Damned Ham

Okay, let’s say you and your family just survived a global cataclysm. What’s the first thing you do? Well, according to the Bible, it’s to get stinking drunk.

The first story the Bible recounts after the flood (Gen 9:20-27) is how Noah planted a vineyard, got drunk on wine, and lay naked in his tent:

Noah, a man of the soil, was the first to plant a vineyard.
He drank some of the wine and became drunk, and he 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 away, 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; lowest of slaves shall he be to his brothers.”
And he said, “Blessed be YHWH, the God of Shem; and let Canaan be his slave.
May God make space for Japheth, and let him live in the tents of Shem; and let Canaan be his slave.”

There are some odd aspects of this passage. How does it relate to what’s happened previously?

Back in Gen 5:29, it was said that Lamech named his son Noah because “Out of the ground that YHWH has cursed this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the toil of our hands.” Thus Noah’s name is related to his role as the first winemaker (“wine to gladden the heart”, Ps 104:15) and not as the hero of the flood. Because of the mention of the name YHWH and the callback to the cursing of the ground in 3:17-19, this verse has been considered the one verse from the Yahwist (J) in all of Gen 5. Verse 29 seems to have been originally connected to 9:20-27 (another J passage) but got separated when the flood narrative was inserted. The description of Noah as the founder of viticulture is consistent with J’s list of the founders of cities, nomads, musicians, and metalworkers in 4:17-25.

Many commentators have wondered as to the nature of Ham’s crime that earned him such condemnation from Noah. Some have speculated if “saw the nakedness of his father” was a euphemism for something much worse. But the words can be taken literally and make perfect sense. While a husband and wife can be naked and not feel shame – as was the case of Adam and Eve – public nudity in the OT was seen as shameful. If a son was to see his father lying helplessly drunk and naked, the appropriate action was for the child to cover the genitals of the parent. Instead, Ham left Noah uncovered and told his brothers, thus publicizing Noah’s shame. We can speculate that Ham felt disgust or contempt for his father lying in that state, but that is reading more into the story than is there. Shem and Japheth, for their part, did what was expected of a good son.

"The Drunkenness of Noah" by Andre Sacchi (1599-1661). Seeing the look on Ham's face, I could see why Noah would curse him.

What’s odd is that Ham is introduced as “the father of Canaan” and, when Noah finally sobers up, he curses Canaan, not Ham. Ham is also referred to as Noah’s “youngest” son. This has led some biblical scholars to wonder if originally the story named Shem, Japheth and Canaan as Noah’s son. According to this theory, Canaan was changed to Ham in order to make the story consistent with the tradition that Noah’s sons were named Shem, Ham and Japheth. It is also equally possible that the story always concerned the sin of Ham and it was well-known that Ham was the father of Canaan (10:6). Just as Noah was dishonored by his son, he curses Ham’s son. It was only a later redactor who identified Ham as “the father of Canaan” for readers who were not clear on the genealogical connection.

The whole point of the story is the cursing of Ham/Canaan. The last two verses (which I placed in italics) is a secondary addition. Perhaps the redactor felt that if Canaan was cursed, Shem and Japheth needed to be blessed. But in v. 26 it is not Shem but YHWH who is blessed. YHWH is referred to as “the God of Shem” and since YHWH is only the God of Israel, Shem is identified with Israel. Biblical scholars declare that this is an etiological story of how Canaan came to be slaves to Israel. The problem with that theory is that in the rest of the OT, God tells Israel to either drive out or exterminate the Canaanites, never to make them their slaves.

The last verse is a play on the name Japheth (japt = “may he make large”). But who is Japheth? And why would he be dwelling in Seth’s tents? According to Gen 10:2-5, Japheth’s descendants were people to the north of Israel, but that comes from the Priestly writer. J may have had the Philistines in mind, for all we know. And perhaps the subject of v. 27a (“may God make space for Japheth”) is also the same subject of 27b (“and let him live in the tents of Shem”), in which case it would be a continuation of the blessing of YHWH in v. 26.

My final comment concerns the triple affirmation that Canaan is to be the lowest slave to Seth. In his primeval history, J continues to describe broken relationships and their consequences. In Gen 2-3, we had the broken relationship between the first couple and God and how it led to an inequality between husband and wife. In Gen 4, we have the broken relationship between brothers and how it led to Cain being outcast. Finally, here in Gen 9, we have a broken relationship between father and son and how it led to the son becoming slave to his brothers. Slavery was a reality in the ancient world but the author understands that it is not part of God’s original plan. Therefore, slavery must be punishment for some primordial sin. J is not challenging the institution. It exists in his world and he tries to explain how it came about.

