PedroSteckecilo said:
I've always been intrigued by the idea of "Christianity/Judaism as straight Mythology" so despite being one of those irreligious types I intend to check it out... so like Moviebob I'm hoping that this is something at least thought provoking...
Though last time Aronofsky worked with a budget we got The Fountain... and that was weird...
Honestly, a lot of it is more fantastical than you'd expect. Most of the 'mainstream' biblical stories and imagery has been heavily sanitized and revised over the years. You just don't hear about a lot of the wars (a few of which ended in the people on God's side slaughtering every man, woman and child in said conquered land/city), or the sex, or even the monsters. You can argue that nephilim and such are non-canon because the people who decided what went in the bible decided they were, but there's a good bit still in there. A lot of angels are downright lovecraftian in how they are described. There serephim are just these huge balls of wings used to keep their true bodies hidden, and then there are the Thrones, the most powerful of the angels. They're described as flaming wheels within wheels, covered in eyes. And that's not even getting into the clusterfuck of WTF that is the book of Revelations.
The idea that Jesus is a blue-eyed white guy, angels are these beautiful winged humans, that Satan is some sort of goat-man, and that the bible has less weirdness and violence than any other religious text are more modern constructs. Largely as an attempt to try and sanitize it all.