Marginal Noah's Ark cartoons

I recently posted a list of 'all' the screen productions to adapt the story of Noah and the flood. As ever with these things you soon remember how impossible it is to list them 'all': there are just too many. With a story as popular as this there are always brief fantasy sequences where lead characters imagine themselves as Noah, or something that someone has just created for YouTube (how many views of an original Noah adaptation make it a worthy production in itself).

Anyway, as part of that process I went back on forth several times on a handful of films that all landed somewhere around the cut-off line, and, seeing as I'm wanting to post some brief thoughts about some of the Noah / flood / Ark films I've watched recently, I thought I'd start with these, particularly as the first two go back to the 1920s.

Amateur Night on the Ark (1923)

Between 1921 and 1929 American animation pioneer Paul Terry produces a series of over 450 cartoons called Aesop's Fables Cartoons, the earliest of which, such as The Cat and the Canary (1922) were more closely related to Aesop than Amateur Night on the Ark. Terry had started out at Thanhouser animating a character called Farmer Alfa, and when he left them in 1917 to set out on his own he brought his "star" Alfa with him. 

The Alfa character a bald older man with a white beard, featured in many of Terry's silent animations and here he appears as the sole human aboard a steamboat called "Ark" which aside from the chimney emit smoke as it powers the boat forward, otherwise resembles Noah's Ark (see above). But he's never identified as Noah, and his role doesn't really correspond to the biblical character. The Amateur Night" is a variety show which families of animals (certainly not just pairs) turn up for, and Alfa is takes the door money. Later he appears on stage, but is chased off stage when a box match he is performing in is exposed as a fake. 

Really, then, Terry's black and white cartoon uses aspects of the Noah story, the shape of the boat, the look of the character, the exotic animals, in a more modern context, with a certain amount of  anthropomorphising of the animals. However, aside from the use of the word “Ark” and the presence of animals and an older man, Amateur Night has little to do with the flood story, other than cultural resonance, so I might not qualify it at all as a Noah film, but for it's similarities with... 

Availability: YouTube.

Noah's Lark (1929)

As with the above, Noah's Lark, directed by Dave Fleischer, starts off as recognisably as a modern-twist on the biblical tale. Noah is portrayed as a modern-era sailor replete with an anchor tattoo on his forearm and accompanied by The Sailor's Hornpipe. If that all sounds a little reminiscent of a certain spinach-chumping sea-farer then you won't be surprised to know that it was Dave Fleischer's big brother Max who adapted the Popeye comic strip for the screen in 1933 (the comic strip began in 1929 as well).

As with Amateur Night the original biblical premise, a bunch of animals stuck on a boat captained by a human, is merely a leaping off point for Fleischer's flights of fancy and artistic imagination. Here it spins it off far beyond the typical edges of what that usually entails, as the animals -- who here seem more of a crew -- arrive on land to a fairground and get involved in all kinds of antics and visual jokes (a monkey plucking a tiger's stripes as bass notes in the soundtrack being a particularly good gag given this cartoon was from the early months of the talkie era).

So again the links to the biblical story are fairly tangential, but the use of the song "The animals came in Two by Two" over the opening credits, the explicit reference to Noah in the title, and the pun on Ark, the fear of the (flood) waters and perhaps just the sense of their joy/relief when they arrive on land once again tip their hat just a little more in that direction than the previous film. 

Availability YouTube.

Yogi’s Ark Lark (1972)

As with the above films, Yogi's Ark Lark has little to do with the flood story, other than cultural resonances. Again the boat in question is called “Noah’s Ark” and their are animals (Yogi Bear and a host of his other, early 1970s Hanna Barbera cartoon colleagues) and an older man who is named Noah. Essentially Yogi and friends get together and share their worries about the state of their home environments, such as their homes are being destroyed by litter and over-population and so decide to leave it all behind on an ark and head off in search of "the perfect place" (a phrase that becomes the title of a song that is used regularly throughout the show).

What was interesting for me was how the complaints about the state of the world were far more soft-right than you would get on this kind of show today making a host of usually fairly wacky characters seem rather old in yearning for a lost past they (presumably) ever experienced. Moreover, ultimately , they decide on a rather ‘Big Society’ solution of sorting out those issues themselves, with Top Cat and Lenny, for example, deciding not only to clean up their alley, but their entire city.

It all makes for pretty dull entertainment. Jokes are thin on the ground, with even the moments of slapstick falling short (actually if anyone had literally fallen short of something, it might have been the funniest thing in the programme) and the Noah parallels are extremely thin indeed. The Noah character really only feels like he's been brought on board [wink] to make the catchy title stick.

Availablity: archive.org.

Animaniacs: Noah’s Lark (1993)

The Animaniacs take on the flood story comes in episode 33 Cartoons in Wakko's Body where it sits alongside two other stories The Big Kiss and Hiccup. I'm not overly familiar with Animaniacs, so my comments will probably seem a bit odd to those who know the show, but essentially this is a kids-focussed cartoon, although very much with a few adult jokes smuggled in for the benefit of any adults watching. The New York comic style of deadpan humour is particularly to the fore, not least in Noah’s detached cynicism. Other jokes include some late-to-the-party, yet snobby, hippos and Noah’s fear of spiders.

Jokes aside this one sticks fairly closely to the plot. It's certainly far more recognisably a Noah story than the three episodes above. Interestingly, Noah (pictured above) is a lot younger here with dark hair and no beard. He also likes playing with one of those table tennis bats with the ball attached to it with a bit of elastic. While I'd have to consult with an archaeologist to be sure, I don't think those are in the Bible...

Availability: The only place I found this online gave me PC issues.

(Image taken from the Cartoonatics blog)

Gospel Films Library: Scores of old Bible films free on GFA's new website

At various times in the past I've mentioned the wonderful work done by Bob Campbell and the rest of the team at the Gospel Films Archive in preserving mid-20th century biblical films and other Christianity-related films. 

So it's really exciting to mention their new website – Gospel Films Library – where you can now view dozens of old biblical movies, not only for free, but also without any ads etc.

There's a really good range of these films available from short, rarely-treated stories from the Hebrew Bible such as Ruth (1948) to those released in cinemas such as Day of Triumph (1954, my review). When I think about what I had to go through to watch this film when I first got into Bible movies around the year 2000, it's incredible how easy it is now!

There's a bunch of films I've already reviewed, such as the Living Christ series, No Greater Power (1942), The Living Bible : Old Testament series and Queen Esther (1948) as well as those I'm planning to review when I get a moment. There's also a making of documentary for Day of Triumph  which I am looking forward to seeing.

One of the things that is really good about the new site is that it seems really easy to navigate – it's laid out nicely like a modern streaming service. And for those who might prefer (and are based in the US/Canada or Mexico) you can also stream it on Roku. Check it out and bookmark it as I'll be reviewing some of these films in the coming weeks and months.

Noah's Ark: A Musical Adventure (Arca de Noé, Brazil, 2024)

Despite all my research into the story of the flood in recent months, somehow I almost missed the release of Noah's Ark: A Musical Adventure, or as it is known in it's native Brazil, simply Arca de Noé. It's an animated film that sits squarely in the box of animation for kids and hit theatres in the UK rather aptly during the summer holidays when parents often find themselves seeking shelter from the rain.

Arca is inspired by a 1975 poem by Brazilian poet, musician, playwright and diplomat Vinicius de Moraes, perhaps best known outside of his own country for pioneering bossa nova music on the soundtrack for Orfeu Negro (Black Orpheus, 1959) along with his co-writer Antônio Carlos Jobim, singer Elizeth Cardoso and guitarist João Gilberto. Moraes' poem (translated here) offers a loving tribute to the biodiversity of the flood story. Noah gets a mention, early on but Moraes quickly moves on to his family, before there's a flurry of neat little descriptions of animal activity overflowing with life.

