Introduction
In both Genesis 5:32 and 6:10 Ham is listed as the second son of Noah.
Genesis 5:32 After Noah
was five hundred years old, Noah became the father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
(RSV)
The Hebrew word for
Ham is cham (SHD 2526), meaning hot or sunburnt “from the
tropical habitat” (Strong). In Psalm 78:5, we see Egypt described as the
first-fruits of the strength in the tents of Ham.
The Hamitic peoples
comprise the largest group (thirty) among the Seventy Nations listed in both
Genesis 10 and 1Chronicles 1. The latter text records the first Patriarchs from
Adam through the line of Seth to Noah and his descendants. (See also the paper Doctrine of Original Sin Part 2:
The Generations of Adam (No. 248).)
1Chronicles 1:1-16 Adam, Seth, Enosh; 2 Kenan,
Ma-hal'alel, Jared; 3 Enoch, Methu'selah, Lamech; 4 Noah,
Shem, Ham, and Japheth. 5 The sons of Japheth: Gomer, Magog, Madai,
Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras. 6 The sons of Gomer: Ash'kenaz,
Diphath, and Togar'mah. 7 The sons of Javan: Eli'shah, Tarshish,
Kittim, and Ro'danim. 8 The sons of Ham: Cush, Egypt [Mizraim:
KJV], Put, and Canaan. 9 The sons of Cush: Seba,
Hav'ilah, Sabta, Ra'ama, and Sab'teca. The sons of Ra'amah: Sheba and Dedan. 10
Cush was the father of Nimrod; he began to be a mighty one in the earth. 11
Egypt was the father of Ludim, An'amim, Le'habim, Naph-tu'him, 12 Pathru'sim,
Caslu'him (whence came the Philis'tines), and Caph'torim. 13 Canaan
was the father of Sidon his fist-born, and Heth, 14 and the
Jeb'usites, the Am'orites, the Gir'gashites, 15 the Hivites, the
Arkites, the Sinites, 16 the Ar'vadites, the Zem'arites, and the
Ha'mathites. (RSV)
Thus we have the four
sons of the Hamitic line: Cush, Mizraim, Put/Phut and Canaan, along with numerous
grandsons – all patriarchs in their own right (see Chart 1, Appendix). Each
will be dealt with in separate papers in this series. The place of the Ark’s
landfall will provide the background to the jumping-off point and subsequent
dispersal of all the descendants of Noah.
Landfall of Noah’s Ark
The name Noah means
rest, comfort or consolation (SHD 5146) and is the same as nuach
(SHD 5118) meaning resting place, appropriate for a man synonymous
with the Ark. He was a righteous man of integrity (tamiym,
SHD 8549), or blameless in his generation.
Genesis 6:8-10 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.
9 These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man,
blameless in his generation; Noah walked with God. 10 And Noah had
three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. (RSV)
Genesis 7:7 And Noah and his sons and his wife and his
sons’ wives with him went into the ark, to escape the waters of the flood.
(RSV)
All survived the great Flood of around 2348 BCE (Gen. 7:13; 9:18). The
floodwaters remained upon the Earth for 150 days, after which they began to
recede and “the Ark came to rest upon the mountains of Ararat” (Gen. 8:4). In
his Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus notes several ancient historians
who claimed to know the actual location of the Ark’s resting place.
5. … After this, the ark
rested on the top of a certain mountain in Armenia; … the Armenians call this
place, Apobaterion (16) The Place of Descent; for the ark being
saved in that place, its remains are shown there by the inhabitants to this
day.
6. Now all the writers of
barbarian histories make mention of this flood, and of this ark; among whom is
Berosus the Chaldean. For when he is describing the circumstances of the flood,
he goes on thus: "It is said there is still some part of this ship in
Armenia, at the mountain of the Cordyaeans; and that some people carry off
pieces of the bitumen, which they take away, and use chiefly as amulets for the
averting of mischiefs." Hieronymus the Egyptian also, who wrote the
Phoenician Antiquities, and Mnaseas, and a great many more, make mention of the
same. Nay, Nicolaus of Damascus, in his ninety-sixth book, hath a particular
relation about them; where he speaks thus: "There is a
great mountain in Armenia, over Minyas, called Baris, upon which it is
reported that many who fled at the time of the Deluge were saved; and that one
who was carried in an ark came on shore upon the top of it; and that the
remains of the timber were a great while preserved. This might be the man about
whom Moss the legislator of the Jews wrote." (Bk. I, iii, 5-6)
Footnote (16): This Apobaterion,
or Place of Descent, is the proper rendering of the Armenian name of this very
city. It is called in Ptolemy Naxuana, and by Moses Chorenensis, the
Armenian historian, Idsheuan; but at the place itself Nachidsheuan,
which signifies The first place of descent, and is a lasting monument of the
preservation of Noah in the ark, upon the top of that mountain, at whose foot
it was built, as the first city or town after the flood. See Antiq. B. XX. ch.
