The Myth of Ham in Nineteenth-Century American Christianity Race, Heathens, and the People of God

by Johnson, Sylvester

• ISBN13: 9781403965622
• ISBN10: 1403965625
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-12-03
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

This monograph is an original study of what is commonly termed the American "myth of Ham". It examines black and white Americans' recourse to the biblical character of Ham as a cultural strategy for explaining racial origins. Previous studies in the area have been restricted to associating the Hamitic idea with pro-slavery arguments, whereas the thesis of this project reveals a fundamental irony: black American Christians who reinforced the meanings of illegitimacy by appealing to Ham as the ancestor of the race.

Author Biography

Sylvester Johnson is Assistant Professor of Religion and Philosophy at Florida A&M University.

Table of Contents

Series Editors' Preface	vii
Dwight N. Hopkins
Linda E. Thomas
Preface	x
Acknowledgments	xiv
The People(-ing) of God	1	(26)
Introduction	1	(6)
The Hamitic Crisis in Nineteenth-Century Rhetorics	7	(5)
Race and Narrative in the American Canaan	12	(9)
American Israels	14	(4)
Race and the Israelitic Myth	18	(3)
Narrating the People of God: Heathen Existence and the Phenomenology of Christian Identity	21	(6)
Divine Identity and the Hamitic Idea in Historical Perspective	27	(24)
Introduction	27	(1)
Ham in Early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam	27	(4)
The Hamitic Idea in America	31	(14)
The People(ing) of God, American Whiteness, and Racial Heathenism	45	(6)
Narrating Whiteness as Divinity	46	(5)
Ham, History, and the Problem of Illegitimacy	51	(22)
Introduction	51	(1)
Race Histories and Historical Consciousness	52	(5)
Race Uplift	52	(1)
Negro Histories and Ethnology	53	(3)
The Hamitic and the Historical	56	(1)
Hamitic Claims and Rhetorical Strategies	57	(5)
Phenomenology of History and Illegitimacy	62	(11)
Ham as Racial Heathen	68	(2)
The Americanization of Ham	70	(3)
Becoming the People of God	73	(36)
Introduction	73	(2)
Ethiopianism	75	(8)
Uplifting the Race	75	(8)
Narrative Logic of the Christian Myth	83	(11)
Ancient Identities, New People	91	(3)
Gender and Illegitimacy	94	(15)
Black Worthlessness	106	(3)
Race and the American People(s) of God	109	(26)
Narrating Black Christianity's Emergence	109	(3)
Black Theology and the People of God	112	(10)
Dark Bodies and Divine Identities	122	(8)
American Religion in Hamitic-Canaanite Perspective	130	(5)
Notes	135	(30)
Bibliography	165	(20)
Primary Sources	165	(4)
Secondary Sources	169	(16)
Index	185