Talk:Curse of Ham

Dead Sea Scrolls: 4Q252

Fragment I, Column II:

^{Line 6: viii, 18} on the first day of the week. On that day Noah went forth from the ark

^{Line 7: ix, 24-5} And Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him. And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a slave of slaves shall he be to [his] bro[thers].

^{Line 8: ix, 27} But he did not curse Ham but only his son, for God had blessed the sons of Noah. And let him dwell in the tents of Shem.

(--Translated by Géza Vermès )

References

Ham not cursed

Justin Martyr, who is considered to be the first Christian writer to comment on Noah’s curse and blessings in Gen 9:25-27, also supports the same view as rabbinic tradition, that Ham could not have been cursed as based on Genesis 9:1. However, Martyr interpreted that the curse was transmitted onto all of Ham’s descendants, Canaan being as a representing example of a sorts. [Goldenberg. The Curse of Ham, 2009, (ISBN 1400828546, 9781400828548), p. 158]

References

Comparisons in mythology

According to the text published in 1498 by the monk Annio da Viterbo purporting to be an ancient Babylonian chronicle ("Pseudo-Berossus"), Ham studied the evil arts that had been practiced before the flood, and thus became known as "Cam Esenus" (Ham the licentious) as well as the original Zoroaster and Saturn (Cronus). He became jealous of Noah's additional children born after the deluge, and began to view his father with enmity. One day when Noah lay drunk and naked in his tent, Ham saw him and sang a mocking incantation that rendered Noah temporarily sterile, as if castrated. This account contains several other parallels connecting Ham with Greek myths of the castration of Uranus by Cronus, as well as Italian legends of Saturn and/or Camesis ruling over the Golden Age and fighting the Titanomachy. Ham in this account also abandons his wife who had been aboard the ark and had mothered the African peoples, and instead marries his sister Rhea, daughter of Noah, producing a race of giants in Sicily. Viterbo's text, while finding scholarly acceptance in the 16th century, has been widely dismissed as a forgery since ca. 1600.

Commentators

1. Origen (ca. 185-254): “For the Egyptians are prone to a degenerate life and quickly sink to every slavery of the vices. Look at the origin of the race and you will discover that their father Cham, who had laughed at his father’s nakedness, deserved a judgment of this kind, that his son Chanaan should be a servant to his brothers, in which case the condition of bondage would prove the wickedness of his conduct. Not without merit, therefore, does the discolored posterity imitate the ignobility of the race [Non ergo immerito ignobilitatem decolor posteritas imitatur].” - Homilies on Genesis 16.1.
2. Mar Ephrem the Syrian (ca. 306 – 373): "When Noah awoke and was told what Canaan did. . .Noah said, ‘Cursed be Canaan and may God make his face black,’ and immediately the face of Canaan changed; so did of his father Ham, and their white faces became black and dark and their color changed.”
3. The Cave of Treasures, 4th century Syriac work, gives the explanation that Canaan's curse was actually earned because he revived the sinful music and arts of Cain's progeny that had been before the flood. "And Canaan was cursed because he had dared to do this, and his seed became a servant of servants, that is to say, to the Egyptians, and the Cushites, and the Mûsâyê, [and the Indians, and all the Ethiopians, whose skins are black]."
4. Ishodad of Merv, the Syrian Christian bishop of Hedhatha, (9th century): When Noah cursed Canaan, “instantly, by the force of the curse. . .his face and entire body became black [ukmotha]. This is the black color which has persisted in his descendants.”
5. Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari, a Persian historian (c. 915), recounted a version of the story where Noah cursed both Canaan and Ham to slavery, on account of Ham's action of seeing his father naked and not covering him.
6. Eutychius, an Alexandrian Melkite patriarch, (d. 940): “Cursed be Ham and may he be a servant to his brothers… He himself and his descendants, who are the Egyptians, the Negroes, the Ethiopians and (it is said) the Barbari.”
7. Ibn al-Tayyib, an Arabic Christian scholar, Baghdad, (d. 1043): “The curse of Noah affected the posterity of Canaan who were killed by Joshua son of Nun. At the moment of the curse, Canaan’s body became black and the blackness spread out among them.”
8. Bar Hebraeus, a Syrian Christian scholar, (1226–86): “‘And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and showed [it] to his two brothers.’ That is…that Canaan was cursed and not Ham, and with the very curse he became black and the blackness was transmitted to his descendants… And he said, ‘Cursed be Canaan! A servant of servants shall he be to his brothers.’”
9. Anne Catherine Emmerich, a Catholic mystic (1774-1824): "I saw the curse pronounced by Noah upon Ham moving toward the latter like a black cloud and obscuring him. His skin lost its whiteness, he grew darker. His sin was the sin of sacrilege, the sin of one who would forcibly enter the Ark of the Covenant. I saw a most corrupt race descend from Ham and sink deeper and deeper in darkness. I see that the black, idolatrous, stupid nations are the descendants of Ham. Their color is due, not to the rays of the sun, but to the dark source whence those degraded races sprang".
10. John Brown, a Scottish Anglican Divine, published The Self-Interpreting Bible (1778). Genesis 9:25 footnote reads: “For about four thousand years past the bulk of Africans have been abandoned of Heaven to the most gross ignorance, rigid slavery, stupid idolatry, and savage barbarity.”

