Welcome to season five of Enter the Bible, a podcast in which we share "Everything You Wanted to Know about the Bible...but were afraid to ask."

We kick of the season with the Assistant to the Bishop for Emerging Ministers & Ministries for the Indiana-Kentucky Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, guest Cory Driver joining our hosts Katie Langston and Kathryn Schifferdecker.

Today our theologians will be answering the question, "What Might Have Been Going on between Ham and Noah?"

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Katie Langston: Hey, friends. Katie Langston here. Just a quick note before we get into this episode. The conversation is responding to kind of a difficult text and some mentions of sexual violence and other kinds of violence and sort of disturbing themes come up. So I wanted you to know that in advance. Take care. Take care of yourself, if you know, if you need to skip this one, that's okay, too. But yeah, welcome and we'll dive in. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Enter the Bible podcast where you can get answers or at least reflections on everything you wanted to know about the Bible but were afraid to ask. I am Katie Langston,

Kathryn Schifferdecker: And I'm Kathryn Shifferdecker and today we have as our special guest, Reverend Dr. Corey Driver. Corey is the Assistant to the Bishop for Emerging Ministries and Ministers in the Indiana Kentucky Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, which we are all members of, all pastors in actually, Corey is also a pastor in the ELCA. He's also an adjunct professor at Luther Seminary and has done some wonderful work for us and the author of a recent book called Life Unsettled A Scriptural Journey for Wilderness Time by Fortress Press. So we are so delighted to have you here with us, Corey. Thank you for joining us for the Enter the Bible Podcast.

Cory Driver: A great pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we have a question from a listener for today's podcast that references a rather strange story in the opening chapters of Genesis. So it is it is really strange. And the story comes is, is in Genesis nine. So this is right after the flood narrative and you know, everything's renewed and there's a covenant made between God and Noah and the family, the sons of Noah, who are Shem, Ham and Japheth. And then we get this strange story starting in verse 18 with a story primarily between Noah and his son, Ham and our listener wants to know what is up with this story about Ham seeing his father naked? And you know, what exactly did Ham do wrong here? So, Corey, we saved this question for you.

Katie Langston: So just to so the so Noah gets drunk and he's passed out drunk and then he's naked and then his and then Ham sees him and then, like, tells his brothers like, huh, Look, check it out. And then the brothers come along and cover the dad up. And so.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: without looking at him.

Katie Langston: without looking at him, they avert, they avert their eyes, the other brothers. And then the,and then Noah Noah wakes up. You know, I'm assuming he had a bad wine hangover. I know for me, wine does a number, and he somehow finds out about this and then curses Ham for what he did. No, he does not curse him.

Cory Driver: He curses Canaan. He curses Canaan.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: The son of Ham .

Katie Langston: Oh.

Cory Driver: This is one of the weirder texts. It is even weirder.

Katie Langston: Then he curses his grandson because his because his because hs Noah's son, Canaan, his grandson's dad,saw him naked. Isn't it Noah's fault?

Cory Driver: Yeah.

Katie Langston: Like maybe you shouldn't drink that much wine.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Maybe don't get drunk.

Katie Langston: That you pass out naked. Step one.

Cory Driver: Yeah.

Katie Langston: Possible.

Cory Driver: Step one. Yeah. Also, like killjoy. We definitely don't want to blame victims either. And so there, there is this note that Noah's going a little overboard. Pun very much intended. But, you know, it's. It's been a minute since he's had a drink, presumably. Oh, sure, sure. And he's had a year, right? Like it has been rough.

Katie Langston: He has had a. Year. He had a rough year. He really has had a year. He's had it rough.

Cory Driver: And so, you know, if anybody needs a drink.

Katie Langston: No, I do not. You are you are right that that is not his.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Well, and it does note that he's the first to plant a vineyard. So he's he's like the first vinter. What who's who makes wine a winemaker. What's the is that the right term. Okay anyway.

Cory Driver: Vintner

Katie Langston: You're very good at wine Kathryn.