2. sect. 3; and Moses Chorenensis, who also says elsewhere, that another town
was related by tradition to have been called Seron, or, The Place of
Dispersion, on account of the dispersion of Xisuthrus's or Noah's sons, from
thence first made. Whether any remains of this ark be still preserved, as the
people of the country suppose, I cannot certainly tell. (W. Whiston)
The mountain on which
the Ark rested, Baris, is known as Mt. Nimush (modern Judi Dagh) in the Gilgamesh
Epic and Al-Judi (or Gebel-Judi) in the Qur’an (Surah 11:44). This is a
6,500 ft (2000m) peak in the mountains of present-day Kurdistan. Eutychius of
Alexandria (9th century CE) also claimed that “the ark rested on the
mountains of Ararat that is Gebel Judi, near Mosul” (a city in northern Iraq).
In The Lost Testament, the Egyptologist and historian David Rohl gives a
number of convincing reasons for the mountain of the landfall to be identified
with Judi Dagh (Century, Random House Ltd, London, 2002, pp. 54-55).
The first city built
after the Flood was called Apobaterion in Greek, or Idsheuan in
Armenian, and apparently located at the foot of Gebel-Judi. Seron was the place
from which Noah’s sons began to disperse and re-colonise the world.
In his book Legend:
The Genesis of Civilisation, David Rohl has this to say on the region:
The name Armenia itself may
well derive from the first millennium BC kingdom of the Mannai (the Manneans)
whose capital (modern Miyandoab -- ‘Between the Two Waters’), in the fertile
plain to the south of Lake Urmia, would perhaps have been called Ur-Mannai
(‘Foundation’ or ‘City of the Manneans’). It is clear from several examples
that the name element ur is equivalent to biblical ar. The prefix
ur/ar or uru/ara was in fairly common use throughout the ancient
Near East, the two most famous instances being the Sumerian city of Ur (simply
meaning ‘city’) and Jerusalem or Uru-Shalem (‘City’ or ‘Foundation of Shalem’).
The Assyrians of the first
millennium BC also referred to this area as ‘Urartu’, which is where the
biblical Ararat comes from. (Arrow Books Ltd, London, 1999, p. 59)
The Ziusudra Epic claims
Noah dwelt at some stage “in the land of crossing – Mount Dilmun – the place
where the sun rises”. Along with several others, Ziusudra is the name given
to Noah; its derivation is given by Rohl in The Lost Testament.
The name is formed by two
elements -- ‘long-lived’ (ziu) combined with the epithet ‘the
far-distant’ (sudra), because of the tradition (later passed down in the
Gilgamesh Epic) that the flood hero and his wife were the only humans to be
granted eternal life by the gods in a far-off land where the sun rose. To the
Semitic-speaking peoples of early Mesopotamia Ziusudra was known as Atrahasis
‘exceedingly devout’, often accompanied by the epithet ruku (‘the
far-distant’). … [Genesis 6:9]
The later Babylonians gave him
the name Utnapishtim, which means something like ‘he found (eternal) life’,
whereas Berossus, the Babylonian historian of the third century BC, called him
Xisuthros after the original Sumerian epithet Ziusudra. Of course, we know the
flood hero as Noah -- the name given to him in the biblical tradition and which
probably derives from the second element of Ut-na-pishtim (sometimes written
Ut-na’-ishtim where the na’ may have been vocalised nua). [Ftnt.*
On the other hand earlier scholars such as C.J. Ball read the Babylonian name
as Nuh-napishtim where, of course, Nuh would also be the equivalent of Hebrew
Noah.] (op. cit., p. 46)
The note that
Utnapishtim or Noah found (eternal) life may simply mean that he was
certain of attaining the First Resurrection, along with his wife. Although the
Bible is silent on the matter, Rohl and other scholars also suggest that Noah
was a local ruler over the city of Shuruppak, one of the larger settlements in
the land of Shinar and located about 60 miles (100 km) to the north of Eridu.
The Gilgamesh XI tablet refers to Utnapishtim as the “man of Shuruppak” (line
23).
For the sceptics, the
biblical Flood narrative has been confirmed in many ancient Mesopotamian
‘myths’ such as the Epics of Atrahasis, Gilgamesh and Ziusudra,
the wording of which suggest a common origin. Atrahasis (extremely wise)
was the Akkadian name for Noah. The following are some extracts from these
parallel Flood stories.
"the decision that
mankind is to be destroyed" Ziusudra iv,157-158
"The gods commanded total
destruction" Atrahasis II,viii,34
"The great gods decided
to make a deluge" Gilgamesh XI,14
"God...decided to make an
end of all flesh" Genesis 6:13
"Enki...over the capitals the storm will sweep" Ziusudra iv,156
"He [Enki] told him of
the coming of the flood" Atrahasis III,i,37
"Kronos...said...mankind
would be destroyed by a flood" Berossus
"God said to Noah...I
will bring a flood" Genesis 6:13,17
"...the huge boat" Ziusudra v,207
"Build a ship"
Atrahasis III,i,22
"Build a ship"
Gilgamesh XI,24
"build a boat"
Berossus
"Make yourself an
ark" Genesis 6:14
"your family, your relatives" Atrahasis DT,42(w),8
"he sent his family on
board" Atrahasis III,ii,42
"into the ship all my
family and relatives" Gilgamesh XI,84
"Go into the ark, you and
all your household" Genesis 7:1
"who protected the seed
of mankind" Ziusudra vi,259
"Bring into the ship the
seed of life of everything" Gilgamesh XI,27
"to keep their seed
alive" Genesis 7:3 (KJV)
"coming of the flood on the seventh night" Atrahasis,III,i,37
"after seven days the
waters of the flood came" Genesis 7:10
"consigned the peoples to
destruction" Atrahasis III,iii,54
"All mankind was turned
to clay" Gilgamesh XI,133
"And all flesh died...and
every man" Genesis 7:21
"On Mount Nisir the boat grounded" Gilgamesh XI,140 "the boat
had grounded upon a mountain" Berossus
"After Khsisuthros...
landed ... a long mountain" Moses of Khoren "the ark came to rest
upon the mountains" Genesis 8:4.
