This Strange Story

List Of Abbreviations

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Textual History And Exegesis

Interpretation Of The Curse Of Canaan, Ca. 100 BCE-1050 CE

Jewish Interpretation Of The Curse Of Canaan In France And Spain, Ca. 1075-1350

Christian Interpretation Of The Curse Of Canaan In Western Europe, Ca. 1075-1350

Modern Western Exegesis Of The Curse Of Canaan, Ca. 1500-1865

Conclusion

Appendix

Endnotes

References

Index Of Texts

Index Of Names And Subjects

About The Author

Additional Info
This book addresses the claim that an American antebellum era anti-African reading of “the curse of Canaan” story originated in rabbinic literature. By tracing the curse of Canaan’s history of interpretation from the beginning of the Common Era to 1865, with particular emphasis on the neglected medieval period, this work examines this long-held false claim.

Although Jewish readings of the curse of Canaan appear in medieval Christian commentaries, no Jewish references to skin color are repeated in Christian exegesis. Therefore, the book argues that the anti-African antebellum reading develops in response both to abolitionism and the biblical text’s establishment of a social hierarchy that divides humankind into slaves and masters.

The pro-slavery reading is an extension of Christian allegorical exegesis of the curse of Canaan, in which Shem, Ham, and Japheth represented different groups of people depending upon the interpreter’s historical context, usually Jewish Christians, Jews or Christian heretics, and Gentile Christians respectively. Southerners and their allies simply changed the typology, making Shem the ancestor of brown people, Ham the ancestor of black people due to a reading of his genealogy in Genesis 10, and Japheth the ancestor of white people. The new typology justified African slavery as a divinely ordained and sanctioned economic system, just as the old typology justified Christian supersessionism.