blkgayatheist

When I was a church goer I heard from one pastor that a possible interpretation of the story of Ham coming upon a naked, drunk Noah and later having his descendants cursed because of it actually involved Ham discovering Noah having sex with ham's son Canaan (who actually receives the curse). I can see that "uncovering his father's nakedness" could mean that Noah was having sex, but the part with Canaan seems far fetched.

Has anyone else heard this explanation? What are other interpretations/exigeses of this story?

Toto

There's a lot of speculation about what this means. This article lists a few alternatives, including the idea that the phrase meant that Ham had sex with Noah's wife, explained here along with some Italian Renaissance bronze artwork.

Anat

And I think there is an interpretation according to which Ham castrated his father because he decided that two brothers were enough with whom to share the world. Genesis 9:24 "And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his youngest son had done unto him." suggests that whatever it was that Ham did left noticeable evidence.

Gullwind

One of the least believable aspects of the whole Flood story to me, has always been the colossal incompetence in a omnimax god who flooded the world to destroy evil, only to have the very people he saved be the first sinners. I guess the whole "send his son to die" thing was Plan B.

John Kesler

More specifically, why didn't a God who had no problem causing infertility (1 Samuel 1:5; Genesis 20:18) make Mrs. Ham infertile, at least long enough to prohibit the birth of Canaan, the progenitor of the Canaanites (Genesis 10:6 ff) and recipient of Noah's curse (Genesis 9:25-27)?

blkgayatheist

The Oedipal overtones are interesting to me...could both have emerged from a common tradition?

Joan of Bark

Gen 8:21 (NIV)

"Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood."

So the whole exercise was pointless anyway.

John Kesler

This passage is even more damning when it is paired with the stated reason for sending the flood:

John Kesler

In the pericope's current form, I don't think that the "uncovering of nakedness" should be understood as an idiom for a sexual act. Notice that the nakedness seems to be literal nudity:

In a video lecture, biblical scholar Amy-Jill Levine, professor at Vanderbilt Divinity School, suggests an alternative explanation to Noah's apparently overly harsh and misappropriated curse. Levine's contention is that what was done to Noah is a castration, based, she says, on "cross-cultural parallel." She goes on to say that, "an earlier story appears to have been suppressed" and "this {castration} is a common mythic motif describing the transfer of powers from fathers (gods) to sons."

Whether this theory is correct I don't know, but it would certainly explain why Noah was so fumed, and why we are not told of Noah's fathering any more children in his 350 years of post-flood life (Gen. 9:28). It could also shed light on the reason Canaan, not Ham, was cursed. Perhaps Noah was paying back Ham by cursing Ham's son, since Ham had taken away Noah's ability to have another son.