Category Archives: Old Testament

Noah Gets Drunk After the Flood

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These mosaics in the narthex (vestibule) of St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice illustrate part of the story of Noah.

Most people recognize Noah. He built the Ark to save the world from the flood, right? He collected all the animals, two-by-two, and loaded them onto the ark so that they could ride out the flood in safety and after the flood was over, he released them to repopulate the earth. What else is there to know?

Noah’s story continues after the end of the flood. When Noah and his family (wife, three sons, and their wives) came out of the ark, the earth was devestated. One of the first things they had to do was begin farming so that they could have something to eat. As part of the farming project, Noah dug a garden and planted grapes. When the grapes were ripe, he harvested them and made wine. When the wine was ready, Noah began to drink it. And drink it. And DRINK it! The first recorded instance of drunkeness! He got drunk and passed out naked in his tent. Naked.

His son Ham walked into the tent and saw his father naked. He went out and told his brothers Shem and Japheth what he had seen. Rather than leave their father laying naked, Shem and Japeth went into the tent, walking backwards and holding a cloak in front of their eyes so that they would not see their father naked. They covered Noah with the cloak and walked out again. When Noah woke up, he knew–apparently without anyone needing to tell him–what had happened. He was so furious at Ham’s behavior that he cursed Ham’s son Canaan.

Ham had seen his father naked. Not only did he do nothing to cover Noah but he went out and told other people and made fun of Noah for lying around drunk, passed out, and naked on the floor. Because Noah seemed to know what had happened, even without anyone telling him, early Jewish commentary thought that Ham had sexually abused his father in some way that left physical evidence behind and suggested that he had castrated his father. Since he had made it impossible for his father Noah to have any more children, Noah cursed Ham’s son Canaan with slavery to insure that Ham had no legal, property-owning descendants. (This idea was used to justify the Israelite occupation under the leadership of Joshua of the area known as Palestine or Canaan after the Exodus. Since Ham’s descendants were also thought to have populated Egypt and the rest of Africa, the curse of Noah was also used by preachers and politicians in the American South to justify the race-based slavery there.)

Early Christian preachers thought that Ham’s mockery of Noah was more important than “having seen his father naked.” Ham made fun of his father’s shame in public, prefiguring the ridicule Christ would face when dying on a cross. Since Christians respect Christ’s flesh like Shem and Japheth respected the flesh of their father, Ambrose of Milan argued, they too will be blessed. Reluctant to imagine that Noah, a savior like Christ, had been raped or castrated, Christian interpreters offered comparatively mild interpretations of this passage. Still, they were also convinced that Ham—and by extension his son Canaan—were wicked and deserved the harsh punishment they received.

For more about the ways the story of Noah and his sons, read here.

On the roof of the narthex (porch) of St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice are a series of gorgeous Byzantine-style moasiacs illustrating stories from the Old Testament, beginning with the Creation and continuing with the Tower of Babel, the Flood, the lives of Abraham and Joseph, concluding with Moses leading the Israelites through the desert to the Promised Land. The mosaics were made during the 1200s.

Lunar Eclipses and Wolves — O, my!

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A photo of the blood moon last week.

A photo of the blood moon last week.

Last week was the “blood moon” eclipse, when the super moon (it looked larger due to its proximity to the earth, as it was at the point in its orbit that brings it closest to the earth and the earth’s shadow gives the full moon a red glow). It was difficult to see from many parts of New York because of the cloudy weather that night but many other areas had clear views. Such an event (the last one was in 1982 and it will not be repeated again until the year 2033) caused a lot of excitement and moon-watching parties but in older days it would have been a cause of alarm.

In the Norse eddas, a monster named Managarmr, the Moon Hound, swallows up the moon and stains the skies with blood during Ragnarok, the end of the world. According to the Gylfaginning (the opening portion of the poetic eddas), Managarmr is also known as Hati Hróðvitnisson, and is the son of Fenrir, the grey wolf, and a giantess.

In the Old Testament, the prophets warned that the moon would be dyed with blood at the end of the world and in the Book of Revelation the moon is also predicted to shine as red as blood: “And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood” (Revelation 6:12). This sixth seal that was broken open to release earthquakes and eclipses is followed by the opening of the famous “seventh seal,” the subject of Ingmar Bergman’s movie.