If this adaptation of the flood story comes to us via Moraes, directors Alois Di Leo and Sergio Machado and their writers Heloísa Périssé and Ingrid Guimarães have certainly brought in plenty of their own ideas too. Neither the Bible nor Moraes talk about two musical mice who having not received an invitation to board the ark, delivered courtesy of literal blue birds, are determined to try and get on anyway. The bluebirds, certainly as represented by their leader Kilgore, tip the hat to various cultural landmarks: the delivery company; Apocalypse Now;* the former Twitter logo; and the computer game turned movie Angry Birds. In a way they typify the movie, which always feels like it's trying to be, or at least refer to, something else. At times it feels like Madagascar (2005) or Singin' in the Rain (1952) or The Lion King (1995). Even Noah's quirky coloured shades seem to borrow from El Arca (dir: Juan Pablo Buscarini, 2007) although I suppose that may in turn derive from an illustrated children's book based on Moraes' poem that's popular in both South American countries. 

Like various animated re-tellings of the flood story, Noah's role is fairly small (the last animated Noah film to percolate down to local cinemas in the UK, 2015's Two by Two, left him out entirely). We witness him hearing God's call at the start of the film, and he crops up regularly throughout, but we do so mainly because one of the film's two rodent heroes Vini and Tom/Tito awakes during the moment of revelation and so goes to investigate.

The moment itself draws on God's call to Moses in films like The Prince of Egypt, although here the booming words from the sky are accompanied by southern lights-style colours in the sky. This is particularly apt given that I've been enjoying their northern counterparts causing wonders this week amidst the aesthetically pleasing aftermath of the X7.1 electromagnetic solar storm.

In a strange sort of way it's God's part of the conversation with Noah that seems most reminiscent of the call of Moses. God does not come out of it particularly well. He's presented as unstable and unpredictable. Initially he tells Noah of his plans to destroy the world and the audience can sympathise with Noah when he questions what he's told with "don't you think that's a bit much?" Recently I've been comparing the way Jewish tradition contrasts Noah, who in the Bible fails to protest when God informs him of his plans, with Abraham and Moses, both of whom question God and win some concessions as a result. So if God is shown in this film to be a bit changeable, that certainly has its origins in the Bible. 

Soon after, God moves into a more angry mode when Noah fails to agree straight away: "am I stuttering?" he thunders back in a way that will perturb both fans of the Bible/Torah/Qur'an and anyone who, like me, is finding the repeated use of that particular phrase deeply grating. But then when Noah asks what God's going to do while he is building the boat, God seems slightly hurt as he suggests "I can get the invitations out". 

Having realised God's plans, the two mice (or are they rats? I'm sure they're called both during the course of the film) decide to try and sneak aboard, even though the invitations are quite clear that it's only one male and female of every species. Back at Noah's house this part of God's dictum is also causing some consternation. "What about other types of families?" Noah's granddaughter Susana asks. It's fair to say Susana is not on board with the whole operation. When her grandfather fist reveals his plans she exclaims "What if everyone drowns? That's going to look so bad for him."

Interestingly Susana becomes the film's most prominent human from that moment on. She's a similar age to most of the film's target audience (about 7 I would imagine) and is enchanted by and becomes friends with many of the animals. Still it's interesting that concerns that pass many by are put so simply and eloquently on the lips of a young child. From a biblical point of view, it's interesting that Noah's three sons are not really part of the film. Susana is not presented as an orphan, nor is there any mention of them. Given the kind of film this is, I think that's quite a bold and positive move. The symmetry of the eight people on board the ark in Genesis doesn't completely preclude infants, and it makes the story far more relatable to its core audience (children).

The film's other interesting decision in this respect is that -- aside from the call of Noah -- Noah's wife (called Ruth here) gets equal screen time her husband thereafter. This is something of a first. Both Jennifer Connelly in Noah (2014) and Joanne Whalley in The Ark (2015) play more-developed versions of Noah's wife than the character found in the Bible whose actions and contributions are not recorded; whose words are not documented; and who is mentioned only as a passenger. Here her contribution is certainly felt. She brings warmth, wisdom and compassion to proceedings, a care for the animals and for Susana. 

More recent depictions of the flood story, particularly 2014's Noah, have been criticised for their all-white casts (see Wil Gafney, Micah David Naziri and Ryan Herring for example). But this film is not a Hollywood film, it's from Brazil, a country where, according to its latest census, "45.3% of the country’s population reported being brown.... 43.5% reported being white... 10.2%, black". So it's perhaps not surprising that this ethnic mix is reflected in the three human characters: Susana is depicted with brown skin, Noah is White and Ruth is depicted as and voiced by a Black woman. It's surprising that it's taken so long for this mix of nationalities to emerge, given that the conclusion of the story is that all people (and thus all ethnicities)  come from the handful of humans who survive the flood.

If questions about "other types of families" and the use of a diverse 'cast' sound a little too modern, then this probably isn't the film for you. The film delights in slipping anachronistic elements of the modern world into this almost pre-historic story. There are mentions of selfies, body shaming and going viral. The Scar-esque male lion Baruk even tells the other animals to "give me a like" at one point. 

Anyway, having got wind of the ark's imminent departure, Tom and Vini (who is presumably named after Moraes) try to get onboard anyway. Their first effort sees them simply walking up the gang-plank along with all the other animals, simply hoping not to get seen. However, as they progress up the slope their mood turns to fear. Indeed, there's an unusual atmosphere among all the animals. The film really brings out their differing concerns. Big creatures are concerned about stepping on smaller ones. Some worry other animals will eat them. The latter fears turn out to be not without foundation. When the verbosely loquacious Baruk and some of his predator cronies see so many animals in such a confined space they draw on another modern phrase describing the scene as an "all you can eat buffet". I can't quite work out if giving the lion a very similar first name to a recent US President is a deliberate reference to American self-interest overseas, but perhaps I'm reading too much into that.

But the musical duo's initial efforts flounder when they meet Nina, the female mouse who had received an official invite. Having two male mice turn up throws her off guard and the resulting kerfuffle sees plan come into action. A second, much smaller boat, housing some of the other less-desirable animals has set sail to try and board the ark surreptitiously. Here we find that the cockroaches, mosquitoes and head lice turn out to be of a far greater moral character than the king of the beasts, Baruk.

Despite Baruk having seized control of the assembled animals, through fear and intimidation, he has one fatal flaw -- a desire to be lauded as a musician and it's here where the mice and their new friends are able to use their musical prowess to save the day. But this whole extended section is overly complicated and dull and even an interesting subplot involving a low-on-confidence dove can't keep the second half afloat. Moreover, despite a number of songs being crammed into this final section, none of the film's music really stands out. I wanted Tom and Vini to have at least one really good ballad. 

That said, the film is certainly not as bad as its current 4.3 rating on IMDb suggests. There are some interesting ideas as well as some fun ones and, among the plethora of nods to other films, there's some originality there as well. That's quite an achievement given 4000 years of adaptations of the flood story. So even if it's nowhere near The Prince of Egypt (1998) its certainly superior to 2002's Jonah a VeggieTales Movie.  

* I owe that observation to Jeremy Clarke's review of the film.

'Full' list of Noah and the Ark films

The above still is from Ermanno Olmi's Genesi: La creazione e il diluvio (Genesis: Creation and Flood, 1994) part of The Bible Collection. 

Many years ago I posted a "full list" of Adam and Eve films though it's perhaps not as complete as I thought it was back then. Nevertheless, given I'm looking at Noah films at the moment, I thought it was about time I posted a similar list of films about the flood and Noah. 

I've restricted these to films which either try and tell the story set in the ancient world, or that are offering a direct modernisation. That means I'm excluding films like Peter Weir's The Last Wave (1977) which offer modern parallels, but not explicitly, or Moonrise Kingdom (2012) which draw on the imagery and meaning, but aren't really 'doing the story' so to speak. Due to the short amount of material available I am including films where the Noah segment is only a significant part of a longer movie. I have included a couple of documentaries with dramatised sections, but I'm not sure about those. I might take them out later!

