Scott Hahn says that Ham (Cham) can be interpreted as having had sex with

[Volodymyr_988]

I’m sorry but that’s wrong. The Middle Easterners (sic) come from Shem. They are Shemites (Semites.)

The line of Ham (Cham) gives us the Caananites and other notable places like Cush, Sheba, etc… which are in Africa. Now the Caananites were enemy #1 for the Israelites during their conquest of the Holy Land.

Modern peoples descended from Ham are the peoples of Lebanon and Syria that still live in the area.

Supposedly the line of Japheth populated the areas of Europe and Asia. As Madai, a descendant of Japheth sounds close to the Medes of Persia and the Madai people of India. Tarshish is connected with Carthage in North Africa and Spain. A stretch would be to say that Tubal is related to the Russian City Tobolsk.

 

[ALLFORHIM]

I’m sorry but that’s wrong. The Middle Easterners (sic) come from Shem. They are Shemites (Semites.)

The line of Ham (Cham) gives us the Caananites and other notable places like Cush, Sheba, etc… which are in Africa. Now the Caananites were enemy #1 for the Israelites during their conquest of the Holy Land.

Modern peoples descended from Ham are the peoples of Lebanon and Syria that still live in the area.

Supposedly the line of Japheth populated the areas of Europe and Asia. As Madai, a descendant of Japheth sounds close to the Medes of Persia and the Madai people of India. Tarshish is connected with Carthage in North Africa and Spain. A stretch would be to say that Tubal is related to the Russian City Tobolsk.

Hi,

Thanks for the lesson. I wasnt that far off. Syria and Lebanon are still condsidered Middle East. I do agree with you . It was awhile ago I learned this. Im not good at retaining historical facts to the T.

Thanks for the refresher course:thumbsup:

 

[slyboots]

20 And Noah the husbandman began, and planted a vineyard.
כא וַיֵּשְׁתְּ מִן-הַיַּיִן, וַיִּשְׁכָּר; וַיִּתְגַּל, בְּתוֹךְ אָהֳלֹה. 21 And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent.
כב וַיַּרְא, חָם אֲבִי כְנַעַן, אֵת, עֶרְוַת אָבִיו; וַיַּגֵּד לִשְׁנֵי-אֶחָיו, בַּחוּץ. 22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, **saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. **כג וַיִּקַּח שֵׁם וָיֶפֶת אֶת-הַשִּׂמְלָה, וַיָּשִׂימוּ עַל-שְׁכֶם שְׁנֵיהֶם, וַיֵּלְכוּ אֲחֹרַנִּית, וַיְכַסּוּ אֵת עֶרְוַת אֲבִיהֶם; וּפְנֵיהֶם, אֲחֹרַנִּית, וְעֶרְוַת אֲבִיהֶם, לֹא רָאוּ. 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.

 

[Daniel_Marsh]

The Legends of the Jews
by Louis Ginzberg

In his drunken condition Noah betook himself to the tent of his wife. His son Ham saw him there, and he told his brothers what he had noticed, and said: “The first man had but two sons, and one slew the other; this man Noah has three sons, yet he desires to beget a fourth besides.” Nor did Ham rest satisfied with these disrespectful words against his father. He added to this sin of irreverence the still greater outrage of attempting to perform an operation upon his father designed to prevent procreation.

When Noah awoke from his wine and became sober, he pronounced a curse upon Ham in the person of his youngest son Canaan. To Ham himself he could do no harm, for God had conferred a blessing upon Noah and his three sons as they departed from the ark. Therefore he put the curse upon the last-born son of the son that had prevented him from begetting a younger son than the three he had." The descendants of Ham through Canaan therefore have red eyes, because Ham looked upon the nakedness of his father; they have misshapen lips, because Ham spoke with his lips to his brothers about the unseemly condition of his father; they have twisted curly hair, because Ham turned and twisted his head round to see the nakedness of his father; and they go about naked, because Ham did not cover the nakedness of his father. Thus he was requited, for it is the way of God to mete out punishment measure for measure.

