Critics have a difficult time with the view that Ham’s
descendants carried the mark of the black skin through the Flood and continued
the Lord’s curse on certain people. It is certainly not a politically correct
attitude today; however, it would seem that the Lord is not a politically
correct God. He does what he does, and people can either accept His will, or
not, according to their pleasure. But rejection does not mean that it is not
His will.
In the case of Cain’s curse and mark, which was carried
beyond the Flood, the problem surrounds the holding of the Priesthood, a divine
injunction that allows man to act in the name of God in the carrying out of His
work. Whether man agrees with God in His rules for this priesthood matters
littler.
First of all, we need to understand that all of Noah’s sons,
including Ham, were honorable men who
walked with God (Moses 8:27), and was favored by Him along with Noah, who was
not only a just man, but perfect in his generation (Genesis 6:9). However, Ham
made the decision to marry outside the favored lineage, and as a result, became
one of the sons of God (those holding the priesthood) that saw the daughters of men
(those not holding the priesthood) and they were fair, and they took them wives
of all which they chose (Genesis 6:1). And the Lord was not pleased, saying “My
spirit shall not always strive with man” for the children of such marriages
became wicked and evil continually (Genesis 6:5), which grieved Noah and the
Lord said he would destroy man and all living things (Genesis 6:7).
Unfortunately, there are many people who do not really
understand about the Priesthood (Exodus 40:15; Numbers 25:13; Hebrews 24; I
Peter 2:5) that was held by Noah’s sons and why the curse of Cain continued
through Ham’s children. Obviously, the problem was not with Ham, for he was a
just man, but rather because the priesthood was claimed by his sons through the
wrong line, "that lineage by which he could not have
the right of Priesthood" (Abraham 1:27).
What was wrong with it? Simply this: It was not the
patriarchal but the matriarchal line he was following. Even while
"seeking earnestly to imitate that order established by the fathers
in the first generations [what the Egyptians called the pawt], in the
days of the first patriarchal reign" (Abraham 1:26), he nonetheless
traced his descent and his throne to "a
woman, who was the daughter of Ham, the daughter of Egyptus" (Abraham
1:23); this woman "discovered the land" and "settled her sons in
it" (Abraham 1:24). Her eldest son, named Pharoah, who became the first ruler
or king "after the manner" of the patriarchal order (Abraham 1:25),
which the king sought earnestly to "imitate."
Pharoah was a righteous man during his entire reign, but he
did not hold the Priesthood. Though Pharaoh was Egypt's first King,
Egypt would likely have been separated into two Egypts before the birth of
Mizraim, because his name means “two lands,” which stands for Upper Egypt and
Lower Egypt. This might well mean that Egyptus founded Egypt, and before
the birth of her brother, Mizraim, the land became divided. Pharaoh possibly
then became king of one of these lands before Mizraim reunited these lands to
form one Egypt. However it is also possible that Pharaoh reunited the country
and later the land became divided again. In either situation Mizraim is bound
to have done something of greater importance than his nephew, in order for the
land to end up bearing his name. There is no doubt however that Pharaoh, and
his mother, were great rulers, as the term for king, Pharaoh, is named after
him.
Thus, initially the government of Egypt was carried on under
the fiction of being patriarchal while the actual line was matriarchal, the
queen being "the wife of the God and bearer of the royal lineage."
But however noble it may be, a matriarchal line cannot claim patriarchal
authority, even though all the parties concerned are sympathetically portrayed.
In all of which there is no mention of race, though enemies of the church have
declared with shock and outrage that these passages are proof that Mormons
discrimination against blacks.
In fact, the tension between patriarchal and matriarchal
authority meets us at every step in the royal inscriptions as one of the
dominant notes in Egyptian civilization. The old matriarchal tradition is
clearly announced in Facsimile 3 by the presence of Hathor (figure 2) in her
usual position immediately behind the throne. She is Ht-hr, the
"house" (womb) from which Horus, the legitimate heir to the throne,
must emerge; she is "both the King's mother, his wife [as such called his
sister] . . . par excellence the goddess of the Kingship." Her
horned headdress with the sun's disk—the new king appearing between the horns
of the mother cow—appears all the way from prehistoric glyphs on canyon walls
down to paintings on the walls of Christian Coptic monasteries.