I'll be adding to this as I go along over the next few weeks, but for now, here's the list:

• The Tale of the Ark (dir. Arthur Melbourne Cooper, UK: 1909)
• The Deluge (dir. Richard Strauss, USA: 1911)
• Photoplay of Creation (dir. Charles Taze Russell, USA: 1914)
• La Sacra Bibbia (dir. Armando Vay & Piero Antonio Gariazzo, Italy: 1920)
• The Bible: The Deluge (dir. Rev Harwood Huntington & Edgar J Banks, USA: 1922)
• The Bible: Noah and the Ark (dir. Rev Harwood Huntington & Edgar J Banks, USA: 1922)
• Noah's Ark (dir. Michael Curtiz, USA: 1928)
• Amateur Night on the Ark (dir. Paul Terry, USA: 1923)
• Noah's Lark (Dave Fleischer, USA: 1929)
• Father Noah's Ark (dir. Wilfred Jackson, USA: 1933)
• Deluge (dir. Felix E. Feist, USA: 1933)
• Noah (BBC) (dir. André Obey, UK: 1946)
• The Green Pastures (dir. Marc Connelly & William Keighley, USA: 1936)
• Noah's Ark (dir. Bill Justice, USA: 1959)
• Noah (pr. BBC, UK: 1960)
• Mel-o-Toons: Noah's Ark (dir. unknown, USA: 1960)
• I patriarchi (dir. Marcello Baldi, It: 1963)
• Noah (wr. Joost van den Vondel, Belgian: 1964)
• The Bible : In the Beginning (dir. John Huston, USA/It: 1966)
• Mister Magoo's Noah's Ark (dir. Abe Levitow, USA: 1965)
• Yogi's Ark Lark (dir. Joseph Barbera & William Hanna, USA: 1972)
• In Search of Noah's Ark (dir. James L Conway, USA: 1976)
• Greatest Heroes of the Bible: The Story of Noah (dir. James L Conway, USA: 1978)
• Genesis Project: The Bible: Genesis (Prod: Campus Crusade, US: 1979)
• The Greatest Adventure: Stories from the Bible: Noah's Ark (dir. Don Lusk; Ray Patterson, USA: 1986)
• In the Beginning: The Story of Noah (dir: Osamu Tezuka, Jp/It: 1986)
• Die Arche (dir. Klaus Georgi, E.Germany: 1987)
• Noah (dir. Thomas Stephan, E.Germany: 1990)
• Animaniacs: Noah's Lark (dir. Greg Reyna, USA: 1993)
• Genesis. Creation and the flood (Genesi: La creazione e il diluvio, dir. Ermanno Olmi , It/D/USA: 1994)
• Enchanted Tales: Noah's Ark (dir. Hazel Morgan, USA: 1994)
• Testament: The Bible in Animation: Creation and the Flood (dir. Yuri Kulakov, Russia/UK: 1996)
• Noah's Magic Ark (dir. Laura Shepherd, USA: 1996)
• Prophets Stories: Story of Nuh (dir. unknown, Egypt: 1998)
• Noah (dir. Ken Kwapis, USA: 1998)
• Noah's Ark (dir. John Irvin, D/USA: 1999)
• Fantasia 2000 (dir. James Algar, Gaëtan & Paul Brizzi, USA: 1999)
• Noah: He Walked With God (prod. Jehovah’s Witnesses, USA: 2004)  
• Evan Almighty (dir. Tom Shadyac , USA: 2007)
• Ark (dir. Grzegorz Jonkajtys, Marcin Kobylecki., Poland: 2007)
• El arca (dir. Juan Pablo Buscarini, Argentina/Italy: 2007)
• The God Complex (dir. Mark Pirro, USA: 2008)
• Veggie Tales: Minnesota Cuke and the Search for Noah's Umbrella (dir. Mike Nawrocki & John Wahba, USA: 2009)
• The Search for Noah's Ark (dir. Matt Bennett, UK: 2012)
• Unogumbe (Noye's Fludde) (dir. Mark Dornford May, South Africa: 2013)
• The Bible (dir. Crispin Reece, US: 2013)
• Noah (dir. Darren Aronofsky , USA: 2014)
• The Ark (dir. Kenneth Glenaan, UK: 2015)
• Veggie Tales: Noah's Ark (dir. Mike Nawrocki, USA: 2015)
• Oops Noah has gone (Two by Two) (dir. Toby Genkel & Sean McCormack, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, Ireland, USA: 2015)
• Stories of the Prophets: Prophet Nuh (prod.Visagaar Entertainments, 2017)
• Good Omens (dir. Douglas Mackinnon, UK/USA: 2019)
• Noah (dir. Douglas Mackinnon [Sight & Sound], UK/USA: 2019)
• Noah and the Flood (dir. Robert Savo, Bulgaria/Morocco: 2021)
• Days of Noah (dir. Dalton Thomas, Israel: 2022)
• Ark and the Darkness (dir. Ralph Strean, USA: 2024)
• Gênesis (Series) (prod. Record TV, Brazil: 2024)
• Noah's Ark: A Musical Adventure/Arca de Noé (dir. Alois Di Leo, Sergio Machado, Brazil/India/US: 2024)

A few notes

I've gone round and round in circles as to whether to include Amateur Night on the Ark (1923) and/or Noah's Lark (Dave Fleischer, USA: 1929) but ultimately decided to keep them both in, partly due to their proximity to one another both historically and in how they handle the material. Both are early, animated, black and white cartoon from the late silent era which use aspects of the Noah story in a more modern context, with a certain amount of anthropomorphising of the animals. For me, though, aside from the use of the word Ark and the presence of animals and an older man, Amateur Night has little to do with the flood story, other than cultural resonance. Noah's Lark, on the other hand, starts off recognisably as a modern-twist on the biblical tales, even if Fleischer's imagination and artistic freedom spins it off far beyond the expected edges of what that usually entails. They're both available on YouTube so let me know below if you disagree. 

There's a little more about Felix E. Feist's Deluge in this BFI article about disaster movies. It wrongly, in my opinion, calls it the first disaster movie. I think that title belongs to one of the early Last Days of Pompeii films, probably the 1908 one. Based on the description I'm also not entirely sure it merits its place on this list. But I'll leave it in for now.

I patriarchi (dir. Marcello Baldi, It: 1963) is often appended to the start of Giacobbe, l'uomo che lottò con Dio (Jacob: The Man Who Fought with God, 1963).  

Mister Magoo's Noah's Ark was perhaps released as part of a compilation of episodes called Mr Magoo at Sea along with his retelling of "Moby Dick" and Treasure Island (source TV Guide).

As with Amateur Night on the Ark above, Yogi's Ark Lark (Hanna Barbera, 1972), featuring Yogi Bear, Top Cat and a host of other Hanna-Barbera characters from the 1970s, probably falls the wrong side of the line in terms of it's use of the flood story. For one things there is no flood, and the only animals on-board are the anthropomorphised Bear and his friends, most of whom lack life partners. The title and biblical imagery is more of a prop for a round the world trip in search of the "Perfect Place" away from damage to their local environment(s).

One film I might have included but felt it didn't quite meet the criteria is The Noah (1975) written and directed by Daniel Bourla. It's a post-apocalyptic film best known for featuring Robert Strauss's last performance. From what I've read this is more metaphor than adaptation, but I may adjust this once I've actually seen it.

The two East German made short films Die Arche (1987) and Noah (1990) do appear to be different films, the first directed by Klaus Georgi, the latter (also known as Das Volk sind wir, that is we are the people) directed by Thomas Stephan. According to filmportal.de the latter was also part West German funded. 

An earlier version of this list included a title called L'Ancien Testament Tome: Le déluge (2005) cited by Verreth which he seems to have taken from this DVD set as the episode titles are identical. I can't quite read the writing at the bottom, but I did find another French website here which gives a cast list, and all of those actors performed in the 1978 series The Greatest Heroes of the Bible, already listed above. I suppose that could be an incredible coincidence, but that seems a pretty open and shut case. I could possibly have made a whole post about that detective job, and I suppose I still might if only to preserve the screen-grabs (I can't seem to that on archive.org at the moment).

