An Experimental Cure
 
 

This chapter seeks to devise a tentative interpretive strategy for deconstructing the curse of Ham, that is, for exploring the textual clues that point toward the curse’s cure. The disease metaphor is used intentionally in this chapter to indicate that undermining the curse’s mythical potency is not a quick or easy matter, even for expert biblical scholars. As we have seen, the curse was not eradicated with the demise of American slavery in the 1860s, or with the application of historical-criticism to the book of Genesis in the 1870s. Rather, in the late nineteenth century it underwent a dangerous mutation, drew strength and virulence from proximate passages in Genesis 10 and 11, and survived in the minds and hearts of Bible readers to live at a later time. When the curse was fully reawakened in the segregation debates of the 1950s and 60s, the battle seemingly won by abolitionists and biblical critics had to be fought by anti-segregationists wielding many of the same religious and historical arguments.

Now that the question of legalized segregation is settled, and indeed a majority of Americans support the vision of an integrated society that energized the Civil Rights movement, it is tempting to regard the curse tradition as extinct and the stories used to justify it as utterly discredited. But the interpretive history recounted in this book gives us caution, and pushes us to regard the curse as dormant rather than dead. Indeed, those who occasionally monitor the radio and television waves can still hear references to the curse in popular religious discourse. The Dake Annotated Reference Bible (currently in its twenty-seventh printing) continues to affirm the curse and its racial implications, though in less explicit form than previously. The Black Bible Chronicles (1993), inexplicably it would seem, updates the tradition for a new generation of hip Bible readers. Biblical commentaries, including The New Interpreter’s Bible (1994), continue to find fault with Ham. Some scholarly analyses of Genesis 9, such as Gunther Wittenberg’s socio-economic application of the curse to white South Africans, reaffirm the curse for their own purposes. As the 1999 TV movie "Noah’s Ark" demonstrated, the stereotypes and racial myths that once animated the curse remain alive in the American mind. In addition to all this, Genesis 9-11 is invoked in political debates concerning Southern anti-miscegenation laws.

Given the curse tradition's long and complex history, it is surely naive to regard it as a relic of history, or to believe that humanity has outgrown biblical justifications for conquest, servitude and oppressive institutions. Like the racial epidemic of which it is a prominent symptom, the curse requires not calm assurances, positive thinking, or palliative treatments, but a radical cure. It may well be in remission; but as long as American race relations are in need of spiritual healing, the curse will require a remedy.

A justification for experimental efforts to redeem biblical traditions is carefully articulated by Katie Geneva Cannon:
 
 

The suggestions toward a cure for Ham’s curse developed here will draw on a variety of historical, literary, interpretive, mythical, and imaginative resources, some of them discussed in earlier chapters. As has been shown, through the ages a few bold interpreters have consciously subverted the identities of victim and victimizer that the biblical text encourages readers to assign to Noah and Ham, respectively. While these subversive retellings of the scriptural story have often challenged Noah’s status as a paragon of righteousness, only very recently—for instance, in the fictional works of Julian Barnes and Alicia Suskin Ostriker—have they imagined Ham as an innocent victim of familial violence. As we strain to perceive more clearly the echoes of Ham’s voice in this text, we will be aided by this tradition of counter-reading.
 
 

The Failure of Conventional Treatments
 
 

Despite nearly two centuries of consistent attack by abolitionists, anti-segregationists, biblical critics, preachers, and novelists, the curse survives in certain segments of American culture. One explanation for this remarkable persistence is that many of these attacks, particularly those of abolitionists and biblical critics, have targeted the curse’s application to black Africans rather than the curse itself. This tactic is understandable when it is adopted by biblical scholars, since their goal is to set aside traditional misreadings of a text by establishing the correct historical and literary context for interpretation. But this limited strategy is surprising in the case of American abolitionists, many of whom were radical social reformers dedicated to eradicating every variety of human oppression. While abolitionist writers were unanimous in arguing that Canaan rather than Ham was the object of Noah’s wrath, and that American slaves were not Canaanites, few of them bothered to read against the grain of the text. Rather, they were content to deflect the curse upon "Canaanites," whom they regarded as its proper object.

Thus abolitionist Isaac Allen, in seeking to drive a wedge between the curse and American slavery, wrote: "Canaan thus became the servant (not slave) of Shem; and when afterward Israel was oppressed and rendered tributary to other nations, the Canaanites became thus not only ‘servants,’ but ‘servants of servants.’" Similarly, Presbyterian George Bourne, insisting that Ham’s other posterity were not included in the curse’s purview, nevertheless averred that "the denunciation of Noah has been remarkably verified in the history of the Canaanites, who from the period when the iniquity of the Amorites was full, have seldom been released from the exactions of foreign tyrants." Even the African American abolitionist James W. C. Pennington fell into this trap. The gist of Pennington’s attack on the curse was the claim that American blacks "are not the descendants of Canaan…[but] the sons of Cush and Misraim amalgamated." Pennington’s strategy was to argue that since Africans are not Canaanites, those wishing to hold slaves "must discharge the Africans, compensate them for false enslavement, and go get the Canaanites." However, this clever (and certainly facetious) conclusion leaves the impression that the curse remains in effect on the posterity of Canaan.

This problem--endemic to any approach that limits itself to properly exegeting Genesis 9:20-27--was evident during the 1950s when Christian opponents of biblically-justified segregation energetically refuted the curse’s application to contemporary race relations. In The Bible and Race (1959) T. B. Maston argued that the "curse of Ham" could not be used to justify American segregation, since it was not Ham but Canaan who was cursed, the latter having been quite deserving of Noah’s malediction. Similarly, in "The Curse of Canaan and the American Negro" (1970), L. Richard Bradley asserted that the curse could not be utilized to justify de facto segregation because "the curse applied only to Canaan and his descendants and therefore three-fourths of the descendants of Ham are exempt from the curse." The implication, of course, is that the remaining one-fourth are not exempt.

