I Was Going To Write an Essay

But I looked at pictures instead

No...Really.

Refusing to let go of your past is not the same thing as owning your History.

Peace Y'all

The Kingdoms and Nations of Japheth and Ham

This is where the story the Bible tells begins to emerge from the fog of mythology, and into the dim shadows of Legend, Geography and History. The fog isn't going away, but that's one of the cool things about this story of us, we Heirs of Abraham.

After the Flood

Eden had been washed away. The Sumerian population had apparently been nearly wiped out by a natural disaster that may have been made worse by all the irrigation ditches. The people who lived east of the Tigris, and north and west of the Euphrates, however, were poised to come into their own and displace, absorb, or perhaps cleanse the Sumerians (I don't care to guess which, but it's believed that the Sumerians' reputations were based on how bad-ass and rich they were).

Oh, sure, there were Sumerian survivors of the flood, in addition to Noah and his kin. They had a Noah story to, only the man's name was Utnapishtim and his ark landed in the Zagros Mountains (modern Iran), east of the Tigris. 

Whether one both or neither of the myths is the "real" one, or the first one, or even close to actual fact, is a discussion best left to the comments section and/or another post.

What's important to us is that this is the story the Bible tells, and it's an historic fact that Noah's story has been widely believed for millennia (If you can manage it without getting judgmental, spell propaganda).  

What the Bible doesn't make clear (myth and fog) is that anyone who lived near the northern edge of "the world," in the pasture lands west of the Euphrates, or in the Zagros Mountains to the east escaped the disaster.

HEY SOCIAL STUDIES TEACHERS!
I made this chart using Google Earth satellite technology, a digital camera, and Power Point.

We call the people who lived west of the Euphrates, Semites (get it? Shem-- Shemite -- Semite). 

So far, I've called the sons of God; Adawmish, Sumerian, and now Semitic. Before we get to Abram, one of the more talked about men among Shem's descendants, I'll start calling them Hebrews.

We'll get back to Shem and the Hebrews in future posts, because first you need to know what became of Japheth and Ham, and their descendants.

Japheth

Japheth basically took his tribes north and west to contribute Adam's DNA (and culture) to other early ancestors of the Greeks, Phoenicians and other ancient peoples who had yet to assume their identities. 

This is pretty much the last we'll see of Japheth, except for when Solomon buys all that cedar from the Phoenicians, and even then Shem's younger brother isn't mentioned. 

Ham

Ham's sons stayed a little closer to home. Canaan's and Mizraim's descendants weren't the only ones who, in the centuries that followed, would clash with the sons of Shem. In fact, our story implies that the descendants of Canaan's brother, Cush would establish an empire to the east and would be the first to run afoul of the seed God planted in Eve.

The Sons of Cush

Cush had a son named Nimrod, "a mighty hunter before the Lord."

Nimrod started (see that word? started) a kingdom that eventually stretched from Erech to Ninevah. 

Have you downloaded Google Earth yet? 

Look at Ur, where Shem lived. See how it's on the outskirts of the kingdom Nimrod started, on the west bank of the Euphrates where Sumerian farms gave way to Semitic pastures? Well -- You do now, because it's going to be a good thing to remember when we talk about the tower of Babel and how much Abram knew about it.

Canaan

The tribes of Canaan moved away from the banks of the Euphrates to the fat land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, where they adopted different languages and established different kingdoms. The Bible mentions them often, and usually in a list that reads like a rogues' gallery.

"The Jebusite and the Amorite and the Girgashite and the Hivite and the Arkite and the Sinite..."

The list gets shorter after Moses leads a million plus people out of Egypt, but it's here that the account describes the territory the Canaanite tribes would inhabit hundreds of years later:

The territory of the Canaanite extended from Sidon as you go toward Gerar, as far as Gaza; as you go toward Sodom and Gomorrah and Admah and Zeboiim, as far as Lasha.   (NASB) 

Google Earth lets you use grid coordinates to make sure your location markers are accurate.
Don't research without it.

MIZRAIM

Mizraim, another son of Ham, had seven sons, one of those sons, Casluhim was a forefather of the Philistines.

