American Academy of Religion: Oxford University Press

American Academy of Religion
Early Rabbinic Exegesis on Noah's Son Ham and the So-Called 'Hamitic Myth'
Author(s): David H. Aaron
Source: Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 63, No. 4 (Winter, 1995), pp. 721-
759
Published by: Oxford University Press
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Journal of the American Academy of Religion LXIII/4
Early Rabbinic Exegesis on
Noah's Son Ham and the

So-Called 'Hamitic Myth'
David H. Aaron
I. INTRODUCTION
There are many myths about myths, and this essay endeavors to
counteract one which has proven particularly deleterious to histori-
ans of religion. The idea of a "Hamitic Myth" first came to my
attention when a colleague questioned me concerning a passage in
the tractknown as TheSecretRelationshipof theBlacksandJews,an
anti-Jewish document published by the Nation of Islam.' When
the colleague inquired about the Jewish origins of the myth, I was
unable to respond as I was unfamiliar with a "myth"by this appel-
lation. Later I learned that what underlay the issue was the Curse
of Canaan (Genesis 9) and how it with other exetegical traditions
would be woven together into a mythology about Noah's descend-
ants. The matrix of images to emerge would be distorted in numer-
ous para-academic tracts, but more surprisingly and more
importantly, misconceptions about the "Jewish origins" of the
Hamitic myth and its alleged role in the African slave trade would
be echoed in respected publications. In the case of the former,
misconceptions are pursued because they satisfy ideological dispo-
sitions (usually nefarious), while in the case of the latter, I believe
they are preserved on the basis of what one might call "scholarly
inertia."
My goals here are two: (1) to provide an analysis of the exegesis
on Ham-related passages in Genesis 9-10 in the earliest relevant
rabbinic sources, namely Genesis Rabbah (GnR) and the two
David H. Aaron is Assistant Professor of Religion at Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA 02181.

1No author-names are given for this work published in 1991. See David Brion Davis's
recent discussion of the involvement of Jews in the slave trade in Davis 1994 and in his
previous works cited there.
721
722 Journal of the American Academy of Religion
Talmuds, along with significant readings in the Tanhuma

Yelammdenu literature, (though they are considerably later); and
(2) to raise the question of how much impact this literature had on
the development of Jewish and European ideologies. Two scholars
have already discussed the most important aspects of the historical
record on these matters: Ephraim Isaac provides a comprehensive
discussion of Second Temple Period and Rabbinic sources in his
article "Genesis, Judaism, and the Sons of Ham"2;Bernard Lewis
discusses rabbinic and Islamic sources relevant to this "myth" in
his book Raceand Slaveryin the MiddleEast:An HistoricalEnquiry
(Ch.8, with particular detail in note 9, 123-125). While Isaac's and
Lewis's writings set the basic record straight, neither of them set
out to decode the complex exegetical passages which surround the
character-portrayals of Ham and his sons. Consequently, from
these articles alone it may not become apparent to the non-expert
in rabbinic literature why the Curse of Ham is not what many have
made it out to be. This essay seeks to uncover the hermeneutics of
the rabbinic passages noted above as they form the basis for grave
misconceptions. It will not offer a history of the exegesis beyond
these texts which have been at the root of the myth about the myth;
that task remains to be done.
The discussion will be structured as follows: in Section II I shall
define the so-called Hamitic Myth by drawing upon a few examples
in previously published material; in Section III the biblical sources
which underlie the whole controversy will be analyzed; Section IV
will be concerned with the rabbinic exegesis; in Section V I shall
raise the issue of how rabbinic literature might relate to the writing
of history.
II. MYTH ABOUT THE MYTH

In The OxfordCompanionto the HebrewBible(1993:268) under
the heading, "Ham/Canaan, Cursing of," Steven L. McKenzie pro-
vided the following entry: "Because some of Ham's descendants,
notably Cush, are black (see Gen. 10.6-14), the "curse of Ham" has
2The reader should refer to Isaac 1985, 1992, or the EncyclopaediaJudaica for more exten-
sive lists of relevant sources beyond those considered in this essay, including some Medieval
references. Isaac's goal is to treat the theme generally, not the hermeneutics which underlie
the key passages as will be done here. The medieval materials are for the most part, simple
adaptations of the earliest midrashic strands. Isaac also discusses issues of methodology.
Aaron: Early Rabbinic Exegesis 723
been interpreted as black (Negroid) skin color and features in

order to legitimate slavery and oppression of people of African ori-
gin. This interpretationoccursfirst in the Talmudand has persisted
in certain circles"(my italics).
McKenzie provides absolutely no references for this "interpreta-
tion," which he believes to have first appeared in the Talmud.
Moreover, his comment implies that there was a black African slave
trade during the talmudic period, but once again, there is abso-
lutely no source cited as supporting evidence for this. It is also
curious that a companion to the Hebrew Bible would take it upon
itself to offer so diachronic an assessment (inaccurate at that) with-
out considering its intellectual and social impact. Indeed, much
more could be said about Ham in the context of Scripture than
McKenzie endeavors to do, but that information is ignored for the
more obscure discussion of a post-biblical myth. What did the
author have in mind with the phrase, "persisted in certain circles?"
Again, no source is given to demonstrate this claim, but the entry
does not hesitate to ascribe to the talmudic interpretation both lon-
gevity and social importance when it came to justifying the slavery
and oppression of people of African origin. Of course, not a single
medieval source is noted. McKenzie (as well as the others to be
noted below) might have been surprised to learn that in the Bible
commentaries of Rashi (d.1105), Abraham ibn Ezra (d.1167), the
Ramban (d.1274) and Sforno (d.1550)-i.e., the main commenta-
tors printed in standard Rabbinic Bibles-there is no remnant of
this legitimization of African slavery.
A similar generalization, once again without any primary
sources cited, occurs in an article by J. R. Willis (ironically in the
very book which contains Ephraim Isaac's article noted above).
Willis maintains, "[though there is] neither suggestion of color,
race nor ethnicity in the Genesis text [with regard to Ham], by a
strangemigrationof meaning,the sense of darkerhue springsfrom
rabbinicalfancy and is thrust into the original theme-the sons of
Ham become men of color destined to a fate of servility" (8, my
italics).
There is no basis for Willis's understanding of the relevant
passages in Genesis or the alleged "rabbinical fancy." One need
only take into account the genealogies of Genesis 10 to recognize
that the biblical text establishes (some) African peoples as the
descendants of Ham. Rabbinic exegesis simply makes explicit
what is implied in the biblical source, namely that some of Ham's
descendants are black. Thus, the "sense of darker hue" does not
just spring from "rabbinical fancy" to be thrust into the original
theme; the Bible itself determines the genealogical links. However,
having created an etiological paradigm-namely, that black people
will descend from non-black people-rabbinic exegesis does offer
an explanation. There, of course, exegetical "fancy"does take over,
but it can only be understood when it is contextualized-something
Willis has not done for the reader.
Willis cites as support for his summary a passage in a book by
R. Graves and R. Patai called Hebrew Myths (1964); and, if I under-
stand his footnote correctly, he has not quoted the passage directly
from this book, but has rather copied it from a problematic article
by Edith R. Sanders (Sanders: 521). The distortions in Sanders's
piece are numerous; for our purposes a couple of examples will
suffice. As was the case with both McKenzie and Willis, one finds
in Sanders's essay sweeping statements about midrashic and tal-
mudic literature, suggesting that they are one homogeneous
corpus, uniform in thought and equally representative of "Jewish"
thought. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth, but
the failure to contextualize in all of these articles would appear to
stem from the authors' dependence upon secondary sources for
their understanding of "Talmud"and "Midrash." Sanders depicts
the Hamitic myth in rabbinic literature as follows: "The Babylo-
nian Talmud, a collection of oral traditions of the Jews, appeared in
the sixth century A.D.; it states that the descendants of Ham are
cursed by being black, and depicts Ham as a sinful man and his
progeny as degenerates. Thus, early tradition identified the Hami-
ties with Negroes and endowed them with both certain physiog-
nomical attributes and an undesirable character. This notion
persisted in the Middle Ages, when fanciful rabbinical expansions
of the Genesis stories were still being made" (522).3
The highly problematic nature of Sanders's depiction of the Tal-
mud and summary of its contents is extended into a consideration
of how "Talmudic and Midrashic explanations of the myth of Ham
were well known to Jewish writers in the Middle Ages" (522). In
the present essay it will not be possible to consider medieval
sources in a comprehensive manner, but since Sanders's presenta-
tion of the evidence is quite typical of much current scholarhip, it
3Sanders draws her materials from T. F. Gossett and Graves and Patai. One cannot help
but note the rhetorical similarities between Sanders's writing and that of Willis cited above.
is worthwhile noting her treatment of Benjamin of Tudela's travelog

(d. circa 1180). Without any reference to evidence which might
serve to link the "early tradition" with the later medieval mindset,
Sanders (521) draws attention to Benjamin's unquestionably pejo-
rative reflections on the Nubians of the upper Nile.4 She interprets
the negative description as both indicative and typical of the medi-
eval Jewish grasp of the "Talmudic or Midrashic explanations of the
myth of Ham" (522). "By and large," writes Sanders, "the Negro
was seen as a descendant of Ham, bearing the stigma of Noah's
curse" (523).
Sanders quotes a limited passage from Benjamin's travelog as it
is translated by R. Hess (1965) without having considered the con-
text, the characteristics of the genre, or Benjamin's rhetoric more
broadly. She deletes (by marking elipses) two key sections of
Hess's own citation, both of which draw attention to nuances that
contradict her thesis about Benjamin's use of the Hamitic Myth.5
Benjamin describes the Nubians as animal-like, eating "of the
herbs that grow on the banks of the Nile and in the fields"; they "go
about naked and have not the intelligence of ordinary men. They
cohabit with their sisters and any one they find. The climate is
very hot." Are we to take this description as indicative of Benja-
min's attitude toward all blacks as the descendants of the cursed
Ham or does the text indicate a particular attitude toward a spe-
cific tribe? Sanders employs the passage to support the former
claim, but only the latter can be supported with the unmanipulated
evidence. The particularity of this tribe is conveyed in the two
phrases Sanders omits. Here is part of the text ignored by Sanders
as it appears in Hess's article: "It is a twenty days' journey from
there through the desert of Seba to the land of Uswan [Aswan] on
the Nile, which comes down from Cush. They have a king whom
they call Sultan al-Habesh. There is a people among them who, like
animals. . .etc." (16-17).
4Sanders: 522, takes a text from R. Hess :17; I am using the critical edition by Adler 1907
(in the Hebrew the relevant passage is ? 96), as well as the more recent edition introduced
by Signer 1983, where the relevant passage is on 127.
5Sanders records the passage as follows: "There is a people. . .who, like animals, eat of the
herbs that grow on the banks of the Nile and in their fields. They go about naked and have
not the intelligence of ordinary men. They cohabit with their sisters and anyone they can
find.. .they are taken as slaves and sold in Egypt and neighbouring countries. These sons of
Ham are black slaves" (522).
Sanders leaves out the partitive phrase "among them," present-