References

Needs fixing "Nevertheless, most Christians and Jews now disagree with such interpretations, because in the biblical text, Ham himself is not cursed, and race or skin color is never mentioned."

Too many pov edits to the line to trust it. Doug Weller talk 07:04, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

I also note that Whitford p 20 says :... one striking example , the belief that blackness as well as servitude were the result of Noah's curse upon his son Ham ( or Cham ) is shared by Christian , Jewish , and Muslim commentaries from the forth to the twelfth centuries .: Doug Weller talk 07:05, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

@Doug Weller: Hope you're doing well, Doug. I changed the {{disputed}} tag to the inline version targeting the specific content you were noting here, which I believe, based on your notes here, was the intention? If not, and/or if I have your intention wrong, feel free to revert or change it back. ButlerBlog (talk) 13:54, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

@ButlerblogThanks. I've taken this off my watchlist, trimming it down as much as I can. My research on archaeology and racism grows and grows, I'm finding more and more relevant topics and a lot of sources - reading them is really time consuming, turning them into article sections more so! And categorising existing articles, some of which don't even mention the blatant racism involved in the subject. Doug Weller talk 14:01, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

@Doug Weller: Those rabbit trails can be enlightening and interesting. It's one of the things that I love about wikipedia - I end up going down those paths and learning a lot! Knowing this is off your watchlist, I may ping you for input if the situation warrants (assuming that's alright with you - I know you've got more important things going on). ButlerBlog (talk) 14:26, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

@Butlerblog Yes, "rabbit trails" is a great description. Love them. I had no idea when I started my draft I'd find so much. Makes it a really major project. I need to decide when to go live, but my lead is hopeless at the moment. Do ping me if needed. Doug Weller talk 14:29, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

Issues needing correction in 2 Jubilees sections

The section on Jubilees under "Ham's transgression" needs one minor edit, but it has much more substantive issues in how it is phrased which would require major edits or its deletion. The minor edit is the phrase "Ham's curse." According to Jubilees (and Genesis) Ham is not cursed, Canaan is cursed. As mentioned elsewhere in the page, the interpretation that Ham was cursed is present in the history of interpretation. But it is not there in the book of Jubilees. Most likely, this section would make more sense if "Ham's curse" were changed to "Ham's transgression."

The more substantial issue is that this section has some errors and presents an argument that is very debatable rather than just the facts.

