While the Deluge and Noah's Ark are the best-known element of the story of Noah, he is also mentioned as the "first husbandman" and the inventor of wine, as well as in connection with the somewhat mysterious episode of his drunkenness and the subsequent Curse of Ham.

Some analyses of the text of the story have suggested that its present form combines two originally separate sources, possibly relating to two separate stories, and that it contains elements of earlier Mesopotamian mythology, although both of these points are disputed and controversial.

Narrative

Noah was the son of Lamech, and the tenth generation after Adam. "And [Lamech] called his name Noah, saying, "Out of the ground which the Lord has cursed this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the toil of our hands." From Noah's sons, Shem, Japheth and Ham, all the peoples of the world would be descended.

When Noah was six hundred years old, God decided to send a great flood to destroy all life, for He was angered at the wickedness of man. But He saw that Noah was a righteous man, and warned him to build a vessel for himself and his family, "and of every living thing of all flesh .. so that life might yet be saved." And so the Flood came, and all life was extinguished, except for those who were with Noah, "and the waters prevailed upon the earth a hundred and fifty days." "But God remembered Noah," the waters receded, and the Ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.

There Noah built an altar to God (the first altar mentioned in the Bible) and made an offering. "And when the Lord smelled the pleasing odour, the Lord said in his heart, 'I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done. While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease'."

The story of Noah concludes: "Noah was the first tiller of the soil. He planted a vineyard; and he drank of the wine, and became drunk, and lay uncovered in his tent." Noah's son Ham saw his father naked and informed his brothers, who covered Noah while averting their eyes.

Textual analysis

Documentary hypothesis

More broadly, Genesis may be seen to contain two accounts concerning Noah, the first making him the hero of the Flood, the second representing him as the first husbandman. The apparent discrepancy has led some scholars to believe that Noah was originally the inventor of wine, in keeping with the statement at Genesis 5:29 that Lamech "called his name Noah, saying, 'Out of the ground which the Lord has cursed this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the toil of our hands.'" It has been suggested that the Flood story may originally have belonged to Enoch, Noah's grandfather according to Genesis 5. In Hebrew the names of Noah (נוֹחַ) and Enoch (חֲנוֹךְ) are somewhat similar, sharing three letters.

Mythological connections

• Hebrew: Noah's Ark
• Egyptian Naunet
• Hindu: Manu
• China: Nuwa
• Sumerian: Atra-Hasis
• Babylonian: Utnapishtim,Xisuthrus
• Greek: Deucalion
• Toltec toptlipetlocali

The mysterious figure of Enoch is the beginning of a fascinating but inconclusive web of correspondences and similarites between the story of Noah and older Mesopotamian myths. According to Genesis 5:24, at the end of his 365 years Enoch "walked with God, and was not, for God took him" - the only one of the ten pre-Flood Patriarchs not reported to have died. Where did Enoch go when God took him? In a late Rabbinic tradition, Methuselah is reported to have visited Enoch at the end of the Earth, where he dwelt with the angels, immortal. The details bring to mind Utnapishtim, a figure from the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh - the hero Gilgamesh, after long and arduous travel, finds Utnapishtim living in the paradise of Dilmun at the end of the Earth, where he has been granted eternal life by the gods. (Gilgamesh's reason for seeking out Utnapishtim, incidentally, is to learn the secret of immortality - like Methuselah, he comes close to the gift but fails to achieve it). Utnapishtim then tells how he survived a great flood, and how he was afterwards granted immortality by the gods. The story has remarkable similarities with the account in Genesis.

Lamech's statement that Noah will be named "rest" because "out of the ground which the Lord has cursed this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the toil of our hands," has another faint parallel in Babylonian mythology: the gods grew tired of working, digging the channels of the rivers, and so the god Enki created man from clay and blood and spit to do the work for them. Enki fell in love with his creation, and later warned Utnapishtim that the other gods planned to send a flood to destroy all life, and advised him on how to construct his ark.

Curse of Canaan

Some Biblical scholars see the "curse of Ham" story as an early Hebrew rationalization for Israel's conquest and enslavement of the Canaanites, who were presumed to descend from Canaan.

Much more controversially, however, the "curse of Ham" has been used by some members of major Abrahamic religions to justify racism and the enslavement of people of African ancestry, who were thought to be descendants of Ham (often called Hamites), either through Canaan or his older brothers. This racist theory was common during the 18th-20th centuries, but has been largely abandoned even by the most conservative theologians since the mid-20th century.

The curse of Ham in the Hebrew Bible

20 And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard: 21 And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent. 22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. 23 And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness. 24 And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him. 25 And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. 26 And he said, Blessed be the LORD God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant. 27 God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant. Note that nowhere is Ham cursed for his actions, but only his youngest son Canaan; hence the very phrase "Curse of Ham" is actually a misnomer.

Interpretations of the curse of Ham

Modern interpretations

Others have suggested that the curse actually came from Ham having a sexual relationship with Noah's wife: when it says that Ham saw his father's nakedness, it is taken to mean he had lain with Noah's wife and produced Canaan as their offspring, which is why Noah cursed Canaan. Similar wording is used in Lev. 20:11: "The man that lieth with his father's wife hath uncovered his father's nakedness."

Interpretations based on race

Early Jewish interpretations

Early European interpretations

This interpretation of Scripture was never adopted by the African Coptic Churches, and in Europe, some of the earlier representations of Christ, Mary etc. depict them as being dark-skinned.

The curse of Ham in Mormonism

In Latter Day Saint scripture, there is no unambiguous endorsement of the idea that the dark skin of any modern people is related to the curse of Ham, although the Book of Abraham, like the Bible, can be read that way. Alma 3:6-12 in the Book of Mormon renames the principles of the Curse of Ham as the Curse of the Lamanites whose skins were darkened as a curse by God because of their rebellion against Nephi, Jacob, Joseph and Sam, and stating that this was done so that their seed might not be mixed, as it would bring about destruction. Today, all the major Latter Day Saint denominations officially or at least tacitly reject it, despite the explicit command in the Book of Mormon. However, the doctrine is an important element of Mormon fundamentalism, which constitutes a very small branch of the faith.

After the death of Joseph Smith, Jr., Brigham Young, the church's second president, was a vocal advocate of the doctrine that people of African ancestry were under the curse of Ham, and that this curse was a rationalization for slavery and societal bans on interracial marriage.

In addition, based on his interpretation of the Book of Abraham, Young also believed that as a result of this curse, modern people of African descent were banned from joining the Mormon priesthood. He believed this curse remained in people with even a single black ancestor, and that even Ethiopian and Yemenite Jews were denied the blessings of Jewish heritage due to their own Black-African ancestry.

Other church leaders had taught that Ham, who preserved the "blood of the Canaanites", was cursed for taking Noah's Temple garment (Genesis 9:22) without authorization and using them to re-create some temple rites, also without authorization. Because of this, Ham and his posterity were cursed from holding the priesthood and from participating in temple rituals (much like some of Aaron's descendants and Saul who lost the kingship of Israel for his posterity for performing unauthorized sacrifices - see 1 Samuel 15-16). As the sacred text states that Ham's descendants settled in Egypt after the flood (see Noah‘s Ark), Mormon apologists often use this as an argument in favour of the similarity between some Egyptian rituals and some Mormon temple rites, often overlooking the fact that the Egyptians were themselves partakers of the curse and should not have been performing these rituals, let alone being the examples of modern Mormon rituals. In any case, Pharoh's descendants were not to hold the priesthood, according to this teaching of the Curse of Ham.

In 1978, after decades of criticism inside and outside the church, the church announced a revelation officially renouncing its policy of excluding blacks from the priesthood. Although the church never yet officially stated that the racial curse of Ham doctrine was false, many top church leaders and influential LDS theologians have essentially conceded that the doctrine was not divine truth. For example, Apostle Bruce R. McConkie stated:

"Forget everything that I have said, or what President Brigham Young or President George Q. Cannon or whomsoever has said in days past that is contrary to the present revelation. We spoke with a limited understanding and without the light and knowledge that now has come into the world." ("All Are Alike Unto God", pp. 1-2).