During
their travels through Kurdistan in the early 20th century, the
brothers W.A and E.T Wigram learned of a peculiar commemorative feast.
Noah’s sacrifice is still
commemorated year by year on the place where tradition says the ark rested -- a
ziaret which is not the actual summit of the mountain but a spot on its
ridge. On that day (which, strange to say, is the first day of Ilul, or
September 14 of our calendar …) all faiths and all nations come together,
letting all feuds sleep on that occasion, to commemorate an event which is
older than any of their divisions.
… Shiah and Sunni type,
Sabaeans, Jews, and even the furtive timid Yezidis are there, each group
bringing a sheep or kid for sacrifice; and for one day there is a “truce of
God” even in turbulent Kurdistan, and the smoke of a hundred offerings goes up
once more on the ancient altar. Lower down on the hillside, and hard by the
Nestorian village of Hasana, men still point out Noah’s tomb and Noah’s
vineyard, though this last, strange to say, produces no wine now. The grapes
from it are used exclusively for nipukhta or grape treacle, possibly in
memory of the disaster that once befell the Patriarch. (The Cradle of
Mankind, A & C Black, London, 1922, p. 335)
As recorded in
Genesis 7 and 8, the Flood actually began in the month of Iyar (2nd
month) and the Ark came to rest exactly 5 months later in the month of Tishri.
Elul/Ilul is the 6th month, which normally falls in August rather
than September, so the authors may be mistaken in their assertion. Hence, the
celebration by the people of Kurdistan would most likely commemorate the
landfall of the Ark in the month of Tishri, the holy month of Trumpets,
Atonement and Tabernacles in God’s Sacred Calendar. (See the paper God’s Calendar (No. 156).)
Assuming Cush/Kush
to be synonymous with Kish, the Sumerian King List recalls this to
be the area and the patriarch from which a new line of kings originated after
the Flood.
“When Kingship was lowered
again from Heaven, the Kingship was in Kish.”
Kish was also known
as Urzababa.
General Dispersion
The lineage of Noah
is repeated in Genesis 10.
Genesis 10:1, 6-20 These
are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth; sons were born
to them after the flood. … 6 The sons of Ham: Cush, Egypt [Mizraim:
KJV], Put, and Canaan. 7 The sons of Cush: Seba,
Hav'ilah, Sabtah, Ra'amah, and Sab'teca. The sons of Ra'amah: Sheba and Dedan. 8
Cush became the father of Nimrod; he was the first on earth to be a
mighty man. 9 He was a mighty hunter before the LORD; therefore it
is said, "Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before the LORD." 10 The
beginning of his kingdom was Ba'bel, Erech, and Accad, all of them in the land
of Shinar. 11 From that land he went into Assyria, and built
Nin'eveh, Reho'both-Ir, Calah, and 12 Resen between Nin'eveh and
Calah; that is the great city. 13 Egypt became the father of Ludim,
An'amim, Leha'bim, Naph-tu'him, 14 Pathu'sim, Caslu'him (whence came
the Philistines), and Caph'torim. 15 Canaan became the father of
Sidon his first-born, and Heth, 16 and the Jeb'usites, the Amorites,
the Gir'gashites, 17 the Hivites, the Arkites, the Sinites, 18 the
Ar'vadites, the Zem'arites, and the Ha'mathites. Afterward the families of the
Canaanites spread abroad. 19 And the territory of the Canaanites
extended from Sidon, in the direction of Gerar, as far as Gaza, and in the
direction of Sodom, Gomor'rah, Admah, and Zeboi'im, as far as Lasha. 20 These
are the sons of Ham, by their families, their languages, their lands, and their
nations. (RSV)
These were the
descendants of Ham according to their families (mishpachah, SHD 4940),
their languages (lashon, SHD 3956), their lands (‘erets, SHD 776)
and their nations (goyim, SHD 1471).
In Legend,
David Rohl gives an overview of the movements of the sons of Ham from their
original homeland.
The descendants of Noah
rebuilt the cities of Uruk and Eridu, founded by their great ancestor Enoch.
Two of Uruk’s rulers are particularly remembered by the later Sumerians as
great kings. We will deal with Enmerkar in a moment, but first I should relate
the strange tale of King Meskiagkasher -- the biblical Cush, son
of Ham and grandson of Noah.
The Sumerian King List tells
us that Meskiagkasher journeyed over the southern sea and came ashore in a
mountainous land. We can trace his journey from Eridu to the sacred island of Dilmun
(Bahrain) which had been used as a resting place by Sumerian sea traders
for many centuries. His fleet of ships had then journeyed on into the open
ocean and along the southern shore of the Arabian peninsula to reach the coast
of Africa near the mouth of the Red Sea. There they came ashore in the
mountainous land we today call Ethiopia but which was anciently known as Kush.
