Review: ‘Genesis: From Creation to the Flood’ is Inaccurate and Frustrating

When depicting the holy scriptures of roughly a billion people one would think that the obvious choices would be strive to be very accurate or not do it at all. While some elaborations are fine to flesh out the story as needed, adding to or significantly changing the narrative or meaning of a book that many believe to be the word of God is asking for trouble. In movie examples on one side we have The Passion of the Christ, which made some elaborations but was very true to the heart of the Bible story. On the other side we have the recent Noah movie, which added giant rock monsters, portrayed Noah as a maniac trying to kill babies, and in most ways ignored or twisted the very material it was supposed to be adapting.

As a pastor myself I like to look into new adaptations and see not only their quality but also their faithfulness to Bible. In that area Genesis: From Creation to the Flood is a middle ground. While for the most part it is a fairly faithful adaptation the beginning started off with a few inaccuracies that were so significant I found it frustrating.

While later stories such as Noah are pretty accurate the story of Adam and Eve and the first sin have some interesting differences. Some are just odd such as the serpent in Eden being portrayed as a full humanoid. Other parts subvert the actual point of the story such as the serpent having hypnotic eyes, suggesting that he controls Adam and Eve into sinning against their will. This takes away from heart of the story by suggesting that they weren’t really guilty but rather, as the old saying goes, the devil made them do it which makes God’s judgment on them seem misplaced at best.

Aside from that Jason Quinn does a solid job of bringing life to the Biblical stories and making the people in them seem like more than just the 2 dimensional characters that some adaptations do. He also includes additions to try to help fill in the narrative such as showing a sibling rivalry between Cain and Abel leading up to Cain’s committing fratricide. Quinn keeps the stories moving at a good pace and with a genuine feel to the dialogue.

The art also has its ups and downs. While it’s good it’s not great with colours that could be much much better. They seem simplistic and bland, almost a washed out look. It looks like it was done intentionally but the effect instead ends up just weakening the overall look. As for the pencils the animals in particular look excellent. They’re very accurate and a pleasure to look at. The people throughout the graphic novel are also well done. They aren’t done with quite the same amount of detail or realism as the animals but they still look good and the expressions Kumar gives them look great. When Noah looks excitedly happy as the rain stops I felt a little bit of that joy along with him.

Overall this graphic novel is going to have a hard time finding an audience. To my knowledge Bible-based comics are already not hot sellers but along with that this one starts off by taking liberties that will rub many Christians the wrong way. Add to that art that could be better and nothing else to make this stand out and I can’t recommend picking it up.

If you’re looking for Bible-based comics you’d be better off picking up either The Action Bible or even better the currently being published Kingstone Bible graphic novels.