Canaan had to suffer vicariously for his father’s sin. Yet some of the punishment was inflicted upon him on his own account, for it had been Canaan who had drawn the attention of Ham to Noah’s revolting condition. Ham, it appears, was but the worthy father of such a son.[61] The last will and testament of Canaan addressed to his children read as follows: “Speak not the truth; hold not yourselves aloof from theft; lead a dissolute life; hate your master with an exceeding great hate; and love one another.”[62]

As Ham was made to suffer requital for his irreverence, so Shem and Japheth received a reward for the filial, deferential way in which they took a garment and laid it upon both their shoulders, and walking backward, with averted faces, covered the nakedness of their father.

philologos.org/__eb-lotj/vol1/four.htm#8

 

[Daniel_Marsh]

In Rabbinical Literature:

Ham is represented by the Talmudists as one of the three who had intercourse with their wives in the Ark, being punished therefor in that his descendants, the Ethiopians, are black (Sanh. 108b; Gen. R. xxxvi. 11). Some explained the obscure passage Gen. ix. 22-24 as follows: Ham emasculated his father, saying, “My father has three sons already; and now he wishes a fourth son.” Therefore Noah cursed Canaan, Ham’s fourth son, saying, “Thou hast hindered me from having a fourth son; I will curse thy own fourth son.” According to another opinion, Ham defiled his father, and Noah cursed Canaan because Ham, with his father and his two brothers, had been previously blessed by God (Sanh. 70a; Gen. R. xxxvi. 4). Another opinion declares that the mutilation of Noah was committed by Canaan, but was really caused by Ham mentioning his father’s nakedness in the presence of Ham’s youngest son (Ex. R. xxx. 5). Possibly Ham saw Canaan’s deed and did not condemn him for it (Yalḳ., Gen. 61; comp. “Da’at Zeḳenim” ad loc.). Ham was punished by having his descendants led into captivity with their buttocks uncovered (Isa. xx. 4; Gen. R. xxxvi. 8).J. M. Sel.

jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=148&letter=H&search=Ham%20curse

 

[Catholic_Dude]

Now that I think about it this story tells why the Jews dont eat PORK

 

[Daniel_Marsh]

Whereas biblical law tolerated bigamy or surrogate marriage, homosexual practice conflicts directly with such passages as Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 and features in two episodes in Genesis. The conduct of the later Canaanites in Sodom and Gomorrah appears to be foreshadowed by their forefather Ham, the black sheep of Noah’s family. ‘Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside.’ (Genesis 9:22). What was so disgraceful about seeing Noah naked, that he cursed his youngest son and his descendants? The exact nature of Ham’s offence is elusive. Recently, Nissinen, Wold and Gagnon, [3] have argued that Ham raped his father. To ‘see nakedness’ is used in Leviticus 20:17 to refer to sexual intercourse. Such an interpretation heightens the parallel between the flood story, which concludes with Noah getting drunk and being abused by his son, and the story of Sodom, with Lot the only righteous man to escape from Sodom, being inebriated by his daughters who then have sex with him. On this interpretation Ham’s offence was the homosexual rape of his father, which helps explain the severity of the curse upon his descendants. (Genesis 9:24–27).

jubilee-centre.org/online_documents/Sexandviolenceingenesis.htm

Family Sexual Secrets in Genesis
HOMOSEXUALITY AND THE BIBLE, Part 9
Key Passages: Genesis 9:18-27, 38:1-10
© 2005 Bruce L. Gerig
epistle.us/hbarticles/secrets.html

this article looks at the “evidence” for each view including Ham having relations with his mother.

 

[Writer]

Here’s that Haydock Douay-Rheims commentary on this subject:

BEWARE of Scott Hahn’s interpretation of Scripture. He interprets Scripture in a very Protestant way and sometimes looks for novel ways to interpret the Bible which have no support in the Church Fathers.

I agree with you–at least to a point. He also makes some strange assertions in a recent book called *First Comes Love *concerning the supposed feminine nature of the Holy Spirit, which could open a Pandora’s Box of theological problems, if accepted. You can always try e-mailing Dr. Hahn or his research assistant at email@scotthahn.com .

 

[Ignatius]

According to the Harper’s Bible Commentary, the stories in Genesis 1-11 are Near-Eastern myths picked up by Jewish religious writers after the exile.

Actually, it is Harper’s Bible Commentary that is largely a myth. It frequently disagrees with those who were actually taught directly by the Apostles.