ing the reader with only, "There is a people. . .who, like animals,
eat of the herbs. .. ." (522). With the entire context intact, we
understand that the entire population of the region is Cushite, but
the bizarre behaviors of this particular tribe in their midst draws
Benjamin's attention. The other part of the quote Sanders fails to
bring in (as is indicated by the second elipsis in her citation)
makes the distinctiveness of this tribe yet more salient. Benjamin
relates how the men of Assuan would raid the region and take
Nubians as prisoners to be sold "in the land of Egypt and in the
surrounding countries. And they are the black slaves, the sons of
Ham."6 This identification, "they are the black slaves," suggests
that Benjamin understood the slave-descendantsof Ham to be quite
distinguishable from other black peoples. Indeed, nothing indi-
cates that the people of Aswan are other than black, so that what
we appear to have is a group of blacks taking a second group of
blacks as prisoners for a slave trade. Sanders simply quotes the
".. .they are taken as slaves," omitting who the attackers are.
My interpretation-which views this passage as describing the
specific group of Nubians and not blacks as the descendants of
Ham, in general-is supported by a more thorough consideration of
Benjamin's treatment of people of color. Here is Benjamin's
description of the blacks of the port-city of Khulam (Quilon,
Malabar):
These are the sonsof Cush,7who read the stars, and are all black in
color. They are honest in commerce. When merchantscome to
them from distant lands and enter the harbor,three of the king's
secretaries go down to them and record their names, and then
bring them before the king, whereupon the king makes himself
responsible even for their propertywhich they leave in the open,
6My italics; Adler's rendering (127). Sanders uses Hess's translation which reads "These
sons of Ham are black slaves." Hess comments that "it is convenient to give [his] own trans-
lation of this passage here," based "for the most part" on the British Museum manuscript
which underlies the Adler critical edition. What Hess meant by the words, "for the most
part," is impossible to say. The Hebrew in the Adler critical edition is whm h'vdym hihwrm
bny hm, quite literally, "they are the black slaves, sons of Ham"; no variants are cited in the
apparatus. The Adler translation reads, "and these are the black slaves, the sons of Ham."
The reader will find Hess' altogether reasonable discussion of why Benjamin depicted these
people in such exotic terms most interesting, but of course, it does not allude to a Hamitic
myth as a motivating factor.
7See Adler's note on the meaning of Cush, Benjamin of Tudela 115, who notes that the
region identified by this name includes countries east of the Tigris.
unprotected. There is an official who sits in his office, and the

owner of any lost propertyhas only to describe it to him when he
hands it back. This custom prevails in all that country. [. . .] And
throughout the island, including all the towns, there live several
thousandIsraelites. The inhabitantsare all black, and theJews are
also. The latter are good and benevolent. They know the law of
Moses and the prophets, and to a small extent the Talmud and
Halacha.
It is absurd to take Benjamin's description of the Nubians of
the upper Nile as a stereotypical, racist depiction of black people.
In fact, what should be concluded is that far from being a racial
category (blackness), Benjamin related the enslaved sons of Ham to
a very specific group of black Nubians who occupied the upper
Nile. In other words, if there is a "myth of Ham" operative in
Benjamin's writings, it is quite obviously not racial, but geographi-
cally or tribally based, (this is especially the case if the Aswan raid-
ers were blacks as were the Nubians). As is made clear by the
passage I have just quoted, the sons of Cush dwelling at Khulam,
who must also be recognized as descendants of Ham (whether or
not the myth is operative), are distinct from those who are black
slaves and likewise Hamites. The Cushites of Khulam are depicted
in only the most benevolent and laudatory terms and no curse
appears to plague their community. The problem for Sanders and
those who follow her line of thinking is that concepts of race sim-
ply did not function during the Middle Ages the way they do today,
so that any claim that a talmudic or midrashic ideology of Hamitic
descendants as black slaves dominated the medieval Jewish
mentality toward blackness is folly.8
These examples (and, unfortunately, many others could be
cited), taken from reputable publications, indicate how a potent
myth has been attributed to the Talmud without sufficiently estab-
lishing the sources or their meanings in context. Complicating
8The whole issue of race during the Medieval Period is quite complex and cannot be con-
sidered in this context. Benjamin Braude (1995, forthcoming) has brought to my attention a
passage from the Medieval travelog of Sir John Mandeville (circa 1350), which identifies the
"people of Israel" as descendants of Japhet rather than Shem. Braude believes there did not
exist in antiquity a consistent racial-geographic interpretation of the biblical Noah material.
Consequently, any notion that modern racism is founded upon an ancient Jewish or Chris-
tian reading of Scripture cannot be justified on the basis of the evidence. My thanks to
Braude for sharing with me his work in progress. His findings will be presented in a forth-
coming paper: "Mandeville's Sons of Noah and the Construction of Racial Identities" (Octo-
ber 1995, Sixteenth Century Studies Conference, San Francisco).
728 Journalof theAmerican
Academy
of Religion
matters is the fact that there has been ascribed to Jews generally an
ideology regarding blacks and slavery for which cogent evidence
has yet to be offered.9 These assessments would appear to have
been integrated into the narratives without any political or social
ramifications in mind. Of course, that is not the case in the more
venomous hate literature which is in fashion today. Consider the
following passage taken from Tony Martin's TheJewish Onslaught:
Despatchesfrom the WellesleyBattlefront(1993: 32-33). Reflecting
upon a letter he received which employs motifs (in a distorted fash-
ion) from the Curse of Canaan passage in Genesis, Martin
explains:
This is of course the newest rendition of the very old Hamitic
Myth.. .whereby Noah in the biblical book of Genesis cursed the
descendantsof his son Ham. Theassociationof Hamwith theAfri-
can racemadeof this mytha majorrationalizationfor the European
enslavementof Africans. Forif God himself had ordainedthat Afri-
cans should foreverbe hewers of wood and drawersof water for
the childrenof Europeand Asia,then the moraldilemmaof slavery
was resolved. The slavemasterwas simply doing God's will.
Christianshave customarilyborne the brunt of the blame for
the Hamitic Myth, and they certainly are not without sin in this
regard. Yet,the HamiticMyth(that is, the association of the Afri-
can with the supposed curse of Noah), was inventedbyJewish tal-
mudicscholarsover a thousandyears beforethe transatlanticslave
trade began. As importantas may have been the Jewish involve-
ment in helping finance and prosecutethe Atlanticslave trade(as
detailed in The SecretRelationshipBetweenBlacksandJews), their
inventionof the HamiticMythmay be of even greater importance,
since it providedthe moralpretextuponwhichthe entiretradegrew
and flourished.(pp.32-33, my italics)
Any surface reading of the biblical text indicates that the only
son to receive a curse is Canaan, while the others have not even
been mentioned in the text yet. Martin claims that the "talmudic
sages" created the myth which ultimately served in the theological
justification and-more significantly-the moral pretext for the
enslavement of blacks. While recognizing the "sin" of Christians
(Muslims for some reason go unmentioned), Martin implies a
direct link between the values of those who engineered the African
9Manyotherexamplescould be cited;see Isaac'sdiscussion (1985:82f.)of similarportray-

als in scholarlyliterature.Isaacalso drawsattentionto the problematicentryin the classic
Jewish Encyclopaedia.
Aaron:Early RabbinicExegesis 729
slave trade and the moral precepts of the Talmud. In support of

this assertion, Martin cites the dissertation of Harold Brackman
(80-81). The problem is that Brackman was totally dependent
upon secondary sources for his understanding of this myth in
rabbinic literature, and in a forthcoming publication, he acknowl-
edges his reliance on translations and paraphrastic renderings.10
Martin only cites Brackman, never Brackman's sources. The text
Martin takes from Brackman-and, as it turns out, a pivotal text in
the history of this myth about the myth-runs as follows:
...Ham is told by his outraged father that, because you have
abused me in the darkness of the night, your children shall be
born black and ugly; becauseyou have twistedyour head to cause
me embarrassment,they shall have kinky hair and red eyes;
because your lips jested at my exposure, theirs shall swell; and
because you neglected my nakedness, they shall go naked with
their shamefully elongated male members exposed for all to see
(35).
This "text"is a composite; no single historical source contains
these exact images; and those which have some of them, or variants
thereof, differ in significant ways and must be understood in their
original literary contexts. On the other hand, as will become quite
evident, Ham is treated consistently in a derogatory manner in
rabbinic literature. How then, do we treat the claim that the Tal-
mud (or any rabbinic document) could be responsible for originat-
ing an ideological position regarding slavery in Western
Civilization? To this question we will turn at the end of this essay.
At the present time, having established the nature of the Hamitic
Myth in contemporary scholarship, it is important to establish the
content of the texts in the Hebrew Bible and early rabbinic litera-
ture which have fueled the misconceptions.
III. THE BIBLICAL TEXT

