Table of Nations

Genesis 9:22-29 and Genesis 10

Genesis 9:22-25, NIV “Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father’s nakedness and told his two brothers outside. But Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it across their shoulders; then they walked in backward and covered their father’s nakedness. Their faces were turned the other way so that they would not see their father’s nakedness.

When Noah awoke from his wine and found out what his youngest son had done to him, he said,

“Cursed by Canaan!

The lowest of slaves

Will he be to his brothers.”

What happened in the tent?

Ambiguity at its finest. A straightforward reading shows Ham witnessing his father naked, walking out, and gossiping about it to his two brothers. So why the severe reaction from Noah? There is no shortage of theories about what is really going on here.

·      Ham castrated Noah

·      Ham sodomized Noah

·      Ham actually slept with Noah’s wife, and Ham’s son Canaan was born out of that interlude.

·      Ham did not avert his eyes fast enough.

·      Ham is a major gossip, and Noah grew tired of it.

Whatever the reason may be, the end result is the Curse of Ham given by patriarch Noah. The story’s original objective was to justify the way ancient Israelites treated Canaanites. In more modern times, the Curse of Ham has also been interpreted as an explanation for black skin, and justification for the African slave trade.

I am beginning to see how easy it is to twist the Bible’s words to one’s own advantage.

The 1st century Jewish-Roman historian, Flavius Josephus was one of the first people who tried to
assign known ethnicities to the names listed in Genesis 10. The map above is his work. 

Genesis 10

Noah's Descendants, According to Genesis 10. 

Genesis 10 reads like a mythological account of the creation of many of the first civilizations, all claimed to be founded by the descendants of the sons of Noah. There are many ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia that make an appearance in this geneology.

According to the Bible, Nimrod (son of Cush, who was the son of Canaan, who was the son of Ham-the disgraced son of Noah) founded the cities of Babylon, Erech (also known as Uruk), Akkad, and Calneh. He then continued on to Assyria.

Many of the cities mentioned are found in the archaeological record. The world’s first cities were built in Mesopotamia; the land between the Tigris and Euphrates in what is now Iraq.

	Biblical Record	Archaeological and Historical Record
Uruk (Erech)	Founded by Nimrod, the mighty warrior	The first city built by the Sumerians, a group of people that arrived in Sumer around 5000 BCE. Uruk was built by the Euphrates River around 3100 BCE. This occurred at the same time as the unification of two separate kingdoms in northern Africa that formed the start of the Egyptian civilization.
Akkad	Mentioned once in Genesis 10:10, another city founded by Nimrod.	The existence of Akkad is only known from textual sources, its location has yet to be identified. It is mentioned more than 160 times in Akkadian cuneiform sources. Akkad was the capital of the Akkadian empire. In 2350 BCE, King Sargon from Akkad conquers the area of Sumer, including Uruk.
Babylon	Gen 10:10 Founded by Nimrod. However, in Gen. 10:16, the Amorites are claimed to be descended from Canaan (who would have been an uncle to Nimrod).	Babylon was founded by the Amorites, a people from Syria who moved into Mesopotamia around 1900 BCE, and Babylon became the chief city of the Amorites.
Hittites	Sons of Canaan. They make a reappearance later in the Bible.	The Hitittes flourished in central Anatolia (modern day Turkey) between 1600 and 1200 BCE. The center of their kingdom was Hattusas.
Nineveh	City built by Nimrod after he went to the land of Assyria.	City built around 883-859 BCE by the Assyrians.