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Beyond Skin Deep: The Sin of Ham

Introduction

A father-and-son at enmity, a hint of nudity, the air of conspiracy–the scene in Noah’s vineyard tent after the flood smacks with all of the trappings of an HBO series. However, unlike the kitsch of contemporary television dramas, the story of Ham is often ignored by Christians due to a combination of embarrassment and ignorance. Christians are often embarrassed by Ham’s curse because, as is well-known, it was the text most often employed by the apologists of the unbiblical institution of chattel slavery in the Euro-American debate over the status of Africans.[1] Beyond embarrassment, Christians also typically lack the requisite knowledge or attention to detail that would allow them to positively employ this passage for its intended purpose. This leaves us with two questions: what exactly was the so-called curse of Ham, and what are we to do with it? 

Preliminary Considerations

Biblically, there are at least three things that we can conclude about the so-called curse of Ham: First, there is no curse on Ham. Second, there was a curse on Canaan. Third, the curse on Canaan is void. In this essay, we will deal with the first of these conclusions–namely, that there is no curse on Ham. 

Though it seems like semantics, it is imperative that we begin by noting the substance and the subject of the curse. Substantially, the curse that falls is due to Ham’s revolutionary actions, which leads in turn to Canaan, the subject of the curse, being brought under the subjection of Shem and Japheth respectively. This fact is important because it primarily establishes that the curse is not racial, as was formerly supposed. 

Though this argument has rarely seen the light of day since the Civil War, in our racially charged milieu–where not only the so-called racism of the left is falsely flagged on anyone at any time anywhere but also the whitelash of racial vainglory is becoming concerningly conspicuous–it is time for this interpretation to go the way of Wcyliff–that is, to be posthumously exhumed and (re)condemned and tossed into the sea once and for all.

The Argument(s)

Here’s the simple syllogism: the name Ham etymologically means both black and hot in Hebrew; Ham is cursed to be a servant; therefore, this passage functions as the etiology (“mythical origin story”) for the warm-climate-dwelling, dark-skinned descendants of Ham being under a permanent sanction of subjugation.

The chief problem with this interpretation is simply that it is childish and fallacious exegesis. It commits what biblical scholars often call the root-word fallacy, meaning that the basic linguistic definition of a word suffices for its entire meaning and interpretive force.[2] Now, words do mean something, and names especially communicate meaning in Scripture. However, there is a significant and unjustifiable jump from simply noting that ham means dark or hot in Hebrew to concluding that he is the father of all dark-skinned folk, who have been placed under an unalterable sanction of slavery. This argument fails on at least two points. First, it immediately and univocally equates Ham’s name with his appearance while biblical appellation deals with character rather than appearance. Even in the case of Esau, whose name means something like hairy, what is in view is not simply his pilosity but his beastiality: he looks like an animal but how much more does he act like one; his brother Jacob is a smooth man in appearance, but this appearance is meant to be a signal of his slippery character as trickster, heel-grabber, as his name suggests. Thus, there is no warrant to say, “Ham means dark; therefore, he was dark-skinned”; for there is no direct narrative connection between his name and his appearance, which we find most nearly in the case of Esau but not even fully there.[3] If we want to be faithful to biblical patronymics, therefore, we must say that Ham’s darkness is beyond skin deep. 

Second, and more obviously, this argument fails to note, as analogously happens in Genesis 3, the subject cursed in this passage. Canaan is cursed, not Ham. There is no curse on Ham. This means that, even if we hypothetically grant that Ham was indeed a dark-skinned fellow, even if we irrefutably grant that he is the progenitor of those who will eventually become our more melanin-rich brothers and sisters, neither he nor his “African” descendants are the ones upon whom the curse of subjugation falls; rather, it falls to his son Canaan, meaning that skin tone is in no wise connected with the sentence of subjugation. Of course, this raises all sorts of questions about fairness, justice, and intent, which will all be dealt with in the next essay.

By way of extension, we must note as an important aside that, if the contrived category of race is not in view in Ham’s punishment, it is therefore also not in view for the benediction pronounced through Yahweh to Shem and Japheth. The fact that Ham, Shem, and Japheth are the historical primogenitors of certain ethnic groups–Ham of the Middle Eastern, Shem of the Semitic, and Japheth of the Mediterranean–is the incidental rather than the substantial point of this passage. Simply put, ethnicity—and particularly ethnicity in its visible aspect—is nowhere in view in the account of Noah’s sons.

Conclusion

Whatever is going on in this complex passage, we can already make at least one observation and two applications without having the full picture. The observation is simply that this passage simply has nothing to do with race–not only is that an anachronistic and contrived concept that is eisegetically read back into this passage but it is also demonstrably untenable to see this passage as the justification of the race-based subjugation of dark-skinned folk. So, there are at least two applications for us. First, we must stop referring to this passage as the “curse of Ham.” Instead, call it the “sin of Ham” or the “curse of Canaan” for accuracy and to avoid confusion in a time when old ethnic baggage is rearing its ugly head as an immature response to Critical Race Theory. Second, we also must not associate the blessing of Shem nor the enlargement of Japheth with their ethnic progeny. All who partake in the sin of Ham, whether Jew (Shem) or Greek (Japheth[4]), will face the exact same curse that falls on Canaan (Deut. 28:15-68; Rom. 1:18-34; Ps. 2).

[1]See Benjamin Braude, “The Sons of Noah and the Construction of Ethnic and Geographical Identities in the Medieval and Early Modern Periods,” The William and Mary Quarterly, 54, no. 1 (January 1997): 103-142. JSTOR.

[2]D. A. Carson, Exegetical Fallacies (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 1996), 28-35.  

[3]John V. Dahms sums up the point nicely: “meaning is determined by usage, not etymology.” See John V. Dahms, “The Johannine Use of Monogenes Reconsidered," NTS 29 (1983): 223.

[4]Japheth begat Javan (Gen. 10:2), and Javan is both the mythical and biblical primogenitor of the Greecian people (Dan. 8:21; 10:20; 11:2; Zech. 9:13). See Samuel Macauley Jackson, ed., The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge: Embracing Biblical, Historical, Doctrinal, and Practical Theology and Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Biography from the Earliest Times to the Present Day, 12 vols. (New York; London: Funk & Wagnalls, 1908–1914), 6:111-112, Logos 9.

Gage Crowder teaches literature and Bible at Providence Classical School in Huntsville, Alabama. In addition to his studies at Birmingham Theological Seminary, he is a contributing member of the Huntsville Literary Association and the Academy of Philosophy and Letters. His poetry and prose can be found in The Legend, Poem Magazine, Birmingham Arts Journal, Panoply and elsewhere.