As you build your collection of locations and save them to "My Places" on Google Earth, making custom charts is easy enough for your students to learn how to make their own charts.

This one took a total of five minutes to make. What could you do if you put Google Earth in your classroom toolbox?

Segue

Remember: the nations that sprang from the sons of Noah did not form in the time it takes to read one verse then the next. It took hundreds of years and many generations to make names for themselves and to build their kingdoms. They also developed at different rates and in different cultural directions.

That being said, we're all set to continue tracing the path of the seed, the one God planted in Eve over 1000 years earlier, as we try to discover who was where when the Tower of Babel was the symbol of Human ambition and accomplishment.

Next Time: The Tyranny of Babel

Teachers, my caption questions weren't rhetorical. The paradigm is shifting, if our strategies don't shift with it History may become a thing of the past, and STEMSS (Science Technology Engineering Mathematics and Social Studies) will never be a thing.

What are your thoughts on the flood myths? How much can we really say about what happened 4000 years ago?

How do our separate but equal memories (myth, legend, and propaganda for example) often override more plausible constructs of our shared past (History)?


Peace Y'all

Rule Of Law: a Quizzical Survey

Here's an opportunity for you to test your knowledge of that vaunted concept we call "rule of law," and the History that shaped it. 

It's really just a survey, but once you're finished, I'm going to tell you how to grade it anyway (I promise I won't record your scores and turn them into St. Peter at the end of the semester).

Six multiple choice items -- Go

1.         The 13^th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified in 1865 because of

A.    Slavery

B.    Black people

C.    White people

D.    Harriett Tubman

2.         The 14^th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified in 1868 because of

A.    Abortion

B.    Black People

C.    White People

D.    Wanda Rushing

3.         The 15^th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified in 1870 because of

A.    Russian interference with US elections

B.    Black People

C.    White People

D.    Lymus Wallace

4.         Congress ordered the KKK hearings because of

A.    Poor crop yields

B.    Black people

C.    White people

D.    Bob Church

5.         We had Jim Crow laws because of

A.    A shortage of bird feeders

B.    Black people

C.    White people

D.    Rosa Parks

6.         The US has more black prisoners than other countries have prisoners because of

A.    Drugs

B.    Black people

C.    White people

D.    Kalief Browder

Grading Guide

Come on y’all, it’s multiple choice. Don’t you know the answer is always -- SEE?

If you did answer C, there’s a good chance you can develop an honest, educated Historical perspective that will actually come in handy as the World moves ahead -- which it’s going to do with or without you.

If you answered A or D, you are either a smart ass, or someone taught you a lot of wrong things. Good news: this blog can help you with that.

If you answered B, I don’t have time for your cracker ass unless you change your attitude. How’s that for separate and equal -- BEOTCH?

Now for the Shelby County Bonus Question:

Memphis is the black half of a segregated county because of

A.    The appeal of double taxation

B.    Black people

C.    White people

D.    The Memphis 13

So, how’d you do? Do you think you’re ready to learn our History, and learn to share our History?

Feel free to share your grades and discuss your answers in the comments section or on Facebook, and I’ll do my best to respond to your questions, if not right away, then in future posts.

A question for you:

The paradigm is shifting, and the narrative is being rewritten. My question to you is, are we going to participate in writing this new, shared History, or would we rather be written out of it?

Peace Y'all

From STEM to STEMSS

Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), it made me cringe when I was trying to teach History to kids who “didn’t need to know this.”

Think about that for a second -- without assuming I’m whining about it. By super-emphasizing those four disciplines and “English” (Literature not so much), the Social Studies (SS) requirements are treated as mere formalities that can be satisfied by “Wikipedia C’s” (not in my classroom) on their report cards, and passing the SS sections of the standardized tests, which are practical gimmies because they’re little more than reading tests any reasonably intelligent eighth-grader can pass before breakfast.

My question is this: Do we want Scientists who only know Science, or do we want Scientists who have enhanced critical thinking skills and an educated perspective of the world we want them to change?

I’m not saying the Social Studies should be made King of Curricula, but excluding it from the royal family is a mistake.

