After being cooped up in a boat for weeks while God was drowning every man, woman, and child on earth, Noah and his clan finally beached and the party started.
And what a party! God told Noah’s clan to be fruitful and multiply and they wasted no time getting the begatting going.
Noah however was the mother of all partiers and eventually passed out from partying too hard.
Later something very curious happens:
(Gen 9:24-25 NRSV) When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him, he said, “Cursed be Canaan; lowest of slaves shall he be to his brothers.”
What did his son do? Noah wakes up and he immediately knows what his son had done to him, and tells his son that because of what he had done to him, his son will be the lowest of slaves to his brothers. This not only affects him, but all of his descendants.
What did his son do? What did he do??
Well… here it goes… hang on to your seats. Are you ready?
His son… his son… saw him… he… he… saw him…… naked. AHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!
Wait a minute. Is that it? Just that?? A son saw his dad disrobed?
Something funny’s going on there. That seems to be awfully tough punishment for a son just peeking at his dad’s ding-a-ling?
Could it be that there was really originally more than just peeking going on?
Non-apologetic scholars think that much of the Bible, especially early on, is heavily edited. There also appear to be stories that have been at least somewhat borrowed from other or earlier cultures. The flood story itself has many similar features to an earlier flood epic from the region that was called “Gilgamesh.” Some think that the drunken Noah story might have originally been closer to a story where the youngest son is trying to prevent the Father from having intercourse with his mother to prevent more brothers from being in contention for inheritance.
How does a son make sure his father doesn’t have intercourse? Let’s see if we can put this together. Has something to do with Noah’s Hoo-haa. Its probably some action that caused Noah to wake up and immediately know what was done to him. Also its probably something that would make a man very very very angry.
Well, in Greek mythology Cronus castrates his father Uranus to prevent him from copulating with his mother (Gia). No one’s saying that this particular story was borrowed by the Bible, but just that it represents a mythological theme and mythological themes tend to repeat themselves in the mythology of different cultures.
This Bible story where Noah’s son sees him naked may have been a castration event which was later toned down by an editor to the ridiculous story that it is now.
When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him… he squeeled in a voice that was not unlike his own mother’s… Cursed… *clears throat*…. Cursed be… … … *ah forget it*…”
Yes, Noah probably had to reach for a chisel and a stone tablet at that point.
Wasn’t Noahs son ham banished and sent into the widlerness and made to breed with the animals. His offspring were made black and this was a justification for enslaving blacks as they were less than human. I’m glad he wasn’t my dad.
This is interesting that the Epic of Gilgamesh says the Noah figure was castrated, for Jewish tradition has held for thousands of years, that not only was Noah castrated by Ham, but was also sodomized by him. The Jewish scholars did not have access to the Epic of Gilgamesh, so this knowledge must have been an oral tradition.
Brian,
I must disagree with your final sentence, as Jewish scholars certainly had access to the Epic of Gilgamesh (and many other Sumerian/Assyrian stories) during their captivity in Babylon. It was during this time that most of the Old Testament was compiled.
T
maybe ham broke his nose… it’s just as likely as your stories
I think that the fact that there was prior mythology that has a son castrating his father makes castration more likely.
As I mentioned, mythology tends to repeat itself in themes. It is thought that these themes may come from archetypes from our subconscious.
It is thought that having Ham castrate Noah (as the text might have originally said) would keep Noah from having more sons and preserve Ham’s inheritance, hence Ham’s motivatation to have done “what he had done to him” and Noah’s motivation for cursing Ham so severely.
At least we apparently agree that Noah didn’t curse Ham for something as ridiculous as simply seeing him naked as the Bible now says?
Hello. I think you guys might be missing the point and then answering the question. The problem wasn’t that Ham saw his father naked, or at least it wasn’t simply that. The sin was that Ham looked on the sin of his father and scoffed at it, making it public knowledge, and thus shaming his father. You might still think this a light matter, but I am sure you can imagine the prevelency of honor in times past and especially that of the father. It would be like exposing someone’s mistakes and laughing at them. This might seem small to you, but it is sin none the less. Although, to look at the words that follow from Noah as just a curse instead of a prophecy is a mistake. Whether or not you believe the Bible, you have to interpret it the way it works. The Bible claims there is a Holy Spirit that works through people and this is an instance of that happening. The fact that Ham himself isn’t the one cursed could speak of the trait that was wrong in him also being present in his son. It was more of a prediction of what would happen thus making it also a warning.
