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Well, I’ve been trying to bring this topic up for two weeks, but it seems like such a massive topic I keep chickening out. I feel like many of us still are needing closure, healing or something on this topic. That is why I wanted to bring it up in it’s own thread. I’m just overwhelmed at how much history and scripture is involved. What I really want to know is how we (individually and as a church) can overcome this curse! This curse of Canaan that Noah pronounced. The one that was used to justify generations of black men being banned from holding the priesthood or entering the temple. The one that many, many have used to excuse and justify slavery and racism before our church was even born.
I am taking the OT adult institute class at church. I was bold enough to say I thought Noah may have practiced unrighteous dominion when he cursed Canaan.
😥 With this all going on in my mind I have spent hours upon hours researching this topic from the scriptural and cultural point of view. What if we debunked the whole Curse of Canaan thing (as it relates to skin color) using the scriptures? Would that make a difference? Is there anything we can do individually to irradicate this damaging principle?
If there is nothing we can do to change it, what can we do to reconcile it? It hurts me to the core when I hear people say these things. I’m also not happy to think of my children being exposed to this ideology.
For anyone interested, here are the cliff notes of my research:
*Canaan is cursed, not Ham
*Nothing is ever said about black or African people being cursed
*No scriptural proof the curse of Cain survived the Flood
*Book of Abraham claims that Egypt partook of the blood of Canaan by the loins of Ham-doesn’t make sense. Claims Ham had a daughter Egyptus-which is wierd since he had a son named Egypt. Either way, this only extends the curse to Egypt. We can still exclude Cush and Phut.
*Joseph married Asenath, an Egyptian. Ephraim and Manassah were partakers of the curse according to the BoA.
*Looks like half of the 12 tribes have Canaanite blood
*A biblical curse only lasts 3-4 generations. And that is only if the people are
unrepentent. *The Melchizedek PH is not a blood inherited PH. Joseph Smith taught that it was without father, mother or descent.
*God promised to bless those who bless Isreal. We have lots of instances of Canaan and Egypt blessing Isreal!
*As we know, several black men received the PH when Joseph Smith was alive. Elijah Able received washing and annointing in Kirtland Temple.
Not sure if this is what you’re looking for but my thoughts: I think the curse of the skin issue is a MUCH bigger problem in the BoM because of the historical context it pretends/presupposes/presents.
Metaphorically, or mythically, I see the curse of the skin construct as a representation of evil, satan, opposition. While at some levels it works in this mythic construct, unfortunately, for those of us living in the 21st century, it feels super icky. As a comparison, many of the similarly icky parts of the temple endowment presentation have now been deleted.
Mythic narratives feel like they need to be personified: the snake in the garden of eden, the burning bush, the dove, etc. A logical next step in an ancient tribal culture would be to project the “evil” onto the “other”, thus serving the purposes of personifying the mythic “opposition” in the form of the literal opposition, the other tribe that keeps taking our resources. Think Nazi Germany, Darfur, Kosovo. It’s an old narrative device that’s been around forever.
What to do about it? Who knows?? I know that I sensed that the new “other” to be demonized was the LGBT community. I did what I had to do when that was made official. btw, it’s the same narrative device used now. The official church position is that SSA is the equivalent of a disability, in essence, a curse, imho.
You never would have heard the phrase “Blessed with dark skin”. Just as you never hear the phrase “Blessed with SSA”.
(sorry, did not want to take it here but it is the same issue in my mind)
No comment. Yep. Welcome to the mormon cafeteria. I wouldn’t touch that dish with a 10 foot pole. It stinks to high heaven! For me, the question is how to get the cafeteria to stop serving this garbage!
Fwiw, this is a case of trying to get the water to the end of the row. This topic is very close to my heart. If we accept the FACT that people throughout time have associated differences with unrighteousenss – and that the most obvious differences are physical – and that they most obvious of the obvious is skin color – AND that “dark / black” has meant “gloomy / covered / etc” in many societies – and that the easiest way to keep believers from marrying unbelievers and losing their religion, when the religious-political distinctions were familial, ALWAYS has been to draw racial / ethnic distinctions – etc., I don’t struggle at all with derogatory racial statements in our historical past. I’ve accepted them as unfortunate but inevitable.
It’s the continuation of them in our day that concerns me, and the apostles and prophets have been crystal clear about such continuation being abominable. It’s getting the members to accept it that is rough.
If anyone is interested, the following post is a compilation of statements about this issue. Feel free to link to it or mention it outside of this forum if you want someone to see what the current position of the Church leadership is. (Don’t link to this comment on StayLDS; give the link to my own blog.)
