Feedback archive → Feedback 2020

Was there a curse of Ham?

In response to the UEFA anti-racism campaign concedes an own goal article published on 27 December 2019, CMI received the following feedback, to which Lucien Tuinstra responds. Mushet S. (US) wrote:

Original Message

Response

Dear Mushet,

Thank you for your comments. In my reply to the feedback your message is in red, my reply in black.

Indeed.

We still agree; all who have genuine faith in Christ are part of his church—his bride (Ephesians 5:25).

You mention “Africans (Arabs and Blacks)”, but many Arabs are ‘black’ (figure 1) and, more importantly, numerous Arabs live in the Middle East, which is not Africa.¹ Not all Ham’s descendants migrated to Egypt and further afield. Take for example the Canaanites who lived in the area we today call Israel (Genesis 10:19–20). Canaan’s nephew Nimrod started in the land of Shinar and moved north to Assyria (Genesis 10:10–11). Other (undisclosed) progeny settled in Gedor, the hills of Judah (1 Chronicles 4:39–40).

You mention “Asians and Jews”, yet modern day Israel (Middle East) with its Jewish citizens is in Asia, therefore many (but not all) Jews are Asians (figure 2). Although Jews are nowadays referred to as Semites (from Shem), the covenant associated with the Jews was with Abraham, the ninth generation from Shem. The word Jew itself comes from Judah, the 12^th from Shem. In other words, if you descend from Abraham (or Judah) you also descend from Shem, but if you descend from Shem, you do not necessarily descend from Abraham (or Judah). Many people think that ’Jewishness’ is passed down via the mother, but this certainly was not the case in biblical times. The main reason for this is that it can without doubt be established who someone’s mother is (due to her presence at birth), but it is not always possible to ascertain the father’s identity (in case of absence). The point is, Jewish people do not necessarily know if they descend from Shem because records were lost with the destruction of the Temple.

And what about the people that convert to the Jewish religion? Consider Romans 9:6–7:

But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.”

Do they fall into this category of converts or would they still be grouped according to their family tree? Lastly, the Semitic languages (named after Shem) include both Arabic and Hebrew (and many others), another overlap of your categories.

These statements show that your comments are too simplistic, and quite frankly, wrong. To illustrate this, consider marriage. Jacob’s family went to Egypt where Joseph served under Pharaoh. Joseph married Asenath the daughter of Potiphera priest of On (Genesis 41:45). She was a local. Another case in point was Solomon making a marriage alliance with Pharaoh king of Egypt (1 Kings 3:1). One final example is a descendant of Judah (through Jerahmeel):

Now Sheshan had no sons, only daughters, but Sheshan had an Egyptian slave whose name was Jarha. So Sheshan gave his daughter in marriage to Jarha his slave, and she bore him Attai (1 Chronicles 2:34–35).

The Bible explains that some marriages are forbidden (2 Corinthians 6:14–15), but not because of so-called racial mixing.

Not all Europeans were ‘white’; in fact, no ancient Europeans, as far as we can tell from the genetics, were ‘white’.² Note that continent borders came much later, and Europe stretches into Turkey. What about people who live near the border (Istanbul)? ‘Border-dweller’ skin tone does not change dependent on which side of the ‘border’ they live on. Skin shades exist on a spectrum; to distinguish three groups (according to Noah’s sons) is rather short-sighted.

You correctly state that, “all people come from Adam and Eve and after the Global Noah Flood, the sons of Noah and their wives”; therefore the information for all shades would have been present from the beginning. That is, unless you believe God altered DNA information around the Flood, but this would be an argument from silence. Even if He did, people were not scattered until at least a century later at Babel (the birth of Peleg, the fourth from Shem); i.e. before then, the descendants of Noah’s sons were free to intermarry. Genetically one could argue that we are all descended from Ham! This is because there is no way to separate Ham’s genetic or genealogical contribution from all of humanity, due both to pre-Babel and post-Babel mixing. By cursing Ham, you are inadvertently cursing yourself.

You use the words “clearly proves and shows”, but you read a lot into the text that simply isn’t stated.³ If it is not in the text, where is it coming from? Interestingly, you start your sentence with “I believe”. Is it proven or not? If so, then you no longer have to believe, do you?

This is a regurgitation of the infamous ‘curse of Ham’? The ‘curse of Ham’—allegedly a dark skin—has been around for a while (mostly in America) but seemed to be on its way out. Some people are loathe to let this fallacious idea go; if not in its original form, then some variant of it.

This appears to be a variant of the ‘curse of Ham’, one which, simply put, is wildly racist. It is wholly fabricated with a view to suppress certain people groups. As Angela Saini put it:

“… those committed to the biological reality of race won’t back down if the data proves them wrong.

… They will simply keep reaching for fresher, more elaborate theories when the old ones fail.

All this to prove what they have always really wanted to know: that they are superior.”⁴

Your view is not based on any real statistics nor, more importantly, Scripture. Where in the Bible does it teach this? I agree that 100% of people are prone to sin (Romans 3:23), but you suggest that around a third of all people have this proneness “to sexual and violent sins”? And this third of the world’s population “go ape” and have “gangster thug tribalism”. Is “go ape” a reference to them being less evolved, or one of your own terms, since it certainly is not biblical teaching? If I have surmised correctly, this somehow is genetically determined in your thinking. Yet nowhere in the Bible do we read of a Hamitic curse. Further, you should realise that gangsters and thugs can also be found among ‘non-African tribes’. It is important to look at the heart, rather than someone’s outward appearance (1 Samuel 16:7).

Why should we admit to something not found in the Bible and clearly fallacious? Just because you say so? No, we need hard evidence. Also, to cover something up means to hide the (inconvenient) truth so others will not discover it. Clearly, this is nonsensical for imaginary stories. It’s a strawman argument.

Agreed.

Enslaving or abusing anyone is immoral; that is not the issue here. Why should all descendants of Ham be governed by descendants of Shem and Japheth? Let’s assume Ham was cursed—which he wasn’t—so that this somehow meant he could not govern. Why would all Ham’s progeny be affected in the same way? Moses wrote that God visits “the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation” (Exodus 34:7). Clearly, more than four generations have passed since the days of Ham.⁵

But you cannot point us to a relevant Bible passage to show where you get this idea from. Genesis 9:25–27 states the following:

[Noah] 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.”

This does not mean per se that Ham was not a servant, or Shem was not a thinker, or Japheth was not a builder/explorer. But all your statements are contrived; they certainly do not come from Scripture (see box). To boot, you imply in an earlier statement that all Hamites are servants. Yet now you say, “Exceptions exist but do not change the rule”. This is evidently a fallacy of generalisation.

Yes. See for instance The Darwin Effect review.

This is the burden of proof fallacy. You have simply stated what you believe to be true, without making any case—let alone a biblical one—for it. Then you have insisted others should believe likewise. Essentially, this is equivalent to “Because I say so”. As per our motto, we rather take our doctrine from the Bible.

I urge you to meticulously read Genesis 9:20–27 again (particularly verse 25), because a lot of your argumentation seems to hinge on a curse of Ham, whereas this passage clearly names Canaan as the cursed one. I am surprised you have not (consciously) noticed this, since you brought up the passage as the basis for your thinking. Somehow you have imbibed false teaching, either from a book by an author you esteem, or perhaps a person whose teaching you esteem (even a pastor). However, I beseech you to let go of this false teaching and stand upon the unadulterated truths of Scripture (2 Timothy 3:16). Take God at His Word.

Kind regards,
Lucien Tuinstra

Acknowledgements

I thank my wife and our dear friend Elizabeth Backfish, PhD, for help with checking the Hebrew text.

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