Cory Driver: But there's strange things happening in this text, and the weirdness starts out right away. Um. The Sons of Noah are Shem, Ham and Jacob. And Ham is the father of Canon or Canaan. Right. I'll switch back and forth either way. Why? Why foreground that? Like what's what's going on? And then what happens in that tent are questions that people have been asking for millennia before us. Um. My very wise and compassionate colleague whose office is just across this wall behind me, always says, We don't have Q & A's. We have Q & R's, right? Like we'll give responses that are probably not answers. So, um, the rabbis have four responses to what is going on here.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Okay, first, who who are the rabbis? Cory.

Cory Driver: Great question. Thank you. So I will be working from the Talmud, the Babylonian Talmud. So think about fifth century common era or AD if you want to, and then a key interlocutor is going to be Rashi, who is an 11th century rabbi living in the south of France. So think like Iraq in the fifth century and Nice or Marseille in the 11th century.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: And the Babylonian Talmud is a collection of Jewish writings that interprets biblical texts and talks a lot about well, sometimes uses biblical texts as the pretext to talk about Jewish law and customs.

Cory Driver: Yeah, Yeah. So it's sort of like a biblically informed commentary on Jewish life a couple hundred years earlier. Right? Um, so like, if these things were still in existence, if the temple still stood, here's what we might think about that. Um, and so there's a lot of Bible play and that's. That's what I'm going to do. So there's this is a weird thing and we can be weird with it. Um, and so right away Rashi notes that there are starting in verse 20. Um, this, uh, combination of two letters at the beginning of a lot of verbs. So, like, they feel he began to be a vintner. He began to be a farmer of to write like he planted. So there's this vey you you'd write v y, and it happens 13 times. And so Rashi is going to say, There's this 13 which we want to pay attention to because like, that's a scary number, right? Like we skip floor 13 on hotels, like same number play in the vey yud is like, whoa, they so like you would say oy vey in Yiddish or in Hebrew. Oh boy. Right. Whoa. Like this is a scary thing. So there's a scary number of scary things going on in this passage. Let the reader understand.

Katie Langston: Dun dun dun.

Cory Driver: So exactly. So Rashi says, Be careful what you're getting into. This is weirder than weird. So just that's the warning up front.

Katie Langston: I agree. Vashi. Vashi.

Cory Driver: Yeah. Rashi.

Katie Langston: Rashi. I agree with you. Yeah.

Cory Driver: Yeah, well, he agrees with you.

Katie Langston: Me and Rashi go way back.

Cory Driver: Way back.

Cory Driver: Summers in the south of France. Why not? So Noah does what he does, right? He plants. He gets interested in the whole wine production, and he goes into a tent. Now, specifically, there might be a misreading the Hebrew for tent. The last letter is a hey rather than a vav. We read it as hollow and he goes into his tent. But if the short vowels are different, if we go with the consonants, it might be he goes into her tent. So it may be. Again, he's had a year, right? So it may be that he gets drunk and goes into his wife's tent and takes off his clothes and says, Ready? Right. And so it may be significantly less weird.

Katie Langston: That is less weird. That he is naked. That is less weird. Yeah. So it's normal.

Cory Driver: Yeah. You know, you drink sometimes you take a nap before other things happen. Sure. So this could be an afternoon, right?

Katie Langston: Good for Noah.

Cory Driver: So we want to say that on the front end, right? Like Noah's getting up there in age.

Katie Langston: Like, good for him. Good for him, then. Yeah.

Cory Driver: Yeah, certainly people have lived long and like had children at later ages. So, you know, this may be an incredibly normal.

Katie Langston: Yeah, right.