These examples indicate that drawing attention to obvious exegetical, historical and logical flaws in popular readings of Genesis 9:20-27 only go so far in combating the curse. As long as the logic of the biblical story is affirmed, the curse can be displaced (by insisting that it befell Canaan rather than Ham or his other sons) or softened (by maintaining that Noah’s oracle was predictive rather than prophetic). But these moves can neither denature the curse nor defuse its generic mythical power. Thus, conventional strategies for undermining the curse have not yielded an effective cure for racist readings of Genesis 9-11. In their wake the curse is only temporarily incapacitated.

It should be noted that some prospective cures, in addition to being not ineffective, may have undesirable side effects. For hasty attempts to deconstruct the textual basis for the curse run the risk of sacrificing the biblical emphasis on the unity of the human species that is assumed throughout Genesis. Thus it is beneficial to remember that Genesis 9-11 has functioned in American racial debates as a basis for regarding all human beings as descendants of the same parents, created in the divine image and worthy of redemption. Recall that in responding to the polygenetic theory advanced by the American School of ethnology in the 1840s, advocates of slavery invoked the Ham myth as transcendent proof of blacks’ humanity. This historical anomaly points to an irony in American readings of Genesis 9-11: Despite their use to justify slavery and segregation and to vilify the purported ancestors of blacks, these chapters were used to establish the humanity of putative Hamites when "scientific" thought questioned this status.

In fact, throughout the twentieth century a literal reading of Genesis has been used by Bible readers to combat the polygenetic version of human origins propagated by new-style American racists, whether Charles Carroll or the preachers of Christian Identity. While the biblical version of creation may lack scientific credibility, as a theological explanation of human origins it possesses definite advantages over secular renderings. Thus, because the biblical myth of creation and its aftermath provides a transcendent basis for the conviction that human beings are equally valuable as bearers of God’s image and objects of God’s love, strategies for curing the curse that undermine confidence in the religious meaning of the biblical text are purchased at a price. In order to subvert the curse while retaining the theological advantages of the biblical doctrine of creation, Genesis 9 must be subjected to a scholarly critique which takes seriously the canonical context in which it functions.
 
 

Canonical Clues for a Cure
 
 

Hebrew Bible
 
 

An exploration of the canonical setting of Genesis 9 reveals unmistakable connections with the preceding chapters of Genesis. The most prominent of these are parallels with the Eden story (Genesis 1-3). The New Interpreter’s Bible summarizes these parallels this way:

As these references to the Eden story indicate, the curse in Genesis 9 recalls the curse of Genesis 2, which befalls humanity ver soon after their appearance. In fact, the curse’s career through the primeval history of Genesis reveals a fatal bond between pre- and post-flood humanity. The LORD curses the serpent, but the curse is unstable and migrates--first to the ground, then from the ground to Cain. The announcement of Noah’s birth (Gen. 5:29) promises relief from the ground's malediction, a promise that is fulfilled when God announces following the Deluge that the earth has been "cleansed" and will not be cursed again. But the post-diluvian dispensation begins inauspiciously, with the curse entering the world of the new Adam as quickly as it did that of the first. Ironically, it is Noah himself who reintroduces the curse, transmitting it to his son/grandson in Genesis 9.

Given the curse's canonical history, it is worth noting that in Genesis 9 it does not originate with God. Based on the preceding eight chapters of Genesis, we should expect the LORD to be intimately involved in the judgment upon Ham/Canaan. Previous transgressions—the "fall" of Adam and Eve, Cain’s fratricide, and the general wickedness of humankind—have precipitated specific expressions of God’s disapproval, including expulsion from the Garden, Cain’s terrible stigma, and a catastrophic purging of the earth. In Genesis 9, however, God remains curiously silent in the midst of human "sin." For the first time in biblical history the LORD is mute before human iniquity, and is, in fact, repentant and apologetic following the flood. But Noah breaks the divine silence and curses his son with the only words he will speak in Scripture, though they are words that will reverberate through history.

The author of Genesis implies--and most interpreters have inferred--that in Gen. 9:22ff. Noah speaks for God. Several textual forces conspire to nudge readers toward this conclusion. First, the poetic typography afforded these words in most translations lends them the patina of authority. The poetic form echoes the divine curses elsewhere in the primeval history, just as it anticipates the prophetic tradition in which the word of the LORD is often revealed in verse. Second, Bible readers may encounter this story already convinced, based on other prominent brother stories in Genesis and elsewhere, that God is concerned with the relative ranking of sons. Third, the story's narrator privileges Noah with the gift of speech that in Genesis is often a divine prerogative. Fourth, this episode follows a description of the covenantal relationship God has forged with Noah, "a righteous man, blameless in his generation" (Gen. 6:9).

These tacit links between Noah’s oracle and the divine voice have compelled readers to conclude that Noah’s curse is also God’s curse, thus reinforcing the orthodox interpretive paradigm in which Ham is victimizer and Noah victim. Nevertheless, the text offers no clear indication that Noah acts as God’s agent. From the perspective of interpretive history, of course, it makes little difference whether the malediction stems from God’s righteous anger or is an outburst of human pique. When a curse finds believers, it is realized. However, exploiting the gap between the human and divine wills that has been opened by counter-readings of the story may create space for considering whether Noah’s malediction reflects the character of God. For those who regard the Bible as sacred canon, this means asking if the curse conforms to the will of the One to whom the canon bears witness. Such questions can function as clues for curing the curse.

