An Eye-Open­ing Bib­li­cal Nar­ra­tion : The Curi­ous Case of Canaan

The fol­low­ing is one of the most inter­est­ing Bib­li­cal sto­ries I have come across. I thought I’d share it with the read­ers. Many Chris­tians such as the likes of Sam Shamoun, Craig Winn and oth­ers sim­ply love going around bad-mouthing the Qur’an, say­ing that it con­tains ​“per­vert­ed, non­sen­si­cal teachings”.

Let us have a glimpse of their ​“sen­si­cal” Bible.

“And the sons of Noah, that went forth of the ark, were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth : and Ham [is] the father of Canaan. These [are] the three sons of Noah : and of them was the whole earth over­spread. And Noah began [to be] a hus­band­man, and he plant­ed a vine­yard : And he drank of the wine and was drunk­en, and he was uncov­ered with­in his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the naked­ness of his father and told his two brethren with­out. And Shem and Japheth took a gar­ment, and laid [it] upon both their shoul­ders, and went back­wards, and cov­ered the naked­ness of their father ; their faces [were] back­ward, and they saw not their father’s naked­ness. And Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his younger son had done unto him. And he said, Cursed [be] Canaan ; a ser­vant of ser­vants shall he be unto his brethren.​“¹

Before I pro­ceed fur­ther I would like to state for the record that Mus­lims are utter­ly shocked and offend­ed that the Bible por­trays great mes­sen­gers of God as low-live drunkards.

Com­ing back to the sto­ry, notice how the sto­ry says Ham, THE FATHER of Canaan. This is rather inter­est­ing. Seems like it’s try­ing to prove or lead to something.

In sum­ma­ry, Noah became drunk and dropped naked in his tent. Ham, Noah’s sec­ond son found him in that state and told his broth­ers about it. Accord­ing to many Bib­li­cal experts, Ham didn’t just tell his broth­ers about it, he also laughed at his father’s state. This is con­sid­ered an offence to Noah and is the rea­son why Noah made the curse. The two oth­er sons Shem and Japheth were ashamed of their father’s naked­ness and cov­ered him with­out look­ing. When Noah gained con­scious­ness, he knew what Ham did and start­ed curs­ing, ​“And he said, Cursed [be] Canaan ; a ser­vant of ser­vants shall he be unto his brethren.”

Did you catch the joke ?

Noah had three sons : Shem, Ham and Japheth.

Ham had four sons² : Cush, Mizraim, Phut and Canaan.

When the nar­ra­tion is analysed, a ques­tion aris­es ​“Who was respon­si­ble for look­ing at Noah’s naked­ness?” The answer is Ham. Chris­tians argue that the action of Ham was a sin, hence the curse. For the sake of argu­ment, we agree. Yet, who was respon­si­ble and there­after cursed ? Ham was respon­si­ble, but, who was made to pay ? Was it Ham ? No. Canaan, an inno­cent lit­tle child, was made to pay for the error of Ham. The father who is respon­si­ble was reprieved and the inno­cent son was pun­ished. Fur­ther­more, why was Canaan out of four sib­lings sin­gled out ? Is this jus­tice or madness ?

Can you imag­ine some­thing like that hap­pen­ing today ? I love analo­gies, so let us have one :

James has four chil­dren. He com­mit­ted mur­der. He is appre­hend­ed, brought to court and is found guilty. The judge decid­ed that the pun­ish­ment is the ​“injec­tion”, i.e. death. How­ev­er, the injec­tion is giv­en to his youngest son and he, in turn, is released with­out cost. 

Once again, is this jus­tice or mad­ness ? I leave the ver­dict to the read­ers.³

1. Gen­e­sis 9:18 – 25, KJV[↩]
2. Gen­e­sis 10:6[↩]
3. In addi­tion, how is this strange tale rec­on­ciled in light of the fol­low­ing : ​“The fathers shall not be put to death for the chil­dren, nei­ther shall the chil­dren be put to death for the fathers : every man shall be put to death for his own sin.” (Deuteron­o­my 24:16)[↩]