Genocide for Kids

The story of Noah’s Ark is a popular one for children, perhaps because there’s a boat full of animals and kids like animals. In illustrations for children’s bibles and Sunday School lessons, the animals featured on the Ark will invariably be large mammals you would find at the zoo like elephants, giraffes, lions and tigers. God’s decision to wipe out all life on earth due to humanity’s sinfulness is presented matter-of-factly but the descriptions of the actual exterminations are left out. After the rain starts and the Ark door is closed, the story jumps ahead to the rain stopping, the release of birds and the rainbow.

What exactly are we trying to teach our children when we instruct them in the story of the Flood? A survey of some Sunday School lessons informs me that the themes are obedience and salvation. Noah was obedient to God when all his contemporaries were not and, as a result, God saved him and the animals. As a parent of a small child, I can understand why parents would want to teach the value of obedience to pre-schoolers. Small children don’t have much empathy for the “bad people” who literally missed the boat, if they even thought about it. Only adults wonder if all the people on earth before the Flood – even the infants and children – could really have been so evil that drowning them was God’s only option.

“The World is Destroyed by Water” (1866) by Gustave Doré

Or, as a friend of mine placed the question in an article in his blog: 

How does the whole Flood thing lead anyone to think that Yahweh of the Old Testament is worthy of worship? It's more the action of a genocidal maniac, in my opinion -- killing everyone and everything, infants and children included, because of some perceived wickedness that couldn't be fixed any other way. 

It’s a valid question. Flooding the entire world to kill all human and animal life does seem to be a rather drastic solution. We can take some solace in the fact – based on geological evidence and implausibilities in the biblical text – that a worldwide flood never actually happened. That gets God off the hook for genocide, but doesn’t answer my friend’s question: Why would anyone worship a deity who would destroy all life on earth in a great flood?

The most chilling scene in “Noah” (2014) is in this homage to Doré where a remnant of humanity clings to the rock right before a massive wave wipes them out. Their screams and cries can be heard in the ark far off in the distance.

If the flood story in Genesis was unique to Judaism out of all the religions in the world, that would be one thing, but flood stories can be found all over the world, in many different cultures. Besides the Genesis story of Noah, other well-known flood stories in the ANE are the Sumerian account of Ziusudra, the Gilgamesh flood myth, and the Atrahasis epic. The Atrahasis epic (1700 BCE) is similar to the Genesis primeval history (Gen 1-11) in that it combines a creation story along with a flood story. These flood myths were popular and translated into many languages, so it is almost guaranteed that the biblical writers knew of these tales and adapted them to suit the Yahwistic cult.

In the Atrahasis epic, humans were created to do menial jobs that the junior gods refused to do. With no set limit to their lifespans, the human race multiplied to the point where their noise interrupted the sleep of the senior gods. After unsuccessful attempts to control the population, they eventually decided to wipe out the human race with a great flood. One of the gods, Enki (or Ea), disagreed with this decision and, although sworn to secrecy, managed to instruct Atrahasis to build a boat before the flood arrives in seven days. After a fierce storm of 7 days and nights, the boat landed and Atrahasis offers sacrifice to the gods. The god Enlil, who had ordered the flood, is angered at Enki for foiling his plan and put limits on the human capacity to reproduce by creating infertility, infant mortality, and death.

There is conflict in the non-biblical flood myths between the council of senior gods who make the decision to destroy humanity and the renegade god who disagreed with the edict and worked against it. Enlil is the “bad god” and Enki, who sought to preserve life, is the “good god” who is worthy of worship. In the context of the Yahwistic cult, there is only one deity, so the biblical writer has to present both the decision to destroy the world with a flood and the decision to save representatives of the human race and the animal kingdom as those of YHWH. 

In the non-biblical flood myths, the decision to destroy the world is made for capricious or frivolous reasons. The biblical author alters this by providing the setting of worldwide evil, violence and corruption as moral justification for YHWH’s decision to obliterate life on earth and start over. At the end of the flood story, YHWH accepts the fact that humans are inclined towards evil and wiping them out is no longer a possible solution. The guarantee of the rhythm of seasons for as long as the earth endures is a sign of the new stability of nature in a recreated world.

Given the popularity of the Mesopotamian flood myths, the ancient biblical authors had to show how YHWH was different than the Sumerian or Babylonian gods. Ignoring the flood was not an option; the author had to provide a counter-narrative just as he did with the creation story. YHWH destroys, but he also saves at the same time; he is in control of every aspect of the flood event. If you worship the YHWH who saves, you are also worshipping the YHWH who destroys. 

That’s what happens when you take a myth meant to promote one deity over another and adapt it for a religion that worships only one deity. Later on, the devil would become the one who destroys, but when the Genesis Flood myth was written, the idea of the devil didn’t yet exist. That is a story for another time.