Another set of links between Genesis 9 and the primeval history concerns the pre-flood tale of Cain and Abel. Reading the story of Noah and his sons in light of Genesis 4 indicates that the forces responsible for the demise of civilization in the antediluvian period are similar to those at play in its re-making. In the earlier story, a murder resulting from sibling rivalry is followed by a curse that brings stigmatization and exile. While his curse makes Cain conspicuous and vulnerable, it also signifies that he is not to be harmed. Since the malediction upon Ham/Canaan follows a transgression by one member of the second "first" family against another, readers are led to ask whether the curse is, like its analogue in Genesis 4, a way of forestalling further violence.

Genesis 9:20-27 is also tied to its canonical context by its focus on the relationships among brothers. Attention to other brother stories in Genesis indicates that this story does not fit the general pattern, one which James Williams has helpfully summarized: The younger brother is a shepherd who is favored by one or both parents and by God, the older brother is displaced, the younger brother endures an ordeal and, finally, there is some sort of reconciliation or reintegration of the two. Strangely, none of these elements are present in the tale of Noah and his sons: There are no shepherds, only vintners; Ham is called the "youngest son" (Gen. 9:24), but the birth order of Noah’s children is far from clear, and the text gives no indication that Ham is favored by his father or "chosen" by God. Ham can be said to endure an ordeal, but the story offers no reconciliation. Rather, one of the brothers is singled out for perpetual servitude. Nor is the displaced sibling enfolded in God’s care or "won back" for the larger story, a pattern Williams observes in the Genesis brother stories. On the contrary, Ham, once a member of the second first family, becomes an excluded other. His descendants will play a role in relation to the chosen Israel; but Canaan’s identity as evildoer and progenitor of sexual immorality will be derivative of his father’s.

An aspect of Genesis 9’s canonical setting that remains to be considered is its place within the larger flood narrative (Gen. 6-9). The tale of Noah and his sons comes at the conclusion of this narrative, immediately following the establishment of God's covenant with Noah and Noah’s sacrifice of clean animals. The Lord has declared that Noah and his sons "shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood" (Gen. 8:4b), since God will "require a reckoning" for the lifeblood of animals and humans alike. Nevertheless, Noah's sacrifice is accompanied by a threat to non-human beings:
 
 

New Testament
 
 

A broader canonical perspective on the story of Noah and his sons can be gained from exploring its thematic associations with certain New Testament texts. These include Jesus' sayings about the necessity of servanthood (Mk. 10:42b-45, Mt. 20:26-28, and Lk. 12:27) and the Gospels’ description of Jesus’ death as a "ransom"—a word denoting redemption from punishment or servitude.

A saying of Jesus that invites more detailed comparison with Genesis 9 is the "Parable of the Prodigal Son" (Lk. 15:11-32). As the only evangelist to include Noah in Jesus' genealogy (Lk. 3:36), Luke alludes to Jesus' commonality with all humankind. Noah is the (second) progenitor of all human beings, and his covenant defines God’s relationship with the nations. Luke’s Jesus is also a second Adam, who--like the Noahic covenant--enlightens the nations.

If the parable of the Prodigal Son is can be described as the Ideal Man’s story of the Ideal Father, it contrasts strikingly with the father-son relationship narrated in Genesis 9. In fact, as the following chart indicates, the two stories mirror each other in a number of ways:
 
 

Genesis 9 Luke 15

Noah had three sons there was a man who had two sons

the father acts dissolutely the youngest son acts dissolutely

the youngest son reveals the father’s sin the father forgives the youngest son’s sin

the youngest son is accused inappropriate action the father is accused of inappropriate action

the older brothers act to conceal "sin" the older brother acts to reveal "sin"

the older brothers dutifully enter the tent the older brother selfishly refuses to enter the house

the older brothers do not look upon the father the father speaks face to face with the older brother

the father admits no wrongdoing the son confesses to the father

the father curses his son to slavery the son hires himself into slavery

the younger brother is cursed into slavery the older brother has been a faithful "slave"

the father announces the son’s curse the father announces the son’s recovery

all clean animals are slaughtered the fatted calf is slaughtered

a guilty father condemns an innocent son an innocent father forgives a guilty son
 
 

These provocative contrasts suggest the following canonical reasoning: If the Parable of the Prodigal Son reveals the character of God the Ideal Father from the perspective of Jesus the Ideal Man, then the tale of Noah and his sons presented in Genesis 9 can not be revelatory of this same Father. On the other hand, if it were possible to invert textual logic and interpretive momentum enough to perceive Ham’s role as victim rather than victimizer, then we might regard him in light of Jesus’ own fate. Once the Ham-Jesus link is imagined, further parallels between these biblical sons begin to emerge—from their rejection by family members to their problematic relationship with their father’s "houses" (the Jerusalem Temple and Noah’s tent). James Williams has summarized the Temple's role in Jesus’ ministry this way:
 
 

Why Girard?
 
 

The clues surveyed to this point indicate that a potent cure for the curse might be found by combining elements of previous treatments: the abolitionists’ passion for justice and peace, the creative re-readings of biblical interpreters, subversive acts of imagination on the part of novelists, playwrights and poets, careful analyses by biblical critics, and the believer’s confidence in the unity of biblical revelation. Furthermore, any successful strategy for curing the curse must attend to the tradition's historical, literary, psychological and mythical elements, will possess a history of fruitful application to religious texts, and will be concerned with the mythical origins of violence. For what is the tradition of Ham’s curse if not a mythical justification for organized violence?