"The Encyclopedia of the Bible and its Reception" entry on Noah includes The Story of the Prophet Nuh with Zaky (2009), but having watched this on YouTube, I don't think it really merits its place. It's not even an animation, just some narration over still images, with an occasional very basic animated effect.

An earlier version of this list included a title ¡Ups! El arca nos dejó (dir. Ana Medellín, Miguel Valdez-Lopez, 2015), but it turned out that this was an episode of a review show which covered Genkel & McCormack's film Two by Two, which incidentally has a separate IMDb page for a version of it called by another title All Creatures Big And Small (2015).

Gênesis (2024) is a Brazilian telenovella which is running at the time of posting. There's more about it on Record TV's website (the producers) including some footage from each episode, but I couldn't get all the way back to the start to count the episodes and I haven't the time right now to fully research it. Noah definitely features though.

 

Last updated: 21/10/2024

Noah adaptations p07: Islamic Texts

This is part 5 of a series investigating adaptations of the "Noah" story.

Click on images to enlarge.Left: Illustration from Ishaq b. Ibrahim al-Nayshaburi's Qisas al-Anbiya (Tales of the Prophets, C.16th). Right: Hafiz-I Abru's  image from "Majma al tawarikh" (World Histories, 1425).

In the last two parts of this series on adaptations of Noah, I looked at Jewish variations of the flood story following the writing of Genesis. Now I want to turn to how Islamic writers tell the story from the Qur'an onwards. Firstly to be clear. I am very much a newcomer to these texts, so I speak in ignorance giving first impressions and notes rather than some of my more citable work here. Don't let any footnotes convince you otherwise! Secondly, Because I am ignorant of Islam this is not an exhaustive examination of the most important/relevant texts, it's simply a selection of some ancient texts that talk about Noah (who is called Nuh in Islam which I'll use from here on in).

The Qur'an

In contrast to the Torah where the story of Nuh only occurs in Genesis, in genealogies and two passing mentions (Is 54:9 & Ezek 14:14-20), Nuh is mentioned in (by my count) 27 of the 114 suras. Many of these references are similar to the Isaiah and Ezekiel ones – just a passing verse –  and none are as long as the Genesis one. Instead they are more varied in length. There's even a sura named after him, sura 71 Nuh. Unsurprisingly, sura 71 is the longest discussion of Nuh, but there are also fairly long sections in 7:59-64; 11:25-49; 23:23-32; 26:105-122; 29:14-22; 54:9-22 with sura 11 being the most familiar account.

Not only is the story more widely distributed but it's also quite different. Perhaps the most notable thing is that here Nuh's life more closely corresponds to that of the prophet Muhammed.(1) There is far more emphasis on Nuh as a preacher – something almost entirely absent in the Jewish texts, but which has emerged a little in Christian ones. Here the majority of references to Nuh are about him preaching and his preaching being rejected until he starts again. 

In a not dissimilar vein, the parts of the Torah version after the flood where Noah sacrifices animals and where he plants a vineyard and gets drunk and naked are downplayed. I think some discussion of the latter comes up in later texts, but not much about sacrificing animals (which was one of the original points in the Mesopotamian accounts & P/Genesis.

There are two notable additions though. The first is a tragic one. In the Bible it is only Noah's wife, three sons and their wives who are saved form the flood. In the Qur'an it is those who believe Nuh's message who are saved. While this seems to include a few non-family members, Noah has an extra son who dies having decided to try and survive the flood by going to higher ground instead of getting on the boat (11:41-46).

The second is far more minor, but connects to my environmental theme. Having spent the early part career helping decontaminate sites polluted with tar, I'm struck by the fact that in the Bible Noah waterproofs his ark with pitch (Gen 6:14), whereas in the Quran Nuh uses palm-fibre (54:13).

History of al-Tabarī

Formally known as Ta'rikh al-rusul wa'l-mulūk (The History of Kings and Prophets) this was completed by Abū Ja'far Muhammad in 915 CE. William M. Brinner, whose English translation is at archive.org, claimed it was "by common consent the most important universal history produced in the world of Islam" (vii). Given he was writing over 50 years ago in 1971 I think we're entitled to question quite how true that is (I'm sceptical about who was and wasn't included in his idea of "common consent").

Details of Nuh's story are fairly minor: al-Tabarī is far more concerned with detailing the descendants of Nuh's sons, where they ended up geographically, and which nations they became (as well as occasionally giving details of their ethnicities. The animals, the flood itself and the ark don't get a look in. Even the story of Noah sleeping while "his genitals were exposed" leaves out his drunkenness (11). So this is a really interesting example of how far an adaptation can be stretched in a certain direction while still recognisably belonging to the corpus.

Al-Tha'labī's Lives of the Prophets

These tales of the prophets were written down by Abu Ishaq Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Ibrahim al-Tha'labi sometime before his death in 1036 CE. It's one of many Lives of the Prophets type works, and it's anglicised Arabic name is Ara'is Al-Majalis Fl Qisas Al-Anbiya. Archive.org holds a 2002 translation of it by William M. Brinner. Brinner describes it as "Except for the work of Tabarī, this is the longest and most diverse collection of tales of the lives of the prophets" noting that is also contains "a number of extraneous tales having little or nothing to do with prophets" (xxiv).

The Nuh story (p.92 onwards in Brinner's translation) shows plenty of elaboration from the Qurannic account 400 years earlier. For one things Noah is now regularly enduring quite savage beatings for his preaching. The bit that really stood comes a little later when Nuh is commanded to build an ark. Initially he does not even know what an ark is. Then as asks where the water will come from. Finally we're told 'Noah continued: "Lord, and where is the wood?" God said: "Plant trees." And he planted teak.' (94) I've hear it was palm trees from later accounts, but that could be just down to translation. Also here Nuh is back to using pitch again to waterproof his vessel (95), but then the author does refer the reader to "the People of the Book" when it comes to  some of the technical details (94). 

I recently watched a cartoon version of this story which included a couple of details that are found here. One of which is the idea of Nuh planting the trees first, the other of which is that the flood begins by coming out of the (family) oven, meaning Nuh's wife is the one to tell him the flood has started.

There's also a whole host of stories about the animals boarding the ark. The devil manages to sneak on with the donkey (96). The snake and the scorpion are only allowed on after they promise not to harm anyone who mentions Nuh (96-7). The story records Noah as worrying about the carnivores eating the others only for him to be reassured that they will be reconciled (97) and the lion was struck with a fever which "caused him to be busied with himself rather than (with) the domesticated animals" (97). Lastly Al-Tha'labī quotes Jesus telling stories about how pigs were produced from elephants, and cats from lions in order to solve problems of too much dung and too many rats (100). There's also a mention of Og (king of the giants) surviving the flood as it only went up to his knees (100).

Majlisi’s Stories of the Prophets

Allamah Muhammad Baqir Majlisi (the Allamah means "the second") was a Shi'i Islamic writer in the 17th century whose many works included Hayat al-Qulub (literally Life of the Hearts). He died in 1699CE. Volume I of the translation of Hayat al-Qulub contains a section on Noah and Syed Athar Husain S. H. Rizvi's translation can be read here. It shows things having moved on significantly in the 650 years since Al-Tha'labī. For example, it starts with lengthy discussions about his original name before he became Nuh because he wept and mourned so much. 

The Nuh material is divided into two parts. The first is more of an account of key moments in his life. The second part is "Proclamation of Nuh" which is more of a commentary on key parts in the Qur'an.

In the first part, the story of Nuh's nakedness takes a new twist. Now it is no longer the result of his drinking but because "a strong wind blew and uncovered him". Later though the tradition of Nuh growing grapes re-emerges. But here Nuh's greatest adversary is not his people (as in the Qur'an) nor Ham (nor the wind), but Satan who is constantly pestering him leaving Nuh to make appeals to Gabriel.

There are some interesting touches from an environmental perspective. Firstly there's no mention of the animals whatsoever. Secondly we're also told "that when Nuh came down from the Ark, he planted the trees that he had brought with him" similar to some of the earlier Jewish stories such as Genesis Rabbah. 