Review of Darren Aronofsky's "Noah"

Noah, a major motion picture directed by Darren Aronofsky, was released in 2014. I only recently watched the film and, for the most part, I enjoyed it. Starring Russell Crowe as Noah, it isn’t a typical biblical epic of the Cecil B. DeMille variety with cheesy effects, melodramatic acting, and overwrought dialogue. Just like DeMille’s epics, it embellishes the source material, but it is true to the spirit, if not the letter, of the biblical text. It follows in the tradition of Jewish midrash, which sought to fill in gaps in the biblical narrative, sometimes in fanciful ways. (Warning: Spoilers ahead!)

Russell Crowe stars as Noah

For example, one of the more interesting novelties in the movie is that of the Watchers. To provide manpower for ark construction, Noah enlists the aid of fallen angels whose bodies of light have become trapped within rock. Not surprisingly, Noah’s construction project and the mass migrations of thousands of animals have attracted the attention of Noah’s ruthless contemporaries and when the rain starts to fall and the mob tries to take the ark, the Watchers are instrumental in repelling the invaders.

"Noah" is sort of a mashup of "The Lord of the Rings" and "Mad Max"

I’m sure for many in the audience, this seems to be taking great liberties with the Bible, but the myth of the Watchers is well-known to those who have studied the inter-testamental literature – that is, the various non-biblical books written between the time of the OT and the NT – especially, the Book of Enoch. The Watchers were the “sons of God” who both taught humans the arts of mining and metallurgy and also mated with the “daughters of men” to give birth to the “giants” (or Nephilim). 

Fundamentalists, of course, have problems with the movie not being true to the letter of Scripture. One creationist review complains that the movie wasn’t historically accurate because it didn’t show Noah bringing dinosaurs on board the Ark. Seriously. Others have problems with the symbolism used in the movie. Christian theologian Brian Mattson calls it a pagan retelling of the flood story based on teachings from Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism) and Gnosticism (a heretic form of Christianity), two incompatible philosophies that he seems to conflate. Peter Chattaway at patheos.com wrote an article clarifying that “No, Noah is not Gnostic” (the actual title of his article). 

Another complaint of evangelical critics is that God did not speak to Noah in a clear and unambiguous fashion as he does in the Bible. “The Creator” (never called “God” in the movie) only revealed his plan to Noah in the form of a dream of a drowned world. But after coming in close contact with the brutal humans who overrun the antediluvian world, Noah decides that the Creator only wants to preserve the innocent animals and accepts that humanity is fated to die with him and his family after they live out their natural lives. Clearly, if the Creator had laid it out for Noah as God does in the Bible, the last part of the movie would have been less suspenseful.

But in real life, we’re not always sure what God’s will is. The Noah portrayed in the movie certainly wanted to follow the will of “the Creator” and thought he understood that will. But when Shem’s previously barren wife becomes pregnant with twin girls aboard ship, Noah decides that carrying out the Creator’s wishes will require him to slay the babies because they will grow up to bear children of their own. When Noah’s love for his family prevents him from doing that, he sees himself as a failure. It falls to his daughter-in-law to explain that the Creator chose him because Noah could see the good and evil in people and know if there was enough good left in humanity to make it worth saving.

Part of the reason evangelicals do not like the movie is that Noah is considered something of a saint in Christian theology. The Bible points out on multiple occasions (Gen 6:22; 7:5, 9, 16) that Noah did all that God commanded him, God established a covenant with him, Noah was considered a “righteous man” and so on. In the NT the flood was seen as a sort of extreme baptism (see 1 Peter 3:20-21), destroying the old world of sin out of which a new world would be born, and Noah was the instrument for salvation.

But Jews don’t see Noah the same way. One of the new insights that I discovered in preparing this review was in an interview by The Times of Israel with “America’s rabbi” Shmuley Boteach. Rabbi Boteach points out why the biblical Noah is not considered a hero in Jewish tradition:

He [Noah] failed in the greatest mission of all. He failed to protect human life. And failed to fight with God when he wanted to take human life. He refuses to wrestle with God. Noah is a fundamentalist. He’s a religious extremist. God says “everyone will die” and Noah says nothing. But this is not what God wants. God wants people with moxie! God wants people with spiritual audacity! He does not want the obedient man of belief. He wants the defiant man of faith.

The rabbi points out, by way of contrast, that when Abraham was told that YHWH planned to destroy Sodom, Abraham didn’t just nod his head and say, “Thy will be done.” Instead, he interceded on behalf of Sodom (Gen 18-22-33), forcing YHWH to agree to spare the city if only 10 righteous people could be found in it. “This made him the first Jew. A Jew does not just accept a divine decree, he does not just bow his head in silent obedience.”

In the final analysis, Noah portrays a religious man who will go to extremes to follow what he believes is the Creator’s will. His obsession will either guarantee the salvation of life on earth or result in the extermination of the human race. The outcome rests on his humanity.