Cory Driver: So he is in a tent. The short vowels will lead us to think that it's his tent, but we don't necessarily have to read it that way. It might be her tent. Um, and he passes out, and then a thing happens, right? And so a shot at like a standard reading of the text is that Ham comes in, sees his father, goes out of the tent, tells his brothers "dad' s naked." They do a thing and we'll talk about what they do in a second and who does what. The Hebrew isn't as clear as maybe the English. And then Noah wakes up. And immediately knows what was done to him. And then he curses Canan. Who's the son of Ham. Okay, so the standard reading of the text, Ham sees him naked, doesn't explain the two weirdnesses. Right. Does Noah know right when he wakes up, if somebody's seen him naked? Well, no. If he's passed out drunk, right? Like you don't necessarily know what has happened while you're unconscious if it's only looking. And two: Why on earth curse Ham's son? Yeah, that's. That's weird. And so the rabbis of the Talmud are going to say, well, there's something else happening here because you don't know who has looked at you when you're asleep, when you wake up. That's. That's strange. And, like, weird to curse your grandson, if indeed that's what's happening again. So they propose three alternatives. So the first response is just what a standard reading of the text sees naked. But it leaves all these questions unanswered. The second is. And all the trigger warnings necessary. Uh, maybe Ham sleeps with Noah's wife who might be his mom or stepmom. So Deuteronomy 22:30 is going to talk about sleeping with your father's wife as uncovering nakedness.

Katie Langston: Okay.

Cory Driver: And so maybe Noah's viewing of nakedness of his father is actually sleeping with his mom or stepmom.

Katie Langston: That would be that gross.

Cory Driver: And. That would be gross and weird to us and

Kathryn Schifferdecker: And gainst the law.

Cory Driver: Against the law, which hasn't happened yet, but, like, something you really shouldn't do, right? Like you should know. Um, and maybe he gets her pregnant, and maybe that son is.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Ahhhh Canaan . Right.

Cory Driver: And so, you know, maybe Canaan is not, in fact, in the fullest sense, Noah's grandson, but the son of his wife and son, which is yucky. Yeah.

Katie Langston: That's not the best.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Now, maybe it's. You're probably going to get to this Cory. But it's worth noting, I think here that Canaan, of course, is the ancestor of the Canaanites, who are Israel's traditional enemies, right? That the people that they are not to associate with, the people who lead them into idolatry sometimes. And so

Katie Langston: People whose land they take over eventually, right after the exodus isn't that t rue as well.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: True as well. But but this this story, right, about your enemies ancestor, whose name is Canaan is just that, right. It's it's a it's a kind of dissing of your enemies.

Cory Driver: Okay. And ignominious beginning serve purposes here.

Katie Langston: Sure. Sure.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Okay. But sorry. Go ahead.

Cory Driver: So that explains why cursing Canaan. But it doesn't explain why Noah wakes up and knows what has been done to him because you wouldn't necessarily wake up. So another response is given and again, trigger warnings. Maybe Ham raped Noah.

Katie Langston: Oh, Lord.

Cory Driver: Yeah. Mean the rabbis go all the way, right? So, like, maybe that's. And so this is the Talmud. This is Sanhedrin 70A understanding reading Genesis with Genesis saying, Well, what about in Genesis 34 when Shechem saw Dinah? Right. What what do we think went there? So maybe that's what the seen nakedness.

Katie Langston: So that's a euphemism basically seeing naked. Yeah. Is a euphemism for Yeah. Okay.

Cory Driver: Yeah right.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Because in Genesis 34, it says very explicitly that Shechem raped Dinah who's one of, who's the daughter of Jacob.

Katie Langston: They use that but they use that, but they use that euphemism for it.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Defiles. So. Yeah.

Katie Langston: Oh well.

Cory Driver: So maybe. But then that's the other way of the problem. Like Noah wakes up and immediately knows what's been done to him to be sure. But then why Curse Canaan? Like what? That doesn't make any sense. So then the fourth response is given. And this to me makes the most sense. And this is where most of the rabbis land. Trigger warning again. Is that maybe Ham castrate?.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Oh, my.

Katie Langston: Goodness.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Oh. Oh, my.

Cory Driver: Um, and that makes some sense. Uh, how.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Noah would know what happened?

Cory Driver: Know what happened to him and why Noah would curse Canaan, right? Because Canaan is Ham's fourth son. Right? Kush, Mizrahim, Poot and Canaan. Right. And so Noah will not be able to have a fourth son. And so he's cursing the fourth son that ham has prevented him from having. And so the brothers ask, like, That seems weird. Why did you do that? Like, we'll go in and like, provide some covering in this reading of bandage.

