Agreed!!

I would like to know what version of the Bible you might be reading. In my understanding of this text, the "brethren" spoken of are not necessarily his immediate brothers, but the lines of Japheth and Shem. In any case, Canaan only was cursed, if one is to follow that text.

Well, that addresses a couple of those points anyhow....

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

Thank you, Mike, for bringing that up. I agree with you that there is no justification for mistreatment of other fellow human beings on the basis of a curse. Curse or no curse, Christians have a duty to treat people as befits ambassadors of Christ on behalf of "the least of these." It is only the heathen who fulfill such curses as these, without any need of help on the part of Christians. Christians should do all in their power to correct such injustices--and I think, for the most part, Christians are doing just that. May God bless those who do, in fulfillment of Jesus' promise "blessed are the peacemakers."

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

I am basically using the NASB (1995).



Gen 9:25 basically reads the same in both version, however I see that the “servant of servants” statement implies that the other 3 brothers were also to be servants; but the descendants of Canaan were to be the ‘servant of these other servants.’ From what I understand in EGW’s statement in PP 117.1, Canaan shared in the manifested post-flood character/moral degeneracy that was already in his father Ham and led him to react in this vile way to the Noah sin. Here are her full comments on this. Several other points I made in my prior post had been made there:



Notice in PP 118.1 that God intended to “dispossess” Canaan. To me EGW clearly understood that this slavery and “dispossession” curse applied to the inhabitants of Canaan (the infamous “-ites” vs. Israel) and not to black people/African and people much later (i.e., 2nd half of Christian Era), particularly later on when a “Biblical justification” was sought as it was being challenged by other Christians, assumed and believed leading to the mass and systematic enslavement of Black people. Indeed EGW sees this curse as having transpired long before that time. Again, no association at all by her to e.g., American Slavery.

I think that, factually speaking, you are now glibly going to the other extreme. If God curse another people, or worse, orders, as with Israel conquering those same “Canaanite” peoples, that some be entirely disseminated then, the “Christian” (i.e., God’s People) has the duty to faithfully execute the will of God here, indeed as with Samuel vs. Saul & Agag, at the peril of their own standing before God (1 Sam 15:22-35). Indeed had Shem and Japheth descendants not done their part (e.g, with Israel engaging in their conquering and disseminating expeditions), the Canaan curse would not have been fulfilled.



That factually is an easily disproven claim, (i.e., the “most” part). Just take a close look at the socio-economic injustices in our world today. There are enough resources, knowledge and manpower to resolve all of them and prevent senseless death and suffering, including the 65,000,000 annual abortions, but because, mainly Western Countries want to make more than enough and not, even equalizingly, share as instructed in the Gospel (e.g., Luke 3:11; 2 Cor 8:7-15), this suffering goes on and get worse. Surely it is not the ca. 15% of non-Christians, in America who are having 1.7 million abortions each year. The “most part” are, at least nomimal, Christians and denominations such as the SDA Church and its Hospital helps facilitate both this butchery and also senseless deaths (i.e., they have ca. 9 million outpatient visits in the U.S. per year, but do not help the ca. 40,000 people who die in the U.S. each year because they cannot afford medical services, let alone the many others who suffer for the same reason.) And just look in American at who is vehemently opposed to social justice, people who claim to be “born from above” Christians, namely Republicans. Sure.... They even find it Biblical to call this good evil. Talk about being grossly deceived. (Cf. EW 266-269) Jesus clearly did not love, worship and serve Mammon and Self as they do.

Let's look together at what Mrs. White wrote concerning some of these curses.


Now, let's start with that curse which God pronounced upon the ground for Adam and his posterity--the curse which brought so many thorns, thistles, and the like. Let's take a look at one more statement by Mrs. White about those thorns and weeds.



Now, let's look at what Mrs. White told us to do with such weeds as were brought by the curse. Do you suppose she has told us to "fulfill the curse" by planting more thorns, thistles and weeds in our gardens? Let's find out....



Does "pulling the weeds" work against God's curse? Should we be planting them instead?

To me, any Christian thinking to use God's curse as an excuse for slavery is tantamount to the same Christian excusing the weeds in his garden, or worse, planting the thorns and thistles in someone else's garden, because of God's curse. To excuse or to cause slavery because of the curse is not Biblical. To acknowledge the sure results of a departure from God as evidenced by God's curse, that is Biblical. We can see the cause and effect of sin, as presented in the various curses, without feeling compelled to perpetuate sin or the curses. We do not need to be trying to fulfill these curses!

