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I remember reading in a book (that I can't find now) that sexual topics were avoided and spoken of obliquely. Making them more difficult for us to recognize.

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I am a stranger in a wicked and adulterous land. I look forward to returning home one day.

This is very true (especially in the OT).

However, too often in recent history people have tried to see "sex" in nearly everything and that itself is a huge mistake; for the most part we can trust the translators to have correctly identified and translated those passages were sexual innuendo is clearly present. There are only a few cases where there are questions (like this passage in Ge. 9) and then we need to remember that the very same langauge could just as easily imply something other than a sexual innuendo.

Interesting post about reading sexuality into everything.

In the early modern era, Sigmund Freud set forth a model where sexual impulse was at the root of nearly all human endeavor, and most commonly suppressed. While there are very few true Freudians left, the impact of his ideas have been absorbed into the culture.


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I'm interested in the comparison between the account of Noah after the flood and Lot after the flight from Sodom. There's no innuendo in the account of Lot and his daughters. It's pretty explicit.

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indeed -- that's why i tend to think the Noah/Ham dealio is some sort of cultural taboo that may have been lost -- or, perhaps it seems so silly today that commentators think it couldn't possibly mean that

Noah got liquored up yet i don't recall him being chastised for it -- that's part of the picture too

Who would have chastised Noah for drunkeness? He was the patriarch after all. And the narrator of Genesis does not tend to directly critique persons, but reports what happened (which is a form of critique itself).

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The story of lot and his daughters is also somewhat veiled in innuendo for much of the story i.e. it tells us that they gave their father wine and laid with him and rose up and their father did not know of their laying and their rising; i.e. it is similar to us saying that "someone has slept around." However, it is less veiled when they say before hand that they will "live from their father's seed" and completely unveiled when it tells us they conceived and gave birth to sons.

Part of the reason that the Hebrew of the OT refers to sexual relations by idiom is because it lacks any vocabulary to do other wise; there are no words reserved solely to describe the sex act itself nor are there words solely used to describe the genitals. Genitals are often described as "nakedness," "flesh", etc... and sex is often described as "knowing a woman," "laying with a woman," etc....

Regarding the story of Noah and Ham in Gen. 9; the reason their is no clarity is partially because of the actions of the other brothers i.e. walking backwards to cover their father without seeing his nakedness.

If there were a sexual act involving the mother then we would have to assume a whole lot of things that we are not told i.e. that both Noah and his wife got drunk and that the brothers were trying to cover their mother. Possible? Maybe given the similar phrase used in Lev. 18 that describes a father's wife as "his nakedness" but it is certainly not clear.

uh,...God

my faulty memory tends to agree with you

Some interesting ideas have been floated. Connected to this incident is Noah's curse on Canaan, a son of Ham. Why would the curse be directed to the son?

Consequences for sin often devolve upon the children. When the ground was cursed because of Adam's sin, for example, all of his children bore the consequence. Similarly, when representative heads such as kings sin, the people whom they rule often bear the consequences, as when David sinned by numbering the people (2 Samuel 24).

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GFR1718- Well let's look at the that passage a little closer it states that Ham looked upon noah's nakedness . Back in biblical times in the old testament it was considered a sin not only of homosexualality , but to look at your father's nakedness . One of the ten commandments states to honor your mother and father. In ham's case noah was an object of ridicule in his drunken state . Now if you read further on in Ham's genealogy Ham's decendent's were wicked and also part of his decendents were scattered to sodom and gomorrah. also the land of canaan was in severe famine so what do they do they went to egypt and offered themselves as slaves to the pharaoh. also if you read this reference josh 9 : 21,22,27 , judges 1:28,31,33 and 1 kings 9:20,21 these passages should help you with your question.

People do a lot of strange things when they are "liquored up." If you've ever seen someone who was a role-model/authority-figure really drunk (I'm talking passed out on the floor after having urinated and vomited on themselves drunk) it's very hard to hold them in the same high respect you did in the past.

This story may be nothing more than Noah being embarassed that Ham saw him in this condition, and Noah expressing his embarrassment as anger. Ham essentially pointed out Noah's weakness instead of covering up for him (as his brother's did). Which was the proper custom of the day?

Of course, that's only one interpretation, and it's really just a guess (as are the other's here).