In the Proclamation section we again get the story that Nuh planted the trees and this time it is palm trees he plants. Nuh's persecution intensifies, having stones thrown at him, being knocked unconscious for three days at a time and being knocked unconscious. 

This text also has the clearest arc in terms of Noah's attitude to the townspeople, though this is there from the start. First he preaches, then he is abused and keeps getting sent back until Nuh finally curses them, is sent back once more and then "prayed for divine punishment" which was heeded.

There's also a bit of whimsical aetiology with a story about the goat disobeying Nuh has he struggles to get the animals on board and as a result of being "thrashed" "its tail came away and the private parts were exposed". Conversely, the lamb behaved so "Nuh patted its back and tail; therefore its tail grew long and covered its private parts". Al-Tha'labī's animal stories are repeated.

Another sustainability angle, that links to Aronofsky's 2014 film is this description of Nuh "His dress was woolen, whereas prior to him, the dress of Idris was made of deer skin. Nuh lived in the mountains. His staple diet consisted of grass." Finally the writer notes different traditions about Nuh's wives. One discusses his wife Amoora herself being persecuted and proving faithful. Another says that Nuh had two wives Rabia and Haikel, the former was "an infidel" and "perished in the storm". I'm aware of another tradition that links the unsaved wife to the unsaved child (Canaan) and this is possibly linked to Sura 66:10 in the Qur'an where we're told that her and Lot's wife "were false to their husbands".

==================

(1) For more on this see Guillaume Dye and Gabriel Reynolds Le Coran des Historiens, vol 2b, (Paris, Le Cerf, 2019). pp1837-8. Thanks to @Rurouni_Phoenix from Twitter (but also convener of Reddit's r/academicquran) for this observation.

Refs:
Brinner, William M. (1971) The History of al-Tabarī (Ta'rikh al-rusul wa'l-mulūk). Vol II: Prophets and Patriarchs (New York: State University of New York Press)

Brinner, William M. (2002) Ara'is al-majalis fi qisas al-anbiya' or 'Lives of the Prophets' as recounted by Abu Ishaq Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Ibrahim al-Tha'labi   (Leiden, Boston and Cologne:E.J. Brill)

S.H. Rizvi, Sayyid Athar Husayn (Publication date not stated)   Hayat al-Qulub Hayat al-Qulub Vol. I: Stories of the Prophets by Muhammad Baqir Majlisi. Available online: https://www.al-islam.org/hayat-al-qulub-vol-1-stories-prophets-muhammad-baqir-majlisi/account-nuh

The Tale of the Ark (1909)

The earliest film about Noah and the flood is The Tale of the Ark (1909) by British animation pioneer Arthur Melbourne Cooper. It's currently available for free on BFIPlayer, in the UK at least, and seems to also have been circulated under the title Noah's Ark. I don't know much about Cooper, but he apparently learnt some of his skills from the legendary British cinema pioneer Birt Acres and while I'd love to get into all of that, I simply don't have the time at the moment. So I'll restrict myself to a few passing observations about the film itself.

The film begins with a young girl playing with a toy Noah's Ark, who soon tires and settles herself down for a nap. there's a cut, and the next shot is of the ark now resting on water, by grass. This is a charming framing device, which both contextualises this as a children's film (or at least one suitable for/aimed at children), while also putting it outside the scope of historical scrutiny. Years later another black and white film that featured Noah, The Green Pastures (1936) would employ a similar framing device.

The rest of the film is stop-motion animation. Plot-wise things are fairly straightforward. Noah opens the doors, the animals bring themselves on board, the rains comes forming a flood, then the water recedes and the animals disembark, but there are a number of nice touches here. Firstly while most of the animals file onto the ark fairly uniformly, the elephants provide a certain level of comedy, spinning and rolling about and heading off in different directions. This shows a level of advancement, of Cooper going beyond basic execution of a smoothly executed piece of animation, to include humour and give his characters personality.

Secondly I was struck by the way the waters gradually recede after the flood. I don't know whether the water was gradually drained off camera, or if it was gradually filled and the footage reversed, but again it perhaps could have been done with simple cuts but this seemed a superior approach.

Finally, Cooper again uses the elephants to lighten the tone and highlight his dexterity as an animator. When Noah and the animals disembark Noah lowers the ramp, but it's not placed quite right, at least, not for one of the elephants who uses their trunk to adjust it before going down. Again the fussiness / sense of  exasperatedly having to show Noah how to do it right is quite a complex thing to convey with animated figures.

For those wanting to read more about this film, David Shepherd wrote a paper on it for the Journal of Religion and Film back in 2016 called "Noah's Beasts  Were the Stars": Arthur Melbourne Cooper Noah’s Ark (1909)'.

Noah adaptations p05: Jewish Texts After the Hebrew Bible

This is part 5 of a series investigating adaptations of the "Noah" story.

"The Animals Entering Noah's Ark" (1570s) by Jacopo Bassano

In the last part of this series on adaptations of Noah, I looked at the variations of the flood story that were brought together to form Genesis. Now I want to turn to how Jewish writers continued to amend and adapt the flood narrative after Genesis had been written. While the number of Jewish sources that do something with the flood narrative are too numerous to track, I'm going to focus on the main ones here, written in the Second Temple (intertestamental) period, beyond into the era following the fall of Jerusalem in 70 

CE to the later part of the first millennium CE.

I've laid out the most relevant sources in a rough chronological order, though I should point out that dates are nearly always disputed, and vaguer than the dates I cite. I just find it useful to find an approximate middle of the range to help establish what is likely to have come before what. (DSS = Dead Sea Scrolls)

200 BCE - The Book of Enoch 
200 BCE - The Book of Jubilees

100 BCE - DSS - Genesis Apocryphon (1Q20/1QapGen)

50 BCE - DSS - Pesher/Commentary on Genesis (4Q252/4QPGen)

40 BCE - DSS - Flood Apocryphon/Admonition Based on the Flood (4Q370)

80 CE - Pseudo-Philo (Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum)

94 CE - Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews

400 CE - Bereshit of Rabbah (Genesis Rabbah)

500 CE - Sanhedrin 108b (Babylonian Talmud)

600 CE - Sibylline Oracles

750 CE - Tanchuma Noach (Tanhuma Noah or Tanakh Noah)

1000 CE - Sefer ha-Yashar (Tole dot Adam, Book of Jasher)

Enoch

The Jewish source that is most frequently mentioned in relation to Noah (2014) is the Book of Enoch, a composite work of five smaller books that was compiled sometime "between the late fourth century B.C.E. and the turn of the era".¹ I want to get into this in a bit more detail, so I'm going to return to it in part 6.   

Jubilees

The Book of Jubilees is a rewriting of the material found in book of Genesis and the start of Exodus from the second century B.C.E.². The Dead Sea Scrolls included sections from 15 different manuscripts, roughly the same number of copies as they had of Genesis itself, so it was certainly popular among the Essene community³. The relevant passage starts with the last verse of chapter 4 and runs through to the fifteenth verse of chapter 6.  Most of the story remains intact, though the references to the animals on the ark is reduced to an afterthought. There's no mention of them entering two by two, let along seven pairs of clean animals and one pair of unclean.

This is unusual, because Jubilees tends to elaborate on the Genesis text quite a lot and many of those additions seem quite fastidious. In stark contrast to the absent details about the animals entering the ark, the list of the animals Noah sacrifices afterwards is very specific. Indeed, in general, the new material seems to be intended to reflect cultic practice. There's a great deal of concern about consuming blood, for example. That said, more general principles such as not killing other people (shedding blood) and about justice also come through quite strongly.

In my previous piece in this series I mentioned how the gods' attempt to depopulate the earth is turned on its head in Gen 9:1 and Jubilees 6:5 repeats the command to "increase and multiply yourselves on the earth and become numerous upon it", as well as the promise that "I will put fear of you and dread of you on everything that is on the earth and in the sea" [James VanderKam's 2018 translation]. It's funny, the "fear and dread" is in Genesis too, but I've never noted it before – a widening of the rift between humanity and its environment.