Throughout their history, the later Egyptians would call the people of the
Upper Nile ‘Kushites’, after their eponymous ancestor. …
During the centuries which
followed the initial arrival of Cush and his fleet, many return journeys would
be made by individual ships laden with the produce of Africa. Eventually, after
trade with the Indus Valley had ceased (probably due to the invasion of Meluhha
by the Aryan tribes) and supplies for copper ore in Magan had begun to
diminish, the new resources of Africa became much more important to the later
Mesopotamian civilisations. As a result, the new regions which supplied the
produce of the more ancient overseas lands were named after the original
toponyms. Thus Ethiopia became known as Meluhha whilst Egypt was named Magan.
However, the pharaohs continued to regard their southern neighbour as the
kingdom of Kush.
In the company of Cush (or
perhaps following on later) came Ham’s younger ‘sons’, Mizraim, Put and Canaan.
They were not to stay with their Cushite brethren but went in search of new
lands of their own to conquer. (op. cit., pp. 446-448; emphasis added)
The three lands
mentioned thus far – Dilmun, Meluhha and Magan – are the subject of conflicting
ideas amongst scholars, as noted in the Wikipedia article.
Meluhha, Dilmun and Magan
Sumerian
texts repeatedly refer to three important centres with which they traded: Magan,
Dilmun,
and Meluhha. Magan is usually identified with Oman,
though some identify it with Egypt.
Dilmun was a trade distribution centre for goods originating in the
region of modern-day Bahrain.
The location of Meluhha, however is hotly debated.
A
number of scholars suggest that "Meluhha" was the Sumerian
name for western India or the Indus valley
civilization. Asko
and Simo Parpola,
both Finnish scholars, derive Meluhha from earlier Sumerian documents
with the alternative value "Me-lah-ha", which they identify
with the Dravidian
Met-akam "high abode/country". They further claim that Meluhha
is the origin of the Sanskrit
mleccha
meaning "barbarian, foreigner"[1].
Sergei
V. Rjabchikov, a Russian scholar, reads an archaic form of Meluhha
as a Proto-Indo-Aryan word ("solar beam"; "to die"), and he
compares it, in particular, with the name of the mountain Meru in the
Old Indian mythology. However, much later texts documenting the exploits of
King Assurbanipal
of Assyria
(668-627 BC), long after the Indus Valley civilization had ceased to exist,
seemingly imply that Meluhha is to be found somewhere near Egypt, in
Africa [2].
Indus Valley hypothesis
Earlier
texts (c.2200 BC)
seem to indicate that Meluhha is to the east, suggesting either the Indus valley
or India. Sargon of
Akkad was said to have "dismantled the cities, as far as the
shore of the sea. At the wharf of Agade,
he docked ships from Meluhha, ships from Magan."
There
is plenty of archaeological evidence for the trade between Mesopotamia and the
Indus Valley. Impressions of clay seals from the Indus Valley city of Harappa
were evidently used to seal bundles of merchandise, as clay seal impressions
with cord or sack marks on the reverse side testify. A number of these Indus
Valley seals have turned up at Ur
and other Mesopotamian sites. "Persian Gulf" types of circular
stamped rather than rolled seals, also known from Dilmun, that appear at Lothal
in Gujarat,
India, and Faylahkah, as well as in Mesopotamia, are convincing corroboration
of the long-distance sea trade.
What
the commerce consisted of is less sure: timber and precious woods, ivory,
lapis lazuli,
gold,
and luxury goods such as carnelian
and glazed stone beads, pearls
from the Gulf, and shell and bone inlays, were among the goods sent to
Mesopotamia in exchange for silver,
tin,
woollen textiles, perhaps oil and grains and other foods. Copper
ingots, certainly, bitumen,
which occurred naturally in Mesopotamia, may have been exchanged for cotton
textiles and chickens, major products of the Indus region that are not native
to Mesopotamia — all these have been instanced.
Mesopotamian
trade documents, lists of goods, and official inscriptions mentioning Meluhha
supplement Harappan seals and archaeological finds. Literary references to
Meluhhan trade date from the Akkadian, the Third Dynasty
of Ur, and Isin
- Larsa
Periods (ca 2350 - 1800 BCE), but the trade probably started in the Early
Dynastic Period (c. 2600 BC). Some Meluhhan vessels may have sailed directly to
Mesopotamian ports, although by the Isin - Larsa Period, Dilmun, which was
located "en route" to Meluhha, monopolized the trade. By the
subsequent Old Babylonian period, trade between the two cultures had evidently
ceased entirely.
African hypothesis
Later
texts from the 1st millennium BC suggest that "Meluhha" and "Magan"
were kingdoms adjacent to Egypt. Assurbanipal writes about his first march
against Egypt, "In my first campaign I marched against Magan, Meluhha, Tarka,
king of Egypt and Ethiopia, whom Esarhaddon,
king of Assyria, the father who begot me, had defeated, and whose land he
brought under his way...".
Bernard
Sergent (in Genèse de l'Inde, Payot, Paris, 1997)
claims that Dravidians
were a "Melano-African" race from the African Sahel
belt [1] [2],
positing that these peoples migrated from there, and suggesting that Meluhha
first referred to Ethiopia, and later to the Indus Valley. It is important
to note that from the third millennium BC onwards, Ethiopia itself was never
referred to as Meluhha, but as Kush.