1. One error is that Jubilees 6:1-4 does show Noah offering a sacrifice in the context of God's making a covenant to never again destroy the earth with a flood, but the episode of Noah's drunkenness and curse of Canaan happens in the next chapter and years later. Jubilees 7:1 indicates that Noah plants the vineyard 7 weeks after the previous atoning sacrifice, and that he harvests it 4 years after that. Jubilees 7:2 adds that it is another year before he drinks wine from this harvest. All of this is to say that it is inaccurate to imply (as the current Wikipedia text does) that the sacrificial altar that Noah makes to atone for the land when God promises to never again bring a flood to destroy the earth is the same ceremonial context for the episode where Noah gets drunk and curses Canaan. They are years in time and a chapter in the text apart.
2. The section is correct in asserting that Noah is offering a sacrifice and celebration when he drinks wine. This happens in Jubilees 7:1-6. However, it is debatable whether one can say that it is like Shavuot "as if it were a prototype to the celebration of the giving of the Torah." Why would this sacrifice in Jubilees 7 be the prototype and not the previous atoning sacrifice in Jubilees 6? The statement as it stands is not a fact but an argument (if correctly paraphrased) from Devorah Dimant.
3. Although Noah does drink in the context of a sacrifice, it is not a fact that this context in the book of Jubilees makes it so "Ham's offense would constitute an act of disrespect not only to his father, but also to the festival ordinances." That is an opinion. Jubilees does not actually describe Ham's offense as disrespect or anything beyond the details in the biblical text: that Ham sees and tells his brothers (Jubilees 7:8). When Ham finds out that Noah cursed Ham's son, Canaan, Ham is displeased and leaves to establish a home--actually a reputable city--far from Noah. Japheth get's jealous and leaves to establish his own respectable city. But Shem stays close by Noah when he makes a city (Jubilees 7:13-17). Thus, Jubilees seems to claim that the implications of the curse for Ham is that it explains how far away (in comparison with his brothers) he went when he founded a city. This is the most obvious way that differences between Jubilees and Genesis have implications for Ham. If there is anything especially critical about Ham's guilt, it can only be established by a very nuanced argument, not the clear facts of what the passage says.

The section on Jubilees under "Curse of Canaan" has one significant inaccuracy to fix. It states that an agreement to not take the land allotted to another of Noah's sons is the reason Jubilees provides for why Canaan "so rightly deserved the curse of slavery." However, Jubilees has two different curses of Canaan going on here. Canaan is cursed by Noah to be a slave of slaves in Jubilees 7:10 just like in Genesis 9:25. As in Genesis, this is related to Ham seeing Noah's nakedness. After that, Jubilees has an episode where all of Noah's descendants agree to enter into the lands to which they were allotted. During this episode, a new curse is introduced and invoked by everyone on themselves if they usurp someone else's allotted land (Jubilees 9:14-15). According to R. H. Charles' translation, this one is a curse "for themselves and their sons for ever throughout their generations till the day of judgment, on which the Lord God shall judge them with a sword and with fire, for all the unclean wickedness of their errors, wherewith they have filled the earth with transgression and uncleanness and fornication and sin." Clearly, the details of this curse and the fact that any of Noah's descendants who takes the wrong allotted land can get it means that this not the same as the curse of slavery for Ham seeing Noah's nakedness. In Jubilees 10:29-34, Canaan breaks this oath and his family warns him not to do it lest he bring upon himself that particular "curse by which we bound ourselves by an oath" (10:32). All of this is to say that Jubilees has this further episode (also there in 4Q181) to justify Canaan being cursed, but it does not justify the curse of slavery that Noah proclaimed after awakening from his drunkenness. In fact, the fact that it adds a different curse that is thoroughly justified might imply that the authors of Jubilees saw Noah's previous curse as unjust. Jayreed2 (talk) 20:42, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

For each of these, you need to have a specific source to cite that backs up what you're intending to revise and/or add. For your point #3 regarding Ham's offense would constitute an act of disrespect not only to his father, but also to the festival ordinances: There are appropriate ways to address that, which may include revising the way it's presented to attribute it to the source, rather than it being explicitly stated as fact. But in any of these instances, what you present must be WP:NPOV and come from specifically cited secondary sources that are deemed to meet the criteria of WP:RS. It cannot be your own POV or WP:SYNTHESIS of sources. ButlerBlog (talk) 14:08, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for explaining this. For the first, minor edit before the three points, I don't think it needs a source. Simply put, it is in a sub-section titled Ham's transgression and that is what it is about, not the bigger topic of Ham's curse. (This point may be irrelevant considering what I propose below)

In addressing the rest of the section titled "Book of Jubilees" under "Ham's Transgression," I read the page numbers that are cited from Devorah Dimant, and I can see that the current Wikipedia page inaccurately conveys what the cited source says.