Sorry, but as far as the current form of this story goes, Noah’s son Ham saw Noah naked. That is what they are talking about as far as “what he had done to him.” That’s why in this current form of this myth Ham’s brothers were careful to *not look at Noah’s nakedness* while they were covering him up. That’s why Ham’s brothers weren’t cursed to be slaves and Ham’s son was.
As far as “public humiliation,” there was none because there was no public. Only Noah and his family existed, again according to the creator of this myth. Not much of a chance of keeping the growing of vineyards and consumption of wine a secret from family members. In any case, it’s just as ridiculous a point as seeing someone naked as far as suggesting that someone would curse their grandson into slavery over such a thing.
He sodomised his Dad. Sick freak. At least thats what I heard.
Heheh , funny , there are a lot of these stories in the bible that causes me to scratch my head.
But you may have a point here the castrating thing does have parallels to the Greek Mythology of Chronos. In fact several studies indicate that aspects of the bible may have been adapted from earlier religious myths.
Actually. If you read the bible, it says that to uncover your father’s nakedness is to lay with his wife… his son slept with his mother, and she bore a child, which is why that son is cursed, and the grandson Caanan is also cursed, he is the result of that union.
Let’s see now… 600-year-old naked man who makes his own wine gets drunk, passes out, wakes up screaming that he was violated by his son and is so upset that he exacts revenge on his son’s son?
Since they didn’t have magic markers back then, we can probably rule out that specific kind of frat prank.
Castration of your father would require a fairly strong motive for a young man. What about circumcision? Were the Noah males clipped? (Or perhaps he shaved the old man because he tired of the gray hairs, or worse…)
Since none of this could ever have really happened as it is written, the funniest part is how people actually believe it so blindly and twist facts to fit the story.
I mean, Noah was told to build the ark 30 cubits high, then the water rose 15 cubits after the ark was afloat and covered the tops of the mountains… Wouldn’t this make the tallest possible mountain something like 23 meters tall?
Plus, the Man In The Sky didn’t open the ark’s only window until after 40 days… Pee-yew!!!!
I think that the funniest part about all of this is the cartoon picture at the top – paints a pretty good picture of what happened lol
I’ll never think of the story of Noah’s ark the same again. Funny how details like this pop up now after knowing the general story since childhood.
Interesting take on things. Another school of thought believes that Ham had intercourse with his father’s wife and the curse is a product of Ham’s illicit union. Either way, there’s a lot here that doesn’t make sense.
I love your writing style, and the concept of this blog. I’ve passed this site on to a few of my friends, who are on the same page…
It is so refreshing to read this blog! I’ve often referred to many of the stories in the bible as “ridiculous”, but in conversation with friends… I almost feel shameful taking delight in your public assertions.
I do appreciate that there may have been a massive rainfall at some point in history that has inspired different cultures to write stories about it, but I don’t appreciate when stories of castration are thrown into the mix.
Why was it necessary to even present castration in that story as a teaching? Is the lesson – be careful when you celebrate too much after a long hardship, because you may be betrayed by someone you thought you loved?
I’ve always wondered, actually — who are these editors of the Bible? Are the edits sanctioned? Are they people who randomly felt things should be altered?
The early Bible editors had reasons for what they did. For example in what many non-fundamentalist scholars recognize as duel stories in the early Bible or as they call them “doublets,” they edit together two different stories of the same event, one where the author almost always referred to God as “Elohim” and the other as “Yahweh” or “Yahweh Elohim.” It’s thought that one story came from Israel and the other from Judah, which were separate Jewish kingdoms for a long time hence, the divergence of the stories. Genesis 1 and 2 are good examples of two almost completely different accounts of creation.
Earlier stories also likely had multiple gods in them as the Israelites likely arose from the Canaanite people and in part adapted their religion into what became Judaism. I wrote an article about this: Was Polytheism edited out of the Old Testament?.
Some of the stories in the early Bible were likely borrowed from surrounding cultures and the names and the events were changed. This could have happened around campfires with oral retellings.
And some of the early stories in the Bible were later toned down. As in this story Noah like Uranus might have in earlier version been castrated. There are subtle indications that Abraham might have been allowed to kill Isaac his son as a sacrifice to God in earlier versions, etc…
It’s true; religion is based on geography, culture and time. All have a divine being and some sort of afterlife. So it would make sense that the bible is a combination of stories from all the different cultures that were present when it was being composed.