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Old 11-17-2006, 01:55 PM   #1
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Default Uncovering His Father nakedness

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?
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Old 11-17-2006, 03:03 PM   #2
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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.
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The story may have links to Leviticus 20.11, which equates a son's incest with his mother to "uncovering his father's nakedness," hinting that incest, rather than shaming his father, was Ham's, or his son Canaan's, sin, as God placed a curse on Canaan.
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Old 11-17-2006, 04:38 PM   #3
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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.
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Old 11-17-2006, 05:11 PM   #4
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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.
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Old 11-17-2006, 05:37 PM   #5
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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.
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)?
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Old 11-17-2006, 05:49 PM   #6
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The Oedipal overtones are interesting to me...could both have emerged from a common tradition?
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Old 11-17-2006, 10:50 PM   #7
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Originally Posted by Gullwind View Post
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.
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.
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Old 11-18-2006, 06:08 AM   #8
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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."
This passage is even more damning when it is paired with the stated reason for sending the flood:

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Genesis 6:5-7 (NRSV)
5 Yahweh saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. 6 And Yahweh was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. 7 So Yahweh said, "I will blot out from the earth the human beings I have created--people together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them."

Genesis 8:21 (NRSV)
21 And when Yahweh smelled the pleasing odor, Yahweh said in his heart, "I will never again curse the ground because of humankind, for the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done.
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Old 11-18-2006, 06:23 AM   #9
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Originally Posted by blkgayatheist View Post
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?
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:

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Genesis 9:22-23:
22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside. 23 Then Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father; their faces were turned away, and they did not see their father's nakedness.
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.
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