1. It is inaccurate to cite Devorah Dimant with the claim, "In the Book of Jubilees, the seriousness of Ham's curse is compounded by the significance of God's covenant to 'never again bring a flood on the earth.'" The article cites page 137. Actually, the quoted phrase occurs on 136. On that page, Dimant is explaining that Jubilees "turns Noah into a paradigm of correct morality of the renewed world." She then writes, "From the biblical story are taken the reestablishment of natural order, epitomized in the covenant God made with Noah, and in God's promises never again to bring a flood on the earth." Thus the phrase "never again bring a flood on the earth" is NOT used by the cited source to say anything about Ham or Ham's curse in contrast to what the Wikipedia article claims. Above, I commented that the Wikipedia article did not make sense on this particular point based on what is there in the book of Jubilees. Now I see that the author cited does not make the inaccurate claim presented in Wikipedia.
2. For point two, I commented on how the second and third sentence don't necessarily imply anything about the specific context of the story where Noah proclaims a curse because they are years apart in Jubilees. Having read the cited source, I now see that the cited secondary source does not make this mistake. Thus, although the Wikipedia article does partially convey Dimant's points about Noah in Jubilees presenting a sacrifice that is a prototype of Shavuot, Dimant does not say this has anything to do with Noah's curse on Canaan or Ham's transgression. Dimant is only concerned with what this implies about the depiction of Noah.
3. For point three, I said that the final sentence of the section is an opinion rather than a fact. @Butlerblog says it can be revised better to reflect this. I agree. Actually, it is partially a direct quote from Dimant. Unfortunately, since the sentences before it misconstrue what the cited source says, the quote now also misconstrues what the cited author intends to mean.

Considering all that is above, I propose the following revised paragraph:

According to Devorah Dimant, the book of Jubilees depicts Noah planting, harvesting, and drinking wine in accordance with the stipulations of the Torah such that Noah's drunkenness appears less problematic and Ham's offense appears more problematic than in Genesis. Dimant writes that the timing of Noah's viniculture and the procedure of Noah's sacrifice in Jubilees 7:1-6 match Second Temple Judaism interpretations of Leviticus 19:23-25 and Numbers 29:1-6 [Cite page 138]. Thus, she claims "<i>Jubilees</i> alleviates any misgivings that may be provoked by the episode of Noah's drunkenness. In this light, Ham's offense constitutes an act of disrespect not only to his father, but also to the festival ordinances." [Cite page 139]

For the section titled "Jubilees" under "Curse of Canaan," I wrote a long explanation to say that the last clause is inaccurate; "and so rightly deserved a curse of slavery" should be removed. My previous claim was based on what is literally there in Jubilees. Now, that I have gone and read the secondary source cited (from John Van Seters), I see that the Wikipedia article misconstrues what it cites. Instead of saying that the incident where Canaan steals land delineated for Shem makes it so that Canaan "rightly deserves the curse of slavery," Van Seters actually writes "Though he was warned by his own family, Canaan rejected their counsel and took upon himself the full force of a second curse." [p. 492]. Van Seters makes no claim that this passage from Jubilees shows Canaan deserved the earlier curse of slavery.

I propose deleting the last sentence of that section and replacing it with the following two sentences:

Later, however, <i>Jubilees</i> explains further that Ham had allocated to Canaan a land west of the Nile (Jubilees 9:1), and all Noah's sons agreed to invoke a curse on anyone who tries to seize land that was not allocated to them (Jubilees 9:14-15). But Canaan violated this agreement and chose to squat in the land delineated to Shem and his descendants, and so Canaan brought upon himself the full force of this second curse (Jubilees 10:29-35). [Cite the same source pages 491-492] Jayreed2 (talk) 15:36, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

Those revisions look good to me. I appreciate you going directly to the existing sources for review. Sometimes, that's a very necessary cleanup to an article because over time, if someone puts in something from a source, and other editors come along with changes to that original text without referring to the source, it can introduce "style drift". So it's always a good idea to verify against current citations. The only thing I'd recommend in those changes is using gender neutral language in the attribution - specifically, change "Thus, she claims" to "Thus, Dimant claims". Minorly, on point #1, double check the edition being used to make sure the citation and your copy are the same edition. If they are, change the page number to reflect the correct one. ButlerBlog (talk) 16:02, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

Lead POV

Keep in mind that the lead is intended to simply summarize the key points outlined and expanded upon in the article. Further, the first paragraph, especially the opening sentence, needs to be a basic description of what the topic is, without opening the door to POV. To state that the topic is "a common misnomer" introduces POV into the opening sentence implies that the entire topic of the article is going to be a discussion of it being a "misnomer" and why it is "common", which it does not. The discussion of Canaan v. Ham is covered, but it is only one part of the article, not the entire thing. Further, the use of the term "common" would have to be expounded upon to explain why it is common, which the article also does not cover. It's essentially a weasel word that should be avoided if it cannot be explicitly supported. ButlerBlog (talk) 14:23, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for adding this talk section. I am new to editing Wikipedia and trying to learn best practices.

