Don't Know Much About the Bible - Kenneth C. Davis [33]
Many of the images and the language of the Flood story recall the first biblical Creation. The deluge even suggests a reversal of the first Creation, in which the earth was created out of the formless deep. Then, once the flood recedes—we don’t know what happened to all those drowned carcasses, but it must not have been a pretty sight—Noah is told to “be fruitful and multiply,” just as his ancestor Adam was.
Was Noah the first drunk?
Things are not perfect in the new creation after Noah and the kids settle down, especially when “the fruit of the vine” makes its first biblical appearance. Noah becomes the first man to plant a vine-yard, invents wine, and then discovers getting drunk. While Noah is lying in his tent, naked and drunk, his son Ham accidentally walks in and sees Dad in this state. He tells his brothers, Shem and Japheth, what he saw and they discreetly cover their father without looking at him. When Noah discovers that Ham has seen him in his birthday suit, he isn’t too happy. Without explaining why this is such a bad thing, Noah curses his son. But there is some confusion here, because Noah places the curse on Canaan, Ham’s son, rather than on the actual culprit, Ham:
“Cursed be Canaan;
lowest of slaves shall he be to his brothers.”
He also said,
“Blessed by the Lord my God be Shem;
and let Canaan be his slave.” (Gen. 9:25-26)
This confusion had long-lasting and ghastly implications. The point of this story would have been quite clear for the ancient Israelites. They were meant to rule over Canaan’s descendants, the people who lived in the Promised Land. The Canaanites had a reputation for fairly lascivious sexual practices that were highly offensive in the eyes of the Israelites. Seeing one’s father naked—and in some interpretations a homosexual act by Ham has been suggested—was associated with the lewd Canaanite sexual practices. In Leviticus, the phrase “to uncover nakedness” is a euphemism for sexual relations.
But the real historical impact of this passage was the later interpretation widely given to this story in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century America. Looking for moral justification for slavery, American slaveholders pointed to these biblical verses as divine sanction for the “Peculiar Institution.” They argued—incorrectly—that Ham was the ancestor of Egypt, Cush, and Put as well as Canaan. These were the so-called “southern” tribes that included Africa. As the “Children of Ham,” Africans were therefore meant to be slaves, a point of view that can only be charitably called way off base. Still, it was a widely accepted interpretation in England and America until well into the 1800s, when some Christian groups began to condemn slavery as a grave sin. Numerous other biblical verses were also cited in defense of slavery, although overlooked were some of the other Israelite laws regarding slavery, including invocations to free runaway slaves.
In America, this was a crucial moment. For the first time, the Bible provided arguments for two sides of a question. The dispute, ultimately settled by the American Civil War, led to deep, painful splits within several American churches, including the Baptists. (In 1994, the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in America, issued a formal apology for the “sin of slavery.”)
The other two sons of Noah received great blessings, and the line beginning with Noah’s son Shem eventually leads to the patriarch Abraham. The name Shem is the source of the word “Semite,” which applies to all the groups who were descended from Shem, Jew and Arab alike.
BIBLICAL VOICES
And they said to one another, “Come, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said,