Given these requirements, the mimetic theory of literary critic René Girard seems promising indeed. The choice of the French/American literary theorist as a guide for curing the curse is hardly arbitrary. In a series of seminal writings over several decades, Girard has developed a powerful critical theory based on what he refers to as "mimetic rivalry." The theory possesses unusual interpretive potential, since Girard contends that the very origins of human civilization can be located in original events of human sacrifice that become the basis for religion and are barely repressed in myths and literature.

In recent years, scholars have repeatedly demonstrated the fruitful application of the so-called mimetic theory to biblical texts, their pre-history, and their reception. Biblical scholars who have embraced the Girardian method have seen in it a way beyond the impasse between historical and literary approaches that bifurcates the field. On one hand, Girard is a sophisticated literary critic; on the other, he regards his mimetic theory as "scientific," a term favored by historical critics of the Bible. And unlike some theoretical approaches currently in vogue, Girard’s assumes a reality outside language whose historical precedents and implications can be studied.

While his work does not deal explicitly with Genesis 9-11, Girard does invite us "to expose to the light of reason the role played by violence in human society." He regards seriously both myth, the history that generates it, and the origins of violence that it shrouds. Girard has been particularly interested "persecution texts," which he defines as
 
 

According to Girard’s description, Genesis 9:20-27 would seem to be a classic persecution text: It features a crisis allegedly precipitated by a breakdown in differentiation (family hierarchy) and thus communal order; there are accusations against a victim who is charged with a crime that threatens to eliminate crucial differences; and Ham is marked with signs of the victim (or "preferential signs of victimage"), including reprehensible behavior and association with a known outsider (cf. his identification in 9:22 as "the father of Canaan"). Apropos of the biblical text's association of Ham with Canaan and with sexual taboo, Girard notes that when a group chooses victims from a certain ethnic or religious category, "it tends to attribute to them disabilities or deformities that would reinforce the polarization against the victim, were they real." In other words, victims are identified as such because they bear the sings of persecution.

Certain accusations, Girard observes, are quite characteristic of collective persecution. These include violent crimes against the persons it is most criminal to attack: "a king, a father, the symbol of divine authority…then there are sexual crimes: rape, incest, bestiality. The most frequently invoked [accusations] transgress the taboos that are considered the strictest in the society in question." In order to overturn the society’s distinctions, the wrongdoer "must either attack the community directly, by striking at its heart or head, or else they must begin the destruction of difference within their own sphere by committing contagious crimes such as parricide and incest" In the history of interpretation, of course, Ham has been impeached on all of these counts. Traces of scapegoating linger in persecution texts because their authors must convince themselves that a single individual is extremely harmful to their society.

So many stereotypes of persecution are evident in Genesis 9 that it must be regarded as the product of naïve persecutors too convinced they are right to cover the traces of their crimes. Thus, inspired by Girard and his followers, I will wager that the story of Noah and his sons masks an episode of scapegoating violence in the post-flood community.
 
 

Mimetic Desire, Scapegoating, and Sacrifice
 
 

The central element in Girard’s thought is mimetic rivalry. In fact, one of Girard’s great insights concerns the way many classic texts reveal "the imitative nature of desire," often seen in what he calls the discord between doubles. Girard calls particular attention to the rivalry that develops when two persons or characters imitate each other in desiring a similar object. As Leo Kuper has put it, "...men come to desire precisely the same things, and they engage in conflict not because they are different but because they are essentially the same.

From his earliest work (Deceit, Desire and the Novel, 1961) Girard has sought to illuminate mimetic desire’s triangular structure. The angles of this triangle are occupied by the self, the other as "mediator" or "model," and "the object that the self or subject desires because he or she knows, imagines, or suspects the mediator desires it." Conflict develops when the mediator can no longer act the role of model without also acting as obstacle for the self. "Like the relentless sentry of the Kafka fable, the model shows his disciple the gate of paradise and forbids him to enter with one and the same gesture."

If unrelieved, this rivalry leads to a mimetic crisis in which "there will be an inexorable movement toward finding a scapegoat." As hominids discovered in the process of becoming human, and as many societies have experienced since, "convergence upon a victim brings them unanimity and thus relief from violence." The scapegoat effect, then, is
 
 

Another important concern in Girard’s thought is sacrifice and its role in the foundation of human society. Girard defines sacrifice (much like scapegoating) as violence that is limited for the sake of maintaining order. As "a collective action of the entire community, which purifies itself of its own disorder through the unanimous immolation of a victim,…. sacrifice mediates the reordering of a community in crisis. As Girard demonstrates in Violence and the Sacred (1972), scapegoating and sacrifice are linked by substitution.

The connection in Girard’s thought between mimetic desire, scapegoating, sacrifice, and myth suggests the rich possibilities of a Girardian reading of Genesis 9:20-27.
 
 

Community in Crisis
 
 
 
 

Girard's notion that unrestrained mimetic rivalry can bring societies to the brink of violence seems to apply to the story of Noah and his sons. But before exploring the evidence of mimetic rivalry in Noah's family, let us clarify the familial crisis by revisiting aspects of the biblical story highlighted by many interpreters, particularly American proslavery intellectuals. These are Noah’s role as God’s representative and the weighty matter of Ham's failure to display proper regard for his father.

