ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS xi Introduction 1 PART ONE: IMAGES OF BLACKS ONE Biblical Israel: The Land of Kush 17 TWO Biblical Israel: The People of Kush 26 THREE Postbiblical Israel: Black Africa 41 FOUR Postbiblical Israel: Black Africans 46 PART TWO: THE COLOR OF SKIN FIVE The Color of Women 79 SIX The Color of Health 93 SEVEN The Colors of Mankind 95 EIGHT The Colored Meaning of Kushite in Postbiblical Literature 113 PART THREE: HISTORY NINE Evidence for Black Slaves in Israel 131 PART FOUR: AT THE CROSSROADS OF HISTORY AND EXEGESIS TEN Was Ham Black? 141 ELEVEN "Ham Sinned and Canaan was Cursed?!" 157 TWELVE The Curse of Ham 168 THIRTEEN The Curse of Cain 178 FOURTEEN The New World Order: Humanity by Physiognomy 183 Conclusion Jewish Views of Black Africans and the Development of Anti-Black Sentiment in Western Thought 195 APPENDIX I When is a Kushite not a Kushite? Cases of Mistaken Identity 201 APPENDIX II Kush/Ethiopia and India 211 NOTES 213 GLOSSARY OF SOURCES AND TERMS 379 SUBJECT INDEX 395 INDEX OF ANCIENT SOURCES 413 INDEX OF MODERN SCHOLARS 431
A truly stunning work and a masterpiece of its kind. David Goldenberg goes far beyond anyone else in offering the most comprehensive, convincing, and important analysis I've read on interpretations of the famous Curse and, generally, of blackness and slavery. His research is breathtaking. It yields almost definitive answers to many longstanding debates over early attitudes toward dark skin. -- David Brion Davis, Yale University, author of In the "Image of God: Religion, Moral Values, and Our Heritage of Slavery" A great book on a great topic. It is great both for what it does and what it does not do. What it does is to survey, consider, annotate, and analyze every Jewish text that refers to, or can be thought to refer to, black/dark skin or Black Africans. And yet it does not engage in polemics or apologetics. -- Shaye J. D. Cohen, Harvard University, author of "The Beginnings of Jewishness"
David M. Goldenbergis Isidore and Theresa Cohen Chair of Jewish Religion and Thought at the University of Cape Town, and Visiting Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania. He was formerly President of Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning, Associate Director of the Annenberg Research Institute for Judaic and Near Eastern Studies, and Editor of "The Jewish Quarterly Review".
[A] sweeping and ambitious work... [T]he research is meticulous and important. Publishers Weekly Goldenberg's study is clearly a work of mature scholarship on an important theme... He writes in an accessible style and makes complex matters intelligible to nonspecialists. In fact, I often became so engrossed in his argument that I thought I was reading a detective story. -- Daniel J Harrington America Goldenberg has produced what may well become the definitive study of race and slavery in the Old Testament texts... In a work particularly valuable for its comprehensiveness and philology, Goldenberg's research is monumental; the writing is clear as a bell; the arguments are not only cogent, but honest... In short, this is a wonderful book and I hope that it finds many readers. -- Molly Myerowitz Levine Bryn Mawr Classical Review For so massively erudite a work this book is remarkably accessible. Goldenberg is sufficiently persuaded of the importance of the case he is making- that the Bible does not measure people's worth by the color of their skin--not to encumber the main body of his book with the kind of extended academic argument in whose thickets most readers would soon be lost... [He has a] conviction that a scholarly work, if it has something important to say, should not be just for scholars. -- John Pridmore Church Times An outstanding and comprehensive study. Choice [A] masterly book... With scrupulously meticulous and erudite scholarship, Goldenberg examines a plethora of source material and is a competent and assured guide through this labyrinth. -- Desmond Tutu Times Higher Education Supplement The Curse of Ham will clearly have a significant impact on the perennial debate over the roots of racism and slavery and on the study of early Judaism, Christianity and Islam. My view is that this volume ought to be required reading for all Black scholars. Biblical exegetes, theologians and clergy will all find this a valuable resource. hael N. Jagessar,"Black Theology
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