The Morning After

You know the story. Noah planted a vineyard, got drunk, took off his clothes then passed smooth out in the middle of the tent. Ham apparently walked in on him and thought it was funny enough to call his brothers in to share the spectacle. The next morning, Noah curses Ham…and this is where the preacher or other story teller goes off on… “Bad Ham…” and “Bad Noah…” and “Preach on the Devil Alcohol…!”

Enough already! The Word weeps over the human experience it wants us to understand, but we’re too damn busy looking for people to stone for their sins to listen.

First of all, no one takes note that Noah’s sons were there that day. They were grown and married before they got on the ark in the first place. How much time could they waste before they started building their own families, and taking advantage of all that empty land? I mean sure, they probably got together often, several times a year I imagine, but each time they did it was bound to be a full blown occasion.

Here’s the part we need to get: The night in question was years after the flood.

So let’s rewind a little bit, and go back to the day Noah finally ripped the cover off the floating barn he’d been living in for the past year, and I’ll tell what I think led up to Noah’s embarrassment. Just remember, before we start judging Noah and branding him as a drunk, we ought'a consider the difference between Ham's response to God's grace.

And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. The fear of you and the terror of you will be on every beast of the earth and on every bird of the sky; with everything that creeps on the ground, and all the fish of the sea, into your hand they are given. Every moving thing that is alive shall be food for you; I give all to you, as I gave the green plant."                                     Genesis 9:1-3 (NASB)

Noah and his kin went back to Ur, probably skirting the west bank of the Euphrates, and I’m betting they took extra care of the twelve bovines, twelve sheep and twelve goats they already had, and collected the choicest grapevine roots as they went. The grapevines were there for the taking all along that stretch of abandoned orchards, vineyards, and washed out villages between the mountains of Ararat to the north and Noah’s ancestral home, near or perhaps even on the future site of Ur, at the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers far to the south.

When he got there, and this is weird, he went straight back to farming…but wait a minute. Wasn’t Noah the one who was supposed to give the tribes of Adam rest from the curse of the land?

That’s why he had a cartload of healthy grapevine roots behind the pair of oxen God told him to save.

Grapes aren’t like grain crops. Grain crops take about nine months or less to produce. Vineyards take years before they bear usable fruit, but once established the yields and the profits can be enormous, especially if you’re apparently the first one in your area to produce wine.

The upshot is that Noah was pretty well settled in when he and the whole family, grandchildren included, got together to celebrate a (their first?) successful vintage. A regular family reunion -- ahem  -- a holy day solemnly dedicated to …Naaah… There was a party. Those things can go on for days, especially when you consider what they were celebrating.

So…yeah…Noah overdid it and ended up flat on his back and naked, but like I said, it was a family reunion. Everything would have been fine if Ham had just tucked his father in for the night and forgotten about the whole thing.

I mean, Damn man! Be cool with each other. Especially when it comes to your parents.

But Cain’s drunk ass thought it was funny, and he just had to make sure everyone (the entire world, it turns out) knew about it.

Ham’s brothers Shem and Japheth on the other hand, had the presence of mind to salvage their father’s dignity. They did their best to not even look as they tucked their father in for the night.

Of course, Noah found out and for the first time in the Bible the father bestows blessings and, when called for, curses on his children, and appoints his successor as patriarch and seed bearer, in this case Shem.

So he [Noah] said,

"Cursed be Canaan;

A servant of servants

He shall be to his brothers."

He also said, 

"Blessed be the Lord,

the God of Shem;

And let Canaan be his servant.

"May God enlarge Japheth,

And let him dwell in the tents of Shem;

And let Canaan be his servant."

Genesis 9:25-28
(NASB)

What Ham had done was so reprehensible that his father didn't even bother cursing him. He cursed Ham's son, Canaan and the tribes that would descend from him.
Funny thing about the blessings and curses in the Bible; they often foreshadow events hundreds of years later, because the Canaanites would dominate the area around the Jordan river centuries later when Moses lead the Israelites to, but not into, the Promised Land.

Next Time: The Kingdoms and Nations of Japheth and Ham

Peace Out Y'all