In Darren Aronofskys new star-gilt silver screen epic, Noah, Adam and Eve are luminescent and fleshless, right up until the moment they eat the forbidden fruit.
Such a notion isnt found in the Bible, of course. This, among the multitude of Aronofskys other imaginative details like giant Lava Monsters, has caused many a reviewers head to be scratched. Conservative-minded evangelicals write off the film because of the liberties taken with the text of Genesis, while a more liberal-minded group stands in favor of cutting the director some slack. After all, we shouldnt expect a professed atheist to have the same ideas of respecting sacred texts the way a Bible-believer would.
Both groups have missed the mark entirely. Aronofsky hasnt taken liberties with anything.
The Bible is not his text.
In his defense, I suppose, the film wasnt advertised as such. Nowhere is it said that this movie is an adaptation of Genesis. It was never advertised as The Bibles Noah, or The Biblical Story of Noah. In our day and age we are so living in the leftover atmosphere of Christendom that when somebody says they want to do Noah, everybody assumes they mean a rendition of the Bible story. That isnt what Aronofsky had in mind at all. Im sure he was only too happy to let his studio go right on assuming that, since if they knew what he was really up to they never would have allowed him to make the movie.
Lets go back to our luminescent first parents. I recognized the motif instantly as one common to the ancient religion of Gnosticism. Heres a 2nd century A.D. description about what a sect called the Ophites believed:
Adam and Eve formerly had light, luminous, and so to speak spiritual bodies, as they had been fashioned. But when they came here, the bodies became dark, fat, and idle. Irenaeus of Lyon, Against Heresies, I, 30.9
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