11.29.05
Far too much time has already been wasted in the endeavor of proving whether or not the events depicted in the Bible ever actually took place. Suffice it to say that most of them did not; it is highly unlikely that the man commonly thought of as Jesus the Nazarene ever even existed, let alone fairy tales like the Great Flood or the resurrection of Lazarus. Rather than belabor that same tired debates, however, I would prefer to examine the content of the book from another angle: literary analysis.
Instead of treating the Bible as an historical chronicle documenting real events, I will scrutinize the narrative as a work of literature by analyzing characters and motivations within the story. I will take the Bible for what it is: a novel, written by more than 60 men, over nearly a thousand years. This essay will cover the first Book of the Bible -- Genesis.
the WORDS (Genesis, chap. 1)
Within the first chapter of the first book of the Bible, the authors of Genesis propose that the character of God thought "let Us make man in Our image" (1:26). We are shown through the thoughts of the character a distinct plurality that directly contradicts one of the most fundamental tenets of Judeo-Christianity: the notion, as explicated in the Gospel of Mark, that "there is one God, and there is none other but He" (12:32).
Based on this initial internal indicator, we can further surmise that God lied to Man when handing down the Ten Commandments to Moses in the Book of Exodus by claiming, in the singular, that "I am the Lord thy God" (20:2) rather than the truthful "We are the Lord thy Gods." A common rationalization of this flagrant contradiction posits that God exists as a Trinity comprised of The Father, The Son, and the Holy Spirit, and that when God refers to "Us," He is refering to these internal parts.
Why God consists of three distinct parts or functions, thus necessitating this kind of complex internal communication is unexplained; how the authors know of this absurdly illogical condition when theists so often claim that "God is a mystery" is equally unexplained. Further, this interpretation is entirely unfounded based on the text, and thus is without merit.
the CREATION (Genesis, chaps. 1 & 2)
In the first chapter of Genesis, the creation of the world unfolds along the customary seven-day outline. God creates Light, "divide[s it] from the darkness" (1:4), calls "the light Day, and the darkness...Night" and marks "the first day" (1:5). However, God does not create the light-producing celestial objects -- the "two great lights" being the Sun that "rule[s] the day" and the Moon "to rule the night," as well as "the stars" (1:16) -- until the Fourth Day.
Additionally, God creates plants -- the "grass, ...herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree" (1:11) -- on the Third Day, before the creating the Sun that feeds the photosynthetic process. Incidentally, God creates the Sun, Moon and stars to "be for signs," indicating astrology. These "signs" are clearly not simply for telling time, as they are separated by mention of the lights being "for seasons, and for days, and years" as well.
The first chapter of Genesis establishes that God created "male and female" (1:27) simultaneously on "the Sixth Day" (1:31), after having created "every living creature" (1:21) on "the Fifth Day" (1:23). In the second chapter of Genesis, however, God "formed man of the dust" (2:7), then decided that it wasn't "good that the man should be alone" (2:18) and created "every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air and brought them unto Adam" to be named (2:19).
This second chronicle directly contradicts the first version, in which the order of creation is explicitly reversed. Further, the second chapter of Genesis continues as none of God's creatures provides an adequate mate for Adam; God then cast Adam into "a deep sleep," took "one of his ribs" (2:21) and "made...a woman," Eve (2:22). Again, this account of the creation of human beings explicitly contradicts the account given in the first chapter; whereas the first chapter outlines the creation of animals followed by the simultaneous creation of man and woman, the second chapter outlines the creation of man, followed by the creation of animals, followed finally by the creation of woman.
