---Whats this Ham malarcky ? This is the second time I have seen it used in some kind of argument, and it just seems like bollocks to me---
Here are a couple of books that deal with this subject in depth.I'm going to read them cover to cover 1 day.
Of course we should all remember that the Christians,Muslims and Jews responsible for this were just acting by the standards of their time so we should admire them for having these views and overcoming adversity.
Noah's Curse : The Biblical Justification of American Slavery (Religion in America Series)
by Stephen R. Haynes
Product Details
Hardcover: 322 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.00 x 9.48 x 6.42
Publisher: Oxford University Press; (March 2002)
ISBN: 0195142799
Amazon.com Sales Rank: 75,854
(Publishers and authors: improve your sales)
Editorial Reviews
Synopsis
"A servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren". So reads Noah's curse on his son Ham, and all his descendants, in Genesis 9:25. Over centuries of interpretation, Ham came to be identified as the ancestor of black Africans, and Noah's curse to be seen as the biblical justification for American slavery and segregation. In this book, Stephen Haynes examines the history of the American interpretation of Noah's curse. He begins with an overview of the prior history of the reception of this scripture and then turns to the distinctive and creative ways in which the curse was appropriated by American pro-slavery and pro-segregation interpreters. He argues that the story of Noah's curse was compelling for antebellum white Southerners because it resonated with the themes of antiquity, domesticity, race, and sin.
Book Description
A servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. So reads Noah's curse on his son Ham, and all his descendants, in Genesis 9:25. Over centuries of interpretation, Ham came to be identified as the ancestor of black Africans, and Noah's curse to be seen as biblical justification for American slavery and segregation. Examining the history of the American interpretation of Noah's curse, this book begins with an overview of the prior history of the reception of this scripture and then turns to the distinctive and creative ways in which the curse was appropriated by American pro-slavery and pro-segregation interpreters.
and
The Curse of Ham : Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
by David M. Goldenberg (Author)
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
The Book of Genesis records an instance of Noah cursing his son Ham's descendants to be slaves. Although there is no biblical evidence that Ham was the "father" of African peoples, various Jewish, Christian and Islamic writers came to believe that he was, and their association helped to justify centuries of African enslavement. When did this interpretation creep in? In this sweeping and ambitious work, Goldenberg shows that early Jewish sources actually had positive or neutral associations for Africa and for Ethiopians (sometimes called "Kushites"), but that postbiblical writers such as Philo and Origen began associating "blackness" with darkness of the soul. Goldenberg's final chapters painstakingly trace the historical trajectories for "the curse of Ham" and "the curse of Cain" in Western thought through the 20th century. (Supporters of slavery thought that the "mark" that God put on Cain after he murdered Abel was black skin. The linguistic discussions in this book can be highly technical, but the research is meticulous and important.
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Publishers Weekly
[A] sweeping and ambitious work. . . . [T]he research is meticulous and important.
Review
[A] sweeping and ambitious work. . . . [T]he research is meticulous and important.
Inside Flap Copy
A truly stunning work and a masterpiece of its kind. David Goldenberg goes far beyond anyone else in offering the most comprehensive, convincing, and important analysis I've read on interpretations of the famous Curse and, generally, of blackness and slavery. His research is breathtaking. It yields almost definitive answers to many longstanding debates over early attitudes toward dark skin.
Book Description
How old is prejudice against black people? Were the racist attitudes that fueled the Atlantic slave trade firmly in place 700 years before the European discovery of sub-Saharan Africa? In this groundbreaking book, David Goldenberg seeks to discover how dark-skinned peoples, especially black Africans, were portrayed in the Bible and by those who interpreted the Bible--Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Unprecedented in rigor and breadth, his investigation covers a 1,500-year period, from ancient Israel (around 800 B.C.E.) to the eighth century C.E., after the birth of Islam. By tracing the development of anti-Black sentiment during this time, Goldenberg uncovers views about race, color, and slavery that took shape over the centuries--most centrally, the belief that the biblical Ham and his descendants, the black Africans, had been cursed by God with eternal slavery.
Goldenberg begins by examining a host of references to black Africans in biblical and postbiblical Jewish literature. From there he moves the inquiry from Black as an ethnic group to black as color, and early Jewish attitudes toward dark skin color. He goes on to ask when the black African first became identified as slave in the Near East, and, in a powerful culmination, discusses the resounding influence of this identification on Jewish, Christian, and Islamic thinking, noting each tradition's exegetical treatment of pertinent biblical passages.
Authoritative, fluidly written, and situated at a richly illuminating nexus of images, attitudes, and history, The Curse of Ham is sure to have a profound and lasting impact on the perennial debate over the roots of racism and slavery, and on the study of early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
