“Noah” Film Is Encouraging People to Read the Bible
by Staff Writer
According to three major Bible sources, the new film Noah starring Russell Crowe is making people want to research the real story. The YouVersion Bible app reported that, during the film’s opening weekend, the story of Noah in Genesis 6 was accessed nearly 390,000 times—that’s nearly 130,000 times per day (a 300 percent increase), the highest number of people exploring that passage that they’ve ever recorded.
Bible Gateway, another top online Scripture site, reported a similar increase of 223 percent. And the American Bible Society explored their Facebook followers and discovered that over 85 percent of them were reading the story of Noah because of conversations they were having with their friends and family about the film.
Benny Perez, senior pastor at the Church at South Las Vegas, commented “over and over the first thing (his church members) do after seeing the movie is pull out their Bibles and re-read the story.” And Phil Cooke, a Christian media consultant and prolific blogger, wrote on his blog that “God can indeed work with imperfect people and imperfect vehicles.”
“In spite of the non-Biblical elements taken from Jewish and other sources, (theNoah film) is still driving people to explore the real story in the pages of the Bible,” wrote Cooke. “This was my hope, and it’s certainly playing out. …If you haven’t talked to someone about Noah lately, I’m encouraging you to do it today.”
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