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Noah's
Curse
The Biblical Justification for Slavery in
America
By Stephen
Haynes "A servant of
servants shall he be unto his brethren." So reads Noah's curse on his son Ham, and all his
descendants, in Genesis 9:25. Over centuries of interpretation, Ham came to be
identified as the ancestor of black Africans, and Noah's curse to be seen as biblical justification
for American slavery and segregation. While Noah's curse was invoked in western
Europe even prior to the modern period to explain the origins of
slavery, only in the 15th century, when dark-skinned peoples
were enslaved by the Spanish and Portuguese and the figure of
the European slavetrader became ironic, was the curse explicitly
relied upon to justify the ownership of one human being by
another.
American have long
relied on their Bible to help them organize their social world
and Stephen R. Haynes here returns us to the wellspring of the
American South's religious rationale for slavery. Shedding light
on the distinctive and creative ways in which the curse was
appropriated by pro-slavery and pro-segregationist interpreters,
Haynes demonstrates how this ancient biblical tale was
compelling for antebellum white Southerners because it resonated
with core values and beliefs regarding antiquity, tradition,
domesticity, race, and sin.
Through the writings
of, among others, influential Southern Presbyterian clergyman
Benjamin M. Palmer, who predicted that, once freed, the black
race would experience "rapid extinction before they had
time to waste away through listlessness, filth, and vice,"
Haynes shows how Southerners would cling to these texts as a
means of making sense of the South's volcanic history of
secession, war, and defeat. Finally, the book presents
counter-readings of Genesis 9 by abolitionists, biblical critics
and literary artists who have challenged pro-slavery
interpretations by articulating redemptive readings of the
curse.
Tracing the continuum
between racial apartheid and the southern ruling class's
exaggerated sense of honor, between the curse of Noah and the
Confederate flags that still wave over some state capitols,
Stephen R. Haynes here makes the compelling case that the Bible
is in fact one of the foundational texts of American slavery.
* * *
*
Noah's
Curse must be
recognized as the most innovative and enlightening study of the
Biblical defense of America slavery ever published. The dubious
legend of Noah, as Stephen R. Haynes points out, is still with
us, along with the Confederate symbols flying over public places
and fundamentalists denouncing racial mixing. The Southern mind,
he brilliantly explains, has woven the conventions of honor, the
burdens of shame, the practice of race subordination, and the
concept of divine grace into a single cultural fabric. In the
field of religious and sectional history, this work will take an
honored place next to the studies of Eugene Genovese and Donald
Matthews. No one interested in American religious history can
ignore this intellectually powerful study.
--Bertram
Wyatt-Brown, Richard J. Milbauer Professor of History,
University of Florida: Author of
Southern Honor and
The
Shaping of Southern Culture.
The ancient
rabbis suggested that every biblical text has seventy legitimate
meanings (and no doubt an infinite number of illegitimate ones).
Stephen Haynes has produced an amazing history of interpretation
of the Ham and Nimrod narratives. It becomes clear through his
careful research that such texts are supple and vulnerable to
misguided theological passion. This book lets us reflect on old
mistakes and, by inference, invites us to reflect on our own
availability for parallel misreadings. Noah's curse is an
exercise in historical disclosure not to be missed by those who
care about the crisis of reading in the church and in a
Bible-rooted culture.
--Walter Brueggemann, William Marcellus
McPheeters Professor of Old Testament, Columbia Theological
Seminary; Author of
Spirituality of the Psalms
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