Dear Father in Heaven,

You already know my thoughts.  But, in order to fulfill the guidelines for this contest, I need to write out my thoughts to you.  So here goes! 

As you well know, one of the most talked about films in 2014 was Darren Aronofsky’s “Noah.”  The film received its share of rave reviews; however, it also raised the hackles of many bible professors and meat eaters.  Hence, I went out to view "Noah" for myself.  What immediately surprised me is that Aronofsky presents Noah and his family as displaying a remarkable respect for the natural environment and for animals. This puzzled me. None of my early bible teachers ever presented Noah's family in this light.  Nor did any of my bible professors.   So I began to reread Genesis for myself and to read a dozen critical reviews of the film as well.
 

Whether Noah Was Rescued from the Flood Because He Was a Vegetarian

Dr. Joe S. Baden, an Old Testament [Tanach] professor at Yale Divinity School, faults Aronofsky's film as an unwarranted distortion of the biblical message of Genesis.  His title tells it all: “Sorry, Darren Aronofsky: God Is Not a Vegetarian.”  With passion Dr. Baden exposes the false ideology that the writer-director Aronofsky has projected into his reading of Genesis:

The eco-political message is hammered home from the very beginning of the film, where we learn that the bad guys, the descendants of Cain, have been killing and eating animals—because they think it makes them stronger—and ravaging the land to build cities and craft weapons of war. In contrast, the good guys (i.e., the very few people in Noah’s immediate family) are peaceful vegetarians who refuse even to pick a single flower unnecessarily.

Even Vance Lehmkuhl, a “lifelong vegetarian,” strongly objects to how Darren Aronofsky presents Noah's family in his film:

When I saw some grumbling about the vegan director [Aronofsky] ticking people off by injecting such elements into the telling of this hallowed story, I had to check it out, and I'm back to report that yes, "Noah" is indeed, gopherwood-wall-to-gopherwood-wall, vegan propaganda.

Lehmkuhl is persuaded that Aronofsky is a "rabid vegan" who decided to make a film regarding “Noah” as his way of persuading meat-eaters that God himself brought on the worldwide flood by way of signaling his anger at Cain’s descendents who “terrorize, capture, subjugate and eat” his animals.
 
J. Hoberman, a movie critic writing for Jews, calls Aranofsky's Noah “the most Jewish biblical blockbuster ever made.”  Hoberman supports his claim by making his readers aware of the Jewish sources (midrash, rabbinic commentaries, the Book of Enoch) that expand and embellish the meaning of Genesis along the lines that Aronofsky presents in his film.  In the end, however, Hoberman makes no attempt to refute those who pan the film because it presents Noah as a “environmentalist wacko.”

What none of these critics realize is that the vegetarian mandate is part and parcel of Your divine plan. 

When I undertook to study the bible very carefully, to my amazement, I discovered that Aronofsky did not project his vegan leanings into his film.  Rather, Aronofsky discovered what I came to realize, namely, that Noah's vegetarian mandate is firmly rooted in Your divine plan.  You, the Cosmic Creator NEVER GAVE the birds, the fish, or the animals to humans as their food.  Rather, You intended Earthlings to be entirely seed/grain and fruit eaters (what we know today as "vegetarians").  Here is the key biblical text:

God said, "See, I have given you [humans] every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food.  And to every beast of the earth [lions included], and to every bird [hawks included] of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food." And it was so (Gen 1:29-30).

In Gen 1, animals and birds and fish are created on the fifth day prior to humans who are created on the sixth day.  According to Gen 2-3, however, You created a garden/orchard first and then created Adam and instructed him how “to till it [God’s orchid] and keep it” (Gen 2:15) since it was the sole source of Adam's food. You later created the animals and birds and brought them to Adam for the expressed purpose of finding a solution to Adam's loneliness (Gen 2:18-20).  Animals and birds were never given to Adam as a supplement to his vegetarian diet.

Thus, the opening chapters of Genesis clearly express Your “vegetarian mandate.”  Neither humans nor animals had any reason to kill any living thing since You had made provisions for their vegetarian lifestyle: grain and fruit for humans; green leaf plants for animals. However, after the great flood, it appears that You entirely dropped the vegetarian mandate:

God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.  The fear and dread of you shall rest on every animal of the earth, and on every bird of the air, on everything that creeps on the ground, and on all the fish of the sea; into your hand they are [now for the first time] delivered.  Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you; and just as I gave you [earlier in Gen 1:29f] the green plants, [now] I give you everything [for your food] (Gen 9:1-3).

I notice that in Gen 1-3, there are two mandates given to humans and animals: (1) “Be fruitful and multiply” (Gen 1:22 for birds and fish; Gen 1:28 for humans; also Gen 8:17 and 9:1) and  (2) Be “vegetarian” (Gen 1:29-30, 9:1-3).  Noah and his family along with the animals are the ONLY creatures who heeded these two mandates.  This is why the ark is built for the survival of Noah and his family and for the survival of the animals and birds (because they too followed the dual mandates). During the extended stay (more than a year) on the ark of salvation, neither the humans nor the animals killed each other. If there would be any killing, then the entire species would die out. Furthermore, the prohibition against shedding blood is further made clear in this biblical text: “Also take with you every kind of food that is [legitimately] eaten, and store it up; and it shall serve as food for you [Noah and his family] and for them [the animals and birds]” (Gen 6:21).

