BHP journal: Genesis 9:20-27: Ham's Act and Noah's Curse

Interesting section!

I'd never heard the idea that Ham seeing "the nakedness of his father" (Noah, after he had gotten drunk) may have been an incestuous rape. But Gagnon makes an interesting case for it here.

Just a few comments I have...

First, the two interpretations Gagnon offers of the passage are, one, Ham walked into his father's tent and accidentally saw his father's naked. End of story. And he doesn't like this interpretation because Noah's curse of Ham and God's corresponding curse of the Canaanites was unreasonably severe. Two, it was incestuous rape, and therefore the curses are more fitting, so this is his preferred interpretation.

However, my reading of this passage has always been that while Ham may have accidentally happened upon his father's nakedness, his error was in not covering him up, but instead pointing it out to his brothers as a means of ridiculing him. And yet this reasonable, face-value interpretation is not even considered. Again, Gagnon does make a fair case for sex being involved, but like his omission of the possibility that the New Testament has a more spiritual understanding of family while the Old Testament conceptualization is more physical honestly makes me feel like this is not an entirely good faith exploration. After all, this work is intended to be exhaustive.

Whatever. Not a big deal.

Second, I also find it interesting that he holds to the Documentary Hypothesis and says that the creation account in Genesis is a myth, but suddenly here, the story is parsed as if it's literal. He even goes into such detail as...

How did Noah's garment happen to be outside the tent? The most likely answer is: Ham brought it out when he went back outside.

So is it a myth or not? And whether or not it's a myth, why is this detail included? Is the reader meant to be implying things from details such as where Noah's garment was left? And further, is this the most likely explanation of Noah's garment being outside the tent? Maybe I'm missing something, but if Noah is drunk, why isn't the most likely explanation that he left it outside the tent himself? Again, this all just sort of lends itself to composing an interpretation that supports one's argument. (And may I ask, is that so terrible or unusual? Answer: Apparently only when one thoughtfully seeks support for affirmation of modern-day consensual same-sex relationships.)

And referring again to what I mentioned above, his interpretation is that if Ham walking in on this father was an accident, God's curse of the Canaanites seems too severe. Fine. I agree, but according to the overall argument of the book, is not God allowed to arbitrarily forbid things that are harmless and punish people eternally for them? I'm referring here to his depiction of modern homosexuals as diseased, violent and mentally unstable. It seems the case he's building is God's condemnation of homosexual relationships is "reasonable" because homosexuality is necessarily associated with (and is itself) rampant immorality. If this were true, it would be entirely reasonable. But he's going to need to show this with research and statistics - I'm looking forward to that - or, he's going to need to say that God can prohibit things without reason. And yet here, he rejects a certain interpretation because he thinks God is unreasonably punishing a harmless act. I'm sorry, I may not be making complete sense here, but it makes sense to me and I think there's an interesting thread here that I'll continue to follow.

Finally,

The relevance of the story for discussing contemporary homosexuality is complicated by other factors. Gen 9:20-27 is not just about same-sex intercourse but also about other grave offenses: rape, incest, and dishonoring one's father ... [however] it can hardly be doubted that the element of same-sex intercourse was an important compounding factor leading to the curse.

Agreed. But I'd add, "it can hardly be doubted" as long as the fairly tenuous interpretation holds.

And further, in my own analysis this fits nicely with Sodom in that this is a story that involves "other grave offenses" and according to Gordon and Fee, we are not to draw moral lessons from individual Old Testament stories.

So this was super interesting. I learned something. But it doesn't contain anything that effects my argument.