 

[awfulthings9]

Here’s my problem with that, an interpretation I struggled with for a while - supposing to uncover his father’s nakedness implied incest, what did it mean when his brothers “covered” their father again? Did they undo the incest? Did they unsex the mother? How does that fit?

 

[Augustinson]

For those of you who might be inclined to do some reading, Dr. Hahn and Dr. John Bergsma (an Old Testament scholar and one of Hahn’s colleagues at Franciscan University) actually published a scholarly article on the subject in the peer-reviewed Journal of Biblical Literature. The article, “Noah’s Nakedness and the Curse of Canaan (Genesis 9:20-27)” appeared in JBL 124/1 (2005) pages 25-40. Unfortunately, unless you are a member of the Society of Biblical Literature or have a decent Theology library nearby, it might be hard to find.

In the article, they weigh the various traditional views (voyeurism, castration, and paternal incest) before arguing for the maternal incest view. Here are a few points from the article (some of which I think have already been made here).

1. all of the occurences elsewhere in Scripture of the Hebrew phrase “nakedness of the father” refer unmistakably to the nakedness of the father’s wife (namely Leviticus 18:7-8, Leviticus 20:11, and Ezekiel 22:10). The same logic is at work in Deuteronomy 22:30 and 27:20 with the “father’s skirt”
2. Leviticus 20:17 should satisfy anyone who wants to make a distinction between “uncovering nakedness” and merely “seeing nakedness.”
3. The maternal incest theory accounts for the gravity of Ham’s sin and the cursing of Canaan (fruit of the incestuous union) that the voyeurist position cannot explain.
4. This theory also provides a credible motive. Ham was making a familio-political power play to unseat his father and usurp his older brothers’ primacy. There are ample Biblical (and some other Ancient Near Eastern) parallels for this sort of thing: Absalom in 2 Sam 16:20-22, Reuben in Genesis 35:22 and 49:3-4, Adonijah in 1 Kings 2:13-25. See also 2 Samuel 12:8.

Note: if you are going to run down a copy of the article, be advised that there are a few numerical typos in its scripture references. For the ones that I cite above, I have corrected them. If the verse referenced in the article doesn’t seem to make sense, that’s probably what happened. In each case that I found, however, the correct reference was pretty easy to find.

 

[Eliza10]

I have been following Jeff Cavins Bible study, which is awesome, with a friend. We were just learing that on Monday. It was so awesome - its just one more of those questions about the Bible that never made any sense! Why would God be SO harsh about a “look”. Now it makes perfect sense. God is not harsh, he is a loving God, who teaches His people. God must have seen that Ham was non-repentant.

We are just starting this series and I am so excited about it. What a way to make the Bible exciting, and learn so much on the way.

 

[rwoehmke]

Well, at least you all haven’t started another denomination because you all cannot agree on what this passage in Scripture means. Until I heard Hahn’s explanation I could never figure out why “looking upon his fathers nakedness” was such a big deal as to end up with curses. I should think that living in the same tent sooner or later some exposed flesh is going to be observed. Why should it be such a big deal then. When I was a kid we bathed in the same wash tub of warm water on Saturday night. Us boys and my father saw each others nakedness plenty of times, but never my mothers or sisters.

 

[catsrus]

originally posted by Daniel Marsh from The Legends Of The Jews by Louis Ginzberg
When Noah awoke from his wine and became sober, he pronounced a curse upon Ham in the person of his youngest son Canaan. To Ham himself he could do no harm, for God had conferred a blessing upon Noah and his three sons as they departed from the ark. Therefore he put the curse upon the last-born son of the son that had prevented him from begetting a younger son than the three he had." The descendants of Ham through Canaan therefore have red eyes, because Ham looked upon the nakedness of his father; they have misshapen lips, because Ham spoke with his lips to his brothers about the unseemly condition of his father; they have twisted curly hair, because Ham turned and twisted his head round to see the nakedness of his father; and they go about naked, because Ham did not cover the nakedness of his father. Thus he was requited, for it is the way of God to mete out punishment measure for measure.

Does anyone else read this as I am reading it??
This sounds like that old saw used by so many to reason why the Negro race is “cursed”.
If I’m not reading this correctly, please tell me!

