The Curses of Cain and Ham

Dan Beecher (0:00)

Well, it is the time of year, Dan, when people do those wicked little things called New Year's Resolutions. They resolve to do all kinds of wonderful things to be better at things that they have always intended to do. And one of the main things, one of the most popular of all resolutions is the resolution to save more money. But that's not always easy to do. You have to remember to do it. You have to think about squirreling things away. You have got to figure out where you are going to invest your money. It can be a trick. It can be very messy. And all of that difficulty can result in you not actually saving the money that you intended to save.

Dan McClellan (0:43)

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Dan Beecher (1:28)

Head to acorns.com/dogma or download the Acorns app to start saving and investing for your future today.

Dan McClellan (1:36)

Pay non-client endorsement. Compensation provides incentives to positively promote Acorns. Tier one compensation provided. Investing involves risk. Acorns advisors LLC and SEC registered investment advisor. View important disclosures at acorns.com/dogma. It still goes on today. There are plenty of folks today who try to find ways to read racism into the Bible. We're still struggling with trying to figure out how to not read the Bible with the goal of hurting other people. So the dickish approach to the Bible is still very much in vogue.

Hey everybody, I'm Dan McClellan.

Dan Beecher (2:10)

And I'm Dan Beecher.

Dan McClellan (2:12)

And you're listening to the Data Over Dogma podcast where we increase public access to the academic study of the Bible and religion and combat the spread of misinformation about the same. How are things today, Dan?

Dan Beecher (2:24)

Good. We're going into combat mode for this one, man. When it comes to misinformation, this week we got some, we got some. There was, it's less employed, the misinformation-y part of this episode than it used to be.

Dan McClellan (2:41)

But the damage is done.

Dan Beecher (2:42)

And it's still out there. It's still floating around. It's still in the ether. So it's time to dive into it. I like that.

Dan McClellan (2:50)

All righty.

Dan Beecher (2:51)

So we're going to, so in the first, that's the first half of the show. The second half of the show, we're going to, it's going to be a lot of fun. We're getting biblical-ish with some, with some apocrypha. So if you're of the Catholic slash orthodox persuasion, then this is just, this is just Bible for you.

Dan McClellan (3:12)

Yeah.

Dan Beecher (3:14)

And if you're Protestant, this is heresy.

So let's launch into our first topic with taking issue. All right. And this week, what are we taking issue with, Dan? What's the big problem here?

Dan McClellan (3:35)

We're taking issue with a couple of curses that happen in the primeval history, which is Genesis 1 through 11, the very beginning of the book of Genesis, because these curses have contributed to untold suffering, enslavement, death, and persecution and prejudice. So yeah, we're going to look into the curse of Cain and the curse of Ham.

Dan Beecher (4:05)

Yeah. Which is funny because we call it the curse of Ham. It'll turn out to not be the curse of Ham, but we'll get to that. Let's start with Cain, and I'll just remind our listeners where we are in the story. Adam and Eve, there were just two people. They came out of the garden.

We're in Genesis 4 now. They make a couple of kids. And Cain, and we talked about this just briefly a couple, a few weeks ago, I seem to recall. Anyway, they have a couple of kids, and suddenly one of them kills the other one. Cain kills Abel. That's bad. The Lord is unhappy about that very much, and pronounces some stuff about it. I guess I'll just read it. The Lord says, this is Genesis 4, verse 10, it says, and the Lord said, what have you done? Listen, your brother's blood is crying out to me from the ground, and now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. When you till the ground, it will no longer yield to you its strength. You will be a fugitive and wanderer on the earth.