1903] JASTROW — THE HAMITES AND SEMITES. 191 



of which is due to the hostility existing between Hebrews and 

 Canaanites.^ Taking up now this departure on the part of the 

 compiler of P from the scholastic principles that guided him in 

 drawing up the list, it is clear that he could only have been led to 

 destroy the harmony of his scheme by placing Canaan under Ham 

 instead of, according to their proper position, next to Aram, if the 

 view had become general that the Hamites represent the ''accursed " 

 nations. 



VII. 



To justify this assumption, which involves a radical change from 

 the original conception of the Hamites as the rations of the remote 

 south, it is necessary to find other evidence for it. Such evidence 

 is forthcoming not merely in the narrative which substitutes Ham 

 for Canaan, but also in J's grouping so far as his Volkeriafel has 

 been preserved. 



We have seen that J enlarges the curse originally pronounced 

 upon Canaan into a general denunciation of a larger group whom 

 he calls Hamites, At the same time, he does not venture to alter 

 the ancient tradition entirely but makes a compromise by including 

 Canaan under Ham. Whatever the source may have been whence 

 J derived the name of Ham, for him this youngest o n of Noah has 

 clearly come to be synonymous with those nations which are par- 

 ticularly obnoxious to him. Let us see whom J places in this group. 

 We have in the first place Nimrod whom he connects with Cush as 

 against P who does not mention Nimrod, but who places seven other 

 nations, representing groups settled in Arabia, among the sons of 

 Cush.- Nimrod, however, as verses lo and ii clearly show, is in 

 J's list the representative of Babylonia and Assyria — nay the founder 

 of these empires, in marked contradistinction therefore to P who, as 



1 It is only proper to note that the view which assumes Canaan's place among 

 the Hamites to be due to feelings of natural hostility was maintained by