Katie Langston: Oh, geez.

Cory Driver: No, look. Yeah. Yucky. Why are.

Katie Langston: Bible, why are you weird sometimes? And go on.

Cory Driver: Yeah, Ham says. Well, look, you know, we're not so many generations from Adam, right? And Adam and Eve had two kids, and one of them killed the other one. I'm helping us all out because if Mom and Dad have a fourth kid. Right. That's just not good odds. Somebody's going to kill somebody. So I'm not killing dad. I'm certainly not hurting mom. We would never want to hurt mom. I'm just preventing another son, right? You're just helping us all out here, right? And so if you think about it, it makes sense, right?

Kathryn Schifferdecker: That a really odd interpretation of the text .

Katie Langston: In really that's not in the text right?

Cory Driver: No, no, that's not in the text at all.

Katie Langston: The rabbis. just said that maybe that was it. Okay.

Cory Driver: We're trying to answer the questions that come from the text and we're giving ourselves as much permission to play as we want to. Right. The questions are, how did Noah know when he woke up and why curse Canaan? And this is a solution to a problem we didn't know we had. Um, and so those are the those are the four responses, right? Like maybe he just sees dad naked. That doesn't answer either question.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Yeah.

Cory Driver: You know. Maybe he slept with his wife. That answers one, but not the other. Maybe. Uh, yep. And then finally, maybe it's castration. And that answers both the questions, but it's. It's pretty. It's a walk from the text. Yeah, but if that's the thing. We actually really like Noah, right? Who doesn't order anybody killed. Doesn't like the curse is that you're going to serve your uncles and your cousins. Right? No death anywhere here, right? Like you could see being pretty mad about this thing and going overboard. But the thing that Noah curses is actually pretty light given the context and the culture and the situation. So. That's a menu of what might be happening.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: That is

Cory Driver: Some are more savory than others.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: That is really fascinating Cory. Thank you. Did not know that rabbinic interpretation. I've just always looked at that story as one of those real weird stories in the Bible that probably was passed down orally, right from generation to generation. And so they have to do something with it. And so, you know, they stick it in there. It's kind of like the one right after the burning bush where God seems to want to kill Moses. But that's another podcast, maybe.

Cory Driver: Oh, let's do that again.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Yeah, yeah.

Cory Driver: That's one of my other favorites.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: But no, the thing I love about rabbinic interpretation as sometimes you know that first of all, they're not afraid to talk about unsavory things, right? But some some things that really do happen.

Katie Langston: There are unsavory things in this world,

Cory Driver: in the Bible.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: They're unsavory things in life, correct?

Cory Driver: Yeah.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: And secondly, they're very imaginative and in a way that kind of makes sense, right? That to to fill in the gaps of the biblical narrative in a way that, you know, may not be pleasant, but at least make some sense of of weird stories like this. But yeah, and I also like the dialogical nature of rabbinic interpretation, right? Because Rabbi, you know, X has this opinion and Rabbi Y has this opinion. And then, you know, they may not they may not agree with one another, but but they dialogue with one another. I think that multifaceted way of interpretation is really interesting.

Cory Driver: And the openness with like, let's try this. And if that doesn't work, let's try the next thing, right? And so it's like, what is this solves that, but not that. Let's keep going. I. I think there's maybe a gentle prescription there for Christians.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Yes, I think so.

Cory Driver: When we notice things that aren't working to have the freedom and support and maybe celebration of trying things. I think that's lovely. I do want to. Oh, sorry.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: No, I just want to note, and this is probably where you're going already, The the the American interpretation of this story is that we're where you were.

Cory Driver: No, I don't know that. I don't know the American interpretation.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: It's it's worth noting, not current American interpretation, but back in the 16th, 17th century.

Cory Driver: Yes. Yes.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: American slaveholders justified American chattel slavery.

