Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Glenn Cook" <pule67 AT hotmail.com>]

Dear list members

There has been a very interesting discussion going on about "uncovering nakedness" that seems to have started with the question about Ham uncovering his father’s nakedness. I’m not a scholar like most of you, just an old man that sets in his library and enjoys reading about these things. But, I thought, some of you may be interested in another way of looking at this question.

I live in a small village in the center of Utah. This village is better than 90 percent LDS, so our family sticks out like the proverbially sore thumb. That doesn’t matter though as the LDS people of this village are very warm, kind, spiritual and threat us with respect. In some ways it is like living in heaven already they are so good to us.

But that isn’t the subject of this letter. This letter is just to pass on some thoughts that may be of interest to those that would be interested in another view.

The LDS believe that, as Adam died only approximately 100 years before Noah, and Methuselah died the year of the flood, that Methuselah passed on Adam’s garment, that was made for him in the garden by Jehovah Elohim, to Noah and it was that garment "to cover his nakedness" that Ham stole. Thus, uncovering his nakedness.

Hugh Nibley, in his extensive works writes:

Collected Works of Hugh Nibley, Vol.5, Part.2, Ch.1, p.169

Incidentally the story of the stolen garment as told by the old rabbis, including the great Eleazer, calls for an entirely different rendering of the strange story in Genesis 9 from the version in our King James Bible. They seemed to think that the cerwath of Genesis 9:22 did not mean "nakedness" at all, but should be given its primary root meaning of "skin covering." Read thus, we are to understand that Ham took the garment of his father while he was sleeping and showed it to his brethren, Shem and Japheth, who took a pattern or copy of it (salmah) or else a woven garment like it (simlah) which they put upon their own shoulders, returning the skin garment to their father. Upon awaking, Noah recognized the priesthood of two sons but cursed the son who tried to rob him of his garment. By an extremely common type of substitution, the simlah of Genesis 9:23 could very easily stand for an original tsimlah, a copy, imitation, pattern, or by an equally common type of transposition for Salmah, a garment or mantle, as in Micah 2:8. Even as it stands simlah means only a woven garment and can hardly refer to the original skin article. This is, apparently, the source of the widespread legend that Ham stole the garment of Noah and claimed to possess the priesthood by virtue of his illegal insignia. Ham's descendants, Cush and Nimrod--both Africans, though Nimrod in his wandering moved to Asia--made the same claim. It is interesting that according to certain ancient scriptures which the Latter-day Saints claim have been restored by revelation in our own age, Pharaoh (who represents the Afro-Asian line of Cush-Nimrod) was blessed as to the kingship but cursed as to the priesthood, and he offered Abraham the privilege of wearing his own royal insignia in hope that Abraham would return the compliment by allowing Pharaoh to wear his priestly ones (Abraham 1:26-27). According to a very old tradition, Pharaoh coveted the priesthood of Moses exactly as his ancestor Nimrod did that of Abraham, and it was said that the Pharaohs of Egypt dressed in a skin garment "to show that their origin was older than time itself."

Collected Works of Hugh Nibley, Vol.5, Part.2, Ch.1, p.170

According to the Talmud, Nimrod's "great success in hunting was due to the fact that he wore the coat of skin which God made for Adam and Eve." There is a tradition that Nimrod, becoming jealous of the rival hunter Esau (so much for chronology!), lay in ambush for him but was defeated by Esau, who cut off his head and "took the valuable garments of Nimrod, . . . with which Nimrod prevailed over the whole land (or earth!), and he ran and concealed them in his house." These garments, says the report, were nothing less than the birthright which Esau later sold to Jacob.

 

He has much more to say about this, and what I copied here is a little out of context, but gives the main trust of what he has to say. But the following should be added to help put the forgoing into context.

Collected Works of Hugh Nibley, Vol.5, Part.2, Ch.1, p.170

Two significant conclusions come from all this: (1) that any historical reconstruction of what actually happened is out of the question, what has come down to us being a mass of conflicting legends and reports, and (2) that these conflicting legends and reports nevertheless agree on certain main points, that they are very old, and were considered by the most learned Jews to present matters of great importance, whose significance escaped later ages. The priests and kings of antiquity certainly wore such garments, and the skin garment was often imitated in woven materials; in fact, the skin garment was itself held to be a substitute for a still older garment made of the leaves of the ficus religiosus.

Collected Works of Hugh Nibley, Vol.5, Part.2, Ch.1, p.171

I make no apology for conducting you into these lost bypaths of the past. You have often proclaimed it your professional obligation to be interested in all things, and especially the unusual. Still there is such a thing as going too far, and it is high time I was showing you what a sober, factual, and common-sense document the book of Ether really is. Let us return to Babel.

 

Anyway this is given just for interest and the hope it has been of interest to someone.

Glenn Cook

P.O. Box 123

Aurora, Utah 84620