The “Curse of Ham” Is Being Used Again to Promote Racism

What is this claimed “curse of Ham”? Well, it doesn’t refer to my surname! Rather, it’s a reference to the supposed curse Noah put on his son Ham in Genesis 9, which supposedly meant all of Ham’s descendants—in this view, primarily the people who settled in Africa—are cursed to be slaves.

And this ridiculous idea is back in the news cycle again thanks to a sermon series from an Arizona pastor, Dale Partridge (who is well-known for his disparaging remarks toward various ethnic groups and for his racism).

Apparently, Partridge has been preaching through Genesis 9, spending substantial time on the so-called “curse of Ham”:

The description of one instalment on his own sermon podcast says the passage reveals God’s design of distinctions among what he calls the ‘three macro-races of humanity’ descended from Noah’s sons, and frames later sermons as testing whether Noah’s words were fulfilled in history.

Partridge claims ‘the African peoples’ and some people from India are the modern descendants of Ham. He teaches that they have been divinely assigned to be ruled over by, and dependent upon, the supposed descendants of Ham’s brothers Shem and Japheth, whom he identifies as White people, Europeans, Asians, Jews, and Arabs.

Does the Bible teach “three macro-races of humanity” and a curse of servitude for Ham’s descendants? Let’s start with the Genesis text:

Then Noah began to be a man of the land and planted a vineyard. And he drank of the wine and became drunk and uncovered himself inside his tent. Then Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside. But Shem and Japheth took the garment and laid it upon both their shoulders and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were turned backward, so that they did not see their father’s nakedness. Then Noah awoke from his wine, and he knew what his youngest son had done to him. So he said,

    “Cursed be Canaan;
    A servant of servants
    He shall be to his brothers.”

And he said,

    “Blessed be Yahweh,
    The God of Shem;
    And let Canaan be his servant.
    May God enlarge Japheth,
    And let him dwell in the tents of Shem;
    And let Canaan be his servant.” (Genesis 9:20–27)

First, you will note that Ham is not cursed—it’s his son, Noah’s grandson Canaan, who is cursed! (You can take a look at this article for reasons why Canaan, rather than Ham, may have been cursed by Noah.) And Genesis 10 traces Canaan’s genealogy. He was the father of many of the tribes that the Israelites would eventually expel from the land of Canaan (the promised land). His descendants were incredibly wicked (practicing rampant sexual perversion like at Sodom and Gomorrah) and either were wiped out by the Israelites as God’s judgment on their sin or became Israel’s servants. The “curse of Ham”—which is really the curse of Canaan—had nothing to do with Africa or so-called skin color (we’re all the same basic color—brown—anyway, just different shades).

What about the idea that God was creating three “macro-races” here?

If you start with the Bible, there is only one race—the human race.

That idea doesn’t come from the text; it’s been read into the text because of preconceived notions or prejudice. If you start with the Bible, there is only one race—the human race. Everyone is descended from Adam and Eve through Noah (and, consequently, through his three sons). And Noah blessing two of his sons and cursing one of his grandchildren (Ham had other sons who were not cursed) does not somehow divide humanity into three races. As Acts 17:26 says:

And He made from one man every nation of mankind to inhabit all the face of the earth.

Biblically speaking, there’s only one race. That’s why Jesus, the Last Adam, is the Savior of everyone—He was a member of Adam’s race who died for Adam’s race to redeem Adam’s race. And that includes “a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and palm branches were in their hands” (Revelation 7:9). The Bible never makes some arbitrary distinction between three so-called “races.” To argue otherwise is to read your own ideas into the text.

And the reality of there being only one race has been confirmed by the science of genetics. The genetic differences between any two people anywhere in the world are so minor (a fraction of a percent) that researchers declared there can only be one genetic race of humans.

For someone to say that the people of Africa are all descendants of Ham and therefore subject to a curse of servitude and dependence on the other so-called “macro-races” is: (1) reading ideas into the text (again, the text says nothing about Africa or skin “color” or Ham and all his descendants being cursed) and (2) ignorant of both genetics and human history. There are no genetically distinct “races,” and the descendants of each of Noah’s sons have mixed so much that it’s ridiculous to claim any kind of pure descent from Ham.

Research biologist Dr. Nathaniel Jeanson has shown through his research—which starts with the biblical timescale and the reality of Noah and his family—that we are much more connected and closely related than you might assume. You can read more about that fascinating research in Traced: Human DNA’s Big Surprise.

There is no “curse of Ham.” Those who attend the church of Pastor Dale Partridge should challenge him to show them where the Bible makes any such claims about Ham’s descendants, skin shade, Africa, and the rest of it!

Instead of adding ideas into Scripture, we need to start with God’s Word as our authority. And it’s clear from Genesis 3:15 (the first mention of the gospel) through Revelation that God’s plan for humanity has always been to save the one human race from the curse of sin. When people teach favoritism of some groups of people over others, they are committing the sin of partiality and need to repent.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,
Ken

This item was written with the assistance of AiG’s research team.