Apart from Ashurbanipal's reference, there is no mention of Meluhha in
any Mesopotamian text after about 1700 BC, which corresponds to the time of
decline of the Indus Valley.
(Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meluhha")
These Indus cities
were Harappa and Mohenjo Daro, referred to in the paper Mysticism Chapter 1 Spreading the Babylonian Mysteries (B7_1)
.
In his book Legend,
under the heading ‘The Table of Nations’, David Rohl states:
So the Bible and the early
historians all transport Cush, grandson of Noah, to Africa. How might he have
got there? By boat perhaps? Certainly if we are looking for a route from
southern Mesopotamia to the highlands of Ethiopia in north-eastern Africa we
would logically look to the sea rather than a crossing of the inhospitable
Arabian desert.
The movement of the Egyptians
was in opposition to the sons of Cush. The Egyptians moved through Canaan,
which was the area occupied by the son of Ham and brother of Mizraim.
After
this they were dispersed abroad, on account of their languages, and went out by
colonies every where; and each colony took possession of that land which they
light upon, and unto which God led them; so that the whole continent was filled
with them, both the inland and the maritime countries. There were some also
who passed over the sea in ships, and inhabited the islands: and some of
those nations do still retain the denominations which were given them by their
first founders; (Josephus, AJ, I, v,1)
The waters that border on the
land of Sumer do not form part of the Mediterranean (the ‘Upper Sea’) but
rather the Persian Gulf (the ‘Lower Sea’) and, beyond, the Indian Ocean. According
to Josephus, on their way to Africa, the followers of Cush, Mizraim, Put and
Canaan occupied islands (op. cit., pp. 219-222).
It appears likely
that, rather than taking the more direct overland route from Mesopotamia to
Egypt and Africa, the descendants of Ham journeyed by sea, following the
coastline southward to the island of present-day Bahrain where some of them
settled, before rounding the peninsula of modern Qatar and proceeding further
eastwards. Upon reaching the Strait of Hormuz, the seafarers would have had the
choice of continuing in a direct easterly direction, thereby fetching up in the
Indus River Basin (in modern-day Pakistan) or of turning south and following
the coastline of Oman and Yemen, then circumnavigating the Arabian peninsula into
the Red Sea. Apparently they did both, giving rise to the Harappa civilisation
in the Indus Valley (“the land of Havilah”: Gesenius) and various other
civilisations in Africa and Egypt. This would account for the prolific spread
of Hamitic genes throughout the ancient world. These civilisations will be
discussed in other papers in the Descendants of Ham series.
It is almost certain
that the sons of Noah assisted with the construction of the Ark, thereby giving
them experience in building the ultimate seagoing vessel. Such invaluable
skills would have been handed down to their descendants, particularly Sidon,
son of Canaan, the forefather of unquestionably the greatest shipbuilders and
seafarers of ancient times – the Phoenicians (see the paper Sons of Ham Part V: Canaan (No.
45E)).
These Phoenicians also
included the sons of Tarshish that were a Japhethite group of the sons of
Javan.
The Semitic linguist
Zecharia Sitchin, in The Twelfth Planet, quotes part of a Sumerian text
which talks of the land called Arali lying some hundred berus away
from Sumer. The beru is either a time unit or a land measure, so that
100 beru is equal to about 200 hours of sailing time.
The text indicates that Arali
was situated west and south of Sumer. A ship traveling two or three thousand
miles in a south-westerly direction from the Persian Gulf could only have one
destination: the shores of southern Africa. …
The various names and epithets
for Ea’s [lord of Abzu’s] African Land of Mines are replete with clues to its
location and nature. It was known as A.RA.LI (“place of the shiny lodes”), the
land from which the metal ores come. … The land’s name -- Arali -- could also
be written as a variant of the pictograph for “dark-red” (soil), of Kush (“dark-red,”
but in time meaning “Negro”), or of the metals mined there; (Allen & Unwin,
London, 1977, pp. 284-289).
The term for black
soil is a name for Egypt as opposed to the red soil of the surrounding desert.
Kush is understood as meaning black, hence the term Negro.
Sitchin also comments
on the biblical text in 1Kings 10:22 describing Solomon’s fleet of ships that
brought back animals and produce from Africa.
1Kings 10:22 For the king had a fleet of ships of Tarshish
at sea with the fleet of Hiram. Once every three years the fleet of ships of
Tarshish used to come bringing gold, silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks. (RSV)
The fleet of Tarshish took three years to complete
the round trip. Allowing for an appropriate time to load up at Ophir, the
voyage in each direction must have lasted well over a year. This suggests a
route much more roundabout than the direct route via the Red Sea and the Indian
Ocean -- a route around Africa.
Most scholars locate Tarshish in the western Mediterranean,
possibly at or near the present Strait of Gibraltar. This would have been an
ideal place from which to embark on the voyage around the African continent.
Some believe that the name Tarshish means “smeltery.”
Many biblical scholars have suggested that Ophir
should be identified with present-day Rhodesia [Zimbabwe]. Z. Herman (Peoples,
Seas, Ships) brought together evidence showing that the Egyptians obtained
various minerals from Rhodesia in earliest times (ibid., pp. 288-289).
The candidates for this area have included
Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka, and the Arabian Peninsula. The matter is also discussed in
the papers on the Sons of Shem.