The biblical materials which underlie this controversy can be
found in Genesis 9-10. The most often cited verses are those of
101nmy seeking a copy of his dissertationto tracedown Martin'scitation,Brackmansent

me materials,soon to be published,which indicatethis. Martincites Brackmanso that he
mightbe able to say that he took the informationfrom a Jew. This is a typicalploy of this
genre. See Davis'commentpertainingto this practice,Davis 1994.
730 Journalof the AmericanAcademyof Religion
Genesis 9:18-27 which are presented here as they appear in the JPS
translation of the Tanakh.
The sons of Noah who came out of the ark were Shem, Ham and
Japheth-Ham being the father of Canaan. These three were the
sons of Noah, and from these the whole world branched out.
Noah, the tiller of the soil, was the first to plant a vineyard. He
drank of the wine and became drunk, and he uncoveredhimself
within his tent. Ham, thefather of Canaan,saw his father'snaked-
ness and told his two brothers outside. But Shem and Japheth
took a cloth, placed it againstboth their backs and, walkingback-
ward,they coveredtheirfather'snakedness;their faceswere turned
the other way, so that they did not see their father'snakedness.
When Noah woke up fromhis wine and learnedwhat his youngest
son had done to him, he said: "Cursedbe Canaan;the lowest of
slaves shall he be to his brothers."And he said, "Blessedbe the
Lord, the God of Shem;let Canaanbe a slave to them. May God
enlargeJapheth, and let him dwell in the tents of Shem; and let
Canaanbe a slave to them."
The biblical text is laden with problems. At the very beginning,
the gloss attached to Ham's name, "Ham being the father of
Canaan," establishes the socio-political agenda of the redactor.
The original passage must simply have read that all human beings
were descendants from these three men, but as the redactor's pur-
pose is to include a story about Israel's use of Canaanite labor and
eventually, to discredit the ethos of other peoples, the gloss-bla-
tantly anachronistic-serves as a foreshadowing. Similarly moti-
vated must be the salience of Shem who will have dominion over
both Canaan and Japheth (the latter will dwell in Shem's tents).
The Israelites and the Arabs would figure prominently as his
descendants (Isaac 1992:V,1195; 111,31). There is no reason given
as to why Ham's actions should result in the cursing of Noah's
grandson Canaan-a child otherwise not yet mentioned in the Gen-
esis narrative. What is clear is that the curse should have fallen on
Ham, for he commits the wrong-doing. In short, the biblical writer
didn't need a "Curse of Ham," but did need a "Curse of Canaan."
The Midrash Genesis Rabbah is well aware of this textual problem
and asks quite directly: "He said, Cursed by Canaan .... Ham sins
but Canaan is cursed! How so?" (GnR 36 ? 7)11 A consideration

of the midrashic solutions will occupy us below.
The Noah narrative is most often seen as the merging of at least
two independent sources, that of the J and the P writers (Bailey
1989; Sarna 1989). The early source was apparently concerned
with the immediate environs so that the names Shem, Ham, and
Japheth were proposed as ancestors of only the Israelites,
Canaanites and perhaps the Philistines or Phoenicians respectively
(Bailey: 160). In contrast, Genesis 10 (P) expands the genealogy
quite considerably. Indeed, this so-called "Table of Nations" epito-
mizes the priestly conception of national divisions according to ter-
ritorial, linguistic and familial characteristics (Gen. 10:20,31). It
covers the region from the Caucasus in the north to southern Ara-
bia, the Iranian plateau, Crete and perhaps beyond in the west.
Canaan, the future site of the land of Israel is naturally placed at
the center (Sarna: 68). Not all of the names can be identified with
certainty today; indeed, many may have been inherited by the P
writer without him ever having had real contact with these peoples.
Generally, it is thought that Shem includes both the Israelites and
ironically their rivals (in later eras), the Arameans and the Assyri-
ans. The sons of Ham include African peoples and the Egyptians,
as well as the Canaanites. Japheth will provide ancestry for an
extremely wide geographic domain, including much of Asia Minor
and Europe. As such, the geo-political connotations of divisions
were different for the writers of the originally discrete narratives. It
is extremely important to note that racial characteristics, physical
types,or the colorof skin play absolutelyno role in the identification
of groups. Nahum Sarna points out that despite the Bible's claims
to the contrary (Gen. 10:20,31), even language fails to serve as a
consistent grouping device; the Canaanites were recognized as
speaking the same tongue as the Israelites (Isaiah 19:18) but were
nonetheless attributed to a different patriarch (Sarna: 68). Clearly
the socio-political concerns outweighed any other logic in the divi-
sion of peoples.
11Alsosee the BabylonianTalmud,Sanhedrin70a-bwhich has two sins attributedto Ham:

(1) he castratedhis father and (2), he sexually abused him. Both of these themes are
repeatedin later sources, including the Tanhumaand Pirke de RabbiEliezer(Pirke 170)
where Canaanis explicitly the person who emasculatesNoah, not Ham! On the sexual
ch.4.
overtonesof the biblicalmaterialin general,see Eilberg-Schwartz:
The sons of Ham in Torah are four: Kush, Mitzraim, Put, and
Canaan. In the Genesis text-as it reads now-Kush (or Cush), is
eponymously the father of black Ethiopians (in Hebrew, the
Kushites) and the Nubians; Canaan, Ham's fourth son, is con-
demned to slavery.12 Though their destinies and characteristics are
altogether independent, conflation does occur in biblical sources,
as it will in some post-biblical texts. The name "Ham"is periodi-
cally used in place of the name of his son Mitzraim when referring
to Egypt. (Ham is used metonymically for all of Egypt in Psalms
78:51, 105:23,27, 106:22; I Chron. 4:40.) The midrash will envi-
sion the biblical image of the Egyptian (Mitzraim) and Ethiopian/
Nubian (Kush) captives being led away by Sennacherib (Isaiah
20:4) as the result of Ham's indiscretion (see below).13 Lloyd Bai-
ley has suggested that "the problem with the switch in names
(Ham looks and Canaan is cursed) arises primarily when one
reads the text as if it were an account of individuals, rather than
reading it as an etiology" (161). Bailey's argument supposes that
"ancient hearers would not have clearly distinguished the
Canaanites from the larger Hamitic group to which they were
assigned" (161). The metonymic manner of referencing appella-
tives elsewhere in the Bible might be used to support this thesis,
but just how one "heard" the name-switch must remain specula-
tive. For us, the more crucial question is, How does all of this pan
out in terms of the dominant themes and popular mythology?
The etymology of these names is dubious, as is often the case
with old appellations. Ham may be derived from a West Semitic
name for a sun god, Hammu, but there is no certainty. Canaan
could be related to the Western Semitic roots for "to bend, or bow,"
or perhaps "lowland," though scholars have recently linked it to
non-semitic words as well, perhaps connoting "Occident" (Astour).
Later interpreters would understand the name with the homiletical
sense of "to be humbled, to humiliate oneself."14 The names Kush
121 am relating here the common designations, as reflected for example in Isaiah 43:3 and
45:14. In fact the text is more complex than this. There was an ancient kingdom of Kish in
Mesopotamia; Gen. 10:8 appears to recognize this and makes Kush the father of Nimrod.
Consequently, Kush fathered both Africans and Mesopotamians. See Sarna :19-20 and 72-
73.
13See Tanhuma Noah ? 15 and Tanhuma Buber 2.21. Keep in mind that the humiliation
of the black Nubians and the non-black Egyptians is not based on race here, but on the
challenge of cultural assimilation which is the issue for Isaiah 20.
14Some have viewed the name Ham as related to the Hebrew word meaning, "to be hot," not
unlike the Greek aithiopes. See, for instances, the Cyclopaedia of Biblical Theological and
and Mitzraim, both place names, are attested in a variety of ancient

documents, but their meanings are obscure (Koehler/Baumgartner,
ad loc). The adjectival designation "Kushite"occurs a number of
times in the Hebrew Bible. It does not appear to be a racial term as
much as it designates a person's geographic origins. In II Sam. 18
it is a Kushite who conveys the news of Absalom's death to David.
There appears to be no significance here other than to attribute a
particular familial origin. The prophet Zephaniah was a descen-
dant of Kushi, perhaps indicating that his father was an Ethiopian
while also being a Judahite.
The curse of Ham's son, Canaan, makes perfect sense given the
socio-political realities during the time Hebrew Scriptures were
composed. Slavery was a fact of the Ancient Near Eastern world.
All of the ancient legal documents of Mesopotamia (including Ur-
Nammu, Eshnunna, Hammurabi, Hittite Laws, Middle Assyrian,
etc.) contain detailed rulings regarding slaves. The legal codes of
the Pentateuch are no different. While preserving the shifting tides
with regard to slavery policy in several passages, all of the Torah
texts differentiate between Israelite and alien servility. Both Exo-
dus 21 and Deuteronomy 15 make it quite clear that Hebrews
could acquire other Hebrews as "slaves,"though the manumission
status of an Israelite was different from that of a non-Israelite as
the terminology of these passages suggests (Cassuto: 265ff.).
Hebrew slaves could only be indentured for six years and their
release involved making them economically solvent. The policies
of Leviticus 25:39-46 not only establish limits on the terms of cor-
vee labor to pay off debts, but it is explicitly noted that only "aliens
resident among you" may be acquired as slaves in the sense of
property.15 Both the Levitical text and Deuteronomy employ as a
justification of their different treatment of Hebrews the bitter expe-
rience of servitude in Egypt. Jeremiah (sustaining the Deutero-
nomic philosophy) makes the connection between the two
Literature(New York,1873), vol.4: 34, writtenunder the supervisionof James

Ecclesiastical
Strongof the DrewTheologicalSeminary,whose 1890 BibleConcordancewas revampedas
recentlyas 1990. Thereis absolutelyno way to verifywhetherthis is a simple instance of
homonymityor a sharedroot.
15Foran extensivediscussion of slaveryamongJews in the post-biblicalworldthroughthe
time of the Talmud,see Urbach 1960. On the subjugationof the Canaanitepopulation
during the late SecondTemplePeriod,see especially 156ff. For a summaryof the biblical
laws and the subsequentRabbiniclaws as presentedin the Mishnahon slavery,see the
excellent study by Flesher; and the articles in Anchor Bible Dictionary (1992) by
Dandamayevand Bartchy.
experiences quite explicit when he says: "I made a covenant with