After creating the universe in six days, "God ended his work...and he rested on the seventh day" (2:2). It is ridiculous to propose that an all-powerful God got tired after six days of work; it is equally ridiculous to posit that an all-powerful God required six days to create the world, instead of simply calling the entire universe into existence at once. These passages portray God as an overworked foreman stressed by an extensive project; such a depiction imbues God with distinctly human characteristics, painting Him more like a deity of the Greek pantheon than the all-powerful creator of existence.
the TREE (Genesis, chaps. 2 & 3)
Following the creation of Adam in the second chapter of Genesis, God places his pet project "into the garden of Eden" (2:15) in which he instructs Adam to "freely eat" from "every tree of the garden" (2:16) except for "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" (2:17). If we are to believe that God is all-knowing, it is preposterous to propose that He could give Adam access to the Tree of Knowledge without knowing that he would eat from it. Thus, we are left with only two options: either God is not all-knowing, or God gave Adam access to the Tree of Knowledge and instructed him not to eat from it while knowing that Adam eventually would anyway. If the second scenario plays true, then it appears that God set Adam up to fail intentionally.
In the third chapter of Genesis, Eve is tricked into eating from the Tree of Knowledge "the serpent" (3:1); in turn, Eve convinces Adam to partake of the Tree of Knowledge as well. Of all the participants of this crime, Eve takes the largest portion of the blame; God curses Eve with painful child-birth (3:16), yet punishes Adam by simply assigning him to a life of physical toil (3:19). Yet the serpent, the ultimate antagonist in the crime, is cursed merely to crawl on his belly and eat dust: the life, therefore, of a serpent.
However, the serpent's part in the downfall of Adam and Eve is another piece of damning evidence against God in the incident. God created the serpent, as evinced in the first lines of the Gospel of John -- "All things were made by Him" (1:3); it is often presumed that "the serpent" is the character of Satan, but the first chapter of Genesis makes no specification on the subject, so theorization on the topic is purely conjectural.
If we are to believe that God is all-knowing, it is preposterous to propose that He could created the serpent without knowing the treason and evil that it was going to carry out. Thus, we are left with only two options: either God is not all-knowing, or God willingly created the serpent while knowing the evil that Satan would wreak. If the second scenario plays true, then it appears that God is, in fact, not benevolent, and that the serpent is merely the evil facet of God's being; further, it goes toward establishing that God is not loving, because a loving God would not have created a being that He knew would wreak such evil upon the creation that He so claimed to love.
Additionally, if we are to believe that God is all-powerful, it is further preposterous to propose that He would create a being that He knew would be powerful enough to act against His own will. We are again left with only two options: either God is not all-powerful, or God created the serpent knowing that it would succesfully tempt Adam and Eve to defy His edict with regards to the Tree of Knowledge. Thus, it becomes even more evident that God set Mankind up for failure from the outset, having created the antagonist and knowing the outcome before even creating humans.
OMNISCIENCE and INSECURITY (Genesis, chap. 3)
As God meanders through the Garden of Eden, he calls out to Adam "Where art thou?" (3:9) When God finds that Adam and Eve now know that they are naked, He asks them "Who told [them] that [they were] naked" and whether they had "eaten of the Tree?" (3:11) If God is all-knowing, then it is preposterous to propose that He did not know where Adam and Eve were, who told them that they were naked, and whether or not they'd eaten from the Tree of Knowledge. Asking these questions should be redundant and unnecessary, and yet God asks them in the interest of learning the answers; thus is God portrayed as not all-knowing.
Only after Adam and Eve eat from the Tree of Knowledge does God place "Cherubims" "at the east of the garden" "and a flaming sword which turned every way" to guard the Tree (3:24). This late safeguard implies that God was unaware of what kind of danger the Tree of Knowledge presented before planting it in the Garden of Eden. Again, God is portrayed as not being omniscient despite repeated claims that He knows all.
After Adam and Eve eat from the Tree of Knowledge and acquire the knowledge of Good and Evil, God expels them "from the garden of Eden" (3:23) before they have a chance to eat "of the tree of life" as well "and live for ever" (3:22). Now that humans have acquired knowledge of Good and Evil, they differ from God only in their mortality; God points out that "man is become as one of Us, to know good and evil" (3:22). The fact that God refers to Himself in the first person plural once again contradicts Mark's claim that "there is one God; and there is none other but He."
It is never explained why God fears the prospect of humans gaining immortality to complement their newfound knowledge of good and evil. Presumably, this last step of gaining immortality would make humans identical to God; the only viable explanation for God's aversion to humans' immortality, then, is his desire to remain the supreme being. The God portrayed in chapter three is thus petty and insecure.
Further, if God is all-knowing, it is preposterous to propose that He created Satan, humans and the Tree of Knowledge without knowing how the combination of the three would unfold. It is ridiculous to believe that God did not know that Satan would tempt humans to eat from the Tree of Knowledge, thus imbuing humans with the knowledge of good and evil. Thus we are left with only two options: either God is not all-knowing, or God created all three participants in the story in order to ensure the downfall of the human race.
the BROTHERS (Genesis, chap. 4)
In chapter four of Genesis, Adam and Eve have two sons: Cain and Abel (4:1-2). Cain is a farmer, while his brother Abel is a shepherd; Cain thus brings an offering "of the fruit of the ground" (4:3) to God, while Abel brings a slaughtered sacrifice "of the firstlings of his flock" (4:4). Inexplicably, God "had respect unto Abel" (4:4), "But [not] unto Cain" (4:5); no explanation for this discriminatory treatment is ever given, leading to the conclusion that God harbors some appreciation for the murder of animals rather than the cultivation of crops. Thus, God is portrayed as a biased sadist.
After Cain murders his brother in a jealous rage, God asks Cain "Where is Abel thy brother?" (4:9) This once more points to a God that is not all-knowing, but Cain's murder of Abel is yet another piece of damning evidence against God; if God is all-knowing, then it is preposterous to propose that he did not know that Cain would murder Abel. Thus, by rejecting Cain's offering -- which was cultivated with at least as much effort and devotion as Abel's -- God knew that He was condemning Abel to death at the hands of his brother.
As punishment for fratricide, God banishes Cain and calls him "a fugitive and a vagabond" (4:12); Cain laments this light punishment by claiming "that every one that findeth [him] shall slay" him, despite the fact that the only humans currently living are himself, Adam and Eve. Yet despite being branded a fugitive and a vagabond, Cain goes on to "dwel[l] in the land of Nod" (4:16) where he takes a wife, fathers a son named Enoch, and builds a city (4:17).
In return for committing the first premeditated homicide in the history of Mankind and killing off one quarter of the human population, then, God gives Cain his own city, a wife, and a son. Unfortunately, the narrative provides no indication whatsoever as to where this woman came from, as there are still only three living humans -- Cain, Adam and Eve.
the GENEALOGY I (Genesis, chap. 5)
Evidently, the next 1656 years passed without incident; the authors of chapter five gloss over the genealogy that led from Adam to Noah. It is worth noting, however, that after the incident with Cain and Abel, Adam and Eve produce yet another son, "Seth" (5:3), after which they had more unnamed "sons and daughters" (5:4). Since the only existing females at this point in the narrative are Eve, Eve's daughters and Cain's wife (who can safely be excluded from the list of prospective mates for Seth since she is in Nod with her family), we must deduce that the mother of Seth's son "Enos" (5:6) is either Seth's sister or mother.
Clearly, the Bible has no problem with the issue of incest, and once again God is portrayed as inept and not all-knowing. God almost flippantly creates Adam in chapters one and two, demonstrating the ease with which He can create people; why He does not simply create a host of women to facilitate the biological process of reproduction is never even addressed. God once more exhibits His ineptitude by spitting in the face of the very biological fact that we are led to believe He created.
