The Influence of Popular Culture’s Interpretation of Noah’s Ark upon Evangelical Reading and Interpretation

Abstract

Whilst there is much published research looking at the use and/or interpretation of the Bible in popular culture, there has been little research investigating the impact of such cultural biblical engagement upon contemporary Christian Bible readers. Drawing upon focus group data, this paper thus explores the influence that the cultural history of Noah’s ark, particularly in popular culture, has upon the way evangelicals interpret. This paper shows that evangelical readers were influenced by the interpretations of the Noah story in the spheres of science, new atheism, children’s books and films, and this affected the conclusions they came to about the issue of historicity, morality and applicability. The paper closes with a reflection on why this phenomenon occurs and what hermeneutical benefits it might offer the reader by considering how God might be at work in the cultural depictions of Scripture and what they might offer interpretative practice.

1. Introduction

The story of Noah was one of three biblical texts that I had focus groups of participants read and discuss as part of my PhD research. In their reading of all three texts, the participants evidenced numerous influences upon their interpretation, including various facets of their individual and personal context (Hutchinson 2024). This is to be expected as hermeneutical research has long established that readers are influenced by their context.1 Yet it became apparent that the story of Noah, when contrasted with the other two texts that my participants explored, offered a unique type of context that affected a participant’s interpretation—the interpretations of the story in popular culture. The story of Noah’s ark is famous and has been discussed, interpreted and depicted in various public spheres. This cultural conversation around Noah provided a context for the participants’ engagement with the story that the other texts did not, simply because they have not made their way into the cultural conversation in any meaningful way.

Though much scholarship has explored the use or interpretation of the Bible in popular culture, there has been little research investigating the impact that this might have on Christian readers of Scripture (Culbertson and Wainwright 2010; Clanton and Clark 2012; Clanton and Clark 2020). So it was that this paper was born, exploring the influence that the cultural history of a text, particular “popular culture” has upon the way evangelicals engage with Scripture. The notion of cultural history as an expansion of the field of reception history is described by Timothy Beal: “cultural history encompasses reception history even as it opens toward horizons of research that are beyond reception history’s theoretical and methodological reach. The rise of cultural history over the past several decades has marked a shift in the focus of historical research from cause … to meaning … In relation to the reception history of the Bible, the turn to cultural history of scriptures would signal a parallel shift in focus from the impacts or influences of biblical texts and Bibles to the cultural meanings of them (Beal 2011)”. This encapsulates the focus of this paper, which explores popular cultural depictions of the story of Noah and their influence upon evangelical interpretation.

Accordingly, this paper offers another piece of evidence into the growing body of empirical research into evangelical Bible reading practices that has been illuminating what happens when evangelicals read the Bible.2 In this paper, I demonstrate how evangelicals approach Scripture under the influence of its depictions in popular culture. The first part of the paper explores popular cultural depictions of Noah’s ark, pertinent to my data and then evidences the way in which my participants called upon these cultural depictions in their discussion of the text and the way in which they were influenced by them. The second part of the paper offers a reflection on this phenomenon from an evangelical perspective, claiming that cultural history can be a helpful lens through which to engage the text and reveals something about the way that God is at work in cultural depictions of Scripture so as to inform interpretation. Before coming to this, I will outline some key definitions and the methodology of my research.

2. Materials and Methods

Though focus groups pose some methodological challenges, they provide an excellent insight into Bible reading as a natural forum in which readers can discuss and share their ideas. This is particularly adept given that group Bible study is a common Christian phenomenon (Bunton 2014).

The 19 participants involved in this research were aged between 23 and 83, 10 of whom were female and 9 male. They all volunteered and belonged to three evangelical Anglican churches based in the south of the England. Importantly, to classify as “ordinary” readers, none of the participants had to have undertaken any formal theological training or education. The research on ordinary readers has grown in recent decades stemming from liberationist methodologies and contextualised reading (West 2014). The importance of studying the theology and Bible reading of such individuals has been recognised (Astley 2002).

The participants were invited to read Genesis 7, the middle of the Noah narrative, which was provided on a handout including three broad questions to provoke discussion.3 The conversation was predominantly participant-led, with minimal input from the moderator and lasted around 45 min.4 My analysis through thematic coding enabled me to identify themes, conclusions and tendencies that could be seen in at least two of the three groups.

Researcher Self-Reflection

This paper reflects on themes that have emerged organically from the data, beyond what I set out to research. As such, I initially approached the exploration of cultural history without a bias or agenda to prove anything in particular. Of course, this does not make me an objective reporter. I research evangelicals as someone invested in the tradition, having been shaped myself in the evangelical Anglican tradition. The habits and practices I captured from my participants are very familiar to me, and I am trying to explore them here in the hopes of firstly, offering an account of what evangelicals are doing (the descriptive-empirical task) and then reflecting on why this might be the case (the interpretative task) (Osmer 2008, p. 4). Whilst this paper does not extend to all four of Richard Osmer’s practical theological questions, it does take some steps towards the third, considering what ought to be the level of influence that popular culture depictions of texts have upon evangelical readings, and whether this practice actually reveals anything about the way that God might be at work in cultural depictions of Scripture to inform how one understands the story. This final point of reflection has been prompted by a focus on the theme of the journal of which it is a part. This is worth mentioning simply to note that my reflection has not taken an unchartered course but been focused to consider how God might be at work in this practice.