your fathers when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, the
house of bondage, saying: 'In the seventh year each of you must let
go any fellow Hebrew who may be sold to you; when he has served
you six years, you must set him free.' But your fathers would not
obey Me or give ear" (Jeremiah 34:13b-14).
Our contemporary sensitivity would have preferred to see the
Israelite experience used as the basis for eliminating slave labor
altogether, but such an expectation is grossly anachronistic. The
double standard for slaves was part of the cultural and economic
heritage, but, if Jeremiah's comments are indicative of anything, it
would be that Israelites did not respect even these Israelite-related-
laws very scrupulously.
The Levitical author is responsible for the insertion and/or
composition of many of the short etiological poems found in the
early chapters of Genesis. It is therefore not surprising that the
Levitical redactors who sought to clearly restrict the enslavement
of Hebrews by Hebrews, would also include an ostensible justifica-
tion for the (substitutive) enslavement of the neighboring populace
(the Canaanites). According to one line of historical reconstruc-
tion, the Hebrews were themselves Canaanites.16 We have already
noted that an artificial distinction between the peoples was created
by attributing them to different Noachide sons. Otherwise, on the
basis of real (as opposed to political) determinants, the linguistic,
territorial and social characteristics of these people were often
indistinguishable.
An essential premise for the Genesis 10 genealogies was reli-
gion. The Torah itself makes clear that the separation from the
more general Canaanite population was justified on the basis of
16The biblical narrative of Joshua presents the confrontation of the Israelites and
Canaanites as one of conquerors and conquered, but the archaeological evidence makes it
absolutely clear that the Canaanites were a superior people technologically and in terms of
their socio-urban structures. Moreover, there is no evidence of conquests during the late
Bronze Era. Consequently, many scholars, following the provocative socio-literary approach
of Norman Gottwald, have concluded that the "conquest" motif is nothing other than a
literary creation, while what really took place was a slow, peaceful integration of migrating
populations. For a brief and accessible consideration of the different perspectives on the
relationship of these two peoples, see the transcripts of a Symposium at the Smithsonian
Institute, October 26, 1991, later published by Shanks, including an essay by William G.
Dever and responses by Israel Finkelstein, Norman Gottwald, and Adam Zertal with accom-
panying notes and bibliography. See Mazar: 329ff. Also a series of articles on the interrela-
tionship of Canaanite culture and religion and the Israelites by Michael D. Coogan, Jo Ann
Hackett, Jeffrey H. Tigay, and William G. Dever can be found in Miller, et al.
religious identification, as well as the already strong tendencies

supporting endogamy. The Hebrew cult and belief system were dif-
ferent, and the differences became only more pronounced as time
went on. Literatures from the seventh through fifth centuries make
it quite clear that assimilation was viewed as an ever pending dan-
ger; xenophobia may have been a by-product. Equally important
are the moral overtones which accompany the initial divisions of
peoples. While the story of Noah's drunkeness may derive from a
viticultural context, Ham's turpitude is sexually oriented, not alco-
hol related. This theme will be emphasized in rabbinic sources as
well. Given this context-and only with this context in mind-one
can understand how and why the enslavement of Canaanites was
written into the etiological myths of Genesis.17 Equally clear
should be the fact that race-in the modern sense of the term-was
not part of the biblical literary history.18
IV. RABBINIC EXEGESIS

Ephraim Isaac was the first to draw attention to the source of
many of the predominating misconceptions by determining that a
passage in Louis Ginzberg's The Legends of the Jews (1909) has
often been the source for the texts cited in subsequent studies
(Isaac 1985; Ginzberg: 1,169). However, Ginzberg's passage in iso-
lation does not provide all of the images which have been used by
subsequent scholars.19 Using Ginzberg's narrative as evidence for
anything in a scholarly study (and the same is true regarding
Graves and Patai) is very dangerous. Ginzberg often conflates
sources to provide an anthological narrative which reflects a sense
of the variety of images in rabbinic literature. What makes Ginz-
17Thisis the assessmentthat the Biblewishes us to assume. Fora moreobjectiveapproach

to the realityof religionin ancientCanaan,see MarkS. Smith,especiallychapter1 wherehe
notes, "EarlyIsraeliteculturecannot be separatedeasily from the cultureof Canaan"(1).
Smith providesin his notes extensivereferencesto the scholarlydiscussion of this issues.
Also see MichaelDavidCoogan;Coogan'sapproachis also "toconsiderthe biblicalreligion
as a subset of Israelitereligionand Israelitereligionas a subsetof Canaanitereligion"(115).
18Thisfact did not precludelaterinterpretersfrom adaptingthis materialfor their racial
beliefs, as is especiallyclear in ante-bellumAmerica. However,it should be kept in mind
thatJews, Christians,and Muslimsall had equalaccess to the originaltext materials,and as
will be discussedbelow,ancientexegesiscannotbe shown to havebeen an influencein later
theologicalabuses of this material.
191ntheirfootnote,Gravesand Patai:121 cite eightdifferentsourceswhich werecomposed
overas much as a threehundredyearperiod;nonetheless,theircompositetext is embraced
by quotationmarksgivingthe impressionthat it derivesfrom a single quotabledocument.
berg's study so very important to scholars are the invaluable

almost-1000-pages of detailed footnotes that provide the references
for his otherwise highly popularized telling of Jewish legends.
There is no single source reflecting exactly the specific matrix of
images Ginzberg has created, as his own footnotes indicate.
Even so, Ginzberg included in his portrayal a key phrase which
is overlooked by those who have used his work (or cited it second
hand). In the passage most often quoted for an elucidation of
Ham's curse, Ginzberg wrote, "The descendants of Ham through
Canaan," thereby avoiding any distributive "Hamitic Curse."
Sometimes (as will be discussed) the rabbinic sages did use Ham
metonymically with regard to all of his descendants, but I believe
Ginzberg tried to indicate that such broad-stroke usages were not
indicative of any particular ideological tendency.
There is no reason to rehearse here just what aspect of Ginz-
berg's text was adapted by various scholars (see Isaac 1985). The
depiction of Ham and his descendants through all of his sons in a
conflationary manner is what causes so much confusion. And for
good reason: there is sufficient ambiguity in the rabbinic sources
themselves. The primary passage containing many of the contro-
versial images regarding Ham is found in the Tanhuma (Levy-
Epstein edition, Noah 13; 29; Zondel edition: 17) and it reads as
follows:
".. ..as for Ham, because he saw with his eyes the nakedness of his
father,his eyes became red: and because he spokewith his mouth,
his lips became crooked ['qumot]and because he turnedhis face
the hair of his head and his beard became singed [nithdark]and
because he did not cover his [father's]nakedness,he went naked
and his prepucebecame stretched, [all this] because all of God's
retributions are commensurateto a transgression.Even though
this was the case, the Holy One Blessedbe He, returned20and had
mercy on him, for his mercy extends to all his creations."21
In this particular passage there is no mention of Ham becoming
black, no focus on his progeny, and the parody on his appearance
is quite specifically linked (exegetically) to his transgression. Tra-
20Thisis meant eitherliterallyor figuratively,i.e., God reconsideredthe issue.

21Asthe text workswith the classicalconceptof measure-for-measure, I haveunderlinedthe
key wordsin the parallelism.See discussionbelow. I havecited Isaac'stranslationwhich is
accurateand literal,but it does not include the last two lines which indicatethe concept of
"measure-for-measure"; they are my own translation.
ditions regarding his sin in the ark vacillate between two dominant
images. The one relevant to this Tanhuma text is that he viewed
his father's "nakedness," most certainly a euphemism for his geni-
tals (and it may imply either homoerotica or that he saw him in the
act of copulation).22 The other justification present in classical
texts is that Ham himself had sexual intercourse while in the ark.
It is worth noting in passing that a couple of paragraphs later in
Tanhuma Noah (? 15), a brief pericope contains the argument
that the curse of Canaan was deserved on the basis of Canaan's
own actions, bypassing Ham's involvement altogether and thereby
excluding his brothers. Like Genesis Rabbah (36 ? 2), Tanhuma
identifies Ham early on as "the father of a shameful one" ('bwy
dphth) (Townsend 50).
The practice of elucidating the destinies of individuals accord-
ing to the principle of measure-for-measure is very common in
rabbinic literature (Urbach 1975:438-439).23 It has very little to do
with the reality of one's biography and a great deal to do with the
cleverness of the exegete in being able to fabricate a string of
images. Each part of Ham's appearance is to remind us of his
transgression. The first image, "red eyes," draws attention to the
fact that his sin involved glancing at his father. As we lack evidence
suggesting that any real human beings actually had red eyes in the
ancient world, we can only assume that this ascription relates to a
portrayal of his character rather than physical appearance. If noth-
ing else, this aspect of the narrative (as well as others to be dis-
cussed), must be seen as setting the tone for the entire passage.
Why should we judge any of the other descriptions as more
"racially" bound than the charge of "red eyes?"
The deformation of Ham's lips (they are bent) derives from the
fact that he spoke of what he saw to his brothers, who then went
about covering their father's nakedness (as Genesis 9:22-23 makes
clear). Ham's twisting to see (or the turning of his face) is again in
contrast to the appropriate behavior exemplified by his brothers'
action. As Genesis informs us (and the Midrash elucidates), they
approached their sleeping father in order to drape a cloth over his
220n the widespreaduse of euphemismin Scripturesee Fishbane 1985:66-77,with his

extensivebibliography.In rabbinicliteratureeuphemismis ubiquitous;see the entryin the
TalmudicEncyclopaedia [Hebrew]under lin sgy-nhwrfor examples.
23Establishingthe primacyof the principlein GenesisRabbah,see chapter 9 ? 11. Forthe
importof this materialin the early Piyyut,see Mirsky:34-42.
exposed body with their heads turned away so that they would not
look upon his nakedness. In other words, while the benevolent
brothers did not allow themselves to see the nakedness, the sages
portray Ham as specifically having twisted to view it; hence the
deformity is manifest in the twistedness of his hair and beard. I
have been unable to determine why the particular term "singed"
(nithdrek) is used with regard to his hair. If "kinky hair" were the
purpose (as Martin's text notes above) then there are numerous
other verbs which would have served much more felicitiously. At
this point, I have not found another text which would elucidate
this word choice. Perhaps the point is that the vision of his father
itself actually "singed" him. Finally, the stretched prepuce is
directly commensurate to the sin of having viewed his father's geni-
tals-implied by the euphemism, "his nakedness." This particular
deformation is also relevant to the motifs of the other versions of
this story which group Ham with the raven and dog, all of whom
are cursed by having their sexuality take on disturbed forms of
behavior.
The Tanhuma text, preserved in many versions, is quite difficult
to date, but what we now have is most likely redacted after the
eighth century (Bregman). We are simply unable to establish
whether this reading was new to this edition, had significant
rabbinic antecedents, or was drawn from other cultures. Two
points deserve special attention: (1) "blackness" is not part of the
Tanhuma exegesis, and (2) the characteristics of Ham's descend-
ants, while sometimes influenced by a metonymic portrayal of
Ham, are at other times-in the very same anthology-depicted
quite independently.24
But let us play the role of the devil's advocate for a moment.
One might argue that the Tanhuma text is simply an elucidation of
earlier traditions which it inherited from Genesis Rabbah and
other independent (now lost) sources. One could argue that the
absence of any reference to the blackness of Ham here is insignifi-
cant in that it might simply be presupposed by the author. As
with the entire issue under consideration, the best we can do is
speculate. The hope is that the speculation employs judgments
24The Buber Tanhuma does not contain this passage. There are, however, interesting vari-
ants which concern the distinction between the enslavement of Hebrews (six years) vs.
Canaanites (permanently); and nakedness is cited as a way to humiliate people who have
sinned. See Tanhuma materials in Townsend:53f.
based on a sound understanding of the literature, its mechanics