“Repudiating Racist Justifications Once and For All”( http://thingsofmysoul.blogspot.com/2009/04/repudiating-racist-justifications-once.html Another one:
“An Amazing Lesson on Race: Oh, That We Had Understood and Followed”( http://thingsofmysoul.blogspot.com/2009/04/amazing-lesson-on-race-oh-that-we-had.html I’ll have to read your blog, Ray, cuz I don’t think that the message has been crystal clear. From what I know the answer has been “we don’t know why the blacks were banned from the PH” but it is still seen as God’s will. We have recent prophets who believe the LDS “Lamanites” will turn white skinned soon. From what I have found the ancient culture didn’t use skin color to gauge a persons worthiness or religion or race. That has only been in the past 500 years or so. With only a smattering of symolic usage before that. The pharoah’s of Egypt are pretty evenly divided between black and not.
One of the stories that was so ironic to me was that of Jacob and Leah & Rachel. Rebekah didn’t want him to marry any of the daughters of Heth-the footnote says “Marriage, Interfaith.” Then later in the story we discover that Leah and Rachel’s father was an IDOL worshipper. All the concubines were most certainly not of the same faith and lineage-they were Canaanite or Egyptian women. The ancients did not appear to interpret this story the way we do. I cannot come to the conclusion that skin color has ALWAYS been used to discriminate.
Okay, I read your first article and I really like it! Here is my problem. This is the lesson that is taught in 2009 to all institute students:
“The account of Noah’s “nakedness” and the role his sons played in the event is a puzzling one, especially the part in which Noah awakens and pronounces a curse upon Canaan, the son of Ham (see Genesis 10:6 ), who does not even seem to be present at the time.
Most members of the Church are aware that a priesthood garment, symbolic of the covenants made in the temple, is worn by those who have participated in the endowment ceremony in the temple. This garment is a representation of the coat of skins made by the Lord for Adam and Eve after the Fall (see Genesis 3:21 ; Moses 4:27 ). The idea of a garment made of skins that signified that one had power in the priesthood is found in several ancient writings. Hugh Nibley discussed some of these ancient writings and their implications for the passage in Genesis:
“Nimrod claimed his kingship on the ground of victory over his enemies [see Genesis 10:8–10 ; Reading 4-21 ]; his priesthood, however, he claimed by virtue of possessing ‘the garment of Adam.’ The Talmud assures us that it was by virtue of owning this garment that Nimrod was able to claim power to rule over the whole earth, and that he sat in his tower while men came and worshiped him. The Apocryphal writers, Jewish and Christian, have a good deal to say about this garment. To quote one of them: ‘the garments of skin which God made for Adam and his wife when they went out of the garden and were given after the death of Adam . . . to Enoch’; hence they passed to Methuselah, and then to Noah, from whom Ham stole them as the people were leaving the ark. Ham’s grandson Nimrod obtained them from his father Cush. As for the legitimate inheritance of this clothing, a very old fragment recently discovered says that Michael ‘disrobed Enoch of his earthly garments, and put on him his angelic clothing,’ taking him into the presence of God. . . .
“Incidentally the story of the stolen garment as told by the rabbis, including the great Eleazer, calls for an entirely different rendering of the strange story in Genesis [9] from the version in our King James Bible. They seemed to think that the ’erwath of Genesis [9:22] did not mean ‘nakedness’ at all, but should be given its primary root meaning of ‘skin covering.’ Read thus, we are to understand that Ham took the garment of his father while he was sleeping and showed it to his brethren, Shem and Japheth, who took a pattern or copy of it (salmah) or else a woven garment like it (simlah) which they put upon their own shoulders, returning the skin garment to their father. Upon awaking, Noah recognized the priesthood of two sons but cursed the son who tried to rob him of his garment.” ( Lehi in the Desert and the World of Jaredites, pp. 160–62.)
Therefore, although Ham himself had the right to the priesthood, Canaan, his son, did not. Ham had married Egyptus, a descendant of Cain ( Abraham 1:21–24 ), and so his sons were denied the priesthood.“ This is what is taught in the SEMINARY Manual today:
The Prphet Joseph Smith added “I referred to the curse of Ham for laughing at Noah, while in his wine, but
doing no harm. Noah was a righteous man, and yet he drank wine and became
intoxicated; the Lord did not forsake him in consequence thereof, for he
retained all the power of his Priesthood, and when he was accused by Canaan, he
cursed him by the Priesthood which he held,…and the curse remains upon the
posterity of Canaan until the present day.” (History of the Church 4:445-6)
So, we are still teaching the curse and priesthood ban. We are still teaching that the “curse of Cain” survived the flood. Everyone in the class (except one other man) totally believe that this means all black people were cursed by God from holding the PH because of this until 1978.
