Everything about Ham Son Of Noah totally explained
Ham (;
Arabic:,, "hot"), according to the
Table of Nations in
Genesis, was a son of
Noah and the father of
Cush,
Mizraim,
Phut, and
Canaan.
Ham in the Bible
Traditionally, it's held that Ham was one of the
sons of Noah who moved southwest into
Africa and parts of the near
Middle East, and was the forefather of the nations there. The Bible refers to
Egypt as "the land of Ham" in (
Psalms 78:51; 105:23,27; 106:22; 1Ch 4:40). The Hebrew word for Egypt was
Mizraim (probably literally meaning
the two lands), and was the name of one of Ham's sons. The Egyptian word for Egypt was
Khem, plausibly the origin of the name
Ham, or
vice versa, according to
sound change between languages. The names of Ham's other children correspond to regions within Egyptian influence -
Kush,
Canaan, and
Phut (probably identical with the
Pitu, a Libyan tribe, though often associated with
Punt, an ancient name for
Benadir).
According to Noah began to raise
grapes after the
flood, and became drunk one day. While drunk, he lay naked in his tent. Ham saw his father naked, and told his brothers
Shem and
Japheth about it. Shem and Japheth went into the tent with their faces away from him, and covered him. When Noah awoke, he realized what had been done to him, and cursed Canaan, son of Ham, to be the "servant of servants" of Shem and Japheth.
The extent of the significance of this passage is debated, but the simplest interpretation considers "uncovering the
nakedness" of his father to be a great
taboo, and the inaction of Ham who chose instead to publicize and perhaps make light of the situation, to be what led Noah to curse Ham's youngest son, whereas Ham's brothers were blessed for their attempt to preserve their father's dignity.
The
Talmud deduces two possible explanations (attributed to Rab and Rabbi Samuel) for what Ham did to Noah to warrant the curse. (Babylonian Talmud Sanhedrin 70a.) According to one explanation, Ham
castrated Noah, while the other says that Ham sodomized Noah. The textual argument for castration is as follows: Since Noah cursed Ham by his fourth son Canaan, Ham must have injured Noah with respect to a fourth son, by emasculating him, thus depriving Noah of the possibility of a fourth son. The argument for sodomization from the text draws an analogy between “and he saw” written in two places in the Bible: With regard to Ham and Noah, it's written, “And Ham the father of Canaan saw the nakedness of his father (Noah)”; while in it's written, “And when Shechem the son of Hamor saw her (
Dinah), he took her and lay with her and defiled her.” Thus this speculation deduces that similar abuse must have happened each time that the Bible uses the same language.
This "
curse of Canaan" by Noah was likely connected to the conquest of Canaan by
Israel. Both the conquest of Canaan and the curse, according to the
Book of Jubilees 10:29-34, are attributed, rather, to Canaan's steadfast refusal to join his elder brothers in Ham's allotment beyond the
Nile, and instead "squatting" within the inheritance of Shem, on the eastern shores of the
Mediterranean, in the region later promised to Abraham.
The existence of Ham
Creationist scholars hold that some early civilizations came to worship humans deified as gods in the generations after the flood, perhaps owing to the extraordinary longevity of the first few generations after leaving the ark. Minimalist scholarship holds a parallel view, that many (but not all) early gods (or deified humans, for example
Herakles) are representative of personified
archetypes of races, for example, their family trees being codified descriptions of the inter-relatedness of each race and tribe (with some of the older/earlier generations being more speculative). Both of these distinct viewpoints agree that there's a connection between the family tree of the characters (whether gods or men) and that of tribes and races (although the extent of that connection varies, both amongst the characters in question, and amongst the scholars).
In the minimalist view, the early tribal name either became seen by later generations as the name of the "old ones", and thus gradually evolved into that of a god, or else was deliberately transformed into the name of a god, demi-god or hero, for the purpose of making it easier to tell the tale of a tribe representatively. However, minimalists generally prefer to avoid giving any credence to accounts of tribes being named for eponymous ancestors.
Counter arguments are often put forward that the connection is only between the
Egyptian word and the typical
modern pronunciation of Hebrew ? as /x/ ("kh") rather than /ħ/ (as was the case with
biblical Hebrew, and suggest that the appearance is lessened with the original Hebrew ??
Ḥam with Northwest
Semitic /ħ/ (such as in Hebrew,
Phoenician, and
Syriac). Further,
Kam, the version of the name in
Ge'ez—a South Semitic language—is seemingly borrowed from Biblical Hebrew
via the
Hebrew Bible and perhaps doesn't reflect a native derivation of the word.
In the
19th century, there was an erroneous
transcription of the Egyptian for
Min as
ĥm ("khem"), purely by coincidence. Since this
Khem was worshipped most significantly in
Akhmim, the separate identity of
Khem was reinforced,
Akhmim being understood as simply a corruption of
Khem. However,
Akhmim is a corruption of
?m-mnw, meaning
Shrine of Min, via the
demotic form
šmn. The existence of a god named
Khem was later understood as a faulty reading, but unfortunately it had already been enshrined in books written by
E. A. Wallis Budge—now out of
copyright and widely reprinted. Thus this error still finds a home among some writers, who often use it to identify Ham with the imaginary god Khem, who may also be identified with the Greek
Titan Cronos. (
See the article Min (god) for more details.)
Nevertheless, since Khem (meaning black) was normally used to describe the fertile soils by the Nile, it was sometimes used as an epithet for Min, as the god of fertility. Since Khem was also an Egyptian name for Egypt (precisely because it described the soil of the Nile valley), there's also an association with Ham, who represented the forefather of the north-east African nations including Egypt. Ham could plausibly be a name derived from Khem (Egypt), or vice versa, via sound change, due to the change in language between Egyptian and Hebrew, corresponding to the well known phonological change of /k/ into /x/ (voiceless velar fricative) into /h/.
Identifications based on Jasher
Ham. Also Kham. -
Hamites). Some of the names of Ham's descendants in the list below don't appear anywhere in the Bible, but rather originated from the mediaeval rabbinic work, the
Book of Jasher. Amongst the ethnic groups various modern authors have attempted to link Ham's children to include:
- Cush (sons were Seba, Havilah, Sabta, Raamah and Sabtecha) - also Chus, Kush, Kosh (Nubians, Ethiopians, Somalis, Sudanese, Eriteans, and other related groups.)
Mizraim "double lands" (sons were Lud, Anom, Pathros, Chasloth and Chaphtor) - also Misraim, Mitzraim, Mizraite, Mitsrayim (Egyptians, Khemets, Philistines, and other related groups.)
Phut "a bow" (sons were Gebul, Hadan, Benah and Adan) - also Putaya, Putiya, Punt, Puta, Put, Libia, Libya (Libyans, Cyrenacians, Tunisians, Tuaregs, The extinct Guanches of the Canary Islands, North Africans, and other related groups.)
Canaan "down low" (sons were Zidon, Heth, Amori, Gergashi, Hivi, Arkee, Seni, Arodi, Zimodi and Chamothi) - also Canaanites, Cana, Chna, Chanani, Chanana, Canaana, Kana, Kenaanah, Kena'ani, Kena'an, Kn'nw, Kyn'nw, Kinnahu, Kinahhi, Kinahni, Kinahna, Kinahne (Canaanites,Sumer and Phoenicians).Further Information
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