This will be controversial but...

Do you believe in the book of Genesis literally?

You'll need to learn to ignore the duke. He obviously has nothing better to do.

(DONNIE;38447)
You'll need to learn to ignore the duke. He obviously has nothing better to do.
Don't ignore the Duke,Yet offer advice and talk nicely and ask him his side of his view, He may be wondering or a learner as we all are ,Do not bash, Welcome to the Board both of you,God Bless!Also is Duke your real name? Mine is ahaBut to answer your question,I think cursed with darkness meant something else,But it could be very possible they were black,After the tower of babel when god gave us all different languages,I believe he also changed the races,Can you show me some of the scriptures? I will be able to really answer then thank you,-Duke-

Good reply.

(Kimshi42;38443)
Is it possible that Ham and the sons of Ham in Genesis are today's people of African descent? The bible says Ham was cursed (some versions say with cursed with darkness) after he saw his father naked. What's happening today seems to correlate to the biblical account: many parts of Africa are at war, those of African descent were enslaved by Whites for centuries and only in the last 145 years or so have we rebounded in Europe and the US. However, Africans were Kings and Queens on their continent (look at Egypt!).I'm Black, so don't flame. I'm just wondering if anyone can give an honest, objective informed POV here.I'm not clear on why Ham was cursed anyway. Because he ran out and told his brothers Noah was naked? Noah was the one who drunk!
God made people. He made them in all shapes, sizes and colors. Race has nothing to do with it. God loves people. He wants everyone to come to him.Ham was cursed not because of the nudity, but because he made fun of his father when his father was exposed. This shows that his heart was wrong. It showed itself in his actions.The POV you give has been used as justification for racism in the past. People will try to use the Bible let them off the hook for acting unloving and unChristian. It makes them feel good but only confuses the issue. It gives them false security.God's love for us is beyond measure. We do not have to be anything or do anything to deserve it. His grace makes allowances for our shortcomings. Romans 5: 8 says, " But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." We did not deserve it. There is nothing that we can do to deserve it. God's love for us is a given.What God wants back from us is the same thing. He wants us to love him the way he loves us. He wants us to put him first in our lives. His love was sacrificial. Our should be too. The sacrifice is putting him first.He also asks that we love others. We need to have the same heart for them that he does. Our love must be the same. It cannot play favorites. Our love must place others ahead of us.Jesus said these were the two commandments that encompassed the whole law. If we love God we are moved to obedience. If we love others we cannot harm them or do wrong to them.James said that we are saved by faith and deeds. He did not mean that our deeds save us. He meant that our faith has to mean something. It has to move us to act out of love for God and others. John says the same thing in 1 John 3: 18.You can do the right thing for the wrong reason and you are no farther ahead. God wants us to change. He wants us to have new hearts. This what it is all about. We were wired to think about "I" first and he rewires us to put God and others first. We can't be thinking about trying to please God. We please him when we change and he sees the change in us.Nobody is cursed. The new relationship we have through Christ changes everything. There are no curses. There is equality and freedom now. Jesus ushered in a new era. That makes a world of difference.

Dunamite brings much to the discussion. I have also wondered a lot about this. I am definitely not racist, but I struggle with the fact that Africa is the way it is. I struggle with the way many African Americans are today also. I love them and pray for them, I just wish they didn't have to be so darn poor, you hear me? We need to love these people, and I think God allows poor people and nations in this world for several reasons: Their need to find salvation, to become enlightened, and OUR need to reach out and prove ourselves more than just talk by helping and loving other nations.I hope I haven't caused offense. For the OP, Ham dishonored his Father, breaking a strict moral code and causing Noah to be dishonored before his people and God. Hope that helps!

Hi Dunamite,Loved your reply here, full of truth and insight!One statement you made caused me to pause and reflect. You said there was no more curse. That statement, of course, is true for those of us who have accepted God's Son as our Savior from the curse.The curse of God against disobedient sons and daughters has not changed. God does not change. His wrath against sinners is as furious as it ever was. He demands a purified people with the Righteousness of Jesus Christ as the condition of their hearts and minds in His Kingdom of Heaven.Yes, the curse on sinners is still there! And those who die rejecting Christ as Savior will remain under God's curse because they have no Mediator to remove it from them.They will be told by Christ, the Judge, to depart from Him into the everlasting fires of hell prepared of the Devil and his angels.Matt. 25:41, "Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you cursed, into the lake of eternal fire prepared for the devil and he angels.' "Just make a distinction between the saved and unsaved so that your statement does not become a universal one about the curse of God being removed from all.waynemlj