Mrs. White taught us to keep the weeds out of our gardens. Those weeds were brought by God's curse. It does not dishonor God for us to work against sin in any of its forms. God's curses are meant to help us see where we should be in relation to sin. Most people do not enjoy a curse--with good reason. That curse, then, is meant to repel us from the evil for which it was given, as opposed to being a command for us to follow and/or perpetuate the evil so that the curse may abound.

God's command to the Israelites to destroy the Canaanite nations is separate from the curse pronounced by Noah. One cannot be both a slave and dead at the same time. The Canaanites were not to be made bondmen--they were to be completely destroyed.

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

I’ll just skip over your Adam&Eve and Flood curse as, to me, these are red herring and straw man arguments and premises, as their implementation was naturally distinct. The fact of the matteris that curses pronounced, or allowed by God are effectuated in whatever tangible means they need to.

I’ll deal with this actually pertinent response:



Deut 20:10-18: The Israelites were to rule over the Canaanites and that by either dispossessing them or in some cases, or if they put up a fight, completely kill them off. For those who lived in cities that were near to Israel were to be defaultly completely destroyed so as not to corrupt Israel, without this option to live and be those slaves, as the curse had ordered. If Israel had been faithful, especially in carrying out that curse (Cf. E.g., Judge 1:27-2:4 ), they would have thoroughly effectuated this curse and rid the world, according to God’s wisdom and judgement of this sinful peoples who actually went on to bring the ruin of God’s Ancient Israel. I suspect they began to have the same self-justifying “Saul-reasoning as you have here and think themselves to know better of God, indeed with such red-herring rationalizations!

How do you explain the fact that the Eskimos of Alaska have a dark skin, although this northern region does not receive much UV radiation?
Besides, climate changes became pronounced after the flood, and it was only natural that people with a lighter skin would seek the regions with colder climates to live in.

Eskimos are (according to a non-Biblical, i.e., involving the Flood reality) worldview, said to be indigenous people, however I understand this to me “first there” and not actually “born there”. They migrated from somewhere. Some say from Sibera, and still those in Sibera also came from somewhere else after the Flood. So my view is that they, some time long after Flood, perhaps in the A.D./C.E. period, migrated from some “neutral” or hot, climate (e.g., India or the Persian region, etc) and then, for some geo-political reason, went as far away as possible from civilization inhabited areas. Some stopped in Sibera, other continued to the (now): Alaska Region, others to the Canadian Northern Territories and others, when probably the ice permitted it in the northern most regions of Canada, over to Greenland.

Like I said before, given the shorter lives of people then, it is not enough to trigger the body to make permanent and wholesale/generalized “protective” affectations to skin color. So they kept their neutral tan color, which I hypothesize was around Man’s original color, having been from the earth.



Scientifically speaking, climate changes began to be felt in that very first year after the flood. This migration from the ark area took probably began to seriously take place from their common settlement area (Gen 11:1, 2) after the Tower of Babel which was soon after the flood (i.e., Gen 10 vs. 11). So it is from this time that I believe those extreme migrations took place and, obviously to avoid conflicts and wars, they went as far away as they could or saw adequate from each other, which was actually God’s GC grand Plan/purpose (Gen 11:6-9). Probably to avoid another Major/Flood destruction of the earth. So He also would have guided and impelled some group to live in far, even cold regions.



As I understand it, it is only after having migrated to certain regions that skin colors began to be affected and if this is caused by a DNA recoding as it apparently could be, the change could have become most pronounced/drastic starting in a succeeding generation. I.e., the genes of the parents would have made this skin color adaptation switch, and while their own skin color would not have changed much from its original one, the ones of their offspring was quite drastic E.g, from tanned to darker or lighter. So their skin color did not affect their migrating decision or location choice.

Also being then quite remote to each other with especially non visual communications, the link between skin color and their region was probably not made any people group, perhaps even to this day (...until now, by me!?). So they would have only seen it as some unrelated natural development that their offspring were of a darker or lighter skin color.

I think the known science of skin color in tanning can allow for this hypothesis. Indeed skin color is not, at least wholly, an external “burning” one thing, but an internal “biological” one. And as I said, it may have been originally or injunctively (after the Flood) pointedly designed so by God to be able deal with the sudden change in climate caused by the flood.

If what you are saying is true, why is it that the skin of Eskimos has not made the color adaptation and become lighter after 2000 years?