How old is prejudice against black people? Were
the racist attitudes that fueled the Atlantic slave
trade firmly in place 700 years before the European
discovery of sub-Saharan Africa? In this groundbreaking
book, David Goldenberg seeks to discover how
dark-skinned peoples, especially black Africans, were
portrayed in the Bible and by those who interpreted the
Bible--Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Unprecedented in
rigor and breadth, his investigation covers a 1,500-year
period, from ancient Israel (around 800 B.C.E.) to the
eighth century C.E., after the birth of Islam. By
tracing the development of anti-Black sentiment during
this time, Goldenberg uncovers views about race, color,
and slavery that took shape over the centuries--most
centrally, the belief that the biblical Ham and his
descendants, the black Africans, had been cursed by God
with eternal slavery. Goldenberg begins by examining
a host of references to black Africans in biblical and
postbiblical Jewish literature. From there he moves the
inquiry from Black as an ethnic group to black as color,
and early Jewish attitudes toward dark skin color. He
goes on to ask when the black African first became
identified as slave in the Near East, and, in a powerful
culmination, discusses the resounding influence of this
identification on Jewish, Christian, and Islamic
thinking, noting each tradition's exegetical treatment
of pertinent biblical passages. Authoritative,
fluidly written, and situated at a richly illuminating
nexus of images, attitudes, and history, The Curse of
Ham is sure to have a profound and lasting impact on
the perennial debate over the roots of racism and
slavery, and on the study of early Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam.
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