and ideological assumptions. While it is possible that the
Tanhuma text "assumes" the blackness of Ham, I would maintain
that it is unlikely. Consider just how much detail this passage
presents. It goes well beyond any extant textual predecessor in elu-
cidating the "appearance" of Ham. To assume that "blackness"
would simply be presupposed and therefore not worthy of exegeti-
cal elucidation does not fit into the pattern of the Yelammdenu
literature in this context. I have also argued that the depiction is
not essentially "racial"in the modern sense at all, but that the "red
eyes" and extended prepuce convey ethical depravity and not true
physiological characteristics. Had black skin allowed for a certain
ethical connotation which would have derided the Israelites' neigh-
bors (as appears to be the goal), then it is difficult to understand
why some characteristics were only assumed and others elucidated
with such detail. Finally, as I hope to show, "blackness" is not
unambiguously a part of the Tanhuma's midrashic inheritance.25
A consideration of the last line of this text must figure into
one's assessment of this myth's function in rabbinic literature.
"Even though this was the case, the Holy One Blessed be He [i.e.,
God], returned and had mercy on him, for his mercy extends to all
his creations." Naturally, this phrase which softens the impact of
the entire Hamitic debacle, does not find its way into the quotes of
those who ascribe to the Talmud the moral pretext for African slav-
ery. Emulation of divine attitudes is a central value in Judaism
from the Bible through to the modern day. The Tanhuma text
closes this midrash with this mitigating comment, perhaps as a
warning not to take its exegetical gymnastics too seriously after all.
In the entirety of the Babylonian Talmud there is but one refer-
ence to a myth which cites a sin of Ham and a resulting punish-
ment manifest in his skin. (To place this in context for the non-
expert; the standard English translation of the Talmud (Soncino
Edition) is seventeen volumes, with the average volume approxi-
mately 800 pages in length.) In Tractate Sanhedrin 108b we read:
"Three copulated while in the ark, and they were punished-the
25BuberTanhuma2.21 (Townsend:53)stipulates why Ham cannot be cursed. "Ham

looked;is Canaancursed? R.Judahsaid:The curse does not coexist with a blessing. Ham
could not be cursedbecauseit is stated (in Gen. 9:1) thenGodblessedNoahand his children.
R. Nehemiahsaid: Canaanhad looked and told his father;so the curse had returnedto its
source. For that reason it is stated, Cursedbe Canaan."Note the distortionof the biblical
text to avoid the contradictionregardingblessings and curses.
dog, the raven and Ham." The copulation is not with one another,
but with their own species; nonetheless, it was taken as inappropri-
ate, for during a time of destruction (they are all in the ark during
the flood), the posture of mourning was to be assumed by every
living being-or so the Talmud argues.26 The sages used the ark-
narrative to provide an etiological legend regarding the way (or the
imagined way) crows and dogs copulate. The raven is thought to
inseminate its females orally, and dogs are linked together for
extended periods of time during copulation. Ham's punishment is
related as follows: "Ham was smitten in his skin" [laqah b'or]. The
meaning is ambiguous. The medieval commentator Rashi (1040-
1105) whose Talmud and Bible commentaries have been the stan-
dard fare of European Jewish education since the thirteenth cen-
tury, explained this Talmudic idiom in his commentary (ad loc) to
mean "that Kush descended from him." We can safely assume that
Rashi understood this to imply that Kush became black despite the
whiteness of his father. In his Bible commentary to Gen. 9:25f.,
Rashi understands the curse of Ham as the exile of Sennacherib
noted in Isaiah 20:4 (see below); despite the lack of an explicit
mention of blackness, the reference to the Nubians should be
understood as connoting black-Africans from the Upper Nile. The
similarities between Rashi's reference to the Nubians and Benjamin
of Tudela's comments (noted above) may indicate that specifically
the Nubians had a certain stigma; but more research is required to
draw this conclusively.
Though it is reasonable to understand "smitten in his skin" as
implying blackness, it is also reasonable to read the word "skin" as
yet another idiom for his genitalia (Eilberg-Schwartz: 85f.). Here
too measure-for-measure is the underlying principle of retribution.
Just as Ham's indiscretion related to his father's genitals, so is his
punishment manifest in his reproductive organs. This interpreta-
tion fits especially well in the midrashic context which pairs Ham
with two other sexual offenders (the crow and the dog); since their
penalties related directly to their reproductive practices, why
shouldn't Ham's be the same? The condemnation of Ham and his
descendants with regard to their sexual practices is a theme with
many sub-motifs. We must keep in mind that the Torah repeatedly
26During a time of mourning, sexual intercourse is forbidden in rabbinic Judaism.

Tanhuma gives this reason, Noah ? 13, as well as other sources. Also, Genesis Rabbah
itself, 31 ? 12 (Theodor-Albeck: I:286.5f.)
identifies "the otherness" of Canaanites, Moabites and other local

peoples, by referring to their sexual abominations. The offenses
will include whoring, intercourse while in states of impurity and
incest (Fishbane 1985:119f.). Since assimilation (i.e., intermar-
riage) with Canaanites and other indigenous groups provides a
great challenge to the religious establishment of both biblical and
rabbinic times, the extension of Ham's sexual abominations to his
son Canaan must be understood in part as a strategy against the
breakdown of endogomy.
In the Jerusalem Talmud27we read that "he [Ham] exited [the
ark] charcoal colored" [yasa' mfuham]. This reading is partially
reflected in Midrash Genesis Rabbah with a significant variation,
(a text edited around the same time as the Jerusalem Talmud in
Roman Palestine circa 400 B.C.E.). The principle by which Ham's
punishment involves becoming dark is again the classical midah
kneged midah, "measure-for-measure." Genesis Rabbah 36 ? 7
(Theodor-Albeck edition, 341 ? 5) reads: "R.Huna in the name of
R. Yosef said: You [Ham] prevented me [Noah] from doing that
which is done in the dark [i.e., coitus]; accordingly, your seed will
be ugly and dark."
It is important to note that this passage in Genesis Rabbah is
but one of five different interpretations offered in a string of exe-
getical alternatives; a typical literary construct for Genesis Rabbah.
No one interpretation is given preference.28 The sages do create
here a punishment explicitly for Ham which will include his off-
spring. The practice of extending either blessing or curse to the
offspring of a patriarch is a common method of praising or con-
demning a people in both Hebrew Scriptures and rabbinic litera-
ture. Whether the offspring are viewed in a positive rather than
negative light has little to do with any particular behavior of the
patriarch, but a great deal to do with the socio-political context in
which the exegesis of the behavior is composed. Take for example
27SeeTaaniyot,1,4,4; Vilna-typeversions,Ta'anit,ch.I, Halakha6, p.7a.

28TheEnglishrenditionof Freedman:I,293,is hardly decipherabledue to the degree of
wordplay. The otherexplanationswhichappearin this passagewhich will not be discussed
at length here are as follows: (1) Ham cannot be cursed because this would contradicta
blessing alreadyrenderedupon Noah's sons in Gn 9:1; thereforethe curse is delayedto
affectthe son Canaan. (2) Ham'sact preventsNoah from fatheringanotherson who would
servicehim;consequently,Canaan,Ham'sson, is forcedto servein that role. (3) Similarto
#2, but a play on numbers,by stating that Ham'sact preventedhim from having a fourth
son; consequently,it is Ham'sfourthson who is cursed.
Lot's impregnation of his daughters while in a drunken stupor

(Gen. 19:30-38). Incest is a taboo in all biblical contexts. Yet in
Genesis Rabbah there is actually something of a debate as to
whether the original conception of Moab (the offspring from Lot's
older daughter) was brought about in a spirit of immorality or with
a noble motive.29 There can be no doubt that ambivalence regard-
ing this otherwise blatantly proscribed act of incest derives from
the fact that Ruth is a Moabite, ancestor of King David and by
extension, progenitor of the king-messiah. For the sake of Ruth's
name, Lot's daughter's injudicious sexual act is justified. In other
words, what is morally and legally unconscionable in the social
domain can be legitimized in the realm of midrash if the induce-
ment is pressing enough.30 Of course, the opposite is also true: an
otherwise neutral act may be condemned as an abomination in the
light of certain fetishes.
What then, can be said of the characters Ham, Shem, and
Japheth? Genesis Rabbah itself (36 ? 6) speaks of Shem's and
Japheth's rewards as being manifest in their descendants' lives.
Ham's punishment in Genesis Rabbah 36 ? 6 is described by
means of the verse in Isaiah 20:[3]-4 which may also serve as a
conceptual underpinning for the Tanhuma exegesis cited above:
Just as my servantIsaiahhas gone nakedand barefootfor threeyears
so shall the king of Assyria drive off the captivesof Egypt and the
exiles of Nubia,young and old, naked and barefootand with bared
buttocks-to the shame of Egypt. The verse is a highly charged polit-
ical vision regarding the future. The original meaning of the verse
is less important for our discussion than the midrashic utilization.
Here the "captives of Egypt and the exiles of Nubia" are indicative
of Ham's progeny. The expression "naked and barefoot and with
bared buttocks" is for Isaiah and the rabbis an idiom of extreme
humiliation. Clearly the exegetical link between this verse and that
of the Noah narrative is the exposure of Ham's father, on the one
hand, and the nakedness of the captives, on the other.
29Perhapsthis story and that of Noah's drunkennessderive from a viticulturalsource