3. Results: Popular Cultural Depictions

In this section of the paper, I give a brief overview of the cultural history of Noah’s ark in the spheres of popular culture that my participants referenced: science, new atheism, children’s books and film. I turn first, however, to outlining some key definitions.

3.1. Cultural Depictions

Although the term “depiction” is often associated with visual mediums, I am using it within this article to describe the way in which particular communities interpret the narrative of Noah and so reframes and casts the story in a particular light. In other words, by engaging with the Scriptural narrative from a specific perspective, different interpretative spheres depict the narrative of Noah as a certain kind of story. Erickson and Santana refer to this as “rescripting” (Erickson and Santana 2016), whilst Culbertson and Wainwright frame this as the text’s “afterlife” (Culbertson and Wainwright 2010). Both these terms are indicating the way in which the text has been received and interpreted beyond the religious community to which it belongs.

The cultural depictions that emerged from my participants’ discussion of Genesis 7 centered around the issues of historicity, morality and application. In discussing whether or not the events of Noah actually happened, the participants drew upon insights from science and considered how atheists might respond to the text. This consideration of an atheist perspective also featured in the participants’ discussion of the morality of God in the story, where the participants also made reference to the Noah films and the impact that these had upon their impression of God in the story, as well as the events of the narrative itself. Finally, the influence of children’s stories could also be detected in the participants’ discussion of morality and in how they might apply the story to themselves. Section 4 of this paper will elaborate on these instances in more detail, but this part of the paper explores these cultural references and their depiction of the Noah narrative.

The following thus explains how science has depicted the story of Noah as fiction/myth, and how new atheists paint the story as an exposé of the immorality of God and the delusion of his followers, whilst children’s story books offer Noah as a moral tale. Finally, the most visual medium I discuss, that of film, depicts the story as a fantastical epic.

These spheres of cultural history are chosen for exploration specifically because they relate to the data that emerged from my participants’ discussion of the text. Offering an overview of the relevant cultural depictions prior to the data might suggest that these categories have been imposed upon the data, rather than emerging from them, but this is not the case. Rather, by exploring the cultural depictions first, this offers the reader the necessary background to reflect on the participants’ contributions elaborated in Section 4. Therefore, as a result of these cultural depictions arising from the data, the following overview is not intended to be a comprehensive account of the numerous and diverse depictions of the story of Noah that can be found in culture.

3.2. Popular Culture

It is also important to establish that I am using a rather broad and particular definition of “popular culture” when it comes to these categories and that certain interpretative communities explored in what follows may seem more at home in this category than others. I am using the term to mean the spheres of interpretation that are firstly, from outside the church and academic theology, and secondly, well known (by virtue of the fact that my participants knew about them), i.e., not elitist or high culture. I am not claiming that my participants will have necessarily read or engaged directly with specific cultural history material, but rather that certain spheres of interpretation have offered responses to the text that have become well known in such a way that they infiltrate contemporary thought. However, as will be seen, drawing lines between what counts as “Christian” and “non-Christian” is not clear cut, so there is a looseness to the overarching category of “popular culture” that I am working with. I now turn to the first of these categories: science.

3.3. Science: Fiction/Myth

The interpretation of the Noah story within the field of science fits my definition of “popular culture” because the field of science is firstly, not theological, and secondly, because under the 1989 Education Reform Act in the UK, science became a compulsory core subject alongside English and Maths as part of the national curriculum in the UK (House of Commons Science and Technology Committee 2024). This means that a basic level of scientific knowledge is commonplace amongst the average Briton who has been schooled since this act, including various topics that have typically been seen as contentious in relation to the Bible, such as the big bang and evolution (Ofqual 2024). This means that one does not have to be an academic Scientist to have an understanding of how the field of science would interpret the story of Noah’s ark.

Both Norman Cohn (1999) and Janet Browne (2003) have documented how the growth of the sciences over the last few centuries has challenged the validity of a world-wide flood taking place. In their work, they cover that modern science has posited on numerous grounds that the Noah flood, as it is accounted for in Genesis, is a scientific impossibility. Whether it be the amount of water required to flood the Earth, building a vessel big enough to contain the world’s species, the ability to gather the world’s species, or fossil records and geological evidence—science’s interpretation of the Noah narrative is that it did not happen as the text describes. The story is thus depicted as either a fiction, a made-up account of something that did not happen or a myth in the form of an exaggerated account of an ordinary flood that occurred. This naturally poses a difficulty to a reading of Noah that takes the story to be a factual account of an event that happened in history. Either the findings of science have to be discarded, or the nature of the biblical text and the way it is to be read needs to be readjusted.

3.4. New Atheism: Exposé

Particularly since the rise in scientific knowledge and archaeological investigation, atheists have typically used the Noah narrative to deconstruct religion whilst also highlighting the immorality of “God”. Richard Dawkins provides the most famous example of this in his The God Delusion writing “the moral of the story of Noah is appalling. God took a dim view of humans, so he (with the exception of one family) drowned the lot of them including children, and also, for good measure, the rest of the (presumably blameless) animals as well” (Dawkins 2016, p. 269).5

It is important to note that this atheistic response which questions the morality of God in the story, can also occur amongst people of faith. Yet, what differs between Jewish and Christian interpretations is their appreciation of the themes of salvation and redemption that the story offers (themes that emerge more clearly in the context of the overarching narrative of the Bible), for example, Atkinson (1990, p. 136), which are seldom dwelt upon by atheists, who simply conclude that the story shows that God is not good. The destruction of the entire human race is seen as an unredeemable action, and the story is depicted as an exposé of the character of God who is revealed to be unforgiving and cruel.

Moreover, atheists use the narrative as evidence that the Christian faith is delusional—believing that the entire world could be flooded is considered unscientific (as above) and appeals to miracles, and the action of God is not a valid defence. This view is taken by all four of the central figures associated with new atheism, namely Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett, succinctly summarised by Benjamin DeVan (2012). Though not dismissing that the story could have its origins in some sort of natural disaster, these thinkers contend that believing that the events of Noah’s ark occurred as they are told in Genesis, is a mistake. In the words of Hitchens, “Every year, Christian fundamentalists renew their expeditions to Mount Ararat in modern Armenia, convinced that one day they will discover the wreckage of Noah’s Ark. This effort is futile and would prove nothing if it were successful” (Hitchens 2011, pp. 88–89). For new atheists then, the story of Noah’s ark is depicted as an exposé on two fronts: it reveals the true character of an immoral god, as well as the delusion of said god’s followers who believe in the story of Noah’s ark.

3.5. Children’s Books: Moral Tale

The story of Noah has long been a popular children’s story taught in “Sunday school”, featuring heavily in children’s bibles and often appearing on the front cover. Strictly speaking, children’s Christian literature does not quite fit my own definition of popular culture as being outside the church, given that these are produced by Christian authors. However, I am including it as a sphere of popular culture because it is an area of Christian resourcing that many non-Christians may have engaged with as children. This means it has a role in shaping popular understandings of Noah outside the church, in a way that other Christian literature does not.6

Research has been conducted into children’s account of Noah’s ark (England 2012, pp. 213–40; Landy 2007), and Russell Dalton’s analysis of the story of Noah in children’s bibles throughout American history highlights that often embellishments, abridgements and illustrations are used in these retellings (Dalton 2016).7 Dalton’s analysis notes that one such embellishment is that Noah was made fun of by his contemporaries for building the ark. In connection with the idea that Noah interacts with his peers, which does not occur in the Genesis narrative, is the notion that Noah had the opportunity to warn or save his contemporaries from the impending flood. Neither the mockery nor the warning occurs in the biblical account, but they do exist in many children’s accounts. This strand of embellishment did not originate with children’s books, however. Nadav Sharon and Moshe Tishel have established several occurrences of the embellishment in second temple Jewish literature, showing that it has been a persistent idea early in the history of interpretation (Sharon and Tishel 2010). It is also worth noting that some have corroborated the idea that Noah interacts with his peers from New Testament references to Noah as a “preacher of righteousness” (2Peter 2:5) and his “condemning the world” (Hebrews 11:7). Additionally, 2 Peter 3:3–6 references the notion of “scoffers” in relation to Jesus and references the flood, offering a further potential source of the notion that Noah was laughed at, especially in relation to 2:5. However, these are extrapolations and not explicit affirmations that such an event occurred. Indeed, Jesus’s own references to the Noah flood indicate that no warning was given (Matthew 24:37–39/Luke 17:26). One further source of this tradition should be acknowledged, which is the Qur’an (Q.11:38) where Noah is scoffed at as he builds the ark.

Contemporary children’s books are therefore certainly not the inventors of this addition to the Genesis account. Dalton goes on to identify four main ways that children’s stories frame the Noah narrative: retellings which focus on the character of God, retellings that relate Noah to the salvation offered by Jesus, retellings that tell the story of Noah as history and entertainment and retellings that emphasise Noah as a model of virtues and vices. Of this latter group, Dalton writes:

These authors not only add the embellishment of Noah’s mocking neighbors, but use the extra-biblical episode as the source of the lesson they feel children should primarily glean from the story. Furthermore, they tweak the embellishment of Noah’s mocking neighbors to have them call him crazy in order to encourage children to remain true to their faith even if their views lead others to question their sanity. The truly faithful, this version of the story seems to imply, will be mocked and even be called crazy.

(Dalton 2016, p. 177)

Dalton establishes that this trend dominated in the last decades of the twentieth century, appearing in Jenny Robinson’s The Encyclopaedia of Bibles in 1974, Sandy Silver Thorne’s The Great Bible Adventure in 1990, Dottie and Josh McDowell’s The Right Choices Bible in 1998, Focus on the Family’s Bedtime Bible in 2002 and Zondervan’s Veggie Tales Bible in 2009 (Dalton 2016, pp. 174–77).

In adapting and embellishing the story of Noah to communicate it to children, the story is depicted by some children’s books as a moral tale with a lesson to learn about how to live as a faithful Christian.

3.6. Film: Fantastical Epic

The category of film sits most comfortably within the designation of popular culture. Two notable films have been made about Noah. The first was the 2007 film Evan Almighty starring Steve Carrell, a sequel to the popular film Bruce Almighty. The film provides a comedic contemporary reiteration of the Noah story where the modern Noah, called Evan, is ridiculed as he carries out his instruction from God to build an ark. In the modern setting of the film, Evan’s exploits make global news and TV talk show hosts are shown calling him “crazy” and a “jackass”. The film both mirrors children’s stories in the imaginative additions that it makes to the story, but also captures something of the interpretation of the text by atheist readers who claim that religion is delusional. Evan Almighty depicts a culture that is extremely sceptical about God and their response to Evan encapsulates something of the broader secular response to the story of Noah’s ark in general.

That being said, the film concludes in a dramatic flood caused by the breaking of a local damn which ultimately proves the modern day Noah as correct. It further offers a moral vision for changing the world with one “Act of Random Kindness” (ARK) at a time, which reflects the depiction of Noah by children’s books as a moral tale. Cast ultimately as a comedy and entertainment, the film offers an amusing and fantastical take on the Noah story.

The most recent film depiction of the Noah story was the 2014 Noah film starring Russell Crowe. This film is very different to Evan Almighty and offers an adaption of the story that is more in line with the original story (rather than a modern reiteration) but with incorporated material, particularly from the book of Enoch. It is a dramatic film that has been said to offer an interpretation of the story that highlights modern issues including the environmental crisis (Moore and Shapiro 2018). Like Evan Almighty, there is an undertone of a moral lesson, but both films primarily depict the Noah event as a fantastical epic, drawing the viewer into the drama and spectacle of such a sensational story (Johnston 2014). By virtue of being depicted “on the big screen”, Noah’s flood is depicted as an epic tale of adventure.

4. Results: Popular Cultural Depictions in the Participants’ Reading

Having outlined the depictions of the Noah story from various fields, this section of the paper highlights three areas where they appeared in the participants’ discussion of the text: historicity, morality and applicability. These three discussions correspond to the hermeneutical “three worlds” of the text (Ricoeur 2008). In exploring historicity, the participants were looking at the world behind the text; the discussion about morality involved the world within the text, whereas the topic of applicability concerned the world in front of the text. I will demonstrate how each of these discussions was influenced by the depictions of the text in cultural history.

4.1. Historicity (The World Behind the Text)

Whether or not the flood actually happened was a prominent point of discussion amongst the participants.8 As evangelicals, my participants had a high view of Scripture which meant that they wanted to assert the “truth” of the text. In general, however, there was an understanding prevalent amongst the participants that the text could be both true but not factually accurate. For some, this was a result of their understanding of the genre of the text. Yet, both science and new atheism appeared to also influence the way in which the issue of historicity was explored.

4.1.1. Science

The participants demonstrated a tension between their belief in miracles and the omnipotence of God, their belief in the truth of the Bible and their education and scientific understanding that a worldwide flood is implausible.

In the application of science to the text, the participants demonstrated an awareness that science raised significant issues in relation to the plausibility of the narrative. For example, one participant commented: “About the historical accuracy, there’s obviously things that aren’t accurate because it couldn’t have been the whole of the earth that was flooded because the amount of water required would have been impossible”. This might suggest that science and the story are incompatible or at least mutually exclusive, but the participants attempted to navigate this tension, mirroring research that suggests many evangelicals are in the habit of integrating the insights of science with their reading of the Bible (Chan and Ecklund 2016). The results of this integration was that all three focus groups concluded that the flood did occur, but was local, rather than global. The flood would have appeared to be the whole Earth to those who experienced it, but was in fact, limited to a particular area. In this interpretation, the participants attempted to respect the insights of modern science that depict the story as fiction, whilst upholding the truth of the Bible; the flood is not impossible as science prescribes because it was not universal, and the Bible is truthful in its limited perspective.

Although this was the conclusion reached, there remained a tension in this, as is evidenced in the following participant comment: “But how would the water be contained? In that one area? If it’s as high as the mountains? It would cover the whole face of the earth”. Whilst being open to the interpretation of a local flood, this participant simultaneously demonstrates wanting to read the text literally by taking seriously the text’s claim that the water covered the mountains. How could a contained amount of water have risen so high? This is a demonstration of the strain between taking the text at face value and having respect for scientific plausibility.

When discussing the narrative from a scientific perspective, a variety of factors were considered including tectonic plates, continents shifting, the spread of civilisation, the amount of water on the Earth and the atmosphere at altitude. This shows that the participants read the narrative as educated individuals, with a basic level of scientific education. A generational difference could be discerned between two groups which consisted of participants who were in their twenties and thirties, and the third group who were all in their forties or older. The younger groups attempted to incorporate scientific knowledge much more than the older group, likely a product of receiving their education in the twenty-first century.

In summary, if science interprets the Noah narrative as fiction or at least, myth, modern readers were influenced by this in their interpretation that the flood could be local, rather than global. In their respect for science, the participants could be seen to merge their scientific knowledge with the events of the narrative, showing a lucidity towards the text in conjunction with a commitment to the events having taken place. They therefore did not succumb to an entirely scientific interpretation that the flood did not happen, because the flood in question was taken to be local.

4.1.2. New Atheism

The influence of new atheist responses to the text also proved to be an influential factor in how the participants handled the question of historicity. In one group, despite agreeing that God is omnipotent and can do anything, the participants were not content with this as an explanation of the story, instead wanting to understand pragmatically how the events could occur, prompting much of the science discussion (above). This concern for a rational explanation stemmed from an anticipated backlash from atheists, as one participant stated, “cynically, sceptically, this is what atheists will come to you and say, ‘how is that possible?’ And frankly, I don’t have the answer”. This statement suggests that the participant was imagining either an antagonistic or evangelistic exchange whereby he would be required to offer a rational or convincing explanation for how a worldwide flood could occur to someone who claimed that believing in the story was delusional.

Additionally, another participant in a different group mirrored this consideration of how “non-Christians” would receive the text:

P1: What do you do when non-Christians ask you “do you believe in x,y and z?”

P2: I never had somebody question me about a passage like this actually. I mean, I’m sure other people have, but I’ve never had someone actually ask me that.

P1: It’s probably because I grew up when a lot of people went to Sunday school and heard all these stories and as they got older, they thought “that was a load of rubbish” and started to challenge the Christians about it, you see. Maybe people don’t do that so much these days, I don’t know.

Participant P1 was considerably older than the other members of his group, who were in their twenties and thirties, hence his reference to growing up in a context where Sunday School attendance was much more common. His reading of the text was affected by his experience of his peers losing their faith and coming to question the narratives that they had been taught, including Noah, concluding that the whole thing was made up. Though he postulates that “maybe people don’t do that so much these days”, his concern reflects that of the participant above, who was much younger, suggesting that the atheist influence transcends age categories.

Considerations of the text’s historicity thus incorporated an “atheist” mindset, revealing the influence of secular responses to the text that depict it as evidence that believers are delusional. The participants seemed to be aware that the Noah narrative might be a target for attack by atheists who would claim that religion is delusional, and so the participants chose to address how such thinkers would respond to the text in their consideration of historicity.

4.2. Morality (The World in the Text)

Readings of Scripture that consider the “world in the text” frequently have a literary focus, exploring within narratives features of the plot, characters and other literary devices. One such topic that emerged from this perspective amongst the participants was the portrayal of the “character” of “God” in the story—in particular, the morality of this character, God, who chooses to destroy all the Earth bar those on the ark. The participants struggled to understand why a God they believed to be loving and forgiving would be characterised this way. This concern was prompted by the events of the text itself, but appeared to be compounded by the popular cultural depictions of the story by the new atheists and film.

4.2.1. New Atheism

The influence of atheist depictions of the text could be seen in how participants handled the question of morality as with historicity. Aware that the character of God in the story was vulnerable to attack, one participant commented, “I think many atheists draw on stories like this when they say the God of the Old Testament is completely different from the God of the New Testament”. Completely unprompted, this participant chose to see the text through the lens of how atheists respond to it and thus raise concerns about God’s behaviour. This response suggests that whilst the participant, as a Christian, could understand and make sense of the actions of God in the story, he was aware of the conclusions that non-Christians came to and was concerned by this. Depictions of the story like that of Dawkins who casts it as an exposé of God’s immorality seem to be casting a shadow over this participant’s reading.

4.2.2. Film

The story’s depiction in film as a fantastical epic could also be seen to influence the participants’ take on the morality of God in the story, as demonstrated by the following comment from a participant about the impact of the 2014 Noah film, worth quoting at length:

You do just kind of get used to it and you’re like, ‘oh this is just the story and this happened and it’s fine’ but I now find it really hard to read without seeing the images from the questionable film in my mind and actually, as many things that were really bad about that film it did help me to visualise the fact that it took 40 days of rain for the ark to get lifted. I don’t know if anyone’s seen it but there’s just a horrific bit where you’ve got people banging on the outside of the ark and you just think, however awful people are, if you can hear them begging for help… I mean it was horrific, it’s really stayed with me and it’s really uncomfortable and so as much as I absolutely trust in God’s goodness and his character and really trust his sovereignty in this, it still is uncomfortable when you don’t just see it as words and you think gosh, whether it was just one area or the world, it’s still God saying ‘these people will not change and therefore they’re all going to die’ and that’s really tough.

For this participant, the impact of the film was primarily emotive. Her familiarity with the narrative had led her to an acceptance of the story, but the film’s depiction of the flood and the deaths of those not on the ark had impressed upon her a sense of the horror of the events, leading her to question God’s actions. This participant read the text through the lens of the film, and this was causing her to rethink the morality of God.

Additionally, the influence of film proved to be influential for some participants’ consideration of morality in the expanded narratives that films foster, specifically Noah’s interactions with his peers. In one focus group, a participant (P2) questioned the morality of the story by wondering why there is no warning given about the flood to anyone but Noah, in contrast to the public warnings of the prophets later in the Bible. In response, another participant (P3) suggested that the building of the ark would have been akin to a prophetic act and that it would have taken some time to build, implying others would have seen it and would have been able to question Noah about what was going on. When another participant (P4) asked if others could have joined Noah in building the ark, P2 began to recall that God instructed Noah to say something, “But didn’t God say to him ‘tell them to…’”, before stating she could not remember. As P3 went to check in her Bible what the preceding chapter included, the following exchange occurred:

P4: I think he did … I think he had to … I feel like that’s in the story …

P5: Yeah, I think so

P2: It’s definitely in the film

P6: Yeah, definitely it’s in the story … they all made fun of him

Multiple participants demonstrated a belief that in the biblical story, Noah interacts with his peers, either being “made fun of”, or providing some form of warning. P2 noted that this is depicted “in the film”. When P3 established that this was not part of the biblical text after having consulted her Bible, she too agreed that she thought that this was part of the story:

P3: So there isn’t … and actually yeah, in my mental image … which must be how it’s …

P4: … portrayed

P6: It’s Bruce Almighty9 isn’t it?