Lastly, one point relating to the Aronofsky adaptation in particular. In the film, Madison Davenport plays Ham's wife, who is called Na'el. As Peter Chattaway points out the name is a shortened form of Ne-el-atamauk, which derives from Jubilees 7:14).⁴

Dead Sea Scrolls 

Genesis Apocryphon (1Q20, IQapGen) has large parts missing, but is still arguably the most interesting account of Noah amongst the Dead Sea Scrolls. It dates from somewhere between 3rd century BCE and 1st century CE and was one of the seven scrolls that were first discovered, though the last to be translated because of its poor state. What we have starts with the "miraculous" birth of Noah in col.II and runs on into the life of Abram in col.XXII.⁵ Much of the Noah story is fragmentary, but of what remains we begin with his father Lamech's concern about how the yet to be born Noah will turn out. He asks his father (Methuselah) who in turns asks his father Enoch, who is held to be properly in touch "with the holy ones" (col.II:20).⁶. Collins observes how the "Genesis Apocryphon (ca. first/second century BCE) shares a number of features with both 1 Enoch and Jubilees, including the role of the Watchers".⁷ 

Cols III to XI are reduced to just a few phrases, but there's enough of col.VII to be able to figure out that now it's Noah that is speaking, recounting the events in the past tense. This is the first time since the flood hero became Noah that he has had a voice (aside from to curse Ham/Canaan). The first sentence particularly stands as Noah is recalling God's promise that he will "rule the earth and all there is in it" which feels like an expansion of what has gone before.⁸ Col. XII is better preserved and contains a few details of his family and a bit more about his vineyard. Collins notes that this is where the idea of Noah hearing God through visions, rather than words, is first found (e.g. XII:1).⁹

Fragment 4Q370, dating from around 160 BCE to 60 BCE almost has more titles than extant words (see here). It's variously called "A Flood Apocryphon", "Admonition Associated with the Flood",¹⁰ or "Exhortation Based on the Flood"  (Martinez).¹¹ The only bit that really stands out is the specific mention that "the giants did not escape". This seems to be in contrast with other traditions, that seek to explain the existence of giants/Nephilim after the flood in the Bible (not only Goliath, but those mentioned in Numbers 13:33) with a story of Og king of Bashan riding on a unicorn to stay alive (Zevachim 113b in The Talmud). See here, here and here for more on that...

Genesis Pesher (4Q252) also called a "Commentary on Genesis A". "Pesher" is a fairly terse retelling of the story, adding almost nothing and abridging the material quite significantly though typically it's employing a more disciplined word count than excising elements of the story. The most obvious actual omission seems to be that of the animals with a single dove being the only mention of animals in the whole text. It also clarifies the timings and mentions the 364-day calendar (as does "Jubilees").¹² It dates from around mid-1st century BCE to late 1st century CE.

(Pseudo) Philo

As with the Book of Jubilees the word "polluted" also crops up in Pseudo-Philo, but in an entirely different context. Pseudo-Philo, more formally called the Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum, was "produced in Palestine in the first century AD... (covering)... the story of Israel from Adam to David".¹³ It generally abridges the biblical text, such that the inclusion of the flood story is notable in itself given the omission of most of the rest of Genesis. The Noah (or Noe) story is found in Chapter III flanked by genealogies of Noah's ancestors and descendents. 

The most significant addition to the text is an apocalyptic section that comes immediately after God's promise not to destroy the world again (III:9). Following a pivotal "but" God launches into a promise to punish sin by famine / the sword / fire / death / scattering through the nations / earthquakes and from there moves onto a prediction what will happen when "the times are fulfilled". These are similarly apocalyptic in tone (and here I use the term in both the colloquial and the technical sense), using phrases that will bring to mind the more apocalyptic parts of the New Testament (such as Revelation).

This use of "polluted" comes in III:10 in the middle of the various predictions of destruction and judgement. God adds in that despite "none shall be polluted that hath been justified in me" before going on to promise "another earth and another heaven". Again this is clearly being used in a very different sense to how we the word would typically be used today, albeit in a way that it might be used in certain circumstances.

What is particularly interesting though is how the insertion of this apocalyptic passage fits with Aronofsky's intentions. Like Pseudo-Philo he too is retelling the story of Noah while casting an eye on a more cataclysmic future. As Pseudo-Philo sought to warn his audience of the perils of living wrongly through the language and style of the apocalyptic genre, so too Aronofsky use the language and style of the disaster movie genre to encourage his audience to live in a more environmentally conscious manner.

It's also worth mentioning that while quite a lot of the story is truncated, James Wyke finds the removal of the story about Noah's drunkenness particularly significant.¹⁴ It's a much longer piece and I'm not sure he reads the Jewish apocalyptic genre correctly, but he finds Pseudo-Philo's airbrushing of "the one flaw in his character" contrasts with how early church fathers made excuses for his drunkenness.¹⁵ Essentially though, the effect is the same, sanitising Noah's reputation to present him in more saintly fashion.

Josephus

Josephus's retelling of the story in his "Antiquities" is interesting because in a sense it does what I have been attempting to do: set out the story in a broader historical context. Not only does it offer more dates and numbers than even Genesis itself, but there's a remarkable passage where Josephus stops to discuss how "the writers of barbarian histories" (93) also mention the flood. He agrees with them that the ark's final resting place was a mountain in Armenia.

Give the eco-critical nature of my current project, I'm really struck by Josephus' use of the word "polluted" even if he is using it differently from its typical use today (of course, it's his translators -- William Whiston in my case -- that landed on that word, but you get my point). Following Noah's post-flood sacrifice, Josephus has God say that it was he (God) "who brought the destruction on a polluted world, but that they underwent that vengeance on account of their own wickedness". 

What I find interesting about this is while Josephus/Whiston mean this in the sense of sin/evil it does echo something of Aronofsky's ideas about modern-day humanity destroying its world through chemical/CO₂ pollution. And we could add that in previous versions of this story it was noise pollution that was the issue.

The other thing that links to Aronofsky's film is in v75 which says God "determined to destroy the whole race of mankind, and to make another race that should be pure from wickedness" this is actually consistent with the thought process of Aronofsky's Noah who sees humankind's total destruction as God's plan. The difference is that in the film Noah is dissuaded from ending his race by his family, whereas in Josephus following the first flood Noah seems to talk God out of sending a flood of that magnitude ever again. 

This seems to cue up Josephus's take on humanity's power over the creatures. He extends things a little further than the Genesis account saying "I permit you to make use of all the other living creatures at your pleasure, and as your appetites lead you; for I have made you lords of them all". The sense that the rest of creation is their for humans to exploit seems to have expanded a bit.

Finally, one of Josephus' major elaborations of the text is a discussion about the length of years that Noah and those before him lived (104f). Here too he refers to writers from other nations who "agree" with him that "the ancients lived a thousand years". He also finds an astrological basis for their longevity, essentially that they had to live over 600 years to observe a full cycle of the stars.

Genesis Rabbah (Bereshit Rabbah?)

Bereshit Rabbah is a midrash/"running commentary" on Genesis from around 300 CE to 500 CE of which the Noah-related material runs to about about 100 pages in Freedman's 1961 translation into English.¹⁶ This is obviously an enormous amount of material (given the NRSV text of Gen 6:1-10:1 in English is only around 2270 words). As well as the numbers of Rabba's verses, I'll also cite Freedman's page numbers alongside them as a copy of his third addition is available via Internet Archive. Page numbers for other sources are below as normal).

Actually though the relevant parts of this source come from before the Noah story even really starts in 23:3 (p.194). The name Aronofsky's film gives to Noah's wife's name is Naameh, who here is identified as both the sister of Tubal-Cain and Noah's wife.¹⁷. Not all contributions from Bereshit Rabbah are so conventional. Lee notes how 28:8 (p.22) claims “the dog [copulated] with the wolf, the fowl with the peacock” and are also deemed guilty in contrast to the film's attempt to "exonerate the animals from guilt".¹⁸ 

However, there is quite a bit here that has a potential environmental spin on it. Neril and Dee note how "Noah actually planted the trees from which he would take the wood for the Ark" (30:7, p.235).¹⁹ Sustainable forestry is easier when you live to over 600 years old, I guess. 