 

[NotWorthy]

Does anyone else read this as I am reading it??
This sounds like that old saw used by so many to reason why the Negro race is “cursed”.
If I’m not reading this correctly, please tell me!

I hate to break this to you, but yes, some “enlightened” rascists have used this text to justify their prejudices. :banghead:

 

[Friar_David_O.Carm]

From Genesis 19:36 So both of Lot’s daughters became pregnant by their father. 37 The older daughter had a son, and she named him Moab [g] ; he is the father of the Moabites of today. 38 The younger daughter also had a son, and she named him Ben-Ammi [h] ; he is the father of the Ammonites of today.The Bible describes the Moabites and the Ammonites (enemies of the Israelites) as being the descendants of incestuous relations with a righteous man (Lot). Why then would we hesitate to think that the Canaanites were not also the product of an incestuous relationship? The interpretation makes sense.

I can think of one reason why, because the Bible tells us so,

Why would the Bible tell us about the incestuous relations that created the Moabites and the Ammonites but not come out and tell us the same thing about the Canaanites? Why hide one behind an allegorical way of saying while spelling it out in the other two cases?

If other scholars say this and it is backed up by the Church then I would believe it.

But it has been my experience that Hahn seem to have a protestant bent at times, after all that is where he got all his Scriptural education. He has also said other things that just do not ring right with me.

But hey, if he works for you then go for it.

 

[NotWorthy]

I can think of one reason why, because the Bible tells us so,

Why would the Bible tell us about the incestuous relations that created the Moabites and the Ammonites but not come out and tell us the same thing about the Canaanites? Why hide one behind an allegorical way of saying while spelling it out in the other two cases?

If other scholars say this and it is backed up by the Church then I would believe it.

But it has been my experience that Hahn seem to have a protestant bent at times, after all that is where he got all his Scriptural education. He has also said other things that just do not ring right with me.

But hey, if he works for you then go for it.

But the problem is, this may not have been an allegorical way of describing incest in Noah’s time. The story of Lot occurs some 600 or so years later. Even though they were both written by Moses, (as is assumed by many), they were still stories handed down from generation to generation.

Besides, as was pointed out way earlier in the thread, Leviticus specifically calls out incest in the term “uncovering the nakedness”.

I think we are guilty of imposing our grammatical rules on people 3500 years and 3-4 languages removed.

 

[Friar_David_O.Carm]

Besides, as was pointed out way earlier in the thread, Leviticus specifically calls out incest in the term “uncovering the nakedness”.

Ok, but he uncovered the nakedness of his father, so doesn’t that mean that the incest was with his father? If it was with his mother then shouldn’t it have said that he uncovered the nakedness of his mother?

Why is Hahn the first Catholic to talk about this?

I think we are guilty of imposing our grammatical rules on people 3500 years and 3-4 languages removed.

Not only that but we are dealing with translations here.

 

[garysibio]

This is an interesting discussion. I’ve long known that “uncovering nakedness” didn’t mean you saw them where the sun doesn’t shine but was a euphemism for sexual activity. I had always assumed that this passage was describing a homosexual rape of his father by Ham. The incest viewpoint seems to make more sense but it still raises a couple of questions.

1. If uncovering his father’s nakedness refers to having sex with his mother, what does it mean when the other sons cover their father’s nakedness? Is this another euphemism? If the sex was with his mother, Noah wouldn’t be naked.
2. Is Canaan the result of the relationship between Ham and his mother? Gen 9:22 says that Ham, the father of Canaan uncovered his father’s nakedness which would come across in modern English as meaning that Canaan was already alive but is there anything in the Hebrew that would imply otherwise?

 

[rwoehmke]

But the problem is, this may not have been an allegorical way of describing incest in Noah’s time. The story of Lot occurs some 600 or so years later. Even though they were both written by Moses, (as is assumed by many), they were still stories handed down from generation to generation.

Besides, as was pointed out way earlier in the thread, Leviticus specifically calls out incest in the term “uncovering the nakedness”.

I think we are guilty of imposing our grammatical rules on people 3500 years and 3-4 languages removed.

Well, yes, written by Moses and probably rewritten at least once a another good slug of time later.