Language clues
Together with other
ancient sources, the Bible shows that all peoples of the Earth had the same language
both before and immediately following the Flood. At some stage a rebellion
occurred, whereby men presumptuously tried to make a name for themselves. The
city and tower of Babel, the epicentre of that rebellion, were both left
unfinished, as communication had suddenly become impossible from ‘confusing’ of
the common language by the elohim.
Genesis 11:1-9 Now the
whole earth had one language and few words. 2 And as men
migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled
there. 3 And they said to one another, "Come, let us make
bricks, and burn them thoroughly." And they had brick for stone, and
bitumen for mortar. 4 Then they said, "Come, let us build
ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name
for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole
earth." 5 And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower,
which the sons of men had built. 6 And the LORD said, "Behold,
they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the
beginning of what they will do; and nothing that they propose to do will now be
impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down, and there confuse their
language, that they may not understand one another's speech." 8 So
the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and
they left off building the city. 9 Therefore its name was called
Ba'bel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth;
and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.
(RSV)
It appears from the
prophecy in Zephaniah 3:9 that the world will eventually return to a single
pure language, as in those pre-Flood days when they spoke what has been
described as Edenic. It is interesting that the land of Cush is mentioned
in the same context.
Zephaniah 3:9-10 “Yea, at that time I will change the speech
of the peoples to a pure speech, that all of them may call on the name of the
LORD and serve him with one accord. 10 From beyond the rivers of
Ethiopia [Cush] my suppliants, the daughter of my dispersed ones, shall bring
my offering.” (RSV)
Even the Russian
scholars and linguists of the 1960s (e.g. V.V Shevoroshkin), who had no
particular interest in confirming the biblical account, concluded that there
must have been a single original Mother Tongue, whose origins they traced back,
unsurprisingly, to the Ararat mountains.
With regard to
written language, Richard Rudgley in Lost Civilisations of the Stone Age (Arrow
Books, UK, 1999) says:
It is generally agreed that
the earliest known writing comes from the Ancient Near East and first occurred
during the period 3500 to 2800 BC. Expert opinions favour 3100 BC as the most
likely time for this major historical landmark to have taken place. It was in
the city of Uruk (in present-day southern Iraq), epicentre of the Sumerian
world, that this great innovation took place. This initial form of writing has
been called proto-cuneiform … It was followed shortly afterwards by the
Proto-Elamite script in south-western Iran and, a little later, by Egyptian
hieroglyphics. About a thousand years later, writing appeared for the first
time in the Indus Valley civilisation (p. 48).
Egyptian hieroglyphs
are thus seen as a later invention, presumably a development from the pictorial
proto- or pre-cuneiform (wedge-shaped) writing of Sumeria.
Rudgley also noted
that some language experts “believe that it is simply impossible for historical
linguists to say anything of value – let alone certainty – about the state of
any language whatsoever before about 4000 BP [before present].” (ibid., p. 46).
In addition, the idea
of a long-standing connection between Mesopotamia and Egypt is strengthened by
the linguistic similarities between the two cultures. In his earlier work Legend,
David Rohl wrote:
[T]here are clear indications,
based on detailed comparative linguistic studies, that ancient Egyptian was
influenced by the Semitic languages of Mesopotamia. Indeed, it seems that
the two languages stem from a single original mother tongue. The point at
which the two separated from each other is hard to pinpoint but there is no
doubt that it was way back in the distant past. As the great Semiticist,
William Foxwell Albright, wrote in 1970:
If
a language community splits into two or more groups which are subsequently and
immediately isolated from one another, the language of each group will continue
to evolve. But because there is no fixed direction for linguistic change, these
languages will gradually diverge from one another in both form and content,
until, after a suitable time, they will have become quite distinct. … Although
Egyptian is not to be placed within the Semitic family, there are few
grammatical features which can be considered alien to that group. A close
genetic relationship is thus indicated and accepted; only on details is there a
divergence of scholarly opinion. [Albright & Lambdin, ‘The Evidence of
Language’ in CAH I:1,1970, pp. 124,133]
We do not only have the
vocabulary of Mesopotamia and Egypt to consider but also the basic structure of
the two language groups. Although less obvious to a non-specialist, the rules
of language are a better indicator of a common linguistic origin … and a
good number of Egyptian words can be traced back to Semitic originals.
However, one crucial little word is very important to our discussion of the
origins of the pharaonic state. The concept of maat, ‘divine truth’ or
‘cosmic order’ is fundamental to Egyptian royal theology … The word maat is
again a feminine word which carries an unpronounced ‘t’ ending and we would
therefore expect it to be pronounced something like ‘ma’ or ‘mua’. It is
interesting to note that the Sumerian word for the elements of cosmic order is me.
This linguistic clue aside, the
greater part of the Egyptian vocabulary appears to be native to the Nile valley
and may be of African -- what we call Hamitic -- origins. This would be
consistent with the idea that the Nakada II newcomers had initially spent an
intermediate period in a third geographical location where they adopted new
terms from the local inhabitants which better described their more exotic
environment. One such African location may have been Punt. Some of the
migrators could then have moved on up into the Nile valley where again they
would have quickly adapted to their new home by readily incorporating elements
of vocabulary from the local population. Indeed, as a minority group, they
would undoubtedly have been forced to adopt the local tongue in order to
communicate with the majority. This whole process may have spanned several
generations, by which time the original mother-tongue of the migrating clan
would have become submerged, only surfacing as a small percentage of the total
haraonic vocabulary. …
Ancient Egyptian is classified
within the Hamito-Semitic group of languages which include Berber, Tuareg and
Cushitic. The latter is spoken by the indigenous folk who live in the
geographical territory of modern Sudan and Ethiopia. … Thus ‘Cushitic’ was
spoken by the descendants of Cush and the broader term ‘Hamitic’, used
for the languages of north-east Africa, is derived from Ham … In adopting
these biblical terms for the linguistics of the ancient world,
nineteenth-century scholars were actually conforming to the historical picture
which is beginning to emerge from our own investigations. Their use of biblical
terminology may not have been so far from the actual reality. (op. cit., pp.
323-326)
The Northern Cushites
spoke another language system related to the Uralic-Altaic systems. Although
from above, as would be expected, there is a recognisable connection between at
least two of the patriarchal language stems. Along with many others, the late
Lithuanian archaeologist Marjia Gimbutas proposed that the area north of the
Caucasus and the Black and Caspian Seas was the original ‘homeland’ of the
Indo-European languages (see Proto-Indo-European Culture, Univ. of
Pennsylvania Press, 1970). The 20th-century language scholar,
Frederick Bodmer, added:
Though the Semitic and Hamitic
group diverge widely, their kinship is generally recognized. They share more
root-words than can be explained by borrowing; and they have some common
grammatical peculiarities (The Loom of Language, Geo. Allen & Unwin
Ltd, London, 1944, p. 420ff.).
Quite apart from
genetics and archaeology, therefore, we have the linguistic record as a means
of tracing the migrations of people throughout the world.
In subsequent papers
in this series we will look at the various tribes and groups descended from Ham
through his four sons down to the present day.
The curse of Canaan
The grievous sin of
Noah’s son or grandson is recounted in Genesis 9. Its far-reaching
implications, including slavery, are discussed below.
Genesis 9:18-27 The sons of Noah who went forth from the ark
were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Ham was the father of Canaan. 19 These
three were the sons of Noah; and from these the whole earth was peopled. 20
Noah was the first tiller of the soil. He planted a vineyard; 21 and
he drank of the wine, and became drunk, and lay uncovered in his tent. 22 And
Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two
brothers outside. 23 Then Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it
upon both their shoulders, and walked backward and covered the nakedness of
their father; their faces were turned away, and they did not see their father's
nakedness. 24 When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his
youngest [younger: KJV] son had done to him, 25 he said, "Cursed
be Canaan; a slave of slaves shall he be to his brothers." 26 He
also said, "Blessed by the LORD my God be Shem; and let Canaan be his
slave." 27 God enlarge Japheth, and let him dwell in the tents
of Shem; and let Canaan be his slave." (RSV)
Some are
of the opinion that the curse of Canaan involves racial superiority, and that
the prophecy about Canaan (also a ben or son of Noah) being made a slave to his brothers and
their descendants (vv. 25-27) directly condoned the enslavement of black
people. This view was prevalent during the 18th-20th
centuries even among Bible-believing Christians. It was always assumed that Ham
himself was a black man, however, only one of his sons, Cush, has a name
meaning black. The sons of Cush are widespread and his descendants are
in Northeast and West Africa in both C and B Haplogroups, but they are also the
ancestors of the HG C Australian Aboriginals (Hg. C4), some Indians but also
the Mongols and some East Asians, Maori, Chippewa or Nadine, Cheyenne and
Apache and the C3 element of the Maya Amerindians and the forebear of the black
tribes of both Africa and India. It is probable that Ham’s wife was also the
mtDNA Haplogroup L, which is now confined to Africa (in L1 and L2). Eve herself
must have been red to dark-skinned, as was Adam.
As will be shown in
later papers, that the sons of Ham were in fact the progenitors of widely
divergent groups of people, from Malians to Maori, and from Mongols to
Moroccans, only some of whom were black-skinned. The paper The Genetic Origin of the Nations
(No. 265) gives the various Haplogroups (Hg) to which many of the sons
of Ham belong, in both modern people groups and countries where they
predominate. These are summarised as follows:
Hg A:
Ethiopia
Morocco
South
Africa
Sudan
Hg B:
Cameroon
Ethiopia
Mali
Central
African Pygmy
Sudan
Hg B
is found essentially in sub-Saharan Africa. Hg A & B are most common in
Africa and in African-Americans.
Hg C:
Altaians
Amerindians
Australian
Aborigines
Buryats
Cameroon
Evenks
Khazaks
Koryaks
Maori
Mongols
These
Hg C groups moved from Africa and the Middle East to India and developed form there moving into
various areas of central Asia, which in turn became the origin for the entire
Mongol and Maori Pacific systems. The Northern Polynesians are also part Hg O
related to the Chinese and Malays.
Hg D:
Japan
Sumatra
Tibet
Hg D
groups tend to share a common linguistic system with those of Uralic-Altaic
languages although many of those languages are also Japhethite lines of N and
R1.
Both Hg D and Hg E stem from the YAP division (M145,
M213) thus the occupants of both Canaan and Egypt were from a common YDNA root
and that division, as Hg D, is found in all the Asian Negritos of the Andamans
and in India and in South-East Asia, and comprised over 20% of Japanese and
Tibetans and a large section of Sumatrans.