Thank you for explaining how the first sentence functions and that it is intended to be a basic description of the topic without opening the door to a POV or other matters not prominent in the article. I disagree with you saying that "To state the topic is a common misnomer introduces POV." Perhaps the start of the article could be phrased better to reflect what I tried to summarize there.

The topic is not a misnomer; the phrase "Curse of Ham" is a misnomer if it is used to describe the general, current topic of this article. Dozens (perhaps more than a hundred) academic articles or books on the topic point that out. For that reason, some scholars use the more accurate term "Curse of Canaan" or "Noah's Curse" to describe the passage in in Genesis where Noah curses Canaan. In the bibliography cited at the end of this Wikipedia article, every work that includes "Curse of Ham" in the title (three sources by Goldenberg, one from CrhristainAnswers.net, and one from Whitford) do not use the phrase "curse of Ham" to describe a curse "imposed by the patriarch Noah upon Ham's son Canaan" (which is what the opening sentence says). They use the phrase "Curse of Ham" more narrowly to describe a history of interpretation that Ham or Ham's descendants are cursed.

The sources that I cited all point out the inaccuracy of the term "curse of Ham" to describe the narrative in Genesis although they don't use the term "misnomer." For example, the first one I cited says, "No other verse in the Bible has been so distorted [...] It is quite clear that as the text stands, the curse was not upon Ham" (Yamauchi, Africa and the Bible, 19). The other two that I cited make the same point with much more words. Each is saying that this is commonly thought of, interpreted, or referred to as "the curse of Ham" even though the biblical text does not have a curse of Ham.

I looked at Koala and see that the opening sentence of that Wikipedia page points out that the animal is "inaccurately, koala bear." And, of course, the rest of that long page is not about the inaccuracy of the term "koala bear"; only one short paragraph is. But that term is a common and inaccurate title for what the article is about. I was trying to get across the same thing in the opening line because it's a very similar situation: the common phrase used to describe the current topic is technically inaccurate and everyone who studies it knows this even though the phrase continues to be used. In popular discourse it might be used to describe what happens in Genesis and its history of interpretation. The writings cited on the topic only use it to describe the latter. To open the article by claiming that "The curse of Ham is described in the Book of Genesis [...]" just starts with a technically inaccurate statement that no expert on the topic would corroborate.

I added the sentence about how the history of interpretation is the reason that the term "Curse of Ham" continues to be used even though it is inaccurate. Perhaps that sentence does not need to be there or it could be revised so that it doesn't imply that the article is mainly about why the term "Curse of Ham" remains popular. Jayreed2 (talk) 16:34, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

Sorry if I was unclear on the objection - it's not really an objection to pointing out that the term is inaccurate. That's known, and I don't have an issue with it. It's primarily the way in which was worded and presented. I was looking at the page on Canaan to see how it was handled there, which is This is the Curse of Canaan, erroneously called the "Curse of Ham" since Classical antiquity because of the interpretation that Canaan was punished for his father Ham's sins. I'd support something along the lines of:

The curse of Ham is described in the Book of Genesis as imposed by the patriarch Noah upon Ham's son Canaan. It occurs in the context of Noah's drunkenness and is provoked by a shameful act perpetrated by Noah's son Ham, who "saw the nakedness of his father". Since the curse is actually upon Canaan, the term Curse of Ham is considered to be inaccurate (or a misnomer, or some other synonym).

Or something along those lines, anyway. Then, you can expand that in the article. I would probably include noting this toward the end of the Biblical narrative section as a transition to a new section or subsection (immediately following) that discusses the origin of the term and expanding on that. ButlerBlog (talk) 17:59, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

Book of Enoch

according to book 3 of the book Enoch, Noah was the first child born with a different nature with skin whiter than snow and redder than a bloom of rose, and hairs on his head whiter than white wool and his eyes were like rays of the sun. 105.113.70.232 (talk) 06:42, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

In other words, Noah was the first child born differently from the suppose nature of man. Skin colour, hairs and eyes. 105.113.70.232 (talk) 06:46, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

European origins of connection between Ham, blackness and slavery?

