Zeal For Truth

The term race, as it is commonly used in reference to the ancestry of a particular ethnic group, is a loaded word. The early uses of this term, as it related humans, were confined to biology, where it was meant to describe what were thought to be the various human subspecies. In modern science, the notion that there are subspecies of Homo sapiens has long since been debunked.  Nevertheless, somehow the term stuck and is commonly used today outside of scientific thought to describe ethnicity.

Racism is simply the belief in the superiority of one ethnic group over another, and carries with it the idea that a person’s potential as a human being is predominately determined by his ethnicity or “race”; therefore racist theology is any religious study that incorporates racist ideals.

Brazenly Conspicuous
Certain forms of racist theology are clearly evident. Most Americans, in light of what might be recalled from the recent collective memory, may automatically think of Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Black Liberation Theology.  Or perhaps they will think of the Christian Identity Movement.  These are two of the most obvious and egregious examples of racist theology masking as Christianity, but what about the subtler and more widely accepted teachings – not only those associated with Christendom, but also other religions?

The Curse of Ham
The racist doctrine of the curse of Ham teaches that Ham and/or his son Canaan, grandson of Noah, were cursed by God (or Noah, depending on the variation of the teaching) because his father Ham uncovered the nakedness of his father, Noah. The result of this curse is that Canaan’s descendants became black and taken into slavery. Some actually believe that Ham himself was turned black for this sin. As is the case with most racist theology there are elements of truth mixed in, such that the waters are muddied enough so that the teaching becomes believable to the unlearned. In order to sort truth from fiction, let us examine the account given to us in Genesis 9.

²⁰ Noah, a man of the soil, proceeded to plant a vineyard. ²¹ When he drank some of its wine, he became drunk and lay uncovered inside his tent. ²² Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father’s nakedness and told his two brothers outside. ²³ But Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it across their shoulders; then they walked in backward and covered their father’s nakedness. Their faces were turned the other way so that they would not see their father’s nakedness.

²⁴ When Noah awoke from his wine and found out what his youngest son had done to him, ²⁵ he said,
“Cursed be Canaan!
The lowest of slaves
will he be to his brothers.”

²⁶ He also said,
“Blessed be the LORD, the God of Shem!
May Canaan be the slave of Shem.

²⁷ May God extend the territory of Japheth;
may Japheth live in the tents of Shem,
and may Canaan be his slave.”

First of all, I want to point out that God did not curse anyone here. In fact, after blessing Noah and his sons, the Bible records that God said in verse 8 of this chapter, “I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you.” The curse was Noah’s doing, and there is no indication anywhere that either Ham or Canaan was turned black. Also, there is no mention of Canaan’s descendants in the curse. Noah said that Canaan would be the slave of Shem, not that Canaan’s black descendants would be slaves to white people.

Whether to justify slavery or to explain the alleged inferiority of blacks to other ethnic groups, this teaching has been prevalent among Christians, Jews, and Mormons. Islamic teaching, however, does view the curse of Ham in racial terms. The teaching has largely been abandoned as something that is commonly taught among mainstream adherents of Christianity, Judaism, and Mormonism, yet remnants of this teaching still persist, and the use of a version of it once held by Mormons was recently brought up in connection to the presidential candidacy of Mitt Romney.

In addition to the account of what has been construed as the curse of Ham found in Genesis 9, other religious texts besides the biblical one have expounded on the teaching. Early Christian theologian and scholar Origen Adamantius wrote in Homilies on Genesis:

For the Egyptians are prone to a degenerate life and quickly sink to every slavery of the vices. Look at the origin of the race and you will discover that their father Cham, who had laughed at his father’s nakedness, deserved a judgment of this kind, that his son Chanaan should be a servant to his brothers, in which case the condition of bondage would prove the wickedness of his conduct. Not without merit, therefore, does the discolored posterity imitate the ignobility of the race.

One particularly extra-biblical and bizarre Judaic teaching about the curse of Ham found in the Babylonian Talmud states:

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 (Talmud Bavli, Sanhedrin 108b).

