A slight detour from the regular reading to elaborate for a moment on todays reading of parasha Noah Genesis 10:06-20 in particular. Cush along with Put, Canaan & Mizrahim are mentioned as the sons of Ham. We all know where Canaan is & Mizrahim is Egypt. Cush is translated in some texts as Ethiopia. Now, Nimrod son of Cush built the tower of Babel in Babylon which today we accept as Iraq, did Nimrod travel from Ethiopia to Iraq to build his tower like Asshur son of Shem who built Nineveh? Probably not. The queen of the south who visited Solomon was said to be a Sabean a term meaning Southern Arabian which is ascribed to Ethiopians. Like the British monarchy whose origins arent British the Ethiopian monarchy also had its origins outside of what is today modern Ethiopia & Ethiopians have been called many things including Midianites Sudanese & Somalians. The point Im making is this, there isnt any evidence in the text to suggest that the people located at the southern regions of Africa are in any way related to the text. The lands of Ham, Japhet & Shem are all found between the Middle East, Northern Africa, through to parts of Europe and Asia (Im aware that the Middle East is in Asia). Maybe those people are new beings to the planet or maybe old souls long forgotten. In either case I think we should stop calling them Ham until we find out their true identity.
Posted on: Sun, 26 Oct 2014 00:34:58 +0000