creator remembers Noah. The Creator remembers the creation, and the Creator preserves it and renews it. The Creator redeems Noah and his family. The Creator covenants with creation and humanity, and the Creator places the covenant sign of the Creator’s mercy and grace in the sky, the rainbow. And the Creator, once again, rests within the new creation!

While I understand why a filmmaker would focus on Noah’s existential angst, human blindness to divine intent, and the struggle to do the will of God, that is not the focus of the biblical story. In this sense, the film does not tell the biblical story but rather tells the story of postmodern angst. “Noah” may be a way of telling that story, but we should not confuse it with the function of biblical drama itself.

Personally, I did not much like the movie. My dislike is not due to the adjustments to the biblical story (I fully expected that). Rather, I thought the film tried too hard to create a dramatic storyline, which ultimately made it implausible (e.g., Cain-Tubal stealing aboard the ark, Ham aiding Cain-Tubal, the transformer rock angels or Watchers). I was left more awed by the special effects than engrossed in the story.

Nevertheless, the story has a point. What will humans do with the earth? How will we treat each other? Can we have a new beginning?

The biblical answer to those questions is rooted in God’s drama rather than in the human drama. We can’t, ultimately, find our hope in humanity. Didn’t the 20th century teach us that? Rather, humanity’s only hope is the merciful God who calls us to a story of redemption, justice, mercy, and reconciliation. That is the story of Jesus.