The Curse of Ham (also called the curse of Canaan) refers to the curse that Ham's father Noah placed upon Ham's son Canaan, after Ham "saw his father's nakedness" because of drunkenness in Noah's tent.Ham is not directly cursed for his actions; instead the curse falls upon his youngest son Canaan. The curse seems unusually severe for merely observing Noah unclothed. An explanation sometimes offered notes that the phrase "expose father's nakedness" is used several times elsewhere in the Pentateuch as a euphemism for having sexual relations with one's mother, suggesting a different crime.Early Jewish interpretationsThe Torah assigns no racial characteristics or rankings to Ham. Moses married a Cushite, one of the reputed descendants of Ham, according to the Book of Numbers, Chapter 12. Despite this, a number of early Jewish writers have interpreted the Biblical narrative of Ham in a racial way. The Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 108b states "Our Rabbis taught: Three copulated in the ark, and they were all punished — the dog, the raven, and Ham. The dog was doomed to be tied, the raven expectorates [his seed into his mate's mouth]. and Ham was smitten in his skin."{Talmud Bavli, Sanhedrin 108b} The nature of Ham's "smitten" skin is unexplained, but latter commentaries described this as a darkening of skin. A later note to the text states that the "smitten" skin referred to the blackness of descendents, and a later comment by rabbis in the Bereshit Rabbah asserts that Ham himself emerged from the ark black-skinned. The Zohar states that Ham's son Canaan "darkened the faces of mankind.Many pre-modern Christian sources discuss the curse of Ham in connection with race and slavery:Origen (circa 185-c. 254): “For the Egyptians are prone to a degenerate life and quickly sink to every slavery of the vices. Look at the origin of the race and you will discover that their father Cham, who had laughed at his father’s nakedness, deserved a judgment of this kind, that his son Chanaan should be a servant to his brothers, in which case the condition of bondage would prove the wickedness of his conduct. Not without merit, therefore, does the discolored posterity imitate the ignobility of the race [Non ergo immerito ignobilitatem decolor posteritas imitatur].” Homilies on Genesis 16.1“Mar Ephrem the Syrian said: When Noah awoke and was told what Canaan did. . .Noah said, ‘Cursed be Canaan and may God make his face black,’ and immediately the face of Canaan changed; so did of his father Ham, and their white faces became black and dark and their color changed.” Paul de Lagarde, Materialien zur Kritik und Geschichte des Pentateuchs (Leipzig, 1867), part IIThe Eastern Christian work, the Cave of Treasures (4th century), explicitly connects slavery with dark-skinned people: “When Noah awoke. . .he cursed him and said: ‘Cursed be Ham and may he be slave to his brothers’. . .and he became a slave, he and his lineage, namely the Egyptians, the Abyssinians, and the Indians. Indeed, Ham lost all sense of shame and he became black and was called shameless all the days of his life, forever.” La caverne des trésors: version Géorgienne, ed. Ciala Kourcikidzé, trans. Jean-Pierre Mahé, Corpus scriptorium Christianorum orientalium 526-27, Scriptores Iberici 23-24 (Louvain, 1992-93), ch. 21, 38-39 (translation).Ishodad of Merv (Syrian Christian bishop of Hedhatha, 9th century): When Noah cursed Canaan, “instantly, by the force of the curse. . .his face and entire body became black [ukmotha]. This is the black color which has persisted in his descendents.” C. Van Den Eynde, Corpus scriptorium Christianorum orientalium 156, Scriptores Syri 75 (Louvain, 1955), p. 139.Eutychius, Alexandrian Melkite patriarch (d. 940): “Cursed be Ham and may he be a servant to his brothers… He himself and his descendants, who are the Egyptians, the Negroes, the Ethiopians and (it is said) the Barbari.” Patrologiae cursus completes…series Graeca, ed. J.P. Migne (Paris, 1857-66), Pococke’s (1658-59) translation of the Annales, 111.917B (sec. 41-43)Ibn al-Tayyib (Arabic Christian scholar, Baghdad, d. 1043): “The curse of Noah affected the posterity of Canaan who were killed by Joshua son of Nun. At the moment of the curse, Canaan’s body became black and the blackness spread out among them.” Joannes C.J. Sanders, Commentaire sur la Genèse, Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 274-275, Scriptores Arabici 24-25 (Louvain, 1967), 1:56 (text), 2:52-55 Bar Hebraeus (Syrian Christian scholar, 1226-86): “‘And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and showed [it] to his two brothers.’ That is…that Canaan was cursed and not Ham, and with the very curse he became black and the blackness was transmitted to his descendents…. And he said, ‘Cursed be Canaan! A servant of servants shall he be to his brothers.’” Sprengling and Graham, Barhebraeus’ Scholia on the Old Testament, pp. 40-41, to Gen 9:22.See also: Phillip Mayerson, “Anti-Black Sentiment in the Vitae Patrum”, Harvard Theological Review, vol. 71, 1978, pp. 304-311.According to Catholic mystic Anne Catherine Emmerich, "I saw the curse pronounced by Noah upon Ham moving toward the latter like a black cloud and obscuring him. His skin lost its whiteness, he grew darker. His sin was the sin of sacrilege, the sin of one who would forcibly enter the Ark of the Covenant. I saw a most corrupt race descend from Ham and sink deeper and deeper in darkness. I see that the black, idolatrous, stupid nations are the descendants of Ham. Their color is due, not to the rays of the sun, but to the dark source whence those degraded races sprang". Pre-modern European interpretationsIn the middle ages, European scholars of the Bible picked up on the Jewish Talmud idea of viewing the "sons of Ham" or Hamites as cursed, possibly "blackened" by their sins. Though early arguments to this effect were sporadic, they became increasingly common during the slave trade of the 18th and 19th Centuries.[3] The justification of slavery itself through the sins of Ham was well suited to the ideological interests of the elite; with the emergence of the slave trade, its racialized version justified the exploitation of a ready supply of African labour. This interpretation of Scripture was never adopted by the African Coptic Churches. The curse of Ham in the Latter-day Saint Movement (Mormon)Main article: Blacks and MormonismThe first recorded indication of Joseph Smith's adoption of the doctrine of the curse of Ham is found in a parenthetical reference as early as 1831. (Manuscript History 19 June 1831). The curse of Ham in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon) (November 2007) After the death of Joseph Smith, Jr., Brigham Young, the church's second president, taught that people of African ancestry were under the curse of Ham. Young also taught that the day would come when the curse would be nullified through the saving powers of Jesus Christ. (Simonsen, Reed, If Ye Are Prepared, pp. 243-266).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 receiving the Priesthood (although they were allowed to join the Church). Young believed the curse remained in people with even a single black ancestor.However, every President of the Church from Joseph Smith Jr. to Spencer W. Kimball stated that the day would come when the Priesthood would be available to all men.[citation needed] In 1978, after much prayer and fasting on the matter, President Spencer W. Kimball of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints received a revelation which officially extended the Priesthood to all worthy males. The curse of Ham in Black Hebrew Israelite and Nuwaubian folkloreThe Nuwaubians, and certain Black Hebrew Israelite sects such as Yahweh Ben Yahweh reversed the typical racial slant of the curse of Ham. In their teaching, the curse was leprosy which in its extreme form whitened the skins of the Canaanites. [4] [5]Islamic interpretationsProphets of Islam are generally considered by hadith to have kept Islamic law, even before Islam existed; the belief is that God's universal will guided them in the same way as Muhammad, and their habits simply were not accepted by others nor written down. As Islam discourages the consumption of alcohol, this means that the story could not have happened as described in the Torah, as Noah would never be drunk. Instead the story of Noah's nakedness is sometimes explained as the result of the wind blowing off his cloak. Nevertheless, the story of the curse is not part of Islamic scripture.Early Islamic scholars debated whether or not there was a curse on Ham's descendents. Some accepted that there was, and some argued that it was visible in dark skin. The Abrégé des merveilles states that "Noah cursed Ham, praying to God that Ham's sons may be cursed and black and that they be subjected as slaves to those of Shem". However Ibn Khaldun disputed this story, pointing out that the Torah makes no reference to the curse being related to skin color and arguing that differences in human pigmentation are caused entirely by climate. Ahmad Baba agreed with this view, rejecting any racial interpretation of the curse.In the One Thousand and One Nights there is an argument between black and white concubines about which color is better. The white concubine tells the story of the curse of Ham, saying that Ham was blackened because he ridiculed his father, but Shem was whitened because he refused to do so. The black concubine replies with the argument that whiteness is associated with death and leprosy. ReferencesDavid M. Goldenberg (2003). The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Jews, Christians, and Muslims from the Ancient to the Modern World). Princeton Univ. Press. ISBN 0-691-11465-X. Stephen R. Haynes (2002). Noah's Curse: The Biblical Justification of American Slavery. Oxford Univ. Press. ISBN 0-19-514279-9.

