Enoch’s Green Apocalypse: The Source Material of Aronofsky’s Noah

Abstract A cataclysmic event, often spelling disaster for the environment, is an essential element to the backstory of any post-apocalyptic tale. In these stories, the presupposed ecological tragedy may have severely altered the environment, but it has not annihilated it. In fact, what has happened is that the apocalyptic catastrophe has neutralized the ecological threats that were the original catalysts for the devastation in the first place, resulting in an opportunity for the environment to rebound once its abusers have faced judgment. In other words, Earth may get beaten black-and-blue, yet the final effect is a green apocalypse—an event that rids Earth of its destructive inhabitants or at least counterbalances their negative effects, giving the global ecosystem a chance to renew. In this article I offer readings of two apocalyptic stories— 1 Enoch and Darren Aronofsky’s Noah . My approach to these stories utilizes elements from a method of ecological hermeneutics that has been developed by Norman Habel and others from the Earth Bible team. The Noahic flood story is one of the earliest examples of a “green” apocalypse, in which the penultimate event may have been devastation on the planet, but the ultimate end was a renewal of Earth. It is my hope that these ecological readings with their attention to the concept of a green apocalypse may be useful in appreciating the possibility of eco-friendly interpretations of apocalyptic texts.