Katie Langston: Oh, yes.

Katie Langston: By referring back to this story, to the curse of Ham. They called it the curse of Ham when it.

Katie Langston: And that's why he said it's not a curse. Right. Okay. Okay.

Cory Driver: Well, it's not. That's why it's the curse of Canaan. Right, Right, right, right. Because it's specifically the lapse that we had earlier to see this as ham being cursed And ham in the table of nations is the progenitor of most of the African nations named. Right. So Kush, Mizrahim, Put right. And so you can justify. Like transatlantic slave trade. If it's a curse of Ham. But you cannot if it's a curse of Canaan, which like you have to take that really crucial detail out of the text.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Right.

Cory Driver: To support that transatlantic slavery.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Right. Yeah. So just to be clear, so it's it was called the Curse of ham. It's not the curse of ham. It's the curse of Canaan or Kenan. But again, slaveholding Christians starting in the 16th, 17th century justified the enslavement of Africans and people of African descent by saying, well, Ham was cursed and Ham was, you know, and Ham. It's the text says Cursed be Canaan. Lowest of slaves shall he be to his brothers like, you know, blessed by the Lord, my God be Shem and like Canaan and be his slave. ET cetera. ET cetera. And then the same with Japheth. Let Canaan be his slave. So they're saying, you know, since Ham later in the Table of nations in Genesis ten is said to be the ancestor of all of people of of Africans, you know, that's how they justified the the slave trade. But they missed, again, as Cory said, this critical detail that it's not him that's that's cursed. It's Canaan. And even if it was him that was curse that's not justification for going against all the rest of scriptures talks about people being created in the image of God. Yeah. Anyway, just worth noting that that's not a current interpretation, but it was a prominent interpretation that needs to be rejected. And. And yeah, rejected. Categorically. Yeah. Uncategorically.

Cory Driver: Why this is holy work, right? Like. Yeah. To dig into these texts and say this, not that. Yeah.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: I think one thing, just speaking as a historian, you know, using historical criticism is to go back to that that detail about that. It's it's you know Canaan who is cursed and that this really is an ideological tale.

Katie Langston: What does ideological mean?

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Why the Canaanites why the Canaanites are not good people. Right. Or why they why the Israelites are justified in conquering the Canaanites. So not a not a yeah, not a great motivation but probably underlies a lot of this. Very strange.

Katie Langston: But what does ideological mean?

Kathryn Schifferdecker: So it's the it's a story that goes that that justifies a current day practice or talks about, you know, where a certain custom or a certain people came from by putting that like origin story, it's like an origin story.

Katie Langston: So it's saying. We because because Noah cursed Canaan. This is why we hate them. Basically.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Basically.

Katie Langston: And why we can take their land. Okay.

Cory Driver: So can I say just quick break.

Cory Driver: No, Katie, you had.

Katie Langston: No, I'm just I'm just processing. It's been a lot to process today.

Cory Driver: Yeah. Oh, it's not one of the not one of the, like, stellar. Um.

Katie Langston: It's like, not the more uplifting stories, not one of the more uplifting stories in scripture.

Cory Driver: I've got an uplifting one. I've got an uplifting thing. So in verse 23, the verb for took is single. It's. It's singular. So Shem took and also went along. And so if one person can come up with evil to abuse folk who are just sleeping one off, for heaven's sake.

Katie Langston: Yeah.

Cory Driver: One person can also say, I'm going to get involved and make this better, right? I'm going to be proactive and turn at least twice. Right? There's two turning verbs so that I don't abuse this person and I'm going to take steps to reverse or provide what repentance I can for somebody else's abuse. Right. And so Shem and Jephath and work together in certain other verbs. But initially it's Shem, right. And so one person abuses and one person says, I'm going to reverse what I can and I'm going to get other people involved. So I think that's a lovely model to say, Look, something happened to Dad. While he's unconscious. I'm going to start. Jepheth You are with me. We are going to work together. And so where, you know, people do bad things that hurt other people. We know that. Shem provides this lovely model of intervening, undermining, hurt, and involving other people in the process and preserving dignity. And, you know, presumably they're so gentle, they don't even wake him up. Right. Whatever it is they're doing. And I think that's a lovely bit out of this story. Right? Like we don't know what happened in the tent. We know what happens outside of the tent. Shem gets involved marshals material in order to preserve somebody else's dignity. That's lovely.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Thank you so much, Cory. That's a good place to end, I think, in a very strange story. Yes. To find to find some grace, though, and a lesson for how to act. So thank you so much, Cory.

Katie Langston: Sure. So but really quick before we end and just like a meta reflection, I would appreciate a meta reflection on why these weird, weird stories are in the Bible, because I think a lot of folks listening. Might be used to trying to get like a good, like a good moral out of the text or they're. You know what I mean? Like, it's like, why? Why would these weird stories be in there if we're going to call it the Word of God?

Kathryn Schifferdecker: I'll take a stab at that and then you can Cory. So I would say, speaking as a historical critic, you know, like a biblical scholar would probably just say, I think what I said a few minutes ago, that these are stories handed down from generation to generation. They kind of become the stuff of legend. And so when they're written down, finally, you know, everything's written down, including the weird stuff like this. And again, probably because this is a story about Canaan, an enemy of Israel, that's also why it's preserved. We can say the same thing about the story of Lot and his daughters. Right. Who who engage in incest and then the the ancestors of Moab and Amon. Right. Who are also kind of our enemies.

Katie Langston: All our enemies do this. This is the thing that all our enemies do.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Yeah. Kind of speaking. So that's just speaking historically, I think speaking theologically, there's. Yeah. The Bible does not condone everything that it talks about, right?

Katie Langston: Amen.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Talking about something telling a story doesn't mean that it's condoned. I mean, obviously, hymns. Whatever Ham did to his father is not condoned here, but it's still talked about because, as I think we've said in other podcasts, you know. Bad things happen in life and the Bible doesn't shy away from bad or weird things happening from describing them, but it's not prescribing them. It's not saying this is how, you know, this is what should happen. So in that way, I kind of I kind of like it. It's a messy book in many ways because. Because we live messy lives, we're messy people. And, you know, to use the theological term, we're sinful people. And so the Bible talks about sin without condoning it.

Cory Driver: Um, very, very quickly. My next book project is about gender trauma, Ssex and sexuality in Genesis. A nd I think what we have here is actually healthy to build off of what Kathryn said, right? Like you have a multigenerational family story and shame and embarrassment and hurt want to make us hide stories and minimize stories and healing and especially trauma care and recovery means airing out the stories and saying this happened. Right. And to not say it was good because it was horrible. But to be really honest and say, I am not going to let this fester anymore, but like this unalloyed accounting that spares details, right? We're asking the questions we're asking because there's a lot of details that aren't presented. But to say this really happened and I think Genesis may be more than any other place, is this multi-generational family story of kind of a banged up family that God chooses repeatedly in every generation to interact with. And if anything, that's kind of uplifting and provides a lot of energy and instruction for trauma healing, right? Like if we have multigenerational injuries and they continue to be of a certain nature, right? Genesis is the place to go to see like, yes, this is happening. You can be honest about it and God is faithful faithfully present generation after generation. Even when stuff is really banged up. And so, yeah, sociologically, I think it's good news that there's banged up stories here. Because that's where God is, right?

Katie Langston: Thank you Cory. Wow, That's really helpful. Thank you.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Well, and thank you to our listeners for listening to another episode of the Enter the Bible podcast, Everything You Wanted to Know About the Bible, but Were Afraid to ask. We really thank Corey again for joining us to talk about this very strange story. And thank you to the listeners who the listener who asked that question. If you have a question that you want to ask about the Bible and you'd like to hear us talk about with with the guests, please go to enter the bible.org and and offer your question. And also please check out the website. We have videos, we have other podcasts, we have other episodes of the podcast. We have maps. We have an interpretation of every book and and articles about every book of the Bible. So come check us out. And thank you again for listening. Take care.