(Kimshi42;38443)
Is it possible that Ham and the sons of Ham in Genesis are today's people of African descent? The bible says Ham was cursed (some versions say with cursed with darkness) after he saw his father naked. What's happening today seems to correlate to the biblical account: many parts of Africa are at war, those of African descent were enslaved by Whites for centuries and only in the last 145 years or so have we rebounded in Europe and the US. However, Africans were Kings and Queens on their continent (look at Egypt!).I'm Black, so don't flame. I'm just wondering if anyone can give an honest, objective informed POV here.I'm not clear on why Ham was cursed anyway. Because he ran out and told his brothers Noah was naked? Noah was the one who drunk!
========================================================= here are bible verses that deal with this ========if any one wants them to look up. Gen 5:32 (cf ) 1 Chronicles 1:4Gen 9:18 Gen 10:6-20 (cf ) 1 Chronicles 1:8-16Gen 9:20-27and here is a popular commentary of the bible http://www.kretzmannproject.org/

(Kimshi42;38443)
Is it possible that Ham and the sons of Ham in Genesis are today's people of African descent? The bible says Ham was cursed (some versions say with cursed with darkness) after he saw his father naked. What's happening today seems to correlate to the biblical account: many parts of Africa are at war, those of African descent were enslaved by Whites for centuries and only in the last 145 years or so have we rebounded in Europe and the US. However, Africans were Kings and Queens on their continent (look at Egypt!).I'm Black, so don't flame. I'm just wondering if anyone can give an honest, objective informed POV here.I'm not clear on why Ham was cursed anyway. Because he ran out and told his brothers Noah was naked? Noah was the one who drunk!
No God created all the races on the sixth day and he was pleased there is no evidence that Ham was Black it is speculation and guesses by men In fact Adam in one instance means ruddy complected (that is shows red in the face) and sense Ham was a descendant of Adam he was most likely light to medium complected at the most he could have been of mixed race.And to uncover your fathers Nakedness is a Hebrew slang term called an Idiom it is a figure of speach it means to have sex with your fathers wife

(Kriss;39189)
(Kimishi42;38443)
Is it possible that Ham and the sons of Ham in Genesis are today's people of African descent? The bible says Ham was cursed (some versions say with cursed with darkness) after he saw his father naked. What's happening today seems to correlate to the biblical account: many parts of Africa are at war, those of African descent were enslaved by Whites for centuries and only in the last 145 years or so have we rebounded in Europe and the US. However, Africans were Kings and Queens on their continent (look at Egypt!).I'm Black, so don't flame. I'm just wondering if anyone can give an honest, objective informed POV here.I'm not clear on why Ham was cursed anyway. Because he ran out and told his brothers Noah was naked? Noah was the one who drunk!
No God created all the races on the sixth day and he was pleased there is no evidence that Ham was Black it is speculation and guesses by menAnd to uncover your fathers Nakedness is a Hebrew slang term called an Idiom it is a figure of speach it means to have sex with your fathers wifeKriss is right. All the races, Black, yellow, red, etc are all created (Genesis 1:26-28)Ham has the same skin color as his mother does. How can White + White = Black (It's just an example) But come on, use your common sense people...JagLovest thou in Christ Yahshua, Lord and Saviour of the world.

HAM CANAAN> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >The scriptures about a drunken Noah trouble many, how Ham saw the nakedness of his father.Study of God’s Word always sheds light.It is very important to note, written twice for emphasis, Ham is the father of Canaan.> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >Gen.9:18-25 And the sons of Noah, that went forth of the ark, were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth: and Ham is the father of Canaan. 19 These are the three sons of Noah: and of them was the whole earth overspread. 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. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >So what is the nakedness of his father, the nakedness of their father, or their father's nakedness?> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >Lev.18:8 The nakedness of thy father's wife shalt thou not uncover: it is thy father's nakedness.Lev.20:11 And the man that lieth with his father's wife hath uncovered his father's nakedness: both of them shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >Canaan was the child of Ham and his mother or Noah’s wife.Noah’s wife believed to be Naamah the daughter of Enoch but there is no scriptural documentation.Please share this study arrangement and help put an end to one fallacy taught by men. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >