Genesis: Chapter Nine (God's Covenant With Noah, The Sons of Noah)

In which God makes rainbows and swears he won't flood the world to death again; and in which Ham fists Noah, resulting in Ham's son's punishment.

God and Noah have a conversation. God gives his blessing to Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and tells them to "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth." (9:1) In addition to run-on sentences, God really likes pushing that incest. Enough on that. I wonder why God didn't also bless Noah's wife and daughter-in-laws. God also says that from now on, all animals on earth will fear man. (9:2) "Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything." (9:3)

Were humans vegetarians before now? God says that previously he had only given humans plants for food, but now they can eat meat, too. If humans didn't eat other animals before now, why did Abel keep track of the livestock like Genesis 4:2 tells us? Maybe this shines some light on why Abel's offering of animals to God was favored over Cain's offering of plants. Let's assume for a moment that God had a thing for animals and had kept them safe from human consumption. You know how when you're playing Jenga, it takes forever to set up the tower of blocks, three bricks at a time, but it's totally worth all that effort to watch it fall down at the end of the game? Maybe God goes through the same "destruction is a form of creation" thought process that humans do. After all, man was made in God's image, so it's entirely plausible (provided that you accept that God exists and that man was created - not evolved - in God's image). In other words, that's why we have things like Jenga and the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

And then, in 4:4-6, God puts some caveats in place. "You must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it." So don't eat raw meat. Okay. If they can make fire, they can avoid this. Also, kill the animals before you eat them. Also not a problem. I'm fairly sure that a cow would not let you take a bite out of it while its hooves were in good working order. Also, God says not to kill other humans because God "will surely demand an accounting." More poetically, he says:

Whoever sheds the blood of man,
by man shall his blood be shed;
for in the image of God
has God made man.

I believe that later on, in Exodus, God will make a similar commandment in the form of the infamous "eye for an eye" speech. In the case of murder, the murderer should also be killed. But to follow the example, Mahatma Ghandi might have said, "A homicide for a homicide leaves the whole world dead," which goes against verse 9:7, in which God tells the guys again to "be fruitful and increase in number; multiply on the earth and increase upon it." It seems hypocritical to finish up a speech advocating reciprocal murder with a heartlifting message about populating the earth. Or maybe it makes perfect sense. I really can't tell at this point.

Continuing, God establishes a covenant with Noah and his sons, with all of their descendants, and with every living creature that was on the ark with them. God's promise is that "never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth." (9:9-11) This is utterly laughable. God promises not to ever impossibly destroy all life on earth except for a very small percentage ever again. Imagine if World War II had ended with Adolf Hitler promising to never overtake most of Europe and kill every Jew, Catholic priest, and homosexual in sight to gain political advantage and advance his study of black magic. Furthermore, this is the oldest trick in the book. God's not saying he'll never destroy all life on earth again; he just won't use a flood to do it. Maybe next time he'll set the world on fire. Maybe he'll just explode the entire planet. Maybe he'll send a rain of flaming meteors the size of Switzerland. Or maybe he'll just kill all Christians, move them to Heaven, and force the rest of the heathens to fight it out amongst the rubble.

As a sign of his honesty, God invents the rainbow and makes them appear after rainfall so that "Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind." (9:14-15) If God's signature had an "i" in it, he would dot the letter with a heart. God goes on a little bit about the same thing ("This is the sign of the covenant I have established..." and so on) all the way through 9:17, where the second part of this compound chapter begins.

In The Sons of Noah, we relearn that Shem, Ham, and Japheth are Noah's sons (9:18-19). In 9:20 Noah plants a vineyard, and in 9:21 he makes some wine, gets drunk, and passes out naked in his tent. I can't tell you how many camping trips have ended up with me in the same situation. Ham, in 9:22, walks in on his father, sees that Noah is naked, and runs out to tell his brothers. Shem and Japeth "took a garment and laid it across their shoulders; then they walked in backward and covered their father's nakedness. Their faces were turned the other way so that they would not see their father's nakedness." (9:23)

And so, homophobia is born. But seriously, I don't understand this. I mean, I understand that your father passed out in the buff may not be the most pleasant of sights, but walking in backwards to lay a shirt across his junk is a little overboard. Considering that only six chapters ago, humans were perfectly fine with being nude around each other, man certainly made a quick turnaround.

As if it wasn't bad enough that two of the boys took extra-special super care not to see their daddy's wee-wee, Noah really loses it when he wakes up. 9:24 says, "When Noah awoke from his wine and found out what his youngest son had done to him..."

Wait. What? First of all, "his youngest son"? See 5:32 where Noah has three kids in the same sentence. Okay, so they're maybe not triplets, but I would have liked that to be more clear. But then... "what his youngest son had done to him"? Assuming he means Ham (as later verses will confirm), what exactly did Ham do to him? He came in, saw his dad was naked, then alerted his brothers so they could cover him up and spare him any further embarrassment. But really, what did Noah expect to happen? The old man got drunk on homebrewed wine and fell down naked!

I had to go to the Internet to find something more about this. The Church of the Great God says, "An illicit sexual act is indicated." But it's really not. Nowhere in that sentence, paragraph, chapter, or any other segment of this book is an "illicit sexual act" mentioned, alluded to, verbalized, printed, or communicated in any way. There is nothing here to suggest an illicit sexual act.

So I shall consult another Bible. King James, lend me your pages! In the KJV, 9:24 goes like this: "And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him." So it's the same thing. Still no mention of what other Bible commentors seem to believe was homosexual anal rape while his father was incapacitated after hitting the bottle. Jesus! The Bible is graphic and bloody enough already! Must we make up even worse stuff just to justify Noah's rage? Can't we just say that he was hungover?

Noah flips out and curses Ham's son, Canaan in 9:25-27 —

Cursed be Canaan!
The lowest of slaves
will he be to his brothers.
Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem!
May Canaan be the salve of Shem.
May God extend the territory of
Japheth
may Japheth live in the tents of Shem,
and may Canaan be his slave.

Supposedly, Ham commits the horrible, disgusting act of walking in on his drunk, unconcious father (or maybe he really plowed his dad's anus, but the Bible ain't sayin'; what happens in Noah's tent stays in Noah's tent), and his son gets cursed into slavery. That sounds like a really reasonable punishment, doesn't it? Tell you what, if it means that I get to commit all the sodomy I want, I'll gladly let you punish my son instead of me.

All this in a chapter that was supposed to be about rainbows.

The chapter closes out with a couple of quick verses about Noah's death. 9:28-29 say that Noah lived 350 years after the flood, for a grand total of 950 years. That's almost 80 fake, nonsensical, magic Gregorian years, if you're counting.