It is worth noting now in this first of several genealogies the heavy patriarchal overtones that resonate throughout the Bible. From Adam to Noah are born a succession of males -- Adam, Seth, Enos, "Cainan" (5:9), "Mahalaleel" (5:13), "Jared" (5:15), "Enoch" (5:18), "Methuselah" (5:21), "Lamech" (5:25) and "Noah" (5:29) -- with barely a mention to the "daughters" (5:4, 5:7, 5:10, 5:13, 5:16, 5:19, 5:22, 5:26, 5:30) that each of these men fathered. The authors of Genesis here begin to show their clear anti-female sentiment by implying through omission that only the lineage of males is worthy of mention by name; the act of leaving out the names of these "daughters" deprives these women of identity, and leaves them narratively powerless.
the GIANTS (Genesis, chap. 6)
Early in Chapter 6, an intriguing subplot is introduced into the narrative, only to subsequently be left undeveloped; it isn't even mentioned again until the Book of Job, some 17 books later. The authors of Genesis refer to a marriage between "the sons of God" and "the daughters of men" (6:2, 6:4), speciically indicating that God had multiple sons; of course, we are given no indication that God has any daughters, further reinforcing the patriarchal tilt that the Biblical authors have already shown.
Unfortunately, this verse -- and the subsequent references throughout the Book of Job (1:6, 2:1 & 38:7) -- directly contradicts statements in the Gospel of John (3:16 & 3:18) and the First Book of John (4:9) asserting that Jesus the Nazarene was God's "only begotten son," and ultimately undermines the entirely foundation of Christianity as it exists; namely that Jesus the Nazarene in particular was the "only begotten son" of God who died to pay for the sins of Mankind (which, incidently, God allowed to go unchecked to the point that a blood-sacrifice was inexplicably necessary).
Naturally, the authors of Genesis provide no explanation for the origins of these "sons of God;" we are never told of a "wife of God" who might have mothered them, nor are we given even a rudimentary creation fable akin to Chapters 1 and 2. Instead, these "sons of God" are simply presented without preamble or clarification for a largely unexplained reason. Several theologians have hypothesized that these "sons of God" were angels, demons, or pre-Adamite humans, but all of these theories are ultimately unsupported by the text, which has made no mention of angels, demons, or any humans preceding Adam whatsoever.
The authors of Genesis go on to further claim that "there were giants in the earth in those days" (6:4); these "giants" are later referenced in the Book of Numbers (13:33), the Book of Deuteronomy (2:11, 2:20 & 3:11), the Book of Joshua (12:4 & 18:16), and the First Book of Samuel (17:4). Interesting though they may be, the reader is left entirely without explanation as to how these "giants" came to be: whether they are among the "beast[s] of the earth" or are part of the race of Man. Sadly, these "giants" play no important role in the unfolding narrative, and so are left idly undeveloped.
Additionally, God states early in Chapter 6 that the human lifespan "shall be an hundred and twenty years" (6:3). Yet numerous personages after this declaration live long beyond that age; Peleg lives to 239, Reu lives to 239, Serug lives to 229, Terah lives to 205, Arphaxad lives to 438, Salah lives to 433, Noah's own son Shem lives to 600, Eber lives to 464, and Isaac lives to 180.
the ARK (Genesis, chaps. 6 & 7)
Eight generations after the murder of Abel, "God saw that the wickedness of man was great" (6:5) and "it repented the LORD that he had made man" (6:6). The authors of Genesis provide no evidence whatsoever to support the claim that "the wickedness of man was great," expecting rather that the reader merely take their word for the matter; considering the action that God proceeds to take, incontrovertible evidence should be presented to warrant the destruction that this supposedly loving God is about to exact.
Further, if God is all-knowing, then it is preposterous to propose that God had created humans without knowing the "wickedness" into which they degenerate. In an attempt to clean up His monumental mess, God plans to "destroy...both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air" (6:7), despite the fact that it is only the "wickedness of man" that is so great. God thus resolves to murder every living creature save for a miniscule fraction of the population in retribution for the undefinied "wickedness" of Man, punishing millions of innocent creatures that He Himself created and knew to be innocent for the "wickedness" into which he knew Mankind would degenerate, into which he allowed Mankind to degenerate, and into which he designed Man to degenerate.
