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Pergunta: "Hamites" Quando uma maldição bíblica tornar-se associado com o?
Question: When did a biblical curse become associated with the "Hamites?"
The origin of the "curse of Ham" pre-dates the establishment of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by hundreds of years
The basis used is Genesis 9:18-27:
- 18 And the sons of Noah, that went forth of the ark, were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth: and Ham is the father of Canaan.
- 19 These are the three sons of Noah: and of them was the whole earth overspread.
- 20 And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard:
- 21 And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent.
- 22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without.
- 23 And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father’s nakedness.
- 24 And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him.
- 25 And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.
- 26 And he said, Blessed be the Lord God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.
- 27 God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.
- Gen. 9:18-27 (emphasis added)
Although these verses clearly state that Canaan is cursed, it is not clear that the curse would be extended to his descendants. The use of Genesis 9 to associate a biblical curse with the descendants of Ham actually began in the third and fourth centuries A.D. [1] This "curse" became associated with the Canaanites. Origen, an early Christian scholar and theologian, makes reference to Ham's "discolored posterity" and the "ignobility of the race he fathered." [2] Likewise, Augustine and Ambrose of Milan speculated that the descendants of Ham carried a curse that was associated with a darkness of skin. This concept was shared among Jews, Muslims and Christians. The first "racial justification" for slavery appeared in the fifteenth century in Spain and Portugal. In the American colonies, the "curse of Ham" was being used in the late 1600's to justify the practice of slavery. [3] As author Stephen R. Haynes puts it, "Noah's curse had become a stock weapon in the arsenal of slavery's apologists, and references to Genesis 9 appeared prominently in their publications." [4]
Notas
- ↑ Stephen R. Haynes, Noah's Curse: The Biblical Justification of American Slavery (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002)
- ↑ Origen, "Genesis Homily XVI," in Homilies on Genesis and Exodus, translated by Ronald E. Heine (Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1982), p. 215, referenced in Haynes.
- ↑ Haynes, p. 7-8.
- ↑ Haynes, p. 8.