To see the video I made about this topic, click here
Hey guys, I have recently listened to the Naked Bible Podcast by Michael S. Heiser, a Bible scholar and in one episode this topic was covered. So then I thought why not summarize the information into a short post. So that’s what I’m going to do. Before I get started I’d like to refer any viewers to the Naked Bible Podcast available on itunes, android, any mobile device, if you are interested in more like this. So with that, this post will be about a very controversial passage in the Old Testament that has confused a lot of people, The Nakedness of Noah, The Sin of Ham and the Curse of Canaan featured in Genesis 9:18- 27. With many different interpretations available I will cover the most reasonable and share with you my own conclusion.
So let’s read the passage first. This is Genesis 9, events following shortly after the flood. This is the ESV by the way.
Gen 9:18-27 The sons of Noah who went forth from the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. (Ham was the father of Canaan.) These three were the sons of Noah, and from these the people of the whole earth were dispersed.
Noah began to be a man of the soil, and he planted a vineyard. He drank of the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside.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 backward, and they did not see their father’s nakedness.
When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him, he said, “Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be to his brothers.”
He also said, “Blessed be the LORD, the God of Shem; and let Canaan be his servant. May God enlarge Japheth, and let him dwell in the tents of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant.”
Now from reading this passage, we have to ask ourselves what is meant by Noah’s nakedness, what is the Sin of Ham, and what is the Curse of Canaan?
I will cover three alternative theories quickly and then share what I consider to be the best explanation in more detail.
1. The Literal Conservative Interpretation
So the most conservative theory is that Ham simply walked into his father’s tent and saw Noah naked and failed to cover him up. That’s it, that was his sin. This interpretation has to assume that there was a rule against seeing a someone naked, which is simply absent from the Bible. It also doesn’t explain why Noah cursed Canaan and not Ham as a result of it.
2. The Castration Theory
The second theory views the expression “he saw his nakedness” as a Hebrew idiom for castration. This is an interpretation believed by certain rabbis. It is then further hypothesized that Noah wanted a fourth son, of which Ham deprived him of. And thus Noah curses Ham’s fourth son, Canaan. It’s safe to say this theory is riddled with isogesis, reading into the text what’s not there.
3. Paternal Incest
The third view is that of Paternal incest. It works of the idea that the term “he saw his nakedness” is a Hebrew idiom for sexual intercourse, based on passages like Lev 20:17 and Levictus 18. Let’s have a look:
Lev 20:17 “If a man takes his sister, a daughter of his father or a daughter of his mother, and sees her nakedness, and she sees his nakedness, it is a disgrace, and they shall be cut off in the sight of the children of their people. He has uncovered his sister’s nakedness, and he shall bear his iniquity.”
Here the terms “to uncover someone’s nakedness” and “to see someone’s nakedness” are used in parallelism. Scholars therefore reason that they refer to the same thing, sexual intercourse. Let’s read Leviticus 18. This is the chapter on sexual purity.
Lev 18:6-17 “None of you shall approach any one of his close relatives to uncover nakedness. I am the LORD.
You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father, which is the nakedness of your mother; she is your mother, you shall not uncover her nakedness.
You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father’s wife; it is your father’s nakedness.
You shall not uncover the nakedness of your sister, your father’s daughter or your mother’s daughter, whether brought up in the family or in another home.
Here, clearly “to uncover someone’s nakedness” refers to the act of sex. So in that case we would have paternal incest here. For inexplicable reasons Ham committed sodomy with Noah in this interpretation. This view is believed by scholars like Dr. Robert A. J. Gagnon, who wrote the book, “The Bible and Homosexuality”. However this theory has no explanation for why Noah cursed Canaan, the son of Ham, instead of Ham himself.
4. The Maternal Incest View
Michael Heiser agrees with the fact that the term “to see his father’s nakedness” is an idiom for sexual intercourse but that this theory is missing something.
If we look at Leviticus 18 closely we can gleam some additional insight. As we read this passage ask yourself, what is the father’s nakedness?
Lev 18:6-7 “None of you shall approach any one of his close relatives to uncover nakedness. I am the LORD.
You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father, which is the nakedness of your mother; she is your mother, you shall not uncover her nakedness.
You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father’s wife; it is your father’s nakedness.
The Euphemism “the father’s nakedness” means, it is his wife!
The theory goes like this: Ham wanted to usurp authority, the tribe leadership from his father Noah, and did so by sleeping with Noah’s wife, his own mother. We have examples of this usurping of power in other stories of the Bible, such as in David’s. We all remember how Absalom fought his father for the throne, and even managed to expel David and his forces from Jerusalem. Then Absalom went into his father David’s concubines as an open sign of rebellion, and claim to the throne, to the people of Israel.
So Ham was engaging in a seed war with his father Noah. He wanted to propagate his seed with Noah’s wife and thus ruin his father. Ham then told his brothers, “hey guess what I did, I slept with our mother.” in a boastful manner, perhaps. His brothers then walk backwards in a sign of respect and averted their eyes, to “cover their father’s nakedness”, which is Noah’s wife.
Additionally, this interpretation is the only one which adequately deals with the curse of Canaan. Why did Noah curse Canaan? Well, brace yourself, Canaan was the result of this unlawful act of maternal incest between Ham and Noah’s wife. Ham wanted this son to become the leader of the tribe, but Noah wouldn’t let that happen. He cursed Canaan and told him he would serve his brothers rather than the other way around.
Obviously this interpretation works on the assumption that the narrator skipped some time between a couple of verses, the time needed for the baby to be born. Then when Noah found out that Ham had impregnated his wife, he cursed the resulting child. That way it works.
Michael Heiser believes this interpretation accounts best for all the events, and I would agree with him. Thanks for reading.
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