The Injustice of Noah's Curse
Justin Michael Reed
Oxford University Press
Following the flood and the rainbow, Genesis 9 has one final story about Noah. The patriarch gets drunk, strips naked, and passes out. One of his sons, Ham, sees Noah naked. When Noah wakes up, he utters a curse of slavery against not Ham, but one of Ham's sons, Canaan. Why is Noah's reaction so severe? And why does he curse Canaan, who did nothing?
For more than two thousand years, interpreters have tried to make sense of what seems like an injustice in Noah's reaction.
Instead of trying to explain away the injustice of Noah's curse, Justin Michael Reed affirms that Noah's curse is unjust, and he uses critical race theory, speech act theory, intertextuality, and irony to make sense of the injustice of Noah's curse in its literary context.