David Instone-Brewer attended a preview of Noah screened by Christian media group Damaris.

Here are his personal observations and reflections.

For once it is no hype to say this film has a canvas of Biblical proportions.

Though in today's language you might compare it more accurately with Lord of the Rings. Look out for images akin to Isengard, fighting as impressive as Aragorn's and creatures suspiciously similar to the Ents.

If you are wondering where all this fits into Genesis, be prepared to let your imagination soar. Storylines from the Book of Enoch, other Jewish myths and the director's imagination supplement the Bible text. Together they create a compelling story and a surprise ending.

Charlton Heston famously defined an epic as a film that he starred in. He was wonderful at portraying strength with a smouldering anger. Russell Crowe is starting to fill his shoes, and is very suitable as Noah, because he can show the same strength though with an underlying sadness. In this film he also adds a convincing hint of madness, but I mustn't give too much away.

It is unfair to ask "Is it accurate?" If it were, there would be only ten minutes of story plus lots more special effects. Actually, "special effects" is an understatement. Throughout the film everything is so real that I was glad it wasn't in 3D.

The really 3D aspect of this film is in the characterisation. Noah and his sons are totally believable and the tensions with Ham flesh out the Biblical narrative convincingly. But the female roles carry the dramatic turning points, conveyed with Oscar-quality acting. They also get the best lines and appear to speak the director's message.

Although the film takes liberties with the story of Noah, the essential message of Genesis is conveyed clearly and accurately. The story of Eden, the snake, temptation, the murder of Abel and subsequent decline of humanity is referred to frequently. The bigger picture of God's plan to undo this damage is hinted at, but it would not be true to Genesis to state this clearly.

"How do we know God's will?" is the unspoken question addressed by various characters throughout the film. How can Noah know what to do, and does he really understand God's plan accurately? His dream informs him but also misleads him. His wife (who, as in the Bible, is nameless), says the goodness in our character comes from God so we should listen to it. Tubal-Cain, the violent self-appointed king, says God has left us to do whatever we want.

This film shouldn't be seen as an accurate portrayal of the Bible, but can be treated as a thought-provoking way to explore the message of Genesis.

Writer-in-residence Brad Green critiques a TV series.

In Search for Bible Truth, the first of two recent BBC Bible Hunters documentaries, rugged archaeologist Jeff Rose travels on foot, motorcycle, and camel, leading the viewer to Egypt and beyond, following the various 'Bible Hunters' of the past.

Rose traces the steps of the German scholar Constantin Tischendorf (1815-1874), twin Smith sisters Agnes Smith Lewis (1843-1926) and Margaret Dunlop Gibson (1843-1920), and American businessman Charles Lang Freer (1854-1920).

His argument is that they all made discoveries of ancient manuscripts which challenged the notion that the Bible was the “unchangeable Word of God” and shook the faith of the Christian world.

This episode was really dealing with textual criticism. We asked Peter Head, Sir Kirby Laing Senior Lecturer in New Testament at Tyndale House, Cambridge, an expert in textual criticism, to explain.

Textual criticism is the study of the manuscripts and other witnesses to the text of the Greek New Testament, or any ancient literary text, with a view to both ascertaining the earliest form of the text and understanding its transmission over the centuries. It doesn’t have the negative connotation of passing unfavourable judgment on the New Testament, but involves careful analysis of the available evidence.

Christian scholars have engaged in textual criticism since the days of Origen (early in the third century) and Jerome (in the fourth century), but both the invention of printing and the discovery of old manuscripts have shaped the last five hundred years of study since the first printed Greek New Testament.

We asked Peter Head how Tischendorf actually responded to his discoveries in Egypt, particularly the discovery of Codex Sinaiticus.

As a young man Tischendorf decided to devote himself to ‘the textual study of the New Testament … to reconstruct, if possible, the exact text, as it came from the pen of the sacred writers’.

No doubt the highlight of his career was the discovery and publishing of Codex Sinaiticus, which he regarded as ‘the most precious Biblical treasure in existence, a document whose age and importance exceeded that of all the manuscripts which I had ever examined’.

He also regarded the manuscript as a gift from God: ‘Providence has given to our age, in which attacks on Christianity are so common, the Sinaitic Bible, to be to us a full and clear light as to what is the real text of God’s Word written, and to assist us in defending the truth by establishing its authentic form.’

Asked what the chief weaknesses of the first episode were, Peter Head said:

I think there were many weaknesses in the programme, although I enjoyed some of the location photography. Lots of details were incorrect, we didn’t hear much of the complex motivations of pious Christian people like Tischendorf and Agnes and Margaret Smith, we didn’t hear anything of the previous history of scholarship on the text of the New Testament, and the hysterical tone of the whole was quite surprising, as if people who loved the Bible were not excited about the discovery of such an early and magnificent manuscript.

The second episode, How We Got Our Bible, suggests that rather suspect motives like brute force or political machinations are what really led to the formation of the Christian canon. One of the early members of Tyndale House, F.F. Bruce, wrote The Canon of Scripture (1988), and dealt with questions of how the Bible was formed. Toward the end of the book (p. 277), Bruce was particularly forthright:

It is sometimes said that the books which made their way into the New Testament canon are those which supported the victorious cause in the second-century conflict with the various gnostic schools of thought. There is no reason why the student of this conflict should shrink from making a value-judgment: the gnostic schools lost because they deserved to lose.

Professor Larry Hurtado (University of Edinburgh) appeared in both episodes and expresses his misgivings in his blog here and here.