Southerners (and Northerners) saw Genesis 9 as foreshadowing a sacred history of the United States: ante-
bellum white Americans (Japheth) had enslaved Africans (Ham).
Southern novelists like William Gilmore Simms (1806-1870) employed this racist myth and routinely referred to blacks as "Children of Ham," as did northern authors such as Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896).
What is this curse?
If we examine the curse of Ham in Genesis 9:20 -27. We find that Ham, the son of Noah, looked
upon his father’s nakedness. And when Noah awoke from
his wine induced nap he perceived what his son had done. According to Genesis -
Gen. 9:22 -And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without.
[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.”
….right. If you look closely, you see …yes, you are correct, Ham wasn’t even cursed! Canaan was.
Ham’s descendants were described in Gen. 10:6
“And the sons of Ham; Cush (Nubia), and Mizraim (Egypt), and Phut (ancient Libya/N. Africa), and Canaan.”
Gen. 10
And Canaan begat Sidon his firstborn, and Heth,
[16] And the Jebusite, and the Amorite, and the Girgasite,
[17] And the Hivite, and the Arkite, and the Sinite.
In the Bible, Canaan’s offspring have been identified with the Greeks and Phoenicans.
(Matt. 15:21,22 and Mark 7:25, 26). In particular, the Amorites (Egyptian Amurri, Assyrian Amurra or Martu) were described as a warlike mountain people. They are represented on the Egyptian monuments with fair skins, light hair, blue eyes, aquiline noses, and pointed beards.
Canaan was cursed to be a servant of servants to his brethren. This prophesy was carried out years later, during Joshua’s time, when the children of Israel spared their enemies, the Amorites and Canaanites, and made them hewers of wood and drawers of water for the congregation of the Israel.[1] Solomon also made the descendants of Canaan, the Amorites and the Hittites, bondservants during his reign, (Kings 9:21). So this curse affected one specific people and the prophecy was fulfilled during Biblical times.
In 1929, A Jehovah’s Witness publication stated: “The curse which Noah pronounced upon Canaan was the origin of the black race.” The Golden Age, The Watchtower, p. 702, July 24, 1929.
In 1958, we see this from the writings of the Mormon church, “We know the circumstances under which the posterity of Cain (and later of Ham) were cursed with what we call Negroid racial characteristics.”
( Bruce Mckonkie, Apostle of the Council of 12, the Mormon Doctrine p. 554, 1958)
Where are they getting this? If it’s not in the Bible that Ham was cursed black, where does this idea come from?
It can be traced directly back to the "Talmud Bavli" (the Babylonian Talmud), compiled between the third and fifth centuries.
From the Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 108b:
“Our Rabbis taught: Three copulated in the ark, and they were all punished — the dog, the raven, and Ham. The dog was doomed to be tied, the raven expectorates [his seed into his mate's mouth] and Ham was smitten in his skin.34
34(I.e., from him descended Cush (the negro) who is black-skinned.)
In the Middle Ages, European scholars of the Bible picked up on the Jewish Talmud idea that the “sons of Ham” were “blackened” by their sins. Ole Bjorn Rekdal,”Ethnology" vol. 37 (1998): 17-32, p. 19. Jewish scholars, working around the 6th century AD, introduced the idea that Ham was marked by dark skin.
James Fenton says from the “medieval versions of these events we learn more about the nature of Ham’s misdeeds. He mocked Noah’s nakedness, and invited his brothers to do the same (which they refused).
The next day Ham was punished by being given a black skin. When the world came to be divided up, Japheth received Europe, Shem got Asia, and Ham was awarded Africa.” [James Fenton, Fenton, “A Short History of Anti-Hamitism,” New York Review of Books (Feb. IT, 1996), p.7]
Ishodad of Merv (Syrian Christian bishop of Hedhatha, 9th century): When Noah cursed Canaan, “instantly, by the force of the curse. . .his face and entire body became black [ukmotha]. This is the black color which has persisted in his descendents.”
Undoubtedly influenced by Talmudic scholars in the region, this notion of Ham’s curse spread throughout the Islamic world although the prophet Muhammad was actually of African descent.
Below are quotes from accepted hadith and scholarly traditions in Islamic history.
"Ham [Africans] begat all those who are black and curly-haired, while Japheth [Turks] begat all those who are full-faced with small eyes, and Shem [Arabs] begat everyone who is handsome of face with beautiful hair. Noah prayed that the hair of Ham's descendants would not grow beyond their ears, and that whenever his descendants met Shem's, the latter would enslave them."
"Shem, the son of Noah was the father of the Arabs, the Persians, and the Greeks; Ham was the father of the Black Africans; and Japheth was the father of the Turks and of Gog and Magog who were cousins of the Turks. Noah prayed that the prophets and apostles would be descended from Shem and kings would be from Japheth. He prayed that the African’s color would change so that their descendants would be slaves to the Arabs and Turks."
Ahmad ibn Abi Sulayman, the companion of Sahnun said,
“Anyone who says that the Prophet was black should be killed."
Ibn Musa al-Yahsubi, Qadi ‘Iyad, p.375
Sahnun ibn Sa'id ibn Habib at-Tanukhi (c. 776-7 – 854-5) was a jurist in the Maliki school.
Before we continue let’s get one thing straight, this so-called curse is patently wrong. And now we know it for sure.
It is based on the enormous assumption that Noah and the original inhabitants on the earth were white! There’s no argument here, this is just plain wrong, inaccurate and blatantly false.
In 2012, we can safely say whoever came up with this idea created it out of their own fantasies and disgracefully harmed untold generations of human beings. Science now confirms what people like Elijah Muhammad and Marcus Garvey were saying more than a half century ago.
Student enrollment question number one: "Who is the original man?" answer: the Original Man is the Asiatic Blackman, the Maker, the Owner, Cream of the planet earth, Father of civilization, God of the Universe."
“Africa is the cradle of human race. Anthropologists have unearthed the oldest human skeletons in East Africa in places such as Hadar, Olduvai, Laetoli.”
http://www.selamta.net/Lucy.htm
“Anatomically modern humans originated in Africa about 250,000 years ago.”1
Of course, this isn't to condemn the small group of Jewish Rabbis who concocted this story nor the Bible and Talmud which they helped shape and produce. It’s just to inform, because no one has found it necessary or appropriate to go back and correct the centuries of lies and myths which have destroyed the lives of so many for so long (and still continue to harm).
It’s so much easier to just sweep it under the rug and dismiss it as racism of the past, but that does more harm than good. It’s like if someone started a fire years ago and instead of putting out the fire we say, “oh, that was started by some crazy arsonist from the past” –until the fire consumes us all.