Neril and Dee have two other interesting observations in this vein. Firstly, they make the point several times  that the designation of one of the three levels of the ark for animal excrement (31:11, p.245 "garbage" alternately translated in n5) embodies an eco-friendly approach. Not only does it show care for the animals (providing a "clean, healthy living space" p.21), it also pioneers "organic fertilizer" (p.20) or "compost" (p.26).²⁰ A good use for this compost would have been to help "revitalize the land" after the flood,²¹ when we're told in 36:3 (p.289) Noah planted "vine shoots for planting, and young shoots for fig trees and olive trees" that he had brought onto the ark. The rabbis speculated that he'd also used those shoots as part of providing a varied and appropriate diet for the animals (31:14, p.247). 

 

The other key instruction about the construction of the ark concerns its source of light which revolves around Gen 6:16. The rabbis elaborate onn of differing understandings of the word tzohar. (which is "linguistically distinct" from the word zohar).²² It's a hapax legomenon which modern English Christian bibles tend to translate as "roof", older Christian English bibles translate as "window" and some Jewish English translations choose "light" based on the similar word zohar (literally 'shine'/'radiant').²³ Back in  200CE or thereabouts Targum Yonatan translated it as "precious stone". Here the writers elborate. Noah "did not require the light of the sun by day or the light of the moon by night, but he had a polished gem which he hung up" (31:2, p.244).

Neril and Dee bring these three elements together to conclude that "The Ark was a 'green building,' with a window for natural lighting from the sun, a whole floor dedicated to a composting of animal waste, and wood from forests Noah planted according to the midrash" a "reference to organic fertilizer".²⁴

Given all this, it's perhaps not surprising that Genesis Rabbah stresses one key difference between the text of Genesis 1:28 and the similar words in Gen 9:1-2. Despite the other similarities the word "dominion" is now missing, 34:12 (p.278) it notes "dominion did not return", even if the author(s) see(s) it as returning later.

Seth Sanders (cited on p.15 in Collins) also claims this adaptation gives Noah his first line of dialogue. "Genesis Rabbah helped make the flood filmable by giving Noah his first lines of dialogue and bringing in Tubal-Cain (as Noah’s father-in-law)".²⁵ Strictly speaking, he's wrong of course. Noah speaks even in the text of Genesis itself where having remained silent for almost the entire story, he pipes up right at the end to curse his grandson. But that's not really his point. The additional dialogue and family relationships Bereshit Rabbah introduce dramatic elements to the biblical narrative.

Sanhedrin 108 (Babylonian Talmud)

The (Babylonian) Talmud consists of six sedarim, which comprise of a total of 60 (or 63) tractates. Sanhedrin is one of these tractates. While Sanhedrin subdivides into 11 chapters, it's more common to reference the relevant folio directly, so we're looking at the 108th folio. These are still quite large Sanhedrin 108 consists of about 3000 words, though is usually divided into two parts "a" and "b". Dating is sometime between late 5th to "the formal closure of the Talmud, in about 600CE".²⁶ 

108a is mainly taken with describing the "generation of the flood" in very negative terms as you might imagine. It's hard not to think of some of Tubal-Cain's speeches in the 2014 film, when one reads words such as these

Depart from us; for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways. What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? And what profit should we have, if we pray unto him? They said thus: Do we need Him for aught but the drop of rain? We have rivers and wells to supply our wants.

So Noah responds, the first time (at least in the Jewish tradition) he has done this. "Noah rebuked them, urging, 'Repent!'" and goes into more detail. Nowadays the "traditional" Jewish view is that Noah was not righteous, because "righteousness is all about what you do for your fellow man. And Noah does NOTHING for his fellow man."²⁷(Emphasis original)

 

The other part of 108a to stand out was a discussion between the rabbis as to whether saying Noah was "perfect in his generations", meant he would be relatively even more perfect in other generations, or less perfect. One compares him to wine in acid, the other to the scent of "spikenard oil" lying in refuse compared to lying among spices.

108b continues this evocative imagery continues in when Noah's neighbours laugh off his prediction claiming that whether the flood is of water or fire they can survive. The rabbis respond that the "waters of the flood were as severe as semen" (though R. Hisda then uses a more literal "hot water"). I'm fascinated as to what the main points of comparison were when they used this simile and quite what they thought they were doing using it. 

There's another sex-related passage later on: "Three copulated in the ark, and they were all punished — the dog, the raven, and Ham. The dog was doomed to be tied, the raven expectorates [his seed into his mate's mouth] and Ham was smitten in his skin" I've touched on Ham's 'punishment' already, but the other two touch on elements that are expanded elsewhere in the text. This passage seems to be used as a conclusion to a previous story about the raven complaining that he was sent out to hunt for land when he and his mate were the only ones of their species (in contrast to the kosher birds). Hence why next time Noah sends out the dove which Neril and Dee interpret as an act of "preserving the diversity of life on earth".²⁸

That's not an explicit motivation the text makes, but elsewhere, in similar fashion, it does suggest "an intimate knowledge of and desire to learn from animals" with a lengthy story about Noah's discovery of what to feed the chameleon which also expresses the attention they gave to all the animals about how and when to feed them.²⁹ There's something particularly touching about this story and the connected one about the phoenix. 

Sibylline Oracles

The Sibylline Oracles sit awkwardly on this list, a strange mix of prophetic utterances that reflect a hotpotch of religious and cultural backgrounds: Jewish, Christian, pagan, Hellenistic, Gnostic. The majority of the flood material lies in Book I, lines 149-343, which seems to be Christian in origin.³⁰ While the Sibylline Oracles were composed over centuries, we're looking at a final dating of around the 6th or 7th century CE. Interestingly, both Book I (lines 350-54) and Book III (lines 1023-28) claims to have been written by Noah's daughter-in-law, despite them seeming to have different origins.

Book I is considered Christian in origin and certainly the way that almost a third of the total number of lines, 186-243, are given over to Noah's preaching to the people to repent, seems very different from anything we've seen so far in the Jewish takes on this story, though Josephus (1.74) does mention this briefly. We do find this idea of a preaching Noah in the New Testament though, in 2 Peter 2:5 which calls Noah "a herald of righteousness". He is also rebuked by the people who are recorded "(c)alling him mad, a frenzy-smitten man" (line 214).

Strangely, though, aside from its apocalyptic tone there's not that much of note, aside from perhaps the implication, and it is a little ambiguous, that God both shuts the door and bolts them in. So the Sibylline version of the story is perhaps best summed up by Seth Sanders "The Sibylline Noah anticipates his own misery at human suffering, tempered by awe at the flood’s sheer apocalyptic wonder".³¹

Tanchuma Noach (aka Tanhuma Noah or Tanakh Noah)

Tanchuma Noach is part of Midrash Tanchuma (or Yelammedenu), a midrash on the first five books of the Hebrew Bible with its original version dating from sometime around 500-800 CE. Noach is the second of 54 sections and it consists of 19 simans. Each consists of the rabbis expanding on the biblical text like the sources above.

A few things stand out here as the tradition progresses. Siman 5 says, for example, that not only was Noah righteous, but that "(e)ven Noah's sons, the animals, the beasts, the birds and the creeping things that accompanied him onto the ark were righteous". Moreover, it considers Noah so righteous that he was born circumcised. This is an interesting development from some of the rabbis from Sanhedrin 108b who consider  his righteousness to be only relative to his time. That discussion crops up again here only with a bit of a twist, the fragrant substance is now "Balsam oil" being placed  in a "filthy area" as opposed to a "clean"/"attractive" area. Again this seems to resonate with modern ideas about pollution, albeit as a metaphor.

Again we have Noah being mocked for telling the people God has ordered him to build an ark, but here things go further in Siman 7. The giants, eventually realise their fate, and try and storm the ark only for God to send lions to protect them and prevent these "mighty" men forcing their way on board the ark. This links to the watchers protecting the ark from Tubal-Cain's people in the film as well as giving some acknowledgement to "those about whom the biblical text is silent".³² Lions appear later as well in Siman 9 where a lion bites Noah so severely that "he left the ark crippled".

