This Strange Story by Stacy Davis

This Strange Story by Stacy Davis

This book addresses the claim that an American antebellum era anti-African reading of the curse of Canaan story originated in rabbinic literature. By tracing the curse of Canaan's history of interpretation from the beginning of the Common Era to 1865, with particular emphasis on the neglected medieval period, this work examines this long-held false claim. Although Jewish readings of the curse of Canaan appear in medieval Christian commentaries, no Jewish references to skin color are repeated in Christian exegesis. Therefore, the book argues that the anti-African antebellum reading develops in response both to abolitionism and the biblical text's establishment of a social hierarchy that divides humankind into slaves and masters. The pro-slavery reading is an extension of Christian allegorical exegesis of the curse of Canaan, in which Shem, Ham, and Japheth represented different groups of people depending upon the interpreter's historical context, usually Jewish Christians, Jews or Christian heretics, and Gentile Christians respectively. Southerners and their allies simply changed the typology, making Shem the ancestor of brown people, Ham the ancestor of black people due to a reading of his genealogy in Genesis 10, and Japheth the ancestor of white people. The new typology justified African slavery as a divinely ordained and sanctioned economic system, just as the old typology justified Christian supersessionism.

While primarily writing for an audience in religious and biblical studies, David directly engages a number of key historiographical debatesAs such, this important book will prove illuminating to historians of religion, race, and slavery in the American South. * Journal of Southern History, November 2008 *

Stacy Davis is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Saint Mary's College, Notre Dame, IN.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780761838791
ISBN 10	0761838791
Title	This Strange Story
Author	Stacy Davis
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	University Press of America
Year published	2008-02-05
Number of pages	250
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable