ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the departure from the Bible is not so great as some have claimed (with many apparent innovations grounded in biblical, pseudepigraphal, and rabbinic literature), and that the strategies employed by Aronofsky and his co-writer Ari Handel reflect a retelling of the story that is in fact very much in line with the motivation and literary techniques of an expanded ancient tradition. It considers what it means for a film to be "biblical," arguing with regard to Noah that instances of departure from the text are in fact anticipated in and/or entirely consistent with an expanded "biblical" tradition, effectively rendering the film an example of 21st-century rewritten scripture. The origins of the biblical flood narrative can be found in the literature and mythology of the ancient Near East. The text is extremely fragmentary, though appears to begin with an account of creation and the founding of the antediluvian cities.