One of the Brothers Grimm reported that “In a lighted candle, if a piece of the wick gets half detached and makes it burn away too fast, [common folk] say ‘a wolf (as well as a thief) is in the candle’; this too is like the wolf devouring the sun or moon.” It seems that the wolf eating the candlelight was related to the wolf eating the moonlight and that one could certainly be linked to the other.

Maybe we can do an experiment to see if we can cause an eclipse with a candle like that? I can see a story developing here; can’t you?

Speaking of “bad moons,” you should see the BAD MOON ON THE RISE series here! There is a new fantasy-horror-thriller review posted each day of October. Some great new ideas for your reading thrills-and-chills!

The Sacrifice of Isaac and a Dysfunctional Family?

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This icon of the "Hospitality of Abraham" depicts Abraham and Sarah serving the three angels who came to visit them at the Oaks of Mamre. They promised that Sarah would have a son in a year and then two of the angels went on to save Abraham's nephew Lot from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.

This icon of the “Hospitality of Abraham” depicts Abraham and Sarah serving the three angels who came to visit them at the Oaks of Mamre. They promised that Sarah would have a son in a year and then two of the angels went on to save Abraham’s nephew Lot from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Last week. the New York City public schools had a day off to mark the celebration of the Muslin holiday of Eid al-Adha which celebrates the sacrifice of Isaac and marks the conclusion of the pilgrimage to Mecca. As part of the celebration, each family is expected to give away one-third of their festive meal to the poor and needy. In Jewish and Christian retellings of the story, Isaac is bound for sacrifice on a barren hill top that later becomes either the Holy of Holies in the Temple or the summit of Calvary/Golgotha. Although the original story does not tell us how old Isaac was when Abraham took him to sacrifice, later interpretations of the story say that Isaac is a young man in his early 30s who could easily have overcome his father Abraham; not only does Isaac willingly go with his father Abraham but he carries the wood on which he knows that his father means to burn his body after slaying him. In these versions of the story, Isaac’s obedience to the divine command is just as critical to the outcome as Abraham’s obedience.

In the prayers for a first marriage in the Orthodox Church, many saintly couples of the Old Testament are asked to pray for and celebrate with the newlyweds. These couples from the Old Testament are held up as examples of marital life to be emulated. But recently, when Sister Vassa Larin, host of the popular Coffee with Sister Vassa podcasts, visited our parish, one woman asked what saints a couple might turn to if they were experiencing marital difficulties or considering divorce. It seems to me that at least one of these saintly Old Testament couples invoked in the wedding service are also appropriate saints to see as patrons of marital difficulties: Abraham and Sarah.

The life of Abraham and Sarah is recounted in Genesis 11-25. We read that Abraham led his extended family out from their traditional homeland and across the Middle East to the “Promised Land” which has come to be identified with Israel. No record of how Sarah felt about packing up and leaving behind everything she had ever known. Further along in the text, we find that Abraham acted as a pimp for his wife Sarah while they were in Egypt (no record of how Sarah felt about THIS — and according to the story, it happened more than once! see Genesis 12 and 20) and he later tried to sacrifice/kill the son he had with Sarah — again, no record of how she felt about this attempt on her son’s life although we can imagine how any mother might feel if her husband tried to kill her only child. On the other hand, Sarah did attempt to kill her handmaiden Hagar after she had urged Abraham to make her his mistress.

All together, it seems that Abraham and Sarah had a rocky relationship at best and that depictions of them as a happy, older couple doting on their infant son Isaac oversimplify and cheapen the narrative as a whole. Their life together is much more like a Peyton Place than it is a picnic on the grass. All of which goes to show that the Abraham-and-Sarah saga, so central to the Old Testament, touches on just about every variety of human experience.

The Sarajevo Haggadah, one of the oldest Sephardic Haggadahs in the world, comes from Barcelona around 1350 and contains many beautiful illuminations to illustrate the text. One of these shows the Sacrifice of Isaac (commonly called the “Binding of Isaac”):

An illustration of the binding and sacrifice of Isaac from the Sarajevo Haggadah (mid-14th century).

An illustration of the binding and sacrifice of Isaac from the Sarajevo Haggadah (mid-14th century).