whose originalpurposeshavebeen lost. NeitherNoah, Ham,nor the Moabitesand Ammo-
nites are condemnedbecauseof any specificsin relatedto alcohol,thoughthe Moabiteswill
be condemnedfor their seduction of Israelitesat Shittim(Nu. 25:1). See bSan 70a-b for a
considerationof the role of wine. Also see Eilberg-Schwartz:81-109for numerousconsider-
ations of the Lot and Ham narrativesas well as the role of wine.
301n contrast,Lot'syoungerdaughterproducesthe Ammonites,in whom little is at stake.
See Deut. 23:4 wherethe Moabitesand Ammonitesareboth forbiddenfromthe Temple;and
Zeph. 2:8 where the two are also paired,perhapsas a hendiadys.
The crucial issues with respect to the Genesis Rabbah text are
as follows: What would have caused the sages to choose this par-
ticular exegesis on Ham? Is the ugliness and darkness to affect all
of Ham's offspring?31 And if servitude is understood as implicit
with regard to all of the children as well, should we view this text
as a significant source for the religious-ideological justification of
African slavery?
A surface reading of the text yields a simple affirmative answer
to the question of Ham's offspring. The sages are fully aware of the
strange aspect of the text that has Ham look but Canaan cursed. In
order to distribute the sin beyond the sons of Canaan so as to
include his brothers' progeny as well, the rabbis establish the sin of
Ham's copulation in the ark.32 As such, retribution for Ham's sin
would be distributed to all his offspring, and along with it, his tur-
pitude. Some midrashic material on the Noah episode is generally
condemnatory of the heathen nations for which Ham becomes a
metonym (see especially Tanhuma Buber 2 ? 19). This is the tail
end of the Noah narrative whose central purpose was to tell of the
destruction of the immoral world as it had come to be. The fact is
that Noah's descendants are not to survive with impunity should
they perpetuate what God originally sought to wipe off the face of
the earth. This, then, would serve as a motivation for this particu-
lar exegesis; it is past rather than future oriented.
How much ideology is conveyed in this midrash? Rabbinic
literature often makes sweeping or hyperbolic statements regard-
ing all sorts of events and conditions. There can be no doubt that
31BernardLewis suggests that St. Ephrem,the SyrianChurchFather,may be the earliest

source expressingthe notion that both Canaanand Ham became black (124). There he
juxtaposesSt. Ephrem,who died in 373 C.E.,with the GenesisRabbahtext underconsidera-
tion; accordingto Lewis"theanonymousBereshit(Genesis)Rabbahwas probablycomplied
in the sixth centuryA.D.,with lateraccretionsof which this maybe one." Thiswould make
St. Ephrema potentialsource for the GenesisRabbahpassage. The problemsare manifold.
Firstof all, the datingof GenesisRabbahis quite uncertain. Some scholarsdate it as early
as the end of the fourthcentury;others,like Lewis,believeit is later. Until some new source
comes to light, the issue will neverbe resolved. While it is possible that the sages drewthis
from an externalsource, I have tried to deal with the text internally. I believe there are
enough exegeticalclues to show that it stands on its own, thoughwe cannotsay specifically
why this passage is as inclusiveas it is. My sense is that GnRis earlierratherthan later,
which also makes the St. Ephremevidence of lesser significance,except to say that Chris-
tians may have employedthe same or similarmyths.
321say "establish"ratherthan "concoct,"because they undoubtedlyrecognizedthe term
"nakedness"as a euphemism indicativeof a some sexual indiscretionbeyond "seeing."
Howard Eilberg-Schwartz has suggested that the episode relates to a homoerotic event
(81ff.).
the "effect" is more important than the actual content. If one

accepts the umbrella statement about Ham's offspring as indicative
of historical fact or social ideology, then all of Ham's sons, includ-
ing his fourth son who is destined to servitude, would also be des-
tined to ugliness and darkness. The problem with this reading can
be summarized as follows: We know for a fact that the dominant
rabbinic tradition does not portray the Canaanites and the Egyp-
tians as dark skinned;33 in contrast, the Nubians or Ethiopians
(midrash does not necessarily make a distinction) are consistently
depicted this way with no specific racial or negative connotations.
(See Isaac 1985:80f.) In addition, neither the Nubians nor the Ethi-
opians, or for that matter, the Egyptians (all portrayed as descend-
ants of Ham) are portrayed in an historical sense as "slaves"
(indeed, the Egyptians are masters in the Moses narrative). Why
then, would a sage make so grand a claim, knowingly contradicting
the dominant character depictions and genealogies?
Ideological consistency with regard to Ham's sons, or any other
issue for that matter, was never the problem of the midrashic writ-
ers. This is the reality of the midrashic imagination, and any
attempt to ignore this fact results in the promotion of grave mis-
conceptions. The sages delighted in exegetical intricacy, they
sought meaning by creating meaning, but they did not endeavor to
write pragmatic theology, history, or scientific etiology. Hence,
our attempt to work through the philological intricacies when
exploring this question is fundamentally moot, in that the sages
themselves would never have been bothered by the apparent the-
matic "inconsistency" at the macro level. To make this fact evident,
however, it is necessary to expose the intricate exegesis that is at
the base of these midrashic passages (at the micro level) and to
emphasize that the exegetical exercise was the key to the text's
composition, not the promotion of a particular ideology.34 When
it comes to midrash, "surface readings" never constitute good read-
ings. Indeed, Ockham's razor does not obtain here, for midrash by
its nature requires a complex decoding process for meaning to
emerge. It is at once interpretation and requiring of interpretation.
33By "dominant"I simply mean that traditionwhich numericallyappearsmost often in

literarytexts.
340ne would not make this claim about everymidrashicpassage across the board, but
much of Genesis Rabbahappearsto conformto this pattern. There are, however,many
ideologicalpolemics in the text. See Neusner 1983: Chapter5, and 1986.
Let us entertain two reasons why the Genesis Rabbah expres-

sion "ugly and darkened" has a role in this literature. While recog-
nizing the danger of sounding apologetic, I contend that black skin
in a racial sense is not the issue here, but rather, the coining of a
derogatory appellative to connote humiliation in a hyperbolic man-
ner. No doubt, the entire idiom only works because "black" and
"darkness" are seen as negatives (ethical and otherwise) in contrast
to "white"and "light." The question relates to how such images are
used. First let us establish why this idiom may have been so desir-
able; then we will speculate as to its connotation.
Noting that the classical rhetoric of "measure-for-measure" is
employed, we can appreciate that the term used for Ham's dark-
ness, mfuhadmis parallel to 'felh-the term used to describe the
absence of light when the sin occurs.35 But why this particular
word-mfuh4m-for "black," a most unusual term.36 Essential to
this word choice is the paranomasia that can only be appreciated
in the Hebrew. It would have been quite easy to call the darkened
Ham adhor,the colloquial word for "black,"as the shepherd girl of
Song of Songs is identified, "I am black, but beautiful."37 However,
the alliteration of the final syllable of with the very name
of the disgraced and punished Ham (i.e., ham) is what draws exe-
mfuh.am
getes to employ this verbal form to indicate "color." The root itself
is related to the noun connoting charcoal. Because Ham's sin took
place in the dark, he became dark (measure-for-measure). This
method of paranomasia (a nomen-omen, or ein sprechender Name),
is commonly used in classical Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and Latin
literatures.
It is noteworthy that a midrash using "ugly and black," where
the word for "black"is the conventional color-term, occurs later in
35Theroot of mfuhamis phm,but I am providingthe phoneticrepresentationwith "f"to

make pronunciationaccurate.
36Thetermf lah specificallymeansthe absenceof light, and is neverdescriptiveof a color.
In contrast,mpwhmis a passiveparticiplewhich is not regularlya "color"either.
37Songof Songs 1:6. Seeboth Isaacand Lewison this passagewheresome of the historyof
exegesis is reviewed. Thereis absolutelyno doubt that the Hebreww in this verse,which
can serveas eithera disjunctiveor conjunctiveparticle,is servingas the former,"but."The
girl firstsays, "Don'tlook at me becauseI am swarthy,for the sun has burnedme. .. ." The
point being that her unusuallydarkcomplexion,which is the result of her brother'smean
trick in isolating her out in the vineyard,has caused her to become extremelydark. This
does not diminish her beauty. The Targumactuallyuses the Kushitesin the allegorical
interpretation:"Whenthe House of Israel made the calf, their faces turned black as the
Kushiteswho dwell in the tents of Kedar."
Genesis Rabbah. In the infamous story of Abram's descent to

Egypt (Genesis 12), Sarai is asked to lie by saying that she is
Abram's sister and not his wife. Without going into the complex
exegetical issues, it suffices to say that Abram must justify his
bizarre request. It is the extremeness of Sarai's beauty that causes
Abram to fear his wellbeing. Here is the biblical text and then the
midrashic comment:
Genesis 12:11-13: As he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his
wife Sarai,"Beholdwhat a beautifulwoman you are. If the Egyp-
tians see you, and think, 'She is his wife,' they will kill me and let
you live. Please say that you are my sister that it may go well with
me because of you. .. "
Genesis Rabbah:40 ? 4: She was with him all these years,yet now
he says to her, Beholdwhat a beautifulwomanyou are. The reason
however,is because travellingtakes a toll of one's beauty [but Sarai
retained hers]. [. ..] [Abrahamsaid:] We have traversedAram
Naharaimand AramNahorand not found a woman as beautifulas
you; now that we are entering a country whose inhabitants are
ugly and black, please say you are my sister. (Gen. 12:13).
As noted, the Hebrew for "ugly and black," (khwrymwthiwrym)38
employs only the most expected lexical entries. The phrase is
clearly hyperbolic, contrasting Sarai's beauty with the appearance
of the local population, the Egyptians, in an extreme way. I sup-
pose one might then argue that the Egyptians-according to this
text-were blacks. It would be an abuse of the evidence. The judg-
ment being rendered here is a relative one. The Egyptians are
darker than Sarai, who somehow has retained her light-skinned-
beauty despite the long journey in the sun-baked desert. The lan-
guage "ugly and black" is derogatory; it is not racial. It involves
cultural aesthetic judgements, just as to this very day some cultures
judge light skin or dark skin within the same race to be a character-
istic of beauty; apparently, so it was in ancient times. The exegeti-
cal motivations behind the use of mfuham ("darkened") regarding
Ham (GnR 36 ? 7) are accentuated when contrasted with the
more expected idiom wielded by Abram in Genesis Rabbah 40
? 4.
38TheT-Aversionbased on MSLondonactuallyhas the mispellingk'wrym;indeed,in most

of the manuscripts,this defectiveorthographyoccurs.
Yet another passage in Genesis Rabbah involves usage of a simi-

lar idiom, once again suggesting that the issue here is perceived
beauty and not race. In Genesis Rabbah 18 ? 5 the verb used to
describe the Israelite women who became unattractive to their hus-
bands during the time of Nehemiah is based on the same root used
to judge Ham swarthy: "When Nehemiah left the Exile, the faces of
the [Israelite] women were darkened by the sun (ntphmw) and [their
husbands] left them and went and married foreign women" (Theo-
dor and Albeck: 167.4). It should be obvious that in this passage
"darkened"was not an additional genetic or racial trait, but rather
it conveyed "disgraced" by means of an altered, unattractive
appearance (even this may be meant symbolically). In the case of
Sarai and the Israelite wives, the judgments are relative: darkness
of skin is contrasted with lightness of skin-the latter being the
desirable trait of beauty.
Adding support to this non-racial connotation of the idiom is
the very passage which comes immediately after this questionable
phrase in Genesis Rabbah 36 ? 7 (the last of this string of five
interpretations). It reads as follows: "...Ham came forth [from the
ark] mfuhdm, while the dog publicly exposes its copulation. R.
Levi said: This may be compared to one who minted his own coin-
age [bearing his own effigy] in the very palace of the king, where-
upon the king ordered: I decree that his effigy [or: his face] be
defaced (ytphmw) so that his coins be invalid. Similarly, Ham and
the dog copulated in the Ark and were punished."39
I would argue that the contiguous usages of the root plhm in
these two passages is not coincidental; nor are their semantic fields
unrelated. In the second passage the most felicitous rendering of
the word yitpahamu [ytphmw]is not "blackened." The whole point
is that the effigy on the coin is defaced, struck in a way as to
degrade the person represented in public.40 This would suggest
39Brackman includes a versionof this passagein his dissertation(81), not takingit from
the originalbut ratherSamuelRapaport'sA Treasury of theMidrash(New York,1968). Con-
trasthis highly problematicrenderingwith my own as yet anotherexampleof how danger-
ous it is to rely upon translationsfor the understandingof a rabbinicpassages:"Justas
when a man has the audacityto coin the king'scurrencyin the king'sown palace,his faceis
blackenedas a punishmentand his issue declaredcounterfeit."
40Thisis the interpretationput forthby Theodor,ad loc,for the parallelismhere is between
the dog's public humiliation and the man's public humiliation. Howeverthe grammar
allows for an alternative,namely,that the act of "defacing"actuallytook place to the man's
face, making him unrecognizableor humiliated. I am gratefulto the JAARreader who
remindedme that the minting-of-a-coin motifis sometimesused as indicativeof man having
that the color of the face is not nearly as significant as the symbolic
defacement which is Ham's punishment for a sin considered
unforgivable (cf. Leviticus 18:6ff.). Again, exactly how this might
transfer to Ham's children remains a mystery considering their
common depiction in rabbinic literature, but, if we understand the
verb in question to connote the "defacement of character," then
this highly charged depiction of the depraved nations who derived
from Ham's sons is more easily understood.
This interpretation does not soften the harshness of the ethno-
centric and xenophobic attitude expressed by this passage. On the
contrary, I am fully acknowledging the cultural prejudices that are
implied. However, in trying to establish an accurate appraisal of
the midrash, we must avoid extracting a modern day "racism"
toward blacks out of a more or less typical, indeed stereotypical,
depiction of foreigners who were perceived as hostile. In assessing
the impact of these isolated passages, we have not established any
evidence for centuries of a Jewish Hamitic myth, for the existence
of such a "myth" can only be derived from sources subsequent to
the midrash that would reflect this early exegesis. Indeed, what
should impress the reader with regard to the ancient material is the
relative paucity of sources reflecting this motif and their rather
impoverished development. One need only consider rabbinic liter-
ature's consistent and invidious condemnation of Esau-early Juda-
ism's code word for Rome and/or Christianity, depending upon
the period-to realize how a social conviction found articulation in
the exegetical condemnation of a patriarch. In other words, when
the sages wished to launch an ideological diatribe into the main-
stream of Jewish literary circles, they managed to do so with con-
siderable success. Esau is but one example; the Amalakites, the
quasi-heretical character of Elisha ben Avuyah (referred to by the
alienating appellation, "the other one"), the Samaritans, mystics,
gnostics, and sectarians, to just name some others, are all people
or groups, about whom rabbinic literature fabricated highly
charged polemical material. If there existed a functioning "Hamitic
Myth" regarding blacks and slavery, then it is reasonable to expect
its literary structures to have been similar to these other cultural
antipathies. The fact of the matter is, no such evidence moves us
in this direction.
been createdin God'simage;hence, the defacingof the coin would conveythe notion that
Ham has his appearanceand relationshipto God'simage altered.
Aaron:EarlyRabbinicExegesis 749
In summary, the earliest rabbinic material (Genesis Rabbah

and the Jerusalem Talmud) was more concerned with providing a
rhetorical creation that cashed in on the paranomasia derived from
Ham's name than it was set on establishing the blackness of his
skin or that of his descendants in a racial sense. The focus was on
the past to explain the present; on creating a link between the
depraved antediluvian world and the turpitudes of the postdiluvian
descendants of Noah. Had the sages wanted Ham and all of his
descendants to be black and slaves-not just Canaan, the son con-
demned to slavery-then we may speculate that the idea would have
been more prominently distributed in the corpus. But the relevant
passages are few in number, and those reviewed here are complex
exegetical exercises.
V. CONCLUDING COMMENTS ON THE USE OF

RABBINIC LITERATURE IN WRITING HISTORY
We must return to the question of how any of this material
should be integrated into one's attempt to portray the history of
ideas. For the moment, let's push aside the nuances and read the
passages simply for their surface meanings. As we noted earlier in
this essay, it would remain legitimate to ask: What is to be made of
the fact that one passage implies that all of Ham's sons were
"black," and that numerous others imply that only his son Kush
was black? One who studies this literature becomes aware early on
that no midrashic document attempts to establish the answer or the
policy with regard to any particular issue; no midrashic document
portrays the belief of Jews with regard to any particular concept.41
(The words "doctrine" and "theology" are absent from classical
41Lestthis chargeremaintoo abstract,I would like to provideanothersimple exampleof

how easily one could use a talmudiccommentas paradigmaticof dominantJewishbelief at
any givenpoint in history,therebyproducingan absurddepictionof that history. Consider
the implicationsfor the unawarehistorianof RabbiEleazar'sproclamationrecordedin the
Talmudthat "sincethe destructionof the Temple[in 70 C.E.],the gates of prayerhavebeen
locked." This statementwas meantto imply that without the Templethere was no longer
any purposein prayersince the conduitto God had been destroyed(Bab.BabaMetzia59a).
Takingthis as a "Jewishbelief"would lead one to writethat prayer,since the destructionof
the Temple,is simply not efficaciousaccordingto rabbinicdoctrine-a belief which could
not be furtherfromwhat contraryevidenceoverwhelminglyshows to havebeen otherwise.
Examplesof this sort can be multipliedthousandsof times over. What any particularstate-
ment in the Talmudhas to do with what people actuallybelievedis an extremelysensitive
issue.
Hebrew and Aramaic.) The fact of the matter is that the five
passages in this Genesis Rabbah string of interpretations represent
the exegetical games played by those who were the most talented
with the hermeneutics of their day; none of them was bent on
establishing a racial policy or justifying a slavery policy (the latter
only coming into existence centuries after the rise of Islam). No
doubt, sometimes midrashic ideas reflect dominant social conven-
tions, but in this case, we have no way of measuring the promi-
nence or function of this imagery in colloquial contexts.
The issue of colloquial prominence is especially problematic.
Scholars frequently debate the extent of formal rabbinic literature's
influence on the religion and thought of any given era in Jewish
history. The fact that long passages of the Babylonian Talmud con-
cern rituals (especially Temple related) and judicial practices
which had not been in effect for centuries, should, if nothing else,
cast grave doubts as to this literature's relevance to daily Jewish
life. Most scholars tacitly agree that the Midrashim and Talmudim
were the domain of a very concentrated scholarly class throughout
Jewish history. Moreover, ideology is hardly derivable from
rabbinic literature, except when it comes, perhaps, to hermeneu-
tics; indeed, even theology is oblique. The problem remains for the
historian to determine how much of the actual content of rabbinic
literature was actually transferred into the common vocabulary and
thinking of Jews, and how much influence was ultimately reduced
to general impressions with little substantive content.
Before using rabbinic texts to reconstruct history, a scholar
must be aware of the ongoing debate as to just what it is that mid-
rash does and why it insists on recording multiple opinions on
every issue usually without resolution. Steven D. Fraade puts it this
way:
Anyone who approachesancient rabbinictexts with the intention
of using them to reconstructsome aspectof ancientJewishhistory,
society or practice must confront the challenges posed by their
deeply rhetoricalnature. The literatureof the rabbis is not so
much one which simply seeks to representthe world outside it; it
ultimatelyseeks to transformthat world by the force of an illocu-
tionaryworld, or web, of representations,both halakhic [legal]and
aggadic [non-legal interpretive],into which it dialogically and,
hence, transformatively,draws its society of students in the very
process of creatingand conveyingits meanings. By no means do I
wish to deny the possibilities of using rabbinic literaturefor the
purposes of historicalreconstruction,but to cautionthat such uses

are fraughtwith great difficulty.(Fraade1992:253)
Underlying this whole issue of how much influence rabbinic

literature had on Jews is the fact that the literature is fundamen-
tally incomprehensible to other than the specialist, and even
among specialists, there is considerable controversy as to how it
should be to read.42 The strangeness of the literary mode compli-
cates exponentially our assessment of rabbinic literature's impact
outside of the Jewish community. Consider the evidence regarding
Christian uses of and attitudes toward the Talmud (Funkenstein
1968, 1971; Jeremy Cohen). Merchavia notes that no direct citation
of rabbinic literature among non-Jews can be found before the
twelfth century; the word "Talmud"is never even mentioned in any
source prior to this period (93). The Christian diatribe against
Judaism concentrated on demonstrating how Scripture justifies the
replacement of the Old Israel with the New Israel. For this purpose
rabbinic materials remained largely irrelevant until the twelfth cen-
tury.43 It was only then that post-biblical materials enter into the
anti-Jewish polemic, but in a most limited fashion (Funkenstein
1968, 1971; Jeremy Cohen Ch.1 and 75f.). The socio-political con-
text sought employment of these sources in discounting Judaism
(especially its supposed "legalism") or in contrasting Jewish ideas
with Christian ones. Rare instances of exegetical borrowings do
exist, but Christians did not look to the Talmud or the Midrash for
ideological justification.44 Indeed, the Church depicted the
rabbinic literature of its day as "a pernicious oral tradition of reli-
gious law and doctrine, a gross deviation from the religion of the
Old Testament. The Talmud not only.. .held 'the Jews obstinate in
their perfidy' but also, with the equation of the talmudic goy and
the medieval Christain, proffered a real threat to Latin Christen-
dom" (Jeremy Cohen 76). Perhaps more important is the point
that the Church did not need the Talmud to distort any biblical
42Fora numberof approachesto the essenceof midrash,see the recentarticlesin Fishbane

1993, by I. Gruenwald,D. Halivni,M. Idel and D. Stern. Gruenwaldrightly refersto mid-
rash as a cognitivemode.
43Thereare some exceptions. See Kimelmanand previousscholarshipon Origen'sknowl-
edge of Rabbinicexegesis.
440n the emergenceof ChristianHebraists,see Moore1921, and Katchenand his extensive
bibliography.Mostof the "borrowings" camethroughfamiliaritywith philosophicalor kab-
balistic sources,not the Talmuddirectly.
passage in the service of a social or political gain; it had its own

history of exegesis and a distinct hermeneutic.
We conclude that the existence of a Hamitic Myth within Juda-
ism has yet to be verified. The first task will be to establish just
how the relevant rabbinic texts might have functioned as an ideo-
logical building block within Jewish communities. (Of course, this
task is not specific to the issue at hand.) More importantly, even if
the textual foundations for such a myth had existed in the Talmud
and Midrash as McKenzie, Willis, Sanders, Martin and others
hypothesize, scholars must be obligated to provide solid documen-
tation to indicate that these texts had influence on the development
of Christian (European) and Islamic (Asian) thought before citing
them as having provided the foundational building blocks of
Europe's African slave trade. At the present time, no such docu-
mentation exists demonstrating a Christian or Islamic awareness
of the Jewish exegesis on the Curse of Ham/Canaan. The infinitesi-
mal impact Jews had on the slave trade alone-never mind its ideo-
logical underpinnings-should cause us to approach any thought of
the Talmud as a significant player in the justification of the medie-
val and early modern slave markets as a travesty. More impor-
tantly, (as noted) there is enough of a textual handle in Genesis
itself to make the Talmud irrelevant to the justification of black
servitude. That is to say, Christians who claimed the Old Testa-
ment as their own, were not in need of midrashic parables on the
descendants of Noah to find a theological justification for slavery.
Perhaps a newly discovered source will arise from the Cairo
Geniza or some other realm that will shed new light on the subject.
In the meantime, the function of the so-called "Hamitic Myth" in
the consciousness of Jews is unknown. Perhaps all we have to go
on is the infrequency of its occurrence in the literature as a whole.
Assuming that the rate of repetition in the literature is indicative of
some measure of popularity, we would have to rate this motif as
hardly known beyond the innerrabbinic circles. Of course, fre-
quency in the official literature should not be used to quantify pop-
ularity in folk culture; unfortunately, for the most part, folk culture
did not leave us with documents chronicling its themes.
The complete history of exegesis on Genesis 9-10 regarding
Noah's son Ham in rabbinic, Christian, and Islamic sources
remains to be written. An assessment of how formal exegesis influ-
enced social thought and policy throughout the ages will be yet
another project. In the meantime, the use of this motif will
undoubtedly appear in print in a manner that preserves the inertia

of the misconceptions with respect to its Talmudic permutations.
Since George Foot Moore's repeated proscriptions (1927-30)
against using individual passages in rabbinic literature as indica-
tive of Jewish belief more generally, the study of the Midrashim
and Talmudim has developed immensely. This does not mean that
Moore's message or its spirit has consistently been heeded. In
order to avoid the implications of Moore's warnings, many masters
of rabbinic literature have woven together webs of rabbinic per-
icopae, thereby fabricating systems of thought that have no resem-
blance to any reality whose existence can be objectively
confirmed.45 The translation of rabbinic literature-including most
of the classical Midrashim and the Babylonian and Jerusalem
Talmudim-has only served to invite non-expert scholarly dis-
course to be inclusive of rabbinic texts. Yet no translation to date
can bring a reader close to the meaning of a truly complex exegeti-
cal passage; indeed, even those who work in this field are often
unable to make sense of translated passages without having seen
originals (or without reconstructing them in their minds).
Richard Sarason has argued that the rabbinic materials were
composed exclusively for a rabbinic audience; hence, their Sitz im
Leben should preclude the popularization of their ideas (68). Tak-
ing up a theme which Jacob Neusner has long urged, Sarason
writes: "What seems to me to be an urgent disideratum is a fresh
detailed exegesis of the texts themselves, document by document,
which would ask basic questions of the literature with proper
attention to nuance and specific literary context as well as to larger,
generic literary and conceptual traits." Once this exegetical exer-
cise has been engaged, then the more global issues may be raised:
"What sort of world view is expressed, or presupposed, by the con-
ceptions put forth in the texts, and through their distinctive modes
of formulation? (I.e., What is the literary and cognitive relation-
ship between what is said and how it is said?) What does the text
tell us about its intended audience? What sorts of conceptual traits
and prior ideas and concerns does it take for granted on the part of
the audience? Who would understand these texts? What can we
learn about the conception and valorization of Scripture on the
45Perhapsmost prominentof these "theologies"(in terms of size) are those written by

EphraimUrbach 1975 and ArthurMarmorstein1920, 1927, 1929, 1937.
part of the framers of these texts from the detailed operations per-
formed therein on scriptural passages?"
Currently, a detailed exegesis of the massive corpus of rabbinic
writings does not exist, nor will one appear any time soon. As the
case under consideration has shown, the misconstrual of rabbinic
materials can lead to unwieldy misconceptions about the nature
and purpose of rabbinic dicta. Though it will not often be the case,
such misconceptions can lend themselves to nefarious formula-
tions in the ideologically charged marketplace of ideas, a market-
place in which the loudest, most provocative voices often earn high
dividends on the basis of their aggression rather than their
accuracy.
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Early Rabbinic Exegesis on

Noah's Son Ham and the

David H. Aaron is Assistant Professor of Religion at Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA 02181.

Talmuds, along with significant readings in the Tanhuma

II. MYTH ABOUT THE MYTH

been interpreted as black (Negroid) skin color and features in

is worthwhile noting her treatment of Benjamin of Tudela's travelog

Sanders leaves out the partitive phrase "among them," present-

unprotected. There is an official who sits in his office, and the

9Manyotherexamplescould be cited;see Isaac'sdiscussion (1985:82f.)of similarportray-

slave trade and the moral precepts of the Talmud. In support of

III. THE BIBLICAL TEXT

101nmy seeking a copy of his dissertationto tracedown Martin'scitation,Brackmansent

but Canaan is cursed! How so?" (GnR 36 ? 7)11 A consideration

11Alsosee the BabylonianTalmud,Sanhedrin70a-bwhich has two sins attributedto Ham:

and Mitzraim, both place names, are attested in a variety of ancient

Literature(New York,1873), vol.4: 34, writtenunder the supervisionof James

experiences quite explicit when he says: "I made a covenant with

religious identification, as well as the already strong tendencies

IV. RABBINIC EXEGESIS

17Thisis the assessmentthat the Biblewishes us to assume. Fora moreobjectiveapproach

berg's study so very important to scholars are the invaluable

20Thisis meant eitherliterallyor figuratively,i.e., God reconsideredthe issue.

220n the widespreaduse of euphemismin Scripturesee Fishbane 1985:66-77,with his

based on a sound understanding of the literature, its mechanics

25BuberTanhuma2.21 (Townsend:53)stipulates why Ham cannot be cursed. "Ham

26During a time of mourning, sexual intercourse is forbidden in rabbinic Judaism.

identifies "the otherness" of Canaanites, Moabites and other local

27SeeTaaniyot,1,4,4; Vilna-typeversions,Ta'anit,ch.I, Halakha6, p.7a.

Lot's impregnation of his daughters while in a drunken stupor

29Perhapsthis story and that of Noah's drunkennessderive from a viticulturalsource

31BernardLewis suggests that St. Ephrem,the SyrianChurchFather,may be the earliest

the "effect" is more important than the actual content. If one

33By "dominant"I simply mean that traditionwhich numericallyappearsmost often in

Let us entertain two reasons why the Genesis Rabbah expres-

35Theroot of mfuhamis phm,but I am providingthe phoneticrepresentationwith "f"to

Genesis Rabbah. In the infamous story of Abram's descent to

38TheT-Aversionbased on MSLondonactuallyhas the mispellingk'wrym;indeed,in most

Yet another passage in Genesis Rabbah involves usage of a simi-

In summary, the earliest rabbinic material (Genesis Rabbah

V. CONCLUDING COMMENTS ON THE USE OF

41Lestthis chargeremaintoo abstract,I would like to provideanothersimple exampleof

purposes of historicalreconstruction,but to cautionthat such uses

Underlying this whole issue of how much influence rabbinic

42Fora numberof approachesto the essenceof midrash,see the recentarticlesin Fishbane

passage in the service of a social or political gain; it had its own

undoubtedly appear in print in a manner that preserves the inertia

45Perhapsmost prominentof these "theologies"(in terms of size) are those written by

Adler, Nathan The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela: Critical Text,

Astour,M. "The Origin of the Terms 'Canaan,''Phoenician,'

Brackman,Harold "TheEbb and Flow of Conflict:A Historyof Black-

Jews among Others."In Pilgrimsand

Bregman, Marc "The Tanhuma-Yelammdenu Literature: A Descrip-

Cassuto,U. A Commentaryon the Bookof Exodus. Jerusalem:

Cohen,Jeremy The Friars and theJews: The Evolutionof Medieval

Coogan, M.D. "Canaanite Origins and Lineage: Reflections on the

Eilberg-Schwartz, God'sPhallusand OtherProblemsfor Menand Mon-

Fishbane,Michael. Biblical Interpretationin Ancient Israel. Oxford:

Flesher, PaulV. Oxen, Women,or Citizens?Slavesin the Systemof

Fraade, Steven D. "Rabbinic Views on the Practice of Targum, and

Freedman, H. Midrash Rabbah: Genesis. 2 vols. New York:

Funkenstein, "Changes in the Patterns of Christian Anti-Jewish