I can easily reconcile the people in the past being subject to their cultural prejudice. What I am having such a hard time with is a 2009 Institute Manual presenting the curse of Cain doctrine/principle. Who is in charge of the manual?
Plus, Abraham does NOT say
anythingabout Cain. It only says Canaan. It says nothing about Egyptus other than it means “forbidden.” It doesn’t even extend the curse to ALL of Ham’s sons. The manual is wrong and perpetuates false principles. IMNHO Why on earth would Egyptus be on the ark if she was not righteous and covenanted with Father? That just seems silly to me.
Now, I don’t necessarily believe this story is even literal, but my brothers and sisters in the church do. That is why I choose to use literal interpretations to put this principle to rest.
just me wrote:Now, I don’t necessarily believe this story is even literal, but my brothers and sisters in the church do. That is why I choose to use literal interpretations to put this principle to rest.
I think this is a good point. We need to engage with the rest of the church on their level. Perhaps teachings of the prophets will help to emphasize these points, but the scriptures you have compiled may also be helpful. It is not helpful that modern “prophets” have spoken poorly of blacks and it is not helpful that the church continues to refuse to admit that the priesthood ban was a mistake and instead perpetuate the belief that God did not want blacks to have the priesthood until 1978.
just me wrote:Who is in charge of the manual?
The Church Correlation Committee. It it is still in there, it was carefully read and vetted by dozens of individuals and deemed in accordance with accepted church doctrine. Sad, huh . . .
MisterCurie wrote:The Church Correlation Committee. It it is still in there, it was carefully read and vetted by dozens of individuals and deemed in accordance with accepted church doctrine. Sad, huh . . .
Yes. It really makes me want to cry every time I think about it.
😥 This is very difficult to discuss and solve without breaking out of the confines of the Church being completely “true” all the time, and also the notion many have in the Church that our accepted “truth” today has never changed. Mormonism has a unique element where we have Christianized, and I would even say Mormonized, all of the Old Testament. By that, I mean we think that Moses, Abraham and all the other old testament and BofM prophets had a full understanding and concept of “The Gospel” as we do today. So consequently, members of our Church have gone to great lengths to try and make it all seem consistent. A part of this was the Mark of Cain and selective priesthood ordination. I did a lot of research on this topic. Unfortunately, I don’t have all my files with me right now because of our recent move.
Here are a few notes from memory:
The Mark of Cain has nothing to do with skin color in the Old Testament. It only says that God placed a mark upon Cain. If anything, it might possibly have been a cross symbol, which was the pre-hebrew symbol for the word “mark” (pronounced “owth”). There is no indication it was anything other than a cursing or some symbolic mark, not a change in physical features. That is what the Hebrew says.
This idea is also not original to Mormonism. It dates back hundreds of years, possibly as old as the 5th century CE. I believe we picked this concept up in the early Church from converts bringing in their existing beliefs (Orson and Parley Pratt come to mind specifically) and also through their associations with Masonry (that also had themes of segregation regarding initiation).
We tend to see the past through our modern eyes. I don’t see evidence that the priesthood was given to any but select groups in the past as a responsibility or as a role in society. Only Levites were priests in Isreal, or the Old Testament (most of it). I don’t see universal priesthood even in the Book of Mormon. The practice of ordaining all males to be priests today is a radical shift in practice, and I think trying to make a connection with the past is just full of problems logically. It just wasn’t the same. So trying to come up with some justification for one group or against another, based on the Old Testament, is a mess.
I personally think it was a cultural error in the Church that needed to be pruned out and thrown into the fire (to use Ray’s often-used olive branch analogies). Not that I like to use this as an excuse, but our past policy was very much in line with other protestant churches not ordaining people as ministers. We were a sadly a good 15-20 years slow in making the changes they made. That is a shame, because we started as a very progressive church for our time.
Just to add to Valoel’s comments: – as Valoel says, these are notions that are taught in other churches. I’ve never seen a date as early as 5th century, but it wouldn’t surprise me. I know that many Protestant sects teach this, and it is even referenced in Barbara Kingsolver’s novel The Poisonwood Bible (a great read with some parallels to fanatic religious devotion’s negative side effects). Brigham Young quite obviously quoted his Protestant roots on this topic.