Of course, the interest of proslavery interpreters in accentuating these aspects of the story was inseparable from their conviction that Noah's blessing/curse of 9:25-27 was a divine oracle. Nevertheless, their attention to Noah’s exalted status was invited by the dynamics of the text and by the history of interpretation (Rashi, for example, called Noah the lord of the earth). Noah’s semi-divine stature is even confirmed by modern biblical scholars who compare him with the demi-god heroes of other ancient flood stories (e.g., The Gilgamesh Epic's Utnapishtim), as well as the gods ancient societies credited with the discovery of viticulture and wine (e.g., Osiris in Egypt and Dionysus in Greece). Finally, since this is the first story in the Hebrew Bible in which God is not directly present, the canonical context indicates an exalted role for Noah.

All these factors highlight Noah’s identity as an untouchable whose humiliation will precipitate a serious crisis in the post-diluvian community. Once the crisis occurs, the biblical text communicates its severity by indicating that a sexual assault has been perpetrated on God's righteous agent, by attaching stereotypes of persecution to the perpetrator of this assault, and by relating the story in terms of striking reversal: It is precisely while Noah is "in his tent" (a place generally associated with security) and his sons are "outside" (generally a location of trouble) that the crisis occurs.

Noah’s exalted stature, his humiliating nakedness, and his protection by doting sons are all perennial themes in western literature. For instance, they call to mind Hans Christian Andersen’s tale of "The Emperor’s New Clothes." While Shem and Japheth represent the loyal subjects who compliment the naked emperor on his beauty of his invisible new clothes, Ham is the child who innocently announces that "the Emperor is naked." Put another way, Ham succeeds in demystifying Noah, while his brothers respond to the crisis by remystifying him.
 
 

Rivalry and the Scapegoat
 
 

Girard argues that human beings do not know what to desire, so they imitate each other’s desires. Mimetic desire leads to rivalry, rivalry to scapegoating, victimization, and violence. As was observed in the previous chapter, modern attempts to clarify Genesis 9:20-27 by analyzing the story’s traces of desire have taken their cue from the Rabbis and church fathers (and Sigmund Freud!) by assuming that the desire at work in this tale is libidinous. Subversive though they may attempt to be, by focusing on sexual tension in the relationship of Noah and Ham these modern re-readings actually reinscribe the orthodox interpretive paradigm in which Noah is a righteous victim and Ham a vilified villain. Much more insightful is Zora Neale Hurston’s play "The First One," in which Ham’s betrayal, his departure for "the sun," and his charge to those who remain ("remain with your flocks and fields and vineyards, to covet, to sweat, to die and know no peace") indicate that he is a victim of his brothers’ jealousy.

But if we are to read for the desire that Girardian mimetic theory argues often operates in classic texts, we must focus our interpretive gaze on the relationship between Shem and Japheth. A few voices in the history of interpretation have commented on the lineaments of this relationship. In a rabbinic gloss on the story, it is claimed that although both brothers deserved credit for covering their father, because it was Shem’s idea he merited "the greater meed of praise." Conversely, an illustration in the fifteenth-century Cologne Bible depicts Japheth as the leader in this act of filial piety. In the sixteenth century, John Calvin concluded on the basis of Noah's prophecy that there would "be temporary dissension between Shem and Japheth." In 1844, American Josiah Nott speculated that Shem and Japheth "were twin brothers."

Perhaps these musings on the relationship of Shem and Japheth were influenced by memories of the sibling rivalries so typical in the patriarchal narratives of Genesis. Or perhaps they reveal an intuitive sense that brothers blessed simultaneously (with one assigned to dwell in the other's tents!) are destined for conflict. In any case, once we begin reading for rivlary in the relationship of Shem and Japheth, the biblical text opens up to a host of new readings. The most compelling internal clue to fraternal competition is the narrator’s depiction of the brothers' reaction to Noah’s disgrace: Shem and Japheth take a garment, lay it across their shoulders, walk backward in tandem until they reach Noah's tent, and together cover him. As Umberto Cassuto has noted, the description of this act "assumes an almost poetic form":
 
 

Visual artists have found it necessary to assign either Shem or Japheth the lead in concealing their father’s nakendness. The biblical narrator, however, in making it a dual action, depicts the brothers in striking physical and emotional proximity. And this textual image leads the reader to ask: Why do the two adult brothers think and act as one? Are they extraordinarily comfortable in each other’s presence, extremely well-coordinated, virtual twins in the spitting image of their righteous father? From a Girardian perspective, the strange doubling behavior of Shem and Japheth indicates that they are competitors whose desire for the same object makes each a mirror image of the other. They are frozen in mimetic rivalry. As they approach Noah, each reveals to the other the gate of paradise, while forbidding him to enter.

But what is the common object of their rivalrous desire? Since the brother stories in Genesis are typically fueled by the quest for a father’s blessing, it is very likely that this is the case here. But the stakes are very high, since Noah’s family were sole survivors of the flood, the aged Noah’s benediction promised future rulership of the entire world. Presumably, the blessing will be bestowed upon only one of the sons, ordinarily the first-born. But perhaps the trauma through which the second first family had passed led the brothers to wonder whether the "old ways" of primogeniture would be maintained in the new world. Furthermore, which of them is the eldest is not clear in the biblical text. The brothers are generally referred to as "Shem, Ham and Japheth" (Gen. 5:32; 6:10; 7:13; 9:18; 10:1; I Chron. 1:4). But if Ham is Noah’s "youngest son" (Gen. 9:24), then why is he listed as he middle child? Adding to the confusion is the fact that Genesis 10:21 can be read so that Shem is designated "the brother of Japheth the elder." Biblical commentators have suggested many solutions to these discrepancies--for instance, that Shem and Ham are listed in succession because their descendants live in proximity, or that the arrangement Shem, Ham and Japheth is "euphonic rather than chronological." In this case, though, perhaps textual confusion is indicative of familial confusion, particularly since the name of the presumably second-born--derived from the Hebrew yapht, to extend or enlarge—indicates that he will receive a considerable inheritance.