Under the section 'Racism and Slavery' we find the following claim:

In the 15th century, Dominican friar Annius of Viterbo invoked the Curse of Ham to explain the differences between Europeans and Africans in his writings...Through these and other writings, European writers established a hitherto unheard of connection between Ham, Africa and slavery, which laid the ideological groundwork for justifying the transatlantic slave trade.

Note the word 'hitherto'. However, in the following section, we are told

the version brought in a midrash goes on further to say "Ham, that Cush came from him" in reference to the blackness,[50] that the curse did not apply to all of Ham but only to his eldest son Cush, who migrated to sub-Sahara Africa

suggesting it was in a Jewish midrash that the connection was made between Ham and blackness/Africa, presumably taking us back to the ancient world. The following paragraph says that

Some medieval Muslim writers – including Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari, Ibn Khaldun, and even the later Book of the Zanj – asserted the view that old biblical texts describe the effects of Noah's curse on Ham's descendants as being related with blackness, slavery, and a requirement not to let the hair grow past the ears.

Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari is a 9th century figure, making the Ham/blackness/slavery connection five centuries before Annius and co. So what is going on here? LastDodo (talk) 13:10, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

Without looking entirely at the larger picture, perhaps Annius used al-Tabari as a source and was in essence brining this idea into the Western world from what was already in the Middle East? But, just spitballing here... I just threw that out as that's how I would probably start to approach it, looking for more sources to support that, and then rework what would appear to be an inconsistency in the article. If that's what you're inclined to do, have at it.* Maybe there are sources out there that tie this together? (*Just don't do it in a way that ends up being WP:OR or, more likely, WP:SYNTH.) ButlerBlog (talk) 15:11, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

Okay so I have come across a book called The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity and Islam (2003) by David Goldenberg, that examines the question of the origin of the connection thoroughly. I do not have the book but there is a review on jstor here: https://www.jstor.org/stable/43044433?read-now=1&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

According to that review:

His book is the result of thirteen years of steady research and presents what is often highly technical scholarship and linguistic analysis in a readable, cogent manner. His index of hundredes of primary ancient sources include Targum texts, apocryphal and psedpigraphal works, Greek and Latin authors, Hellenistic-Jewish, rabbinic, early Christian, Islamic, ancient Near East, Qumran, and Samaritan writings; this list does not even include ancient works that he cites infrequently or does not discuss at length (413). He also cites 1,478 writers in his "Index of Modern Scholars." As these indices imply, Goldenberg's research been thorough.

So the book is not to be sniffed at. It is also already cited a number of times in this article. Here is what he found:

...Goldenberg reports that he found no link between skin color and slavery in Jewish sources from antiquity and late antiquity or in early Christian sources. Instead, a commentary thread referring to Canaan as having black skin first appeared among Muslims in the second century before Christ. An explicit link between blacks, slavery, and the curse is made later, in the seventh century after Christ, also in Arabia. This link occurred precisely "when the Black became strongly identified with the slave class in the Near East, after the Islamic conquest of Africa" (170)...The curse was born but still had not gained currency among Christians. It first appeared in the Christian West in the fifteenth century as Europe discovered Africa and started to trade slaves.

I am assuming the word 'Muslims' is meant to be 'Arabs', as there were no Muslims in the second century BC, and that would make sense of the phrase 'also in Arabia'.

So in summary, the connection between Ham, blackness and slavery dates to 7th century Arabia, presumably amongst Muslims, since it results from the Islamic conquest of Africa (north Africa I assume, given the date). It was passed to Christians in the 15th century when they started trading in African slaves. That is at least Goldenberg's conclusion. LastDodo (talk) 15:11, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Looks good to me. There are two copies of that book on archive.org, one of which does not need to be borrowed: [1] ButlerBlog (talk) 17:15, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

The Goldenberg books sounds detailed and authoritative. I hope some editor used it to explain the origins of this mess. Pete unseth (talk) 21:36, 15 December 2023 (UTC)