Elsewhere in we hear that Noah and his family didn't sleep because of feeding duties (Siman 9), so Lilly suggests "(t)his tradition of sleep-deprivation offers a rich opportunity to explore Noah as a character on the edge of sanity".³³

The other thing that stood out for me was the story in Siman 13 about Satan making a deal with Noah while he was planting his vineyard and then slaughters four animals there to make a point about the stages of alcohol consumption: people go from being as innocent as a lamb, to feeling as strong as a lion, then behaving like a pig before finally adopting the foolishness of an ape. "All this happened to the righteous Noah".

Sefer ha-Yashar (Tole dot Adam, Book of Jasher)

The first thing to explain with any title linked to "The Book of Jasher" is explain what it is not. This is not the Book of Jasher referred to frequently in the Hebrew Bible, which seemingly forms part of its source material, nor is it the 18th century forgery claiming to be the same. To make things even more confusing there's also another Jewish text from the middle ages called Sefer ha-Yashar/The Book of Jasher which is an ethical text. 

The one I'm looking at here is a medieval midrash, which can be read here (despite the initial pages of the scan it covers Genesis as well). The Hebrew title Sefer ha-Yashar, translates as "The Book of Righteousness". I've given a date of 1000CE above but that is probably the earliest feasible date. The latest date is 1625 when the earliest remaining copy was printed. Whereas the last few sources above have been styled around discussions between rabbis, this returns to a more "scriptural" format such that those not overly familiar with Genesis would find it difficult to distinguish between the two. It also feels like it branched off from those previous accounts at a much earlier stage, it doesn't seem to be building on those discussions. 

 
There are a few discrepancies about some of the details of Noah's descendants and different timings in places, and his wife's name is again given as Naameh (5:15). Narratively there's a quirky story about a lioness, and of animals having to humble themselves to be permitted entry, with unsuccessful ones remaining by the ark for seven days before the rain began (6:1-10). The flood itself is preceded by an earthquake and various other bits of apocalyptic imagery which actually feel similar in tone to Michael Curtiz's Noah's Ark (1929).

The bit that feels most like Aronofsky's film, and perhaps least like Genesis is 6:17-25 where 700,000 people gather round the ark having realised their error and repenting, but Noah does not relent. As part of his rebuke to them he mentions that he had spoken of this 120 years ago and they had ignored him. Infuriated the people try and 'storm' the ark but this time all the animals (not just the lions as in Tanchuma Noach) prevent them from doing so.

Those inside the ark are also frightened and anxious (6:28-33) with cries of the apex predators being detailed. Once the rain stops and the waters subside there's no sending of birds (God instructs them when to leave) and no mention of Noah planting vineyards or getting drunk. We do get an additional interesting detail about the skin garments that God had given Adam and Eve being passed down the family line to Noah who brings them on board the ark (7:24-30). Echoes here of Aronofsky's snakeskin. Moreover, Ham then steals them, passes them to Cush who clothes Nimrod in them which means God gives him strength.

Later sources

When I started writing this blog post several weeks ago now, I had hoped to follow it up with one about later Jewish mystic texts, such as those of Kabbalah e.g. Zohar, but my deadline is sooner than I had remembered and the chapter itself is only meant to be 5000 words and this blog post alone is already longer than that, so I need to focus. Perhaps I'll return at a later stage. I'm still planning to do something on Enoch, but even that might be a push now. We'll see. I say we, but I must admit I have my doubts that after 5000 words about obscure texts on a now out of the way weblog I'm not sure anyone is still reading at this point. So let me know if you made it this far!

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1. Nickelsburg, George W.E. and James C. Vanderkam (2012) 1 Enoch: The Hermeneia Translation (Minneapolis: Fortress Press). Ebook loc.47.

2. Vanderkam, James C. (2020) Jubilees: The Hermeneia Translation (Minneapolis: Fortress Press). Ebook loc.110.

3. Kugel, James (2014) The Book Of Jubilees, The Oldest Commentary On Genesis. Audio recording. Available online: https://archive.org/details/TheBookOfJubileesTheOldestCommentaryOnGenesis

4. Chattaway, Peter (2012), "A Few New Details about Aronofsky's Noah", FilmChat Aug. 9. Available online: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/filmchat/2012/08/a-few-new-details-about-darren-aronofskys-noah.html 

5. Vermes, Geza (1976) The Dead Sea Scrolls in English (Penguin). 2nd edition. p.215.

6. Martinez, Florentino García (1994) Dead Sea Scrolls: The Qumran Texts in English (Leiden/New York / Cologne: E.J.Brill). p.231. (which you can read here)

7. Collins, Matthew A. (2017) "An Ongoing Tradition: Aronofsky's Noah as 21st-Century Rewritten Scripture" in Rhonda Burnette-Bletsch and Jon Morgan (eds) Noah as Antihero (Abingdon/New York: Routledge). p.15.

8. Martinez, p.231

9. Collins p.17

10. Vermes, Geza (1998) The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English (Penguin) 4th Edition. p.518.

11. Martinez, p.224-5.

12. Collins p.15

13. Russell, D.S. (1987) The Old Testament and Pseudepigrapha: Patrirachs and Prophets in Early Judaism (London:SCM Press), p.97.
14. Wykes, James (2012) The Contextualized Noah: The Deluge Patriarch in Genesis, Jubilees, and Pseudo-Philo Master's. Unpublished thesis (University of Dayton). pp.55-74. Available online: https://www.academia.edu/3631710/The_Contextualized_Noah_The_Deluge_Patriarch_in_Genesis_Jubilees_and_Pseudo_Philo

15. Wykes, quote from p.74. Observation about Church Fathers from n232, p.66.

16. Freedman, H. and M. Simon (1961) Midrash Rabbah (London:Soncino Fine Arts Society). 3rd edition. p.XXVII.

17. Lee, Lydia "The Flood Narratives in Gen 6-9 and Darren Aronofsky’s Film Noah" in Old Testament Essays 29/2 (2016): 297-317. p.303 n24.

18. Lee p.302, esp. n17

19. Neril, Yonatan and Lee Dee (2020) Eco Bible: Volume 1: An Ecological Commentar on Genesis and Exodus (Interfaith Center for Sustainable Development). p.21.

20. Neril pages as cited

21. Neril p.26

22. Dennis, Geoffrey (2014) "Tzohar: Gem of Noah, Light of Heaven" at Jewish Myth, Magic and Mysticism (blog). 2nd April 2014 - Available online: https://ejmmm2007.blogspot.com/2008/10/tzohar-miraculous-light-of-noah-window.html

23. Dennis

24. Neril (p.20 (+21 & n118))

25. Sanders, Seth (2014) "Noah: The Movie" for Religion in the News (Hartford CT: Trinity College). November 18. Available online: https://commons.trincoll.edu/religioninthenews/2014/11/18/92/

26. Neusner, Jacob (1995) "Foreword" in Cohen, Abraham Everyman's Talmud (New York: Shockhen Books). First published 1949. p.x-xi.

27. Shmuley Boteach cited in Chattaway, Peter (2014) "The Jewish roots of — and responses to — Noah" Patheos: FilmChat 31 Mar 2014.
Available online: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/filmchat/2014/03/the-jewish-roots-of-and-responses-to-noah.html

28. Neril p.24 

29. Lilly, Ingrid E. “Rock Giants and the Magic Stone of Torah.” in Rhonda Burnette-Bletsch and Jon Morgan (eds) Noah as Antihero (Abingdon/New York: Routledge). p.40

30. Collins mentions the Sibylline Oracles in the same sentence as "Cave of Treasures" (p.15), but that is a more exclusively Christian text so I've not included it here.

31. Sanders

32. Collins p.17

33. Lilly p.40. She also cites Genesis Rabbah 30:6 as saying this, but really it only says that Noah fed "the whole twelve months in the Ark". This was probably the root for the rabbis elaboration here, but it's from them not Genesis Rabbah.