Assuming Shem to be the first-born, the dynamics of mimetic desire lead us to surmise the following family dynamics: The expectation that Noah would favor the eldest made Shem a model for Japheth, who simultaneously became Shem’s imitator and obstacle. Likewise, Shem’s uncertainty regarding Noah’s blessing made Japheth his obstacle, and eventually his model. Considered in these terms, the image of Shem and Japheth walking together to perform an act of filial piety is emblematic of their intense rivalry. In the closed system of Noah’s family, the common desire of the brothers for their father’s blessing has them locked in a dance of mimesis. While being careful to keep his brother in sight, each seeks to outdo the other.

This mimetic triangle—the angles of which are the self, the other as model, and the object that the self desires--is an example of what Girard calls "internal mediation," since the physical and spiritual distance between the antagonists is minimal. Their proximity catalyzes the brothers' desire until it has moved from jealousy to intense antipathy. After all, "only someone who prevents us from satisfying a desire which he himself has inspired in us is truly an object of hatred." As we have characterized it, the relationship between Shem and Japheth is beautifully captured in one of Girard’s descriptions of mimetic rivalry:
 
 

The potential conflict represented by this mimetic desire is full of peril for the community. It threatens to destroy Noah’s family, which has become synonymous with the human family. According to mimetic theory, the conflict can be relieved and the danger eschewed only if a scapegoat is found. And by necessity in this lonely post-diluvian world, the scapegoat must also come from within Noah’s family. Ironically, the family can be spared an eruption of murderous violence only if one of its members is destroyed through the scapegoating mechanism. This solution is revealed in Noah’s pronouncement, in which he blesses both Shem and Japheth while projecting the family’s shame upon Ham/Canaan. The first-born Shem is given priority over his brother ("Japheth will dwell in the tents of Shem"), but Japheth too is blessed and given his own authority over Ham/Canaan. Thus the object of the brothers’ desire—their father’s blessing—is shared in exchange for their complicity in scapegoating Ham. Just as the textual image of Shem and Japheth walking together with a blanket is an emblem of their mimetic rivalry, their simultaneous covering of their father symbolizes their unanimity in condemning their brother. Noah’s righteousness is preserved inasmuch his own failures are displaced by Ham’s dishonor; and the dangerous desire that necessitated the sacrifice is projected upon the scapegoat.

Noah arrests the crisis by accusing Ham/Canaan of excessive desire, and Shem and Japheth collude with their father in scapegoating him. In doing so, they project upon Ham the very desire for Noah that is the essence of their own rivalry. When placed upon Ham, their desire to honor Noah takes on distorted form as desire to dishonor him. This displacement of desire provides a successful resolution to the crisis, inasmuch as it rescues the family from the violent result of rivalry that visited the first Adam when Cain murdered Abel. Shem and Japheth are willing to share the paternal blessing in order to contain their mimetic rivalry and avoid the murderous conflict between Cain and Abel.

The intimate association between blessing and curse is evident in the very structure of Noah’s oracle, for the malediction is reiterated in connection with each brother. Furthermore, Noah’s benediction effectively repudiates the rivalry between Shem and Japheth. For when Noah announces, "May God make space for Japheth and let him live in the tents of Shem (v. 27), he indicates that they will live in peace and proximity, despite the depopulated world that beckons them. Noah restores peace and stability to his family by sacrificing the freedom and equality in which humankind was created upon the altar where fraternal rivalries have been reconciled.

The crisis precipitated in the post-diluvian community by Ham’s transgression of hierarchy and shattering of taboo could easily have led to violence. But the scapegoating effect averted violence and restored differentiation, as the hierarchical relationship between the brothers was decreed in Noah’s prophecy. Through the collective violence of scapegoating, then, disorder is transferred from the community to the victim. But there is a problem: While Ham’s choice as the family scapegoat may be obvious from our perspective, mimetic theory dictates that his selection appear to be "by chance." Since Ham is the only surviving male of his generation not caught in mimetic struggle, he is hardly an arbitrary choice. On the other hand, the biblical text does reveal significant slippage in the identity of the scapegoat. Though it is Ham who is accused of unleashing destructive desire, it is Canaan who becomes the object of Noah’s curse. This discrepancy, which has troubled generations of readers, is actually evidence that the text’s authors have taken pains to transform Ham from an arbitrary victim to a dangerous criminal. Thus, Ham is the obvious scapegoat only because readers note his sign of victimage ("Ham the father of Canaan") before his story is told.

According to this analysis, Genesis 9 contains what Girard calls an "exemplary scapegoat myth." Such myths begin with disorder or undifferentiation, a theme often expressed as a quarrel between relatives, preferably twin brothers. Second, a particular individual stands convicted of some fault: "It may be a heinous crime…or an accidental faux-pas; but it has brought the state of chaos from which the community suffers. The scapegoat is identified with the help of "preferential signs of victimage." Then the scapegoat is "killed, expelled, or otherwise eliminated," either by the entire community or by a single individual. Finally, "peace returns, order is (re)generated."
 