P2: Well yeah, or Sunday school, they must answer that question going beyond the text.

It was only once the participants were made aware of what was in the biblical text that they reflected on the origins of where their mistaken memories came from, with both film and Sunday school being cited. What this demonstrates is that the embellished narrative had become so infused with their recollection of the Noah story that they could not confidently source where it had come from, eventually hypothesising that their childhood encounters with the text and the more recent films could be sources. Though no participant referenced either the New Testament, the Qur’an or Jewish interpretations, it is interesting to consider their possible unacknowledged influence, which would highlight the complexity of cultural history particularly in a multicultural context, such as the UK, and its bearing upon Christian interpretation. Though the data do not allow for any further specific conclusions, this could be an area for further research.

This exchange was a rare moment where the participants seemed to be self-aware of the influence of the text’s cultural history on a popular level. In considering the morality of God’s actions, the participants wanted to posit that there was an option or possibility for salvation that those who were not on the ark rejected. As such, they drew upon embellished narratives that attest to the influence of cultural depictions in children’s stories and in film.

4.3. Applicability (The World in Front of the Text)

Though it is well documented that evangelicals read the Bible with a goal for application or relevance to life,10 this goal can be seen in connection with the discussion regarding historicity and morality. In the challenge that popular cultural depictions posed to discussions of the world behind and in the text, the participants chose instead to focus on the world in front of the text. For example, one participant commented, “I don’t mind that much if it is real or not… but how can I apply it to my life and live now?” The question of historicity was ultimately silenced for the sake of applying the text to life, which could be accomplished regardless of the conclusions from the historical conversation. This was reflected by the other participants including the one who made the following comment: “whether we individually believe bits of it and not other bits is irrelevant if we’re taking on board the reflection of God”. In this statement, the text was understood as a vehicle for theological truths which did not depend on the factual accuracy of the story to be conveyed.

Therefore, the turn to application, though expected from evangelicals, can also be seen as a response to the challenge of the question about historicity and/or morality from popular cultural depictions. Additionally, the influence of children’s books and films could be identified in some of the specific applications that were made.

Children’s Books/Film

Unlike the example above, where the participants recognised that they had unknowingly embellished the Noah story, another focus group did not realise that they were working with an expanded narrative. In this focus group, the idea that Noah was mocked was not explicitly discussed or identified as an embellishment.11 Instead, it was confidently dropped into conversation and remained unchallenged by the other group members. One participant stated, “That’s what’s so wonderful about the previous chapter, how they … cos they scorn him don’t they? ‘What on earth are you doing building that great big boat?’” This participant’s question had a rhetorical force—she appeared confident that Noah being scorned was part of the narrative and was not actually asking for confirmation from others that this was the case. This point was later repeated and elaborated on by another participant who made a contemporary personal application about obedience and faithfulness despite adversity on the back of the false narrative that Noah was mocked:

I usually take from this that God asked Noah to do something that seemed ridiculous and everybody else was sortof making fun of him, ‘why is he building this boat?’ and I take it from this that sometimes God might want me to do something and … other, friends, perhaps non-Christian friends, might say ‘well that’s ridiculous’ and I then have to struggle and think ‘well is it ridiculous or is this really the path that God wants me to follow?’ So, it is hard I think, today, as it was for Noah. Sometimes there are things we need to do or not do that other people would think as acceptable, but we as God’s children really think that this is who we’ve got to obey and although it might look ridiculous and we might be made a figure of fun or something, if we really believe it’s what God wants us to do then we’ve got to knuckle down and do it and trust God to see us through it.

This participant encapsulated and reflected perfectly the lesson that many children’s authors tried to communicate through their retellings of the Bible story. Her comment was met with murmurs of agreement from the group, demonstrating that they too believed this to be a valid reading of the text, and another participant provided an example, citing Christians called into monastic life, which would appear “crazy” to outsiders. As none of the participants recognised that they were working with an embellished narrative, they did not reflect on where these embellishments came from. However, given that this is a common feature of children’s stories, it can be confidently conjectured that this might be the origin of the interpretation, and if this is the case, the depiction of the story of Noah as a moral tale to learn from and emulate influenced the application that these participants drew from the story.

5. Discussion: Reflection on Evangelical Engagement with Popular Cultural Depictions

The following section explores what this paper has offered so far using the first three of Richard Osmer’s practical theological questions (Osmer 2008, p. 4). The first two questions, “what is happening and why?”, function as a summary of the findings so far, with the third, “what ought to be happening”, offering space to reflect on this phenomenon.