The same crown may be worn by any goddess functioning in her
capacity, for as the old Mediterranean Mother-goddess, to whom kings were
merely consorts, she has countless ways of appearing. "It was quite
impossible," wrote E. A. Wallis Budge, "for any worshipper of Hathor,
however devout, to enumerate all the forms of the goddess which existed."
She is the heavenly cow, the mother of the sun-god himself, and also his
daughter; she is Nut the Sky-goddess and also the daughter of Nut. She has
things both ways: She is the ruler and the ruled, with alternating assertions
of patriarchal and matriarchal priority. Acting in her capacity of Queen Mother
as the oldest daughter of Geb, she is the regent with full right to the title
of Rpʿt. Indeed, it is her throne upon which the king sits by her
favor as Lady of the Mysteries; no one enters the pharaoh's presence without
her approval; it is she "according to whose plans the royal office is
passed on," and "he is chosen whom her heart desireth to sit
upon the throne!"
In her special capacity as the one closest and dearest to
the king, Hathor is identified with Isis, who is "the divine mother and
princess, . . . the female Sun." Like Hathor, Isis commands the
throne, for in the words of Siegfried Morenz, "She is the embodiment of
the Throne…is the Egyptian Kingship itself, which is embodied in the living
King Horus, at whose death it enters into Osiris." With the idea of
the Great Lady actually "embodying" the king, the incongruity of
figure 2 as "King Pharaoh" begins to dissolve. "The throne 'makes'
the king," wrote Frankfort; "the term occurs in Egyptian texts—and so
the throne, Isis, is the 'mother' of the king. This expression might be viewed
as a metaphor, but the evidence shows that it was not." To the king she
says: "I reward thee with my throne as king of all the lands…I give
to thee the office of Atum on the throne of Shu." True, the son must
succeed his father, but who knows who his father really is? It is the mother
alone who holds the sure keys to that all-important legitimacy on which patriarchal
succession depends; it is Isis "the Lady of Life" who represents and
guarantees the continuity of the line; only when Mother Hathor greets the new
king as Horus at the coronation is "the king acknowledged as legitimate
and is free to receive the crown." As the king rows his mother in a boat
at the feast of Opet (Abraham 1:24), she reminds him that she is his mother,
and that all the power and authority he possesses comes from her. If only
because it is the mother who has the last word in matters of legitimacy, divine
authority is transferred by women rather than men in Egypt.
Thus, the Priesthood under this Egyptian manner of
government, would have to come through the female lineage, which it cannot
rightly pass, thus the Priesthood of Ham ended with him and all his posterity,
beginning with Pharoah, are not able to receive or hold it. It is not a matter
of discrimination, but a matter of proper authority.
Thank you so much for this very detailed explanation, I have never heard this before.I have learned a lot. My one question is, why was it assumed that African American's were descendants of Ham. Was this just another way to discriminate against them? Did anyone have any proof of genealogy? Another question, since Ham and his posterity are "lost" without the proper priesthood, does God have a plan of reconciliation with this people?
ReplyDeleteProbably because Ham's daughter, Egyptus (a descendent through her mother of the Cain-Canaan lineage), settled in Egypt (Africa), and the curse & mark of the black skin continued through her lineage. The term African American is a very recent term for those whose genealogy emanated in Africa. God has a plan for everything and everybody. We don't always know what that plan is, but we do know that the saving ordinances now performed in the temples will continue through the millennium and that we will busy doing the work for the dead throughout that period of time.
ReplyDeleteThe curses of Cain and Ham are totally unrelated.
ReplyDeletePharoah tried to mimick the patriarchal priesthood order, "that order established by the fathers in the first generations, in the days of the first patriarchal reign." (Abr 1:26) However, Pharoah’s idol worship and human sacrifice sullied his efforts to emulate the patriarchal priesthood.
Pharoah used his pretense of priesthood right to help secure his kingship in defiance of Melchizedek, the Lord's legal priesthood administrator at the time.
Professor Nibley said, "There is no exclusive equation between Ham and Pharaoh, or between Ham and the Egyptians, or between the Egyptians and the blacks, or between any of the above and any particular curse. What was denied was recognition of patriarchal right to the priesthood made by a claim of matriarchal succession." (Abraham in Egypt, pp 219-220) Ham was the youngest son of Noah and the least worthy anyway, but even if he had received the patriarchal right to the priesthood, his grandson, Pharaoh, could not have inherited it through Egyptus, a woman.