 

The Victim Who Is Not Consumed
 
 

As a victim of his community’s desire to forestall violence and maintain order, Ham is a scapegoat. But can he be a victim in the strict sense if he is not annihilated? Illuminating this question is the classical Greek concept of pharmakos. According to Girard, "in fifth century Greece...the practice [of human sacrifice] was perpetuated in the form of the pharmakos, maintained by the city at its own expense and slaughtered at the appointed festivals as well as at a moment of civic disaster." But can there be a sacrifical victim who is not annihilated? Walter Burkert notes that in classical drama the pharmakos is not always killed as part of the action. According to Burkert, in Oedipus the King "Oedipus, assuming the role of the pharmakos, is not killed violently but voluntarily led away." Burkert notes that "even when there is annihilation in the scapegoat complex, it is characteristically left to ‘the others,’ to hostile forces be they demons or real enemies. The basic action seems to be abandonment"

Burkert has described, it would seem, precisely the way Ham functions as a sacrificial victim in Genesis 9: Though not killed, he is marginalized and abandoned. The history of interpretation of Genesis 9 suggests that Ham has indeed functioned a perpetual human sacrifice, surviving in the text as a target for whatever post-diluvian evil readers feel the need to account for. As a sacrificial victim whom has been abandoned to dishonor but never consumed, Ham is maintained for literary lynching whenever needed. Like the classical pharmakos, he is the scapegoat "maintained by the city at its own expense."

Here a further parallel between Genesis 9 and Genesis 4 comes into view: In both stories the punished one is preserved, retribution is postponed, and the cycle of violence is temporarily halted. In the story of Cain and Abel, the curse follows an act of murder and forestalls an escalating cycle of violence. In the story of Noah and his sons, the curse serves to prevent a primordial act of violence rooted in rivalry. But while these stories conceal processes in which violence is curtailed, the texts themselves have become generative of their own violence. Both Cain and Ham are punished by being kept alive to serve as examples for others. Like the Wandering Jew, who remains alive but under a curse until the parousia, Ham must serve in perpetual bondage until God intervenes to erase this and every other curse. In Josiah Priest’s poetic phrase, Ham’s "state of servitude can never cease, Till the end of time shall bring the grand release." In another proslavery scenario—perfectly analogous to Christian teaching concerning Jews—Ham’s curse will remain in effect until the "conversion" of Africa to Christianity, at which point the freed slaves will return to their African homeland. Thus, just as it is possible to trace Nazi badge laws to Augustine’s interpretation of Genesis 4, for five hundred years Noah’s malediction has contributed to the oppression and slavery of Africans.
 
 

The Flood and Sacrifice
 
 

Like the rest of the primeval history of Genesis, the Flood narrative is believed to have undergone final redaction at the hands of the Priestly school. It should not surprise us, then that the terms used in Genesis 9 to refer to sexual misconduct have their locus within the sexual prohibitions of the Holiness Code in Leviticus 18 and 20. This indicates not only the active editorial hand of the Priestly school, but Genesis 9’s connection with sacrifice and ritual. Since Girard has consistently argued that the origins of sacrifice as sacred violence are related to the scapegoating effect in human culture, it is necessary to revisit the canonical context of this passage, particularly its proximity to a description of animal sacrifice.

According to Genesis 8: 19-21,

This juxtaposition of opposites--sacrifice of the animals that had sojourned in the ark alongside a strict interdiction against shedding human blood—further clarifies Noah’s sacrifice as a mode of limiting violence in the post-diluvian community; stemming, that is, the flood of violence that precipitated the Deluge.

Girard observes that in stories of sacrifice "it is the god who supposedly demands the victims; he alone, in principle, who savors the smoke from the altars and requisitions the slaughtered flesh. It is to appease his anger that the killing goes on, that the victims multiply." In Genesis 8, it is implied that the Lord desires Noah’s sacrifice ("the Lord smelled the pleasing odor…"), though this is not stated. A Girardian reading of this sacrificial episode, noting that the initiative comes from Noah, would inquire whether "the sacrifice serves to protect the entire community from its own violence…." A key to understanding sacrifice’s relation to violence in the human community is found in Girard’s claim that "all victims, even the animal ones, bear a certain resemblance to the object they replace." Are there such resemblances in Genesis 9? The animals are "clean," and thus differentiated from their peers; like Noah and his family they have been rescued from the flood; and like the rivalrous brothers, they come in pairs. Then are these animals—who resemble so fully their caretakers on the ark--a substitute for some member of Noah’s family?

Violence, Girard points out, is itself like a flood: left unappeased, it accumulates and overflows its confines, inundating its surroundings. The role of sacrifice is to "redirect violence into its ‘proper’ channels." If Noah initiates the sacrifice of animals immediately after the Lord’s flood has subsided, then we must ask what sort of crisis emerged on the high seas that threatened a flood of violence in the surviving community. The legend of the mysterious fourth son of Noah¾ the mythical Jonathan¾ offers a provocative answer to this question. According to legend, the youngest of Noah’s sons drowned in the flood. Perhaps this legend contains a trace of historical and religious truth. Did Jonathan became a sacrificial victim while what was left of the human community languished on the ark for weeks and months unsure of how to appease the angry God who was purging the earth? If Jonathan became a victim of the very violence that precipitated the flood, this might explain why animal sacrifice was resorted to immediately after flood. Why else slaughter rescued animals immediately upon arrival in the new world, unless a sacrificial crisis has occurred in transit?

In this case substitutionary sacrifice would have become the literal foundation of the post-diluvial human community. This also would explain why, when a crisis erupted again with the episode of Noah’s drunkenness¾ when Ham caught a glimpse of "things hidden from the foundation of the world," that is, Noah’s role in violence¾ it was not possible to repeat the originary violence. One fourth of Noah’s potential descendants had been lost with Jonathan; shall another fourth part be lost with Ham? The cycle must end, so another form of substitution is resorted to.

