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CONCORDIA THEOLOGICAL MeNTHLY Joseph Smith, Defender of the Faith ~ ROBER N. HULLINGER J. S. Bach: New Light on His Faith CHRISTOPH TRAUTMANN The Curse of Canaan and the American Negro L. RICHARD BRADLEY Crisis and the Clergyman VERNON R WIEHE Homiletics I Book Review I Volume XLll February 1971 Number 2 . ~ The Curse of Canaan and the American Negro 1. RICHARD BRADLEY The author is a graduate student at Princeton Theological Seminary. THIS SURVEY OF PAST INTERPRETATIONS OF GEN. 9:25-27 SUPPLIES A HELPFUL PER spective from which to understand how the notion of white supremacy and Negro slavery in America were persistently justified on the basis of "the curse of Canaan." The article grew out of a course in black history which the author recently taught while a student at Concordia Theological Seminary, Springfield, Ill. ne of the darkest spots on the record it may be, the fact remains that 11 o'clock O of race relations within Christianity Sunday morning is still the most segre has been the use of the "curse of Ham" gated hour of American life.3 to justify the American institution of Against this background an inquiry into slavery and corresponding deprecatory the interpretations attached to the "curse views about black people. Many present of Ham" becomes important so that one day difficulties in relating the white church can determine whether the church has been to its black counterpart stem from the pro the victim of social pressure or faulty exe slavery, prowhite supremacy interpreta gesis or both. tions which various commentators have Two basic meanings have been derived attached to Gen. 9:25-27. Many American from this passage. According to John churches once preached a gospel which Lange, declared the N egro to be essentially in ferior to the white man and slavery to be The application of the curse to Ham was a divine decree. It is no wonder, then, that early made by commentators, but its enor mous extension to the whole continent of those churches still have problems wel Africa belongs to quite modern time. This coming and entertaining the Negro on the latter seems almost wholly due to certain basis of spiritual equality.! In fact, recent sociological studies indicate that many and Ellen Siegelman, Preiudice: U. S. A. (New white Christians still adhere to these be York: Praeger, 1969); Charles Y. Glock and liefs despite official denominational pro Rodney Stark, Religion and Society in Tension (Chicago : Rand McNally & Co., 1965); Jeffrey nouncements to the contrary.2 As sad as K. Hadden, The Gathering Storm in the Churches (Garden City: Doubleday and Co., ! Kyle Haselden, The Racial Problem in 1969). Christian Perspective (New York: Harper Torch 3 Martin Luther King Jr., "The Un-Christian Books, 1959), p. 27. Christian," in The White Problem in America, 2 See Rodney Stark and Charles Y. Glock, ed. staff of Ebony magazine (Chicago: Johnson, American Piety: The Nature of Religious Com- 1965), p. 65. See Carl M. Zorn, "Evangelical mitment (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University Integration of Color," CONCORDIA THEOLOGI- of California Press, 1968); Charles Y. Glock CAL MONTHLY, XVIII (1947), 430-38. 100 THE CURSE OF CANAAN AND THE AMERICAN NEGRO 101 historic phenomena that have presented however, it was not until the 13th century themselves in America.4 that definite racial overtones began to be Apparently this prophecy was thought to associated with slavery. Davis cites the have been fulfilled twice: once when the following statement by Andre Horn, Cham Canaanites were subjugated by Israel and berlain of London: again when Negroes were subjected to To keep a man of free ancestry as a slave American slave owners. This inquiry will was a personal trespass. Yet, 'serfage' in examine both interpretations - first, writ the case of a black man is a subjugation ers who based some defense of slavery on issuing from so high an antiquity that no this passage, and second, writers who re free stock can be found within human memory. And this serfage, according to futed the assumption that American slav some, comes from the curse which Noah ery was a secondary fulfillment of the pronounced against Canaan, the son of his "curse of Ham." son Ham, and against his issue. 8 I During the 15th century Negro slave According to Curt Rylaarsdam, "modern trade began in earnest. It was conducted notions of race did not exist in the biblical first by the Portuguese, then by the Span world." 