To erase His mistakes, God murders "every living substance that [He has] made" (7:4) except for Noah, his family, and two of each species, with which he intends for Noah to repopulate the Earth. God's sadism thus returns to the forefront as he punishes humans and animals for becoming exactly what He would have known they would become when He created them, begging the ultimate question: why did He create them in the first place?
If God is all-knowing, then it is preposterous to propose that He would have created the world beginning with Adam and Eve without knowing the disastrous results His experiment would have. It is equally ridiculous to believe that God would not simply have created the world beginning with Noah, since after the cleansing of the earth, only Noah, his wife, their three sons and their wives were left alive.
God's instructions to Noah pertaining to the number of animals he is to take on the ark are similarly confusing. First, God indicates to Noah to "bring into the ark" "two of every sort" "of every living thing of all flesh" (6:19); He then goes on to correct Himself by amending the order to take "every clean beast...by sevens" and "beasts that are not clean by two" (7:2). Noah seems rightly confused by these contradictory instructions, and apparently opts to follow the former rather than latter when he takes "clean beasts, and...beasts that are not clean, and...fowls, and...every thing that creepeth upon the Earth" "two and two unto...the ark" (7:8-9).
Structurally, Noah's Ark is "three hundred cubits...[by] fifty cubits...[by] thirty cubits" (6:15), or about 450 feet long. Historically, the largest wooden ships ever built were just over 300 feet, and they required diagonal iron strapping for support; even so, they leaked so badly that they had to be pumped constantly. Are we to believe that Noah, with no shipbuilding knowledge, was able to construct a wooden ship longer than any that has been built since? Not only was the ark too big to be seaworthy, it was far too small to be able to contain the earth's millions of plant and animal species.
the FLOOD (Genesis, chaps. 7 & 8)
God claims that He "will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights" (7:4), and indeed we are told that "the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights" (7:12); this rain began on 17 Marcheshvan ("the second month, the seventeenth day" [7:11]) in the year Biblical Year 1656 (that is, 1,656 years after God's creation of Adam). We might initially infer from these passages that the rain itself lasted for 40 days and 40 nights, while the resulting flood lasted much longer; we are later told, however, that "the flood was forty days upon the earth" (7:17).
It is at this point, however, following the "forty days" that "the flood" is "upon the earth," that "the waters increased...[bore] up the ark, and...lift[ed it] up above the earth." So we are left to infer that the rain fell for forty days before the water reached a level high enough to raise the ark. After "the ark went upon the face of the waters" (7:18), we are told, "the waters prevailed upon the earth" for an additional "hundred and fifty days" (7:24); in that time, "the waters" reached a height of five-and-a-half miles, since "all the high hills...were covered" (7:19) -- the highest of "the high hills," Mount Everest, stands 29,017 feet tall -- and the water was another "fifteen cubits upward" (7:20) -- a cubit is about 18 inches, meaning that "the waters" rose to 29,040 feet.
If we allow that the "forty days" of "the flood" refers only to the period of rain, then the rain stopped on 30 Chisleu, BY1656. After this "hundred and fifty days, the waters were abated" (8:3), and the ark came to rest "upon the mountains of Ararat" (8:4) on 17 Nisan, BY1656 ("the seventh month, on the seventeenth day" [8:4]), 150 days after the end of the flood and 190 days after the rain began. For the next 76 days, "the waters decreased continually" until 1 Tammuz, BY1656 ("the tenth month, ...the first day" [8:5]), when "the tops of the mountains [were] seen" (8:5).
Unfortunately, this is geographically impossible, since Mount Ararat stands only 16,945 feet tall; fourteen mountains stand taller than 26,000 feet -- Mount Everest (29,017 feet), K2 (28,251 feet), Kanchenjunga (28,169 feet), Lhotse (27,939 feet), Makalu (27,765 feet), Cho Oyu (26,906 feet), Dhaulagiri (26,794 feet), Manaslu (26,758 feet), Nanga Parbat (26,658 feet), Annapurna (26,545 feet), Gasherbrum I (26,470 feet), Broad Peak (26,400 feet), Gasherbrum II (26,360 feet), and Shishpangma (26,289 feet) -- and the first peaks to become visible on 1 Tammuz would be these. At less than 17,000 feet tall, Mount Ararat would still have been under water on 1 Tammuz, making Noah's 17 Nisan landing impossible.
