18
¶ And the sons of Noah, that went forth
of the ark, were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth: and Ham is the father of Canaan.
19 These are the three sons of Noah: and
of them was the whole earth overspread. 20
And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard: 21 And he drank of the wine, and was drunken;
and he was uncovered within his tent. 22
And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told
his two brethren without. 23 And Shem
and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went
backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were
backward, and they saw not their father’s nakedness.
24 ¶
And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done
unto him. 25 And he said, Cursed be
Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. 26 And he said, Blessed be the LORD God of Shem;
and Canaan shall be his servant. 27 God
shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan
shall be his servant.
28 ¶
And Noah lived after the flood three hundred and fifty years. 29 And all the days of Noah were nine hundred
and fifty years: and he died.
The entire earth was eventually settled by the
offspring of these three sons. This is not hard to accept, even from the point
of view of modern theoretical science. Scientists theorize that there may have
been many, “severe population bottlenecks,” of human beings in the distant past
based on their assumptions about evolution. (36) Of course, their conclusions
are filled with speculations and interpretations based on an atheistic
worldview in that they might think, “we don’t know for sure but it must be so
because the alternative of the Bible being true is just too horrible for us to
imagine.” The point is that here is the ultimate population bottleneck and
there may have been others later until humanity got on its feet, so to speak.
It is possible that, based on the change in
conditions, Noah would not have known that fermentation could take place and
that he could get drunk. Or, perhaps the long voyage and time of struggle
surviving and leading his little tribe after disembarking from the ark made him
desperate to get roaring drunk as soon as it was possible to do so. Either way,
that is what happened.
To see the
nakedness of someone carries with it a very wicked implication.
Leviticus
20:17 And if a man shall take his
sister, his father’s daughter, or his mother’s daughter, and see her nakedness,
and she see his nakedness; it is a wicked thing; and they shall be cut off in
the sight of their people: he hath uncovered his sister’s nakedness; he shall
bear his iniquity.
But, let’s say, for argument sake, that this is not an
idiom suggesting actual sexual contact with either Noah or Ham’s mother which
it appears to be.
Leviticus
20:11 And the man that lieth with his
father’s wife hath uncovered his father’s nakedness: both of them shall surely
be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.
To keep from delving into aspects of this event that
incite prurient interest in a reader or listener let’s say for argument sake
that this event involved only vulgar disrespect and mocking. God had already
blessed Noah and his sons in verse 1 of chapter 9. So, Noah cursed Ham’s son,
Canaan, and this curse was fulfilled in Israel’s conquest of Canaan hundreds of
years later. Noah blessed Shem and Japheth further, due to their respect and
merciful deed toward him and their mother, one assumes, and prophesied that
Canaan would be their servant, which proved very true as Palestine, where
Canaan dwelt, became the victim of many conquests from Israel to the Persians
to the Turks to the Crusaders and the Turks again to the British and French
with many in between. Palestine was an avenue of conquest between the warlike
culture of Babylonia and Assyria to Egypt.
There was a myth fostered and promoted as a
justification for racial slavery in the United States, although it had a small
number of voices before, that Ham was the father of the black, African races,
thereby making the curse on Canaan really a curse on Ham and all of his
descendants. This myth gained ascendancy in Antebellum America and is still
popular among racist preachers and congregations. The most exhaustive study of
this myth I have read is by Stephen Haynes, a professor of Religious Studies at
Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee. (37)
While a literal view of this passage reveals that the
curse was laid upon Canaan, a curse we will see was literally enforced as per
proof in the Bible narrative, we will also soon see that Ham was not just the
ancestor of African populations. In fact, let’s make something clear. The idea
that Noah walked off the ark with three sons; one of whom was a white guy, one
a black guy, and one an Asian guy is so patently absurd that it can only be
dismissed as the raving of a lunatic who has an agenda. Mankind would have been
brownish with dark hair and eyes at this time, with some variation possible
which foundations were already in the genetic code God had placed in man and
God operated with each cell division and each generation. Race, a social
construct, that has little bearing in physical reality, based more on politics,
geography, and culture, will come about later, over time. Some geneticists
estimate that the classic white skinned, blue eyed Caucasian came about between
5 and 6,000 years ago as, in their elongated time frame based on their dating
methods, early Europeans were dark-skinned, brown-eyed, and dark-haired. There
are a number of genetic studies confirming this belief of the modern
geneticist. Unfortunately, we are still using classifications from the racist
19th century that alternately render black people between being, as
a group, naturally villains or fools, and impulsive victims of their own
biology. Such nonsense should not be honored in a Christian church.
Galatians
3:28 There is neither Jew nor Greek [grades
of ethnicity or race], there is neither
bond nor free [grades of social class],
there is neither male nor female [grades of gender] : for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.
Colossians
3:11 Where there is neither Greek nor
Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but
Christ is all, and in all.
Noah lived for several centuries after the Flood to
see several noteworthy events, perhaps to his further shame.
·
(36) John Hawks, Keith Hunley,
Sang-Hee Lee, Milford
Wolpoff, “Population
Bottlenecks and Pleistocene Human Evolution,” Molecular Biology and Evolution, Volume 17, Issue 1,
Pp. 2-22.
(37) Stephen R. Haynes, Noah’s
Curse: The Biblical Justification of American Slavery (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2002).