5.1. What Is Happening?

It is clear from the overview above that my evangelical readers had absorbed popular cultural depictions of the story of Noah and the way it has been interpreted in different spheres (both consciously and subconsciously) and this formed part of their response to the text. Cultural history was not the only influence upon the participants’ interpretation, but certainly had a role (Hutchinson 2024).

Cultural history was drawn upon to explore the various aspects of the narrative including whether the flood actually happened (the world behind the text), the morality of God and Noah’s interactions with his peers (the world in the text) as well as what the text means today in lessons of application (the world in front of the text).

When popular culture was drawn upon in the discussion of historicity and morality, the participants appeared to be asking the question “how do we make sense of this text in light of the way the text has been received and depicted in popular culture?” This presupposes that there is a tension between the text and its popular cultural depiction, and there was something to reconcile in the popular cultural depiction and the Christian understanding of the text.

When popular culture was drawn upon in application, this tension was not felt, and the influence of popular cultural depictions went under the radar. The participants were making sense of the text in light of its depiction in popular culture leading to the embellished narratives, though they did not seem to be aware of it.

5.2. Why Is This Happening?

Firstly, the fact that poplar cultural depictions had a role in the participants’ interpretation is quite simply the result of the fact that there are popular cultural depictions in the first place. Because Noah has been a story retold and responded to in public discourse, this discourse has come to shape the way in which readers engage with the text. This is most notable when contrasted with my participants’ discussion of another biblical text, Psalm 44. Although this comparison crosses two different genres, what was clear was that there is no popular cultural history of Psalm 44; the participants did not consider the Psalm from any other perspective than their own, in contrast to Genesis 7 where they saw the text through the lens of the cultural depictions of science, atheism, film and children’s stories. Though Psalm 44 most likely would not elicit a response from these same spheres of popular culture should it become as well known as Noah, no popular cultural depictions of any kind could be discerned in the participants’ discussion.

Secondly, a result of Noah’s public discourse and the challenge it raises to the text caused the above noted tension that the participants sought to resolve. The story of Noah was considered somewhat problematic by the participants when it came to the issue of historicity and morality, and this no doubt was compounded by the story’s depiction in the spheres of science and new atheism. This created a particular hermeneutical agenda of “solving” the problems of the text, which fostered an apologetic or defensive tone. The comparison to Psalm 44 proves instructive in illustrating this as well. Psalm 44 posed its own theological challenge to the participants in claiming that God had unwarrantedly abandoned his people. Although the “problems” of these texts cannot be equated as a result of their genre (Judd 2024), it is interesting that only Genesis 7 prompted the “apologetic, defensive tone” to the problem solving of the passage and not Psalm 44. Both texts contained interpretative issues, but these were seemingly compounded in Genesis by a perceived recognition that the problem was external (from non-Christian sources) and not just internal. So, whereas the story of Noah prompted the participants to question how they could explain or defend the story to a non-Christian, no one considered the Psalm from a “non-Christian” perspective. This suggests that the cultural history of the text offered an external challenge which was significant in setting the tone of the hermeneutical agenda of reconciling the depictions of the story as fictional and/or delusional, with their understanding that the story was truthful and/or instructive for Christian life.

5.3. What Ought to Be Happening?

This paper closes with some reflections on whether this influence of popular cultural history ought to be going on and whether this practice might say something about how God is at work in the cultural depictions of Scripture and their influence upon interpretation. What level of attention to popular cultural depictions of a text should an evangelical hermeneutic endorse? To what extent should popular cultural history set the agenda or influence the way one approaches the text?

Increasingly within evangelical scholarship and thinking there has been a movement towards engaging culture. Some of this engagement is missionally focused, leading evangelicals to “appropriate, especially, popular culture and the latest technology to assure the relevance and efficacy of their mission” (Dyrness 2007, p. 157). Some of this engagement, prompted by Mark Noll’s The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (Noll 1994), focuses on interpreting culture or “reading” culture theologically, asking what we make of the world that we live in when viewed through the lens of the Bible (Anderson et al. 2007; Ward 2011). Little of this scholarship is directed at allowing culture to affect our engagement with the Bible. In fact, the opposite is usually argued, with a refocus on Scripture itself such as Beavis and Kimm-Cragg who see “transformation and distortions of the biblical stories in the wider culture” (Beavis and Kim-Cragg 2017, p. 25). Yet, my fieldwork demonstrates that rather than asking “what do we make of the world we live in through the lens of the Noah story?”, popular cultural history prompted my participants to ask “what do we make of the Noah story through the lens of the world we live in?” As has been noted, this resulted in an apologetic reading of the text that attempted to defend the text’s historicity and the morality of God, as well as its usefulness for today. An apologetic interpretation of the text that addresses the challenges of culture certainly might be deemed an important exercise within an overarching goal of evangelism. However, might there be some reasons for an evangelical hermeneutic to incorporate popular cultural history in their reading and not just in order to respond to it in the form of counterarguments? I believe that there are.