Viewing Genesis 8-9 in Girardian perspective enables us to glimpse the the text in new ways: The substitution of animal sacrifice for human violence, followed by the substitution of Ham as the scapegoat on which the potentially violent desire of Shem and Japheth is displaced, and, finally, the substitution of sacrificial death with the social death of perpetual enslavement.
 
 

The Innocent Victim

The Girardian insight that has exercised the greatest influence upon biblical critics is the revelatory function of the Bible in illuminating mimetic conflict, victimage and sacrifice. Precisely what the Bible reveals is the principle of the innocent victim that is crucial to comprehending the violent origins of human civilization. Controversially, Girard regards the New Testament accounts of Jesus’ passion as the paragon of revelation, since it describes God’s innocent victim suffering to end the cycle of scapegoating and violence. In Girard’s view, while the Hebrew Bible provides glimpses of the redemptive process revealed in the gospels (particularly in the Prophets’ concern for victims), this literature is of secondary importance for breaking the cycle of violence on which human societies are founded. In this sense, Girard’s view of the Bible is open to the charge that it reinscribes traditional forms of Christian supersessionism vis-à-vis Judaism.

At his best, however, Girard regards concern for the victim as a general characteristic of biblical revelation. To indicate this concern he cites Matthew 23, which refers to "all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of innocent Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah…." Girard also argues that the Bible has a tendency to "side with the victims," and uses Hebrew Bible texts to support this argument, including the stories of Cain and Abel and Joseph and his brothers (along with Job, Psalms, and the suffering servant passages in Isaiah). Furthermore, Girard writes that the Bible contains "revelation of victimage and its refusal," and possesses "a counter-mythical thrust in the treatment of victimage." This thrust is present, Girard writes, in countless texts that "espouse the perspective of the victim rather than the mythical perspective of the persecutors,…"

On the surface at least, Genesis 9 is not one of the biblical texts that espouses the perspective of the victim. If biblical stories are often related from the perspective of the victim, and if Israel is a "community that bears the memory of its own marginal, often victimized situation through the centuries," this memory has been successfully repressed in Genesis 9. But we must bear in mind that traces of the scapegoating mechanism are often elusive. As Girard writes, "the mythic systems of representation obliterate the scapegoating on which they are founded, and they remain dependent on this obliteration." In fact,
 
 

If traditional Christian readings of this passage highlighted the episode’s christological meaning, Girard helps us perceive this meaning in a new light. Particularly among the church fathers, Genesis 9 was read typologically: Noah’s nakedness prefigured Christ’s passion, Ham’s action signified the Jews’ irreverence toward Christ’s body, and the brothers’ covering of Noah was a type of worshipful reverence toward the crucified Christ. But according to our Girardian reading of Genesis 9, it is Ham who is a type of Christ—Christ the innocent victim who puts an end to scapegoating by refusing to retaliate. Ham may not be "the scapegoat for all" (as Girard claims for Jesus), but he is an instructive victim for cultures affected by racism and the biblical myths that sustain it.

As we have seen, the great majority of tellings and retellings of the story of Noah and his sons follow the logic of the text and the momentum of interpretive history in treating Genesis 9 as a tale of desire in which Ham is victimizer and Noah victim. Effective subversion of this orthodox interpretive paradigm requires us to listen for the voice of Ham, the scapegoat who has become the victim of his brothers’ mimetic rivalry. But opponents of the curse, even when they question Noah’s righteousness and acquit his son of any crime, have not attended to Ham’s voice. Meanwhile, some advocates of the curse have usurped this voice in order to suggest Ham is content with or complicitous in his own thralldom.
 
 

Listening for the Victim: Noah’s Dream
 
 

A notable trajectory in the history of interpretation is composed of counter-readings of Genesis 9 that cast Ham as victim and Noah as victimizer. As an attempt to extend this trajectory, this retelling of the family’s history is offered in the voice of its silent victim:
 
 

Modern opponents of the curse have maintained that Genesis 9:20-27 has no application in the contemporary world. But does this fascinating text unveil nothing but Noah’s nakedness and the ancient Israelites penchant for vilifing Canaanites? Or does Ham’s identity as a scapegoated, innocent victim represent a revelatory trace in the story? From a Christian perspective, Ham may be viewed as a type of the innocent victim Jesus. The type is not the reality, of course: Ham is forced into victimhood by his family, while Jesus chooses victimhood in order to expose the violent foundations of his culture. Also, Ham’s innocence is not immediately vindicated by God, but must be unveiled by careful analysis and retelling of his story. Another difference is the kind of violence that is perpetrated against these innocent victims. Jesus is violently killed by his enemies or rivals, while Ham is preserved so that his descendants may be enslaved. This outcome is an odd inversion of the words of Pilate, who in John 11: 50 says "it is more beneficial for you that one man die for the people than that the entire nation be destroyed." The narrator of Genesis 9 has taken just the opposite view: In order to forestall the shedding of blood following the earth’s cleansing, rather than have another one of God’s creatures murdered, it is preferential that the sacrifice be deferred to Ham’s descendants.

Despite these differences, if "the revelation of God is the disclosure of...the standpoint of the victim, who is always either innocent or arbitrarily chosen...," then the story of Noah and his sons may be regarded as an adumbration of the willing victimhood of God’s Christ. As in the gospels, the "truth of the victim" Ham is expressed in silence. But despite this silence, the truth of the innocent victim is not completely obscured, and our faith in the liberative message of the Bible is rewarded. The story of Noah and his sons, then, contains a profound message—that the suffering of the innocent victim is a biblical, rather than a Christian, motif.
 

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