When asked, church spokespeople generally repudiate the curse of Ham doctrine. However, despite urging from a number of black Mormons, there has not yet been an official and explicit church repudiation of the doctrine, or an admission that it was a mistake. In 1998, there was a report in the Los Angeles Times that the church leadership was considering an official repudiation of the curse of Ham and related curse of Cain doctrines, to mark the 20th anniversary of the 1978 revelation. (Larry B. Stammer, "Mormons May Disavow Old View on Blacks", L.A. Times, May 18, 1998, p. A1). This, however, was quickly denied by the LDS spokesman Don LeFevre. (ABC News report, May 18, 1998). The Times later suggested that the publicity generated by its article may have caused the church to put an official disavowal on hold. (Stammer, "Mormon Plan to Disavow Racist Teachings Jeopardized by Publicity", L.A. Times, May 24, 1998).

The curse of Ham in Nuwaubian mythology

"And he said, cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren." ¶ At this point Ham became terrified, and this affected his nervous system, which sent messages to his brain and affected his pineal gland, which produces the melanin. Stress and fear can cause many complications in the way a person's body may respond..

There is a saying that goes, "I was scared pale." ¶ Ham was stressed at this moment in his life. He was what you would call a manic depressive. It is a known fact that stress can cause skin defects, because what affects your nerves can affect your skin. If a regular person could scare you "pale," just imagine what could happen if the unknown was made known to you. This is exactly what happened when the Aluhum stepped in, it scared Ham pale. But this didn't happen to him physically, it affected his genes and it came out in his fourth son, Libana, Canaan.

In Christian tradition

Noah's three sons were generally interpreted in medieval Christianity as the founders of the populations of the three known c ontinents, Japheth/Europe, Shem/Asia, and Ham/Africa, although a rarer variation held that they represented the three classes of medieval society - the priests (Shem), the warriors (Japheth), and the peasants (Ham). At the same time, some European thinkers proposed that Ham's sons in general had been literally "blackened" by sin. In the 18th and 19th centuries, this view merged with the Protestant interpretation of the curse of Ham to provide a quasi-religious justification for slavery. As late as 1964, Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia read the text of the Noah story into the Congressional Record as part of a filibuster against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, saying, "Noah saw fit to discriminate against Ham's descendants."

In Islamic tradition

Particularly:

We sent Nuh to his people: He said, “O my people! worship Allah! Ye have no other god but Him. Will ye not fear (Him)?”
The chiefs of the Unbelievers among his people said: “He is no more than a man like yourselves: his wish is to assert his superiority over you: if Allah had wished (to send messengers), He could have sent down angels; never did we hear such a thing (as he says), among our ancestors of old.” (And some said): “He is only a man possessed: wait (and have patience) with him for a time.” (Nuh) said: “O my Lord! help me: for that they accuse me of falsehood!”

God later instructed Nuh to build the ark:

Build the ship under Our eyes and by Our inspiration, and speak not unto Me on behalf of those who do wrong. Lo! they will be drowned. (Surah Hud: 37) (Surat al-Mumenoon: 23-26) The Qur'anic account contains a detail not included in the Biblical account: a reference to another son who chose not to enter the ark:

And it sailed with them amid waves like mountains, and Noah cried unto his son - and he was standing aloof - O my son! Come ride with us, and be not with the disbelievers. He said: I shall betake me to some mountain that will save me from the water. (Noah) said: This day there is none that saveth from the commandment of Allah save him on whom He hath had mercy. And the wave came in between them, so he was among the drowned. (Surah Hud: 42-43) The Qur'anic account does not include several details of the Genesis account, including the account of Noah's nakedness and the resultant cursing of his grandson Canaan.

Some Muslims assert that the flood during Noah's time was a local event, in contrast to the Biblical account which asserts that it was global. They infer this from several Qur'anic verses. Other Muslims, however, hold that the flood was indeed global. The Qur'an is not explicit on the point, allowing for some variety of interpretation.

Gnostic tradition

see also: The sixteen grandsons of Noah