First, Anthony Thiselton highlights the importance of the questions and context of the reader, asking whether engagement with a text can be authentic and can speak to a contemporary reader if the text does not address the questions of today? He writes: “Our initial questions may well differ from the questions which the text itself first addressed to the ancient world. Yet our initial questions must be asked. For they trigger off the preliminary round of dialogue with the text. Then, however, the text itself will speak back to our preliminary questions, and may well suggest that these questions now be revised and reformulated” (Thiselton 1977, p. 105). Thiselton is clear to highlight that the reader’s questions are not the final point of engagement with the text, but that they are an important place to start. If readers live in a culturally secular context, captured by popular cultural history, then there is an argument to be made for readers to approach the text with comments, questions and insights that reflect such a context.

Second, if the answer to the question “what ought to happen?” is that readers disengage from the cultural history of the text, this might suggest that culture is something external to us that we can simply disengage from and “cut out”, rendering its influence non-existent in our approach to Scripture. This simply is not true. As humans, we are affected by culture and participate in culture, and this will be true whether popular cultural history is denied or included in Scriptural engagement. Amongst the participants, the fact that popular cultural history was drawn upon unintentionally and uncritically in instances where the story of Noah was misremembered evidences the enmeshing of culture and faith. We are not always aware where culture is active and approach the Bible with its influence unacknowledged. Therefore, a hermeneutic that proposes to ignore popular cultural history is somewhat naïve. Whereas the much-debated realm of the relationship between Christian faith and culture has typically characterised them as two distinct forces or remits and posited ways in which they might engage one another, by acknowledging the influence of culture, readers are led towards a more nuanced understanding of both the spiritual dimension of culture and the cultural dimension of spirituality (Anderson et al. 2007, pp. 33–34). It is not simply the case that we bring something secular and cultural to something Christian and theological. But rather, culture itself is not theology-free and theology is not culture-free. As Smith argues, “There is nothing inherently sacred or profane. These are not substantive categories, but rather situational or relational categories” (Smith 1988, p. 55). Indeed, the Bible itself is not culture-free. As Sparks claims, “all interpreters of Scripture—including even the biblical authors—read the Bible through the lens of our respective cultural traditions” (Sparks 2008, p. 212).

Thirdly, and in light of the focus in this journal upon the disclosing of God in practice, I wonder whether God might be at work in the popular cultural history of the text and its influence upon interpretation? One might be initially hesitant to make such a claim, particularly given that many spheres of cultural history draw conclusions from the text that are not in line with traditional Christian readings.12 In all the experience, tradition and cultural history that readers draw upon when they read Scripture, who is to say which is inspired and of the Holy Spirit and where God is at work?

And yet, as I have reflected upon this phenomenon, it has occurred to me that the cultural history of the text attests to the compelling and provocative nature of this Scriptural story. Might the very fact that Noah’s ark has captured the imagination of so many, for good or ill, speak of a God whose Word inspires? The story of Noah clearly captures the imagination; it is an extreme tale. It is both playful and childlike in its fantasticality and adventure, and yet dark and intense in its brutality. A worldwide flood and the saving of a small few is exciting, scary and sensational. The interpretation of this story in the spheres of science, atheism, film and books all attest to the fact that the story of Noah is powerful and compelling, such that it would be reflected upon and engaged with in these spheres, whether it be creatively and/or critically. Might this reveal part of the way in which God is at work through culture to inform the interpretation of the story of Noah’s ark? Could it be that part of what it means to engage this story well is to allow it to capture the imagination?

Of course, the fact that God’s Word inspires, that it captures the imagination, does not necessarily guarantee fruitful interpretative avenues. The parable of the sower offers a helpful analogy and framework to reflect on this.13 What we have seen in popular cultural history is that like the parable of the sower, the seed of the story falls on a variety of grounds, leading to a variety of interpretative conclusions. The condition of the ground, however, does not detract from the capacity of the seed. Though the story is not always handled in ways consistent with Christian thinking, this does not take away from the fact that the Noah story is an inspired seed; it will germinate and spark the imagination, capture attention and warrant reflection. Staying with this parabolic framing, what my participants were doing when they engaged with cultural history was exploring the variety of grounds where the seed of the story had fallen and reflecting on how the story had fared in those conditions. We cannot make a claim that God is at work in every place that the seed has fallen, but we can make a claim that God is at work in sowing Scriptural seeds of impact.

By engaging with cultural history, with the places where the seed had fallen and the results of the imagination in those contexts, my participants were inspired themselves to imaginatively explore the story, and as a result cultivate their own good soil, in considering how the imaginative seed of the story should be best received and understood as contemporary followers of Jesus. God is at work in this inspired story, and witnessing where the story has died, choked, withered or flourished in cultural history offers wisdom and guidance for the faithful interpreter of Scripture as they seek God in the story.

6. Conclusions

This paper has offered evidence of the way in which the popular cultural depictions of a biblical story, in this instance Noah’s ark, can influence the way in which the biblical text is interpretated and understood on three levels—the world behind the text, in the text and in front of the text. I have explored the spheres of popular culture that my participants referenced and the way in which they depict the text, and shown the role they played in the discussion of the text. I then reflected on this dynamic and argued that there is a hermeneutical benefit to exploring a text in relation to its popular cultural depictions, and not simply as a means to counter alternative interpretations in the form of an apologetic response. Considering the cultural depictions of a Bible story in popular culture recognises the imaginative power of such texts and can lead to fruitful avenues for cultivating good soil for the reader themselves to be transformed and inspired by a powerful Scriptural story.