Darren Aronofsky's Noah – Chapter 3

A look at the traditions surrounding Noah's family, whether he ever tried to save his neighbours, and whether God spoke to him through visions.

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Noah (Russell Crowe) tells Naameh (Jennifer Connelly) about the dream he just had.

Noah and his sons return to their family’s camp, and Noah receives his first vision of the Flood in a dream, while he is sleeping.

SHEM: Mama!
HAM: Mommy!
NAAMEH (to baby Japheth): See your brothers?

Sources. The Bible never gives a name for Noah’s wife. She has a few different names in the extra-biblical sources, and one of the more common ones is Naamah.

The sources disagree as to who Naamah’s ancestors were.

The 5th-century midrash Genesis Rabba and the 11th-century commentator Rashi both say Noah’s wife was a Cainite, and they say she was identical to the Naamah who was Tubal-Cain’s sister according to Genesis 4:22.

But the Book of Jasher—a midrash that was written no later than the 16th century—says Noah’s wife Naamah came from the line of Seth, and it says she was the daughter of Enoch, which would make her Methuselah’s sister, Lamech’s aunt, and Noah’s great-aunt.

(There is a biblical precedent for relationships between aunts and nephews. Amram and Jochebed, the parents of Moses, were just such a couple according to Exodus 6:20—which is interesting, because relationships between a man and his parents’ sisters were eventually forbidden by Moses in Leviticus 18:12-13 and 20:19.)

The film never gets into Naameh’s background at all, so the viewer is left to wonder just where she came from and how the orphaned Noah met her and started a family with her.

If she is descended from Seth, and Noah was “the last of Seth’s line” (as per Chapter 1), does that mean women don’t count as members of Seth’s “line” somehow? Alternatively, if she is descended from Cain, how did she and Noah get to know each other, and what would that imply for them and their relationship?

Naameh holds Japheth, who is her youngest son… or is he?

One other curious detail: Despite the fact that the biblical Noah’s sons are regularly listed in the text as “Shem, Ham, and Japheth,” in that order (Genesis 5:32, 6:10, 7:13 and 9:18), that might not be their actual birth order.