[Untitled] (Jacob Schwartz)

As a concentrator in the Comparative Study of Religion, I am fascinated by comparing and contrasting different ideas throughout various religions. This happens to have been the main reason behind my selecting this course in the first place. As a Religion concentrator, I have specifically focused on classic Jewish text study such as the Hebrew Bible and the Babylonian Talmud. As a religious Jew myself, one of the things that I have been fascinated about since my childhood has been the Jewish conception of the end of the world. Interestingly enough, Judaism tends to focus much less on what the end of the world will look like and instead on taking practical steps to bring about the Messianic era. In other words, as a tradition, Judaism is much more concerned with this world and less with what happens next. However, that does not mean that there are not a wide variety of apocalyptic motifs and themes throughout Jewish primary sources. Specifically, throughout the Prophets and Writings, the latter two parts of the Hebrew Bible, a handful of individuals prophesize about what will lead to the end of the world. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and other provide what little insight we have as to what this will entail. However, one such very explicit apocalyptic story that I chose to study is the story of Noah and the Great Flood in the Book of Genesis.

            In short, the story of Noah consists of a time period in which the world had become so corrupt that God decided that it must be destroyed. There is great commentary about what the corruption entailed, but most commentators agree that it was a combination of lawlessness and idolatry. However, God decides that Noah is righteous and deserves to be saved. He then commands Noah to build an ark to house two of every species, a male and a female, so that he can survive the flood and begin humanity anew. God causes a massive storm that lasts for forty days, completely flooding the earth with boiling water, destroying all living creatures besides those on the Ark. After the rain ceases, it takes approximately 150 days for the water to subside. However, at this point, Noah is not entirely sure whether or not the entire earth is dry or just certain areas, so he sends out a raven to see if it will come back or find a tree on which to perch, meaning that the flood has ceased enough that Noah can exit the ark. The raven did not come back, so he sent out a dove to see if the ground was now dry as well. Eventually, the dove brings back an olive branch and Noah and his family and the animals exit the ark. 

In terms of the artistic process, there was a certain amount of symbolism that I elected to include in my painting. First, the medium. When deciding what to use for the painting, my ultimate choice—watercolors—seemed relatively obvious. Just as the flood consisted of water, so too should my depiction. I also chose to make the tree the focal point of the painting. This was because I wanted to emphasize the part of this story that is characterized by new life and new beginnings. In addition, I painted the tree with different colors that flow into one another. This was intentional as I wanted it to represent the flowing nature of human life and our existence on this earth. In a religious sense, life is incredibly transient and can be ended at any point. So too this tree, representing life, needed to be transient. When painting the actual flood itself, I decided to use more or less random strokes with different blues, allowing them first to set and dry on the page. After that, I took a wet brush with no paint and went over each area of the water. This allowed the blues to mix together in a semi-random way. I then picked up the paper and allowed the water to move along the sheet, contributing further to the randomness. I felt that this technique was symbolic of the uncontrollable nature of apocalypses. We, as humans, no matter how technologically advanced or innovative we become, have no control over how they progress. This process of allowing the paint and water to guide itself seemed to represent that to me. Another element that I added is that some of the tree branches are made out of verses from the story of the flood. The verses, from bottom to top are:

Genesis 6:11 “The earth became corrupt before God; the earth was filled with lawlessness,”

Genesis 7:10, “And on the seventh day, the waters of the flood came upon the earth,”

Genesis 7:22, “All in whose nostrils was the merest breath of life, all that was on dry land, died,”

Genesis 8:21, “Never again will I doom the earth because of man,”

Genesis 8:22, “So long as the earth endures, Seedtime and harvest, Cold and heat, Summer and winter, Day and night Shall not cease.”

The first three verses are ones that describe the destruction and apocalyptic components of the story while the final two represent the peaceful parts. I chose to have the destructive components in the trunk of the tree because they are the base of the story, while the parts representing the covenant between God and Noah that God shall never destroy the earth again are the branches from which the leaves sprout, signifying that from those promises have grown new life.

            While it is somewhat clear which apocalyptic motifs are present in this story, I will share a bit of my perspective. One of the reasons I chose this story specifically was because I believe that it actually encompasses two of the main themes we have discussed in class: Destruction and Revelation. The destructive component is quite explicit, as the world, and all living beings, is quite literally destroyed. There is nothing left after the flood and instead Noah must build society anew. However, the revelatory component is one that is much less frequently discussed. A very interesting question arises when discussing the story of Noah: if God is omnipotent, why bring a flood? Why not merely wipe out humanity and leave Noah? And why did God make him build an ark? Each of these steps seems rather extraneous and unnecessary considering that God is all-powerful. Many commentators discuss these very issues and one common thread arises: God made Noah build a massive ark to give the people that had become corrupt a chance to repent. He wanted to forgive them and by having a sort of warning that they were going to be destroyed, and this gave them that chance. Unfortunately, no one took advantage of the opportunity, but this commentary lends itself to a quite revelatory reading of the story as it was all done to reveal God’s presence to the lawless people.

            The most obvious influence for this project in the class was the movie, Noah. However, there are quite a few differences. I elected not to include the Nephilim as part of the project because they are not explicitly discussed in the book of Genesis. Additionally, I did not focus on the actual people of the story, such as Noah and his children, because I wanted to focus more on the actual apocalypse in nature. I found that my painting was particularly influenced by Laura Copier and Caroline Vander Stichele’s work on “Close Encounters Between Bible and Film.” “If the source of the disaster in 2012 is not that far removed from that in The Day After Tomorrow, the apocalyptic element of the Mayan calendar makes the cruelty of nature even more relentless.”[1] In the case of the story of the flood, this is one that is very much led by natural forces. As was mentioned above, instead of wiping out all humanity in a moment, God elects to destroy the world through natural means.

One thing that can be seen in my painting is the omission of the ark itself, arguably the main part of the story of the flood. However, this omission was quite deliberate, as I took it as an opportunity to provide a commentary on the possibility of a climate apocalypse. In Noah, the apocalypse is brought directly by God, but using natural elements. In today’s world the threat of climate change is becoming ever more severe. However, as can be seen by the presence of the arks in 2012 and the multi-million dollar “doomsday bunkers” being built by the ultra-wealthy people are obsessed with surviving the apocalypse. However, by not including the ark itself, I was trying to note the fact that if we continue to destroy the planet, we may experience the “cruelty of nature” and that is something that may be utterly inescapable.

            Another component from this class that I chose not to include was any liberatory elements. This piece actually required a great deal of thought because upon landing and having the entire earth to themselves, one could argue that nature and animals were free to roam and live as they pleased. However, the story of the flood itself actually seems to include the exact opposite of liberation: the animals and Noah’s family are quite literally trapped inside a relatively small ark. The commentators explain that there were no windows at all and that the ark was not nearly large enough to naturally fit all creatures inside, so it relied on miracles from God. Even more so, the Babylonian Talmud actually discusses that when Noah was caring for the animals in the year or so that they were on the ark, if he was late to feed them, they would often hit him or knock him down. In addition, although the aftermath was liberatory for nature, the flood itself destroyed both animals and nature alike. Therefore, this felt like a piece that I should not include because regardless of the aftermath, the story itself really does not include the theme of liberation.

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[1] Copier, Laura and Stichele, Caroline Vander. Close Encounters Between Bible and Film. SBL Press. (Atlanta, GA. 2016.)