Another "forty days" (8:6) after "the mountains [were] seen," Noah "opened the window of the ark" (8:6) "and sent forth a raven" (8:7) and "a dove" (8:8) on 9 Av, BY1656. The raven apparently spent the remainder of the Flood in the air as it "went forth and fro until the waters were dried up" (8:7); the dove, on the other hand, returned without finding dry land (8:9), and was sent back out on 16 Av. When the dove returned from its second reconnaissance operation, it brought back with it "an olive leaf" to show Noah that "the waters were abated from off the earth" (8:11). Unfortunately, this also establishes that God failed in His attempt to murder "every living substance...which was upon the face of the ground." Thus we are given yet another piece of evidence to support the claim that God is not all-powerful.
"Seven days" (8:12) later, on 23 Av, Noah releases the dove for a third and final time; when it does not return, and Noah proceeds to wait another 40 days until 1 Tishrei ("the first month, the first day" [8:13]), BY1657 to "remove...the covering of the ark," at which point he sees that "the face of the ground was dry" (8:13). If this is the case, then the Flood lasted for a total of 317 days -- 17 Marcheshvan, BY1656 to 1 Tishrei, BY1657. The very next verse, however, contradicts this information when it claims that "the earth was dried" by 27 Marcheshvan ("the second month, on the seven and twentieth day" [8:14]), a full 58 days later than the immediately preceding verse.
The only way to reconcile this blatant contradiction is to interpret "the ground" referenced in verse 13 as the patch of land immediately surrounding the ark, while interpreting the "the earth" referenced in verse 14 as the rest of the planet. This interpretation seems strange, though, because the ground immediately surrounding the ark would naturally have been dry as early as 17 Nisan, BY1656, evinced by the fact that Noah landed there; this ignores, of course, the geographical fact that Ararat would still have been under water beyond 1 Tammuz, BY1656. If verse 14 is the accurate measure of the Flood, then its full length was 375 days -- 17 Marcheshvan, BY1656 to 27 Marcheshvan, BY1657.
One way or the other, Noah is once again landbound by Kislev of BY1657 at the latest; God then instructs him and his family to lead "every beast, every creeping thing,...every fowl...out of the ark" (8:19). The authors of Genesis neglects to consider the fact that, by slaughtering "every living substance" from the planet, God has effectively eliminated every food source that Noah, his family, and the only remaining members of the most endanged species' in history would have had.
To then compound this devastating setback, Noah proceeds to slaughter one "of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl" and burn their corpses as an "offering" to God; once again, however, the authors of Genesis, neglects to consider that Noah has just contributed to the extinction of every "clean beast, and...clean fowl," since there then existed only one of each kind of animal. Additionally, God clearly has no problem with Noah causing the extinction of every clean animal, since He regarded the smell of the offering as "a sweet savour" (8:21).
Finally, after committing one of the most thorough genocides in history and abiding by the extinction of a sizeable portion of the animals that were meant to survive that genocide, God resolves never "again [to] curse the ground for Man's sake" because "the imagination of man's heart is evil from its youth" (8:21). Yet God claims this same exact reason -- "that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil" (6:5) -- as his justification for "destroy[ing] man...and beast, and...creeping thing[s], and...fowls" (6:7). In short, God decides to destroy "every living substance" because Man is evil, and after doing so promises never to "smite...every thing living" again because Man is evil.