5 There were also no connotations iards, then by the English. By the time of racial inferiority or superiority attached of the Reformation the institution of Ne to the institution of slavery, for both the gro slavery had developed to the point Greeks and the Romans practised it along that many people assumed with Bartolmea nonracial lines. Usually their custom was Coepolla "that slavery was sanctioned not 6 to enslave those whom they conquered. just by the civil law and jus gentium but The Hebrews bought and used other He also by natural and divine law as well." 9 brews as slaves. Exactly when slavery be Coepolla found the divine-law origin in came a matter of racial discrimination is Adam's sin, the natural-law sanction in difficult to determine, though it is known Noah's curse, and the justification of jus that the ancient Arabs regarded black peo gentium in war. ple as born to slavery.7 Generally speaking, Luther faced this problem as he lec 4 John Peter Lange, Genesis (New York : tured on Genesis. He seerns to have been Charles Scribner's Sons, 1915), p. 340. a leading proponent of the interpretation 5 Ebony (March 1969), p.118, quoted in that it was actually Ham who was cursed Joseph G. Koranda, Aftermath of Misinterpreta tion: The Misunderstanding of Genesis 9:25-27 by Noah. Further, in his Commentary on and Its Contribution to White Racism (unpubl. Genesis he says that the punishment was B. D. thesis, Concordia Theological Seminary, not carried out directly on Ham, but was Springfield, Ill., 1969), p. 5. tO 6 Koranda, p. 8. deferred to later generations. Yet it 7 David Brion Davis, The Problem of Slav would be unfair, as some have done, to ery in Western Culture (Ithaca, N. Y.: Cornell University Press, 1966) , p. 451. Davis says that 8 Ibid., p. 91. this position was apparently deduced from a statement in the Babylonian Talmud to the effect 9 Ibid., p. 109. that "Negroes . were the children of Ham, to Martin Luther, Commentary on Genesis, who, according to varying legends, was cursed trans. J. T. Mueller (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zon with blackness." dervan, 1958), pp. 175-76. 102 THE CURSE OF CANAAN AND THE AMERICAN NEGRO deduce from this that Luther was the father in an extraordinary and supernatural man of the interpretation which sent millions ner, giving to these two children such of blacks into slavery, for Luther does not forms of bodies, constitution of natures, necessarily associate the curse with race. and complexion of skin, as suited his will. Japheth he caused to be born white, dif It is true that he does claim that one of fering from the red color of his parents, Ham's sons, Cush, was a Negro-a state while he caused Ham to be born black, ment which some have cited to prove that a color still further removed from the red Luther had in mind Negro slavery. The hue of his parents than was white.13 evidence to support this conclusion, how His conclusion was based on the argument ever, is too weak to justify it. The most that the word "Ham" in the language of that can be inferred is that one quarter of Noah signified anything that had become Ham's descendants were black. Further "black." Furthermore, Priest cited the He more, in his Lectures on Genesis Luther brew tradition of naming things according prefers to interpret the curse in the sense to their appearance and nature, noting that of an eternal rather than a temporal pun the word "Ham" was already prophetic ishment.11 of Ham's character and fortunes in life. As slave trade increased, some white He also suggested that the word pointed to people devised better arguments 0 salve their consciences. Richard Jobson, a trader, ( 1) heat or violence of temper, exceed ingly prone to acts of ferocity and suggested that cruelry, even cannibalism, (and] the Enormous size of the Virile Member (2) deceit, dishonesty, treachery, low- among the "Negroes" was an infallible mindedness, and malice.14 proof that they are sprung from Canaan, who, for uncovering his father's nakedness, Of course the English translation's "cursed had a curse laid upon that part.12 Canaan" rather than "cursed Ham" posed a textual problem for Priest. He concluded, In America it was Josiah Priest who however, that the Arabic copy of Genesis offered the most eloquent defense of slav read "cursed Ham" and that this was the ery as a result of the curse of Ham in a more accurate reading.15 book entitled Bible Defense of Slavery. Priest advanced the rather unique theory Ham did not become cursed to slavery that Ham was born black, albeit from the because of this one act, according to Priest, same woman who bore Shem and Japheth! but he was born to be a slave. Priest Said Priest: favored the translation "cursed Ham" in God, who made all things, and endowed stead of "cursed be Ham" in order to em all animated nature with the strange and phasize that Ham had always been a bad unexplained power of propagation, super person.16 He also claimed that intended the formation of two of the sons of Noah, in the womb of their mother, 13 Josiah Priest, Bible Defense of Slavery (Glasgow, Ky.: W.