R Crumb

The Bible has a fairytale, folklore story about Noah and the ark that is full of contradictions and utterly unbelievable, but some may consider it charming in that it has a rainbow at the end. What is interesting as well is how many ancient traditions have a flood myth. For example, the Epic of Gilgamesh or Indic flood myth story of Manu.

At any rate, this Bible story is when, after the flood was over and Noah on the ground, he got drunk, exposed himself in his tent, and one of his sons saw his father’s nakedness and told the brothers.

20And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard: 21and he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent.

Now here is a real role model, eh?

22And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. 23And 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. 24And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him.

There are a number of explanations for what Ham did to his father, but none of them are good. Was Ham disrespectful? Did he do assault Noah? What’s odd here is that Noah did not curse Ham but Ham’s son, Canaan. Whatever the case, the following verses have been used by racists to say Canaan was black and to justify slavery I remember that the Mormons would not allow black people to be priests in their religion until the 1970’s when they suddenly got a new revelation from god, *coincidentally* after an interview that the Osmonds had with Barbara Walters

And it wasn’t until 1995 that Southern Baptists (the SBC) apologized for is racism and stance on slavery. the very founding of the SBC was based on racism and acceptance of slavery

The SBC was formed on the issue of slavery. Baptists, with their talk of freedom and autonomy, struggled over the issue.  In 1844, the Baptist Home Mission Society and the Triennial Convention did not support the abolitionist or pro-slavery factions of their group.  They wanted to prevent the split that many already saw coming. A slave-owning missionary was put forward for consideration by the Triennial Convention. The Convention was prepared to allow it. However, the Alabama State Convention triggered a negative response when they asked the Board of the Triennial Convention’s opinion of the nomination. The Triennial Convention roundly said, “One thing is certain; we can never be a party to any arrangement which would imply approbation of slavery.”

This comment was what the pro-slavery faction needed to justify their split. In 1845, William B. Johnson led this faction to help form the Southern Baptist Convention in Augusta, Georgia. Johnson was one of the major architects of the SBC constitution. Under the new political body of the SBC, the foreign and domestic missional organizations would all come under one organization, the Convention.

To be sure, the organizational distinctiveness did not drive the need for this new movement. It was the ability to justify a pro-slavery stance. Richard Furman—namesake of Furman University in South Carolina—helped shape the pro-slavery theology of the South. He argued that not only was slavery justified, but it was also a benefit to those who were enslaved.  He claimed the “manner of obtaining slaves from Africa is just….[it had been] the means of saving life….even piety has been originally brought into operation in the purchase of slaves” and the Middle Passage “has been the means of their mental and religious improvement, and so of obtaining salvation.”

Furthermore, by 1861, this pro-slavery sentiment increasingly pushed the Southern Baptists to conclude that secession from the United States was necessary and theologically justified. The platform of the Confederate South was built upon slavery and white supremacy. The Southern Baptist Convention supported both. When Alexander Stephens declared the foundation of the Southern movement, one of the resolutions of the Convention held the cause of the Confederacy to be “noble.”

After the Civil War, the leadership of the SBC supported and pressed their churches to propagate the Lost Cause myth.  Moreover, they continued their support of white supremacist ideology. One statement by an Alabama Baptist newspaper in 1901 crystallizes the thinking of the SBC, “We are [the Negro’s] superior, made so by God.” The SBC planted its flag in support not only of slavery but also of its racist Jim Crow progeny.

Back to Noah’s curse on his grandson, but nobody really knows why the curse was on him and not his son Ham.

25And he said,

Cursed be Canaan;

A servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.

26And he said,

Blessed be the LORD God of Shem;

And Canaan shall be his servant.

27God shall enlarge Japheth,

And he shall dwell in the tents of Shem;

And Canaan shall be his servant.

The Canaanites were descendants of Noah’s son, Ham. In the book of Genesis, Ham finds his father passed out drunk and naked. When Noah wakes up and realizes Ham saw him in his uncovered state, he proclaims the curse that will be used to justify African American slavery centuries later. “Cursed be Canaan!” Noah cries. “The lowest of slaves will he be to his brothers.”

Somewhere in Abrahamic storytelling, Ham came to be widely portrayed as Black. In Black and Slave: the Origins and History of the Curse of Ham, author David M. Goldenberg writes (emphasis mine):

The introduction of black skin color into Noah’s curse has a long history… In 1848, the American anti-slavery minister John G. Fee wrote that Ham was made black “by the curse of the Almighty,” and he succinctly described that effect, which was commonly believed in his time: “God designed the Negroes to be slaves.

It didn’t matter whether one supported the institution of black slavery or not, or whether one was black or not; everyone seemed to believe in the truth of Ham’s blackness.

Progressive Christians can’t be blamed for trying to detach themselves from Christianity’s association with racism. Many are quick to point out that the Old Testament, where the story of Ham and the curse of the Canaanites is found, was made irrelevant with the arrival of Christ. Yet even if a version of Christianity is narrowed to the New Testament—even stripped down to only the red-lettered words of Christ—Jesus himself showed racism to a Canaanite woman who begged him to heal her daughter. He called her a dog. “I was only sent to the lost sheep of Israel,” Jesus said. “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to dogs.” She wore him down until he deigned to reward her faith. 

So…. Just another reading of the bible about a mythological story for which religious leaders in some sects used the above verse to justify slavery.

28And Noah lived after the flood three hundred and fifty years. 29And all the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years: and he died.

Yuh.huh. This is another fairytale flourish that shows this is just a myth.

By salon

SCS-Somervell County Salon has been a news/opinion site for years. Owned and run by local Somervell resident female who goes by the name of Salon online.See ABOUT https://scsalon.org/bl/index.php/about-scs/

Leave a Reply