This, of course, begs the question; why did God make Man evil? It is preposterous to propose that God created Man without knowing that Man would be evil. Thus we are left with only two options; either God is not all-knowing and was unaware that Man would be evil when He created humans, or God intentionally made Man evil when He created humans. If the latter is the case, we can then only conclude that God punished Man for being exactly as He created them; it is preposterous to create a being and make it evil (as God apparently did with Man), and then demand that this being not be evil.
Finally, we realize once more that God has failed in His attempt to murder "every living substance...which was upon the face of the ground" because the "giants" that were mentioned prior to the Flood are later referenced in Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, and First Samuel. It is preposterous to propose that an all-powerful God would be unable to correctly exterminate its own creations, leaving us with only two options; either God is not all-powerful, or God lied when He claimed that he intended to kill "every living substance...which was upon the face of the ground".
the DRUNKARD (Genesis, chap. 9)
Once Noah and his family have settled back down after God's genocidal Flood, God instructs "Noah and his sons" to "be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth" (9:1). Once again, the authors of Genesis support incest through ignorance, because only eight humans now exist -- Noah, Ham, Shem, Japheth, Noah's wife, Ham's wife, Shem's wife and Japheth's wife. In order to carry on the species, then, Noah's grandchildren will necessarily have to have sex with their own first cousins.
We can also see the subliminal patriarchal undercurrent surfacing once again in the fact that Noah and his son's are all specifically named, while their wives are not; this is a clear indication of the subservient role that woman are forced to play within the narrative of the Bible. The lack of names for the wives of Noah, Ham, Shem and Japheth -- and the associated lack of identity -- also enforces the idea that, within the rigid patriarchy of the Bible, women only exist insofar as their relationships with men. The character of Noah's wife, then, is not even rightly a woman, but only exists as "the wife of Noah."
Noah and his family were spared by God from the Flood because, we are told, "Noah was a just man and perfect" (6:9) and "righteous" (7:1). After the Great Flood, however, we learn Noah's true character; he plants "a vineyard" (9:20), "drank of the wine, and was drunken" lying naked "within his tent" (9:21). When Noah's unfortunate son Ham stumbles upon "the nakedness of his father" (9:22), Noah cursed Ham's son Canaan to be "a servant of servants...unto his brethren" (9:25).
Once more we are presented with another case of monumental injustice that God not only allows, but condones. Not only is Ham's family thus punished for the indiscretions of his father Noah, but they are punished by the perpetrator of those indiscretions. What occurs in Chapter 9 is tantamount to a man beating his wife in front of their child, and then sending the child to his room for having watched the beating. In essence, Noah curses his own son and grandchildren not because of anything they actually did, but because Ham bore witness to the shameful act that Noah committed. Further, it is plainly unethical to punish Canaan with a life of servitude; Canaan had absolutely nothing to do with the purported "crime."
Shem and Japheth, on the other hand, are rewarded for acting as classic enablers by helping to conceal their father's disgraceful behavior. They "covered the nakedness of their father" (9:23) without looking, in effect pretending that the shameful act never took place and helping Noah to do the same. Ham's great sin, then, is refusing to play along with the charade that holds Noah up as a "just" "and perfect" man, and instead to expose his father for the reckless abusive alcoholic that he here proves himself to be.
Several theologians have attempted to read interpretations into the phrase "done unto him" (9:24) to determine the exact nature of Ham's crime; the misconception here being that Noah would not have simply cursed Canaan because Ham saw Noah naked, so Ham must have committed some overt act against his father. All theories fail on the matter, however, because they are textually baseless; we are told by the authors of Genesis only that Ham "saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren" (9:22).
Thus, we find a rift between what we are told and what we are shown; while we are told that Noah is "a preacher of righteousness" (2 Peter 2:5) "and perfect" (Genesis 6:9), we are clearly shown that he is a rash alcoholic with a dangerous propensity for overreaction. If, considering this textual evidence as to Noah's true character, he "found grace in the eyes of the Lord" (6:8), then we are left with only two options: either God's judgment of character is seriously flawed -- implying once more that God is not all-knowing -- or God favors some very unfavorable character traits.
Back