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MYTH OF THE CURSE OF CAIN
by John R. Moore
One of the great tragedies of erroneous Biblical misrepresentation has been the interpretation by many of Genesis 9:18-27 as relating to a curse upon the black people. Some Christians think the Bible placed a curse upon certain races, making them inferior and destined to become slaves. This is based upon a misunderstanding of the curse placed on Canaan after the Flood.
It has been advocated that the mark of Cain referred to the black race, but it must be pointed out that the word "oth” does not signify mark as an outward physical symbol put on Cain, but would be better translated as "sign.” In any case, it does not state that the mark was related in any way to skin colour or physical characteristics, but if Cain had been given the mark of being black, then all of his descendants would have died in the flood, and since Noah's sons were Sethites (Genesis 5), the curse would have ended with the flood making the issue mute.
Noah blessed Shem and Japheth while placing a curse not on Ham, but on one of his four sons Canaan. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that God cursed Ham which resulted in his descendents becoming slaves or black in skin colour. Nevertheless, so called Christians and others with evil intent or maybe an ulterior motive have perverted this passage to justify slavery and debase the true superior nature of Blacks by inferring that some imaginary curse was placed on Ham by God and by extension on the African people since Ham's other sons were Cush - Ethiopia; Mizraim – Egypt and Phut - Libya, who populated Africa. On the other hand, Canaan was the father of the people located in Phoenicia, Palestine, and Canaan.
Learn to Speak Ibo, a Black language: Traditions, Cultures, Marriages, Funeral Ceremonies, People and Food. The servitude or suppression of the Canaanites took place at numerous times throughout history under various rulers, but their ultimate end came under the Romans, the descendants of Japeth, when their final stronghold in the ancient city of Carthage, a Phoenician or Canaanite colony in North Africa was destroyed by the Romans. The Canaanites too were once slaves of the Hebrews who descended from the line of Shem, and they were themselves once the slaves of the Egyptians, thus fulfilling the Biblical prophecy that Canaan's descendants would be a servant of servants. The Biblical prophecy concerning the curse of the Canaanites had therefore been fulfilled a long ago.
So note carefully that even though Noah had put this horrible curse on Canaan, it never extended to those other blacks of Africa who were forcibly uprooted and shipped to the Americas and the West Indies as slaves, because those Blacks did not descend from the Canaanites. Moreover, individual Canaanites throughout history like Rahab the harlot for example who trusted in the one true God were delivered from that curse. That same Rahab who was cited in Joshua of the Old Testament is identified in the New Testament as being an ancestor of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
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© John Moore - Barbados, W.I. (May 2005) ©. All rights reserved.
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