– in the 1800s, “light skin” was considered superior to “dark skin” even among caucasians. It was more of an economic bias than a racial one. Fair skinned people were more wealthy, aristocratic, civilized, living indoors, etc., whereas those with darker skin were farmers, living outdoors, working hard in the sun, less wealthy, not aristocrats. Even in the United States where we theoretically didn’t have as much of a class system, these societal norms prevailed during the 1800s. You could theorize a number of things from that: 1) that poverty or not being able to live in a civilized city is the underlying curse, 2) those biases are reflected in the BOM because JS thought they were natural, or 3) those biases are in the BOM because they are ‘natural’ biases that recur in different societies.
In the Bible, in any case, there is clearly a prohibition on interfaith marriage for the Israelites. Is that because they were monotheistic and the Canaanites were child-sacrificing polytheists? Is it because tribalism (fear of outsiders) creates stronger followers of a religion? To pin it on skin color is not, IMO, the clearest or best reason for Israelites to be restricted to marrying other Israelites back in the day.
But people like to come up with new reasons for stuff and then those reasons get passed down. For example, many members believe that polygamy was instituted to care for the widows, but the numbers just don’t bear that out. Nice story, but not what actually happened. If you ask me, the protestant religions were just doing what people do – try to come up with reasons for what they read in the Bible. Since racism was already accepted as valid at the time, it was easier to pin it on skin color and make up weird stories or find nuances to the myths to support that view. The real problem is that the orthodox have a hard time questioning two things: religious myths and tradition. They have to do mental gymnastics to reconcile myth and tradition with current reality. While that’s really not necessary, it’s a natural human tendency to try to do so, more for some people than others.
That has got to be a tough one for you guys to reconcile. Hopefully you can all find an explanation that works for you without turning the Church into an institution that bows to social mores (sp?). Bruce in Montana wrote:That has got to be a tough one for you guys to reconcile. Hopefully you can all find an explanation that works for you without turning the Church into an institution that bows to social mores (sp?).
On the contrary, this is very easy to resolve. With an understanding of the apostles and prophets as humans who are trying their best, but are subject to their own cultural biases, they are bound to be highly influenced by their upbringing. Many could not see past their own views of the world and those that truly desired to obtain a revelation to alter the church policy put an unnecessarily high bar on what level of revelation was needed in order to change the policy.
Bruce, what is hard to reconcile is the continued bigotry and racist comments heard in church meetings when it is incongruent with the gospel of Jesus Christ. I also find it sad that there are false doctrines still being perpetuated in the Institute and Seminary manuals. I already know the doctrine is false as it was taught and perpetuated in the modern church. Scripture has a long history of being used and twisted to suit the doctrines of men.
Bruce, I would love your input if you don’t mind answering a few questions. If you would prefer not, I respect that. You’re just really the only one who believes in this who I can ask.
Could you show me where the “curse of Ham” is in the Bible?
Could you then show me where it tells us that all those with Negro blood (using the early LDS wording) are the ones all under this curse using ONLY the scriptures?
Do you believe that the curse extended to all Egyptians as it seems to say in Abraham? If not, why?
Could you also explain how a priesthood that is “without father, mother or descent” could be barred from someone based on their father, mother and descent.
Do you have a scripture to show when the priesthood was granted to people outside the Levite lineage?
You agree, do you not, that if it cannot be proved by the scriptures we can lay it aside??? That goes along with the “even if an angel teaches another gospel” scripture that you like as much as I do. I’ll admit it’s always a shock to see you use it, though.
If I could prove it was never part of the gospel to begin with using the scriptures, would that make a difference? What would prove something was “another gospel?”
Man, this topic sucks to get through. As I recall, BY was approached about a black man practicing polygamy in Utah. He was swooping up all the white girls. Some of his neighbors went to BY to see his view about interracial marriage. BY’s response was to restrict blacks members’ church practices. The so-called “curse”, which was originally thought of a certain race that held red hair and freckles, was the best justification at the time, being popular in the 18th and 19th centuries. I’m sure we’ve all looked into this from the OT. Their is nothing of any race attached to any curse. We’ve just been told this for too long. And all this because a black dude was getting all the ladies. I think most of us here, TMB, fundamentalists, inactives and apostates, believe the modern prophets have gotten
somethings wrong from time to time, things that were not given by God but misinterpreted as so. This certainly could be one of them. just me wrote:Bruce, I would love your input if you don’t mind answering a few questions. If you would prefer not, I respect that. You’re just really the only one who believes in this who I can ask.
Bruce can answer for himself if he wants. But to be clear, we generally avoid getting into these kinds of discussions — debating a certain position’s correctness. Bruce is more of a fundamentalist. Although I agree it is tenuous to construct this only from the Old Testament, there is plenty of supplemental information from Mormon scripture and statements from leaders to construct this argument. That is why this discussion comes up so often and causes heartburn for so many of us
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