Holy Moly: Poor Canaan

So the first thing Noah does upon being told that the Earth is his is to plant a vineyard so he can get blotto.  I suppose that would be a priority for a lot of people: survive horrible flood, find dry land, get shitfaced.  I guess when you've been alive for 600 years, you can wait the months it takes to make wine from your newly-planted grape vines.

But Noah is a crazy drunk, so he gets stinking and gets naked.  He does it in his tent, so who's complaining really?  Haven't we all hit that point in the drinking day where clothes seem not only superfluous but downright restrictive?

Ham, one of Noah's three sons, sees his dad's junk.  Which turns out to be a HUGE mistake.  I guess it was a thing back then.  Anyway, Ham sees Noah naked and goes to tell his brothers.  We're not told what he told them, so I asked Ham, who said, "Yeah, I told them Dad was drunk, again, and naked, again, and that if they didn't want to see that, they'd better avert their eyes."  Seems reasonable.  If my father was wandering around the house stark, I would probably warn people.

Shem and Japheth, Noah's other sons, pull off an elaborate plan involving walking backward in order to throw a robe over their drunken father.  Why they couldn't just cover their eyes, I don't know.  But anyway, Noah is now sleeping off his drunk, covered in a robe.  Seems like crisis averted, huh?

Noah, upon waking up and wondering just whose robe he's wearing and what the hell was in those grapes, learns of his son Ham's iniquity.  Specifically, that he saw Noah's John Thomas.  Again, I guess it was a thing back then (seeing your father naked, not Noah's tallywacker, although that I'm sure was a thing too, given that he had at least three kids).  And Noah gets butt-hurt and curses... Canaan?

Canaan is Ham's firstborn son.  Canaan did absolutely nothing in this story.  But Noah lays into the kid (although maybe he's 300, since Noah's 600 at this point) like Canaan had stolen Noah's stereo or something.

“Cursed be Canaan:
the lowest servant
he will be for his brothers.”

He also said,
“Bless the Lord,
the God of Shem;
Canaan will be his servant.

May God give space to Japheth;
he will live in Shem’s tents,
and Canaan will be his servant.”

Seems a bit harsh, right?

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Now I'd like to take a moment to talk about incest before we continue.  Because if you thought Adam and Eve were the problem, they aren't.  We hear from the Bible that the Nephalim were also there, and the sons of Adam and the Nephilim interbred, so it's possible to hand-wave away any concerns that all the humans who are and have ever been might be the product of siblings getting down.  Also, it's never explicitly said that Adam and Eve are the only people God made.  Maybe God made a bunch more.  You can read the Bible "literally" and skirt the incest there.

But not with Noah.  Because Noah and family are the only people left.  No more Nephilim.  No more rest of society.  Noah and family are it.  God wiped out everyone else.  Which means that everyone who is and has ever been, if you read the Bible "literally" is a product of Noah's kids boning.  And since we never hear about Noah's daughters, that's even more problematic.

I don't personally hold this to be true.  For one thing, I don't believe it ever happened "literally."  And for another, I'm pretty sure that we're all the product of siblings boning anyway.  There's a lot of incest in human history and prehistory.  It happened.  It's not really worth worrying about.

Why am I bringing this up right now?  Because it's important to remember that Noah and family are it, and the logical problems that come therewith.

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Now, back to Canaan.  Why is it important that Noah and family are it?  Because Canaan becomes a very important name later on in the Bible.  And this extremely unjust curse of Noah is a just-so story about how the Canaanites are fit to be subjugated by the Israelites.

So when Israelite kids asked their parents, "Why are we always bashing the Canaanites?" their parents could respond with this story.  Because Canaan's dad saw his dad's junk.

Bullshit.  I'm calling bullshit on Noah.  Canaan did absolutely nothing to deserve this.  And I'm pretty sure the Canaanites did nothing to deserve being subjugated by the Israelites.  The Bible isn't always pleasant.  And if you read it "literally" it'll probably make you unpleasant too.