Hg E:
Burkina
Faso
Cameroon
Mali
South
Africa
This
group is found mainly in North Africa, but with some found in the Middle East
and Southern Europe with large concentrations in Greece. Many Jews are of this
group coming from the occupation of Canaan and from the Mixed Multitude. It is
also found in Egypt and North Africa. The premise is that it came from Africa
but it actually moved into Africa and spread from there.
Hg F:
Forms
the Root origin of the sons of Japheth and Shem and all other Haplogroups.
One unexpected result
of the racial superiority theory (supposedly) was the inter-tribal wars between
the Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda during the 1990s. The Wikipedia article
gives details.
Hamitic
theory in Rwanda
In Rwanda,
the Hamitic hypothesis was a racialist
hypothesis created by John Hanning
Speke which stated that the "Hamitic" Tutsi
people were superior to the "Bantu"
Hutus
because they were deemed to be more "White"
in their facial features, and thus destined to rule over the Hutus.[7]
The fact is that the Tutsis came in to Rwanda
from the North East and were assumed to have Semitic lines from the Hebrew
offshoots in Ethiopia. The Churches, both Roman Catholic and Anglican and even
the Seventh-Day Adventists, actually compiled records on the Tutsis and then
provided those records to the killing squads which they paid to engage in the
massacres, and the nuns carried jerry cans of petrol to burn down the buildings
in which the Tutsi victims took shelter. There were a number of bishops,
ministers and nuns charged with genocide and other crimes, convicted and sent
to prison for the offences. A story is contained in the web site www.holocaustrevealed.org.
Slavery
The Bible is racially
neutral and refers only to a curse on Canaan son of Ham for the actions that either Ham or Canaan perpetrated on Noah after the Flood.
There is only one
name that has any indication of the term colour. Cush means black;
Ham means hot or multitude. Yet, there are a number of nations of
Cushite descent that are not black at all, but range from racially white to
Asiatic, Polynesian or some of Amerindian descent. The YDNA groups are the only
way some can be differentiated. The greatest man in ancient times was Nimrod,
son of Cush, and it was he that established the cities of the Ancient Middle
East (Gen. 10:6-11).
The curse uttered by
Noah against Canaan was carried out and the Canaanites were placed within the
nations of both Shem and Japheth.
That aspect of the
curse of Canaan will be dealt with in the paper Sons of Ham Part V: Canaan (No.
45E). These people – whose land was Palestine, to Tyre and Sidon, at
present in Lebanon – were subjugated by and absorbed into the Hebrews and
surrounding nations. They became slaves of slaves to false gods and were to be
liberated in Christ. We will explain what was to happen to them and how they
were affected by this punishment and how it is to be overcome. These aspects
are also dealt with in the papers The Sons of Shem (No. 212 A-G). As we
progress it will be obvious that the sons of Ham made a very significant
contribution to world culture, knowledge and history, and at times have
dominated the major part of the known world.
The overall aspects
of slavery have been inflicted on all nations over time, and it is quite
inappropriate to discuss slavery in relation to the sons of Ham alone, even
though they themselves, through their intertribal conflicts in Africa, created
a slave trade many centuries and even millennia ago. The Ashanti were the largest native traders
since at least the 8th century CE, and their economy utterly
depended upon it; but they were only one of several African states who dealt in
mass slavery. African slavery was brutal, with recorded instances of beatings,
rape and mutilation. Shaka Zulu ruled with absolute cruelty and enslaved
nations.
That trade was taken
up by the Arabs and North African Hamites and turned into a worldwide trade in
human misery. It became, in effect, another type of Exodus situation and allowed
the general development of millions. Its racist development in the USA is an
indictment on the entire white civilisation there and in Britain. Slavery was a
function of all the major powers in all continents. The great powers up until
Ottoman times were ruthless in the treatment of slaves, and especially
runaways, no matter what the tribe or colour. White slaves were forbidden to
gain literacy among the Greeks and other nations.
The year 2007, or
30/120, marks the bicentennial of the passing of a Parliamentary Bill to end
Britain’s involvement in the transatlantic slave trade, following protracted
campaigns by William Wilberforce (1759-1833) and others. The Civil War saw the
end of slavery in the US, but that was not the intention of the war.
At its height, the
trade provided 40,000 African slaves a year for the British alone, while it has
been calculated that about 28 million Africans in total were transported
between 1450 and 1807. Three times as many were sent to the sugar plantations
of Jamaica as to America.
A lesser-known fact
is that Denmark, although only a minor player in the slave trade was actually
the first country to legislate against it. This was followed by several of the
northern American states. Most prominent among the British abolitionists were
the humanitarian Quakers.
White slavery
continues unabated today in the sex trade.
The Bible is clear on
the regulation of slavery in societies that tolerate this aberration in human
misery.
The Bible does not
make any elevation in racial hierarchies but, in fact, proclaims that the Plan
of God is to merge all nations into one people under the twelve Apostles as the
twelve tribes of Israel; and all men are to be saved, as salvation is of the
Gentiles through Jesus Christ.
We will proceed to develop
the story of the Sons of Ham and watch as they progress throughout the world and the pages of history, making a great global
impact, as we can see from the
distribution of their DNA Haplogroups.
q
Shem Ham Japheth
Ethiopia Egypt Libya Lebanon
Philistim 