P, R and J Sandwich

The familiar Christmas story is taken from the first two chapters of Matthew and Luke. The magi, the slaughter of the innocents, and the flight into Egypt all come from Matthew. The census, birth in a stable, and shepherds all come from Luke. These individual elements from the two distinct infancy narratives fit well together in the traditional nativity story and it would be hard to identify them if we didn’t have the original narratives in Matthew and Luke.

We have a similar situation with the flood story in Genesis 6-9. Here we have elements from two different narratives – one from J and one from P – that were woven together by a redactor (“R” for short; redactor being another name for editor). Bible scholars can ascribe the verses to J or P based on the use of the divine name, themes, vocabulary or narrative style. Unlike the creation stories and genealogies where R left the J and P narratives stand on their own, in the flood narrative R used P as the main storyline and supplemented it with J at appropriate points. Sometimes R alternates several verses between J and P, but at other times he interweaves his source material. 

For example, R provides parallel accounts for the decision to destroy humanity. J’s account is in 6:5-8 and P’s version is in vv. 11-12. J emphasizes that YHWH is sorry that he had made humans. P repeatedly uses the word “corrupt” to emphasize his point: “Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence. And God saw that the earth was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted its ways upon the earth.” 

“Building Noah’s Ark” by Franzosischer Meister (“The French Master”), 1675

These passages are followed by instructions for the building of the ark (vv. 13-22) taken from the P account. Similar instructions must have existed in J’s account, but R left them out. P delights in specifications for the length and width and height of the ark, along with the number of floors, window and door. The familiar command to bring aboard the ark “two of each kind” of bird, animal, and creeping thing recalls the similar enumeration of animals in P’s creation story in Genesis 1.

R returns to J’s narrative with the commission to enter the Ark in 7:1-5. Noah is instructed to bring a pair of unclean animals, but seven pairs of clean animals. “Clean” and “unclean” refers to whether the animals in questions are considered suitable for sacrifice. You would expect that the Priestly writer would be more concerned about ritually “clean” vs. “unclean” animals, but for P those categories did not exist until Moses was given the Law on Sinai. J’s rationale for having Noah bring aboard seven pairs of clean animals is to allow for their use in a sacrifice to YHWH after the flood (8:20-21).

With the description of the coming of the flood in 7:6-24, R repeatedly switches back and forth between P and J, sometimes in the middle of the same sentence. Here is what J’s portion of this passage would look like:

And Noah went into the ark to escape the waters of the flood and YHWH shut him in. The rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights. And the waters increased, and bore up the ark, and it rose high above the earth. He blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground. Everything on dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died. Only Noah was left, and those that were with him in the ark.

In J’s account, YHWH personally seals Noah and his family into the ark. The flood is brought about by rain for forty days and nights. The reference to blotting out all creatures “in whose nostrils was the breath of life” recalls how YHWH breathed life into the earth creature in J’s creation account (Gen 2:7).

P’s narrative in the remainder of 7:6-24 illustrates his style of providing exact dates (“In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month”) and numbers (“fifteen cubits deep”). P’s flood is not just a very long rain, but a return to the chaos prior to creation as windows in the firmament are opened to allow the upper waters to pour down and the lower waters below the earth are allowed to erupt. Unlike J’s forty days, P’s flood lasted for 150 days and took an equivalent amount of time for the waters to recede. The earth was dry (that is, the flood over) on the first day of the first month (8:13). Just as Gen 1 provided the context for the Sabbath observance, the flood story provides the context for the New Year’s festival because God is creating the world anew.

The ark soon came to rest on “the mountains of Ararat” (“Ararat” is a region, not a specific mountain). In the J account (8:6-12) Noah experiments with birds to discern when it is safe to exit the ark, but in the P account (8:15-19) God simply tells Noah when it is time to disembark. This is followed by J’s report of Noah’s thanksgiving sacrifice and YHWH’s promise not to again destroy the earth (20-22). The parallel passage from P narrates God’s renewed blessing of Noah (9:1-7) and his covenant to never again destroy the earth with a flood (8-17).

Sandwich structure of the flood narrative

In this article I focused on the separate J and P traditions so you could see the distinctiveness of each. But we also have to look at the complete text as it came down to us from R. There is artistry here. R did not simply grab bits and pieces from each tradition and insert them willy-nilly, but chose them to fit a chiastic pattern (or “sandwich” structure) with “God remembered Noah” at the center. It is not that God had forgotten about Noah; “remember” in this context means refers to God’s mercy towards one in danger of death (see Gen 19:29). It is the pivotal moment of the story because from here on, God’s attention is on reversing the destructive actions of the flood.

The flood story itself is pivotal in that it separates the primeval events “before the flood” from historical events “after the flood.” The world following the flood is the world in which we live.