From this starting point, it is not far-fetched to have Aronofsky conclude that the righteous conduct of Noah and his family is very much associated with the two mandates named above.  What then is the crime of those who displease God?  That they are not fruitful?  Hardly.  That they kill living things?  YES!

Cain, in will be remembered, was originally described as “a tiller of the ground” (Gen 4:2), but once he killed Abel, his brother, the blood of Abel seeped into the ground and You declared, “Now you [Cain] are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand” (Gen 4:11).  Since the ground is cursed as far as Cain is concerned, he could no longer practice agriculture.  Thus, “Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch; and he built a city, and named it Enoch after his son Enoch” (Gen 4:17).  His great, great-grandson “Tubalâ-Cain . . . made all kinds of bronze and iron tools” (Gen 4:22). Agricultural existence thus passes over into urban existence.  Here is where Aronofsky gets the idea that clear-cutting forests and mining and smelting become the way of life for Tubal-Cain.  And, since agriculture was out of the question (due to the curse described in Gen 4:11), the surmise must be that the descendants of Cain necessarily killed animals for their food—something which was clearly forbidden. 

Here now is a story that most every bible teacher forgets.  Cain is the first creature created by God who sheds blood.  No animal [not even wolves and lions] ever did anything like this.  As a result, Abel's blood seeps into the earth and pollutes it.  Cain is thus forced to give up agriculture and to build a city.  Now killing animals becomes a way of life.  And this is NOT what you had intended.
 
Gen 6 makes clear that “the wickedness of humankind” (Gen 6:5) increases.  And You, the Creator, lament “that he had made humankind” (Gen 6:6).  And You said to Noah, "I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence because of them [animal killers]; now I am going to destroy them along with the earth” (Gen 6:13).  What comes through here is that the earth itself is polluted because “it has opened its mouth to receive” the unlawful blood of animals. It remains unclear whether the flood has the efficacy of removing all that unlawful blood that has soaked into the earth--but, my hunch is that this is implied by the text.
 
My research has persuaded me that both Genesis and Aronofsky's film are in agreement that Noah and his sons exhibit their respect for nature and for animals as "the source of their righteousness." At this point in history, however, there was no threat of crowding chickens in cages and forcing them to live in darkness their entire life as is so often done today. Furthermore, at the time of Noah, there was no danger of industrial fishing that has brought mass extinction to the fish in the seas. So that makes our current society so much more worthy of destruction, some might want to argue.  In any case, Aronofsky is clearly committed to offering a biblical parable of destruction, and he is likewise clear that the blood-soaked earth has become polluted.  This is not his “twisted subversion,” however, it is the core message of Genesis itself.

My Emotional Storm Reflecting on Aronofsky's Film

Now, I confess to you, my Father, that my discoveries shake me up.  I have passed through an emotional storm that washes over me and drowns some of my former certainties.  Everything that my bible study teachers told me about Noah's flood now seems so badly informed and so dangerously wrong.  All the preaching I've heard on this topic has been likewise unfaithful to Your revelation.  So please tell me, Lord, how is it that so many have been so mistaken for so long?  And I don't understand how my teachers, my pastors, my bishops, and my popes (those appointed to guide and keep me on the narrow path) have been so mistaken and how they continue to ignore Aronofsky's message even today.  #1 Tell me, Lord, how should I understand this persistance in error.

No one has put the pieces together so compellingly as Aronofsky.  I think I would not be mistaken to see Aronofsky as "Your faithful servant" and "Your inspired messenger." He has offered me a way to move forward.  Now I can take it as certain that You created us originally for a vegetarian life-style.  Now I know that Noah's righteousness consisted in the fact that he abided by Your command not to kill cows and chickens and whales.  But this success story has a problematic future.  Noah and his family must have loved their divinely approved vegetarian life-style.  Now that the descendants of Cain were out of the picture after the great flood, those who survived could practice this life-style unhindered.

So please tell me, Lord, how is it that You changed your mind after the flood subsided?  Why did you abandon the vegetarian mandate that guided You during Your original creation?  How could You approve the very ugly practices (Gen 9:1-3) that formerly prompted You to bring on that deadly flood?  You Yourself said, "The fear and dread of you [animal killers] shall rest on every animal of the earth and on every bird of the air" (Gen 9:2).  Hence, you were aware of the enormous and perpetual evil that would befall animals once the vegetarian mandate was lifted.  #2 Please tell me, Lord, what wisdom is present in Your abandonment of the vegetarian mandate.

I, your servant and your son, humbly await Your answers,
Aaron

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