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints once held that blacks were banned from the priesthood based on Brigham Young’s interpretation of a passage in the first chapter of the Book of Abraham:

1:24 When this woman discovered the land it was under water, who afterward settled her sons in it; and thus, from Ham, sprang that race which preserved the curse in the land. 1:25 Now the first government of Egypt was established by Pharaoh, the eldest son of Egyptus, the daughter of Ham, and it was after the manner of the government of Ham, which was patriarchal. 1:26 Pharaoh, being a righteous man, established his kingdom and judged his people wisely and justly all his days, seeking earnestly to imitate that order established by the fathers in the first generations, in the days of the first patriarchal reign, even in the reign of Adam, and also of Noah, his father, who blessed him with the blessings of the earth, and with the blessings of wisdom, but cursed him as pertaining to the Priesthood.

Arabs and the Curse of Ishmael?
It is widely assumed among Christian Zionists, and perhaps others who prefer not to assume that title, that Ishmael, the first son of Abraham, was cursed because God’s blessing came upon Isaac. They believe that the root of the turmoil in the Middle East is the fault of the descendants of the “illegitimate” son of Abraham.  Let’s look at what the Bible actually says in Genesis 17:

³ Abram fell facedown, and God said to him, ⁴ “As for me, this is my covenant with you: You will be the father of many nations. ⁵ No longer will you be called Abram; your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations. ⁶ I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you. ⁷ I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you…¹⁵ God also said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you are no longer to call her Sarai; her name will be Sarah. ¹⁶ I will bless her and will surely give you a son by her. I will bless her so that she will be the mother of nations; kings of peoples will come from her.” ¹⁷ Abraham fell facedown; he laughed and said to himself, “Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old? Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?” ¹⁸ And Abraham said to God, “If only Ishmael might live under your blessing!”  ¹⁹ Then God said, “Yes, but your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him. ²⁰ And as for Ishmael, I have heard you: I will surely bless him; I will make him fruitful and will greatly increase his numbers. He will be the father of twelve rulers, and I will make him into a great nation. ²¹ But my covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you by this time next year.

First we should notice that Ishmael was not cursed; actually he, not unlike Isaac, was blessed. The main difference was that God’s covenant was to Abraham was to be through Isaac and not Ishmael. Isaac was God’s idea, and Ishmael was Sarah’s idea. Because God initiated a covenant with Abraham on His own terms, of course the full blessing of the covenant would naturally be on the son God promised to Abraham. However, there was no curse involved with the other son. It also must be noted that Christ is the seed of Abraham and all men, regardless of ancestry, through Him partake of the blessing of Abraham that was to be made available to all nations of the earth.

Some of the racial prejudice against Arabs, who are thought to be the descendants of Ishmael, has its basis in a misinterpretation of Genesis 16, when the angel of the Lord prophesied to Hagar about the nature of her son that was to be born.

¹¹ The angel of the LORD also said to her:
“You are now with child
and you will have a son.
You shall name him Ishmael,
for the LORD has heard of your misery.

¹² He will be a wild donkey of a man;
his hand will be against everyone
and everyone’s hand against him,
and he will live in hostility
toward all his brothers.”

Here again, just as with the curse of Ham doctrine, it is presumed that this statement about Ishmael must also include all his descendants. In this instance, I will say that there may be more justification for such a suggestion because verse 12 says, “He will live in hostility toward all his brothers.” Since we only know for sure of one brother, Isaac, and the text says “all his brothers” that could be taken to mean the descendants of Isaac. Certainly that would describe the long history of contention between Arabs and Jews. However, we must also consider the possibility that the prophecy was specific to Ishmael alone, and that he had other brothers through Hagar.

At any rate, we certainly do not want to be in the position of claiming that because of this prophecy, Arabs are all “wild donkey” people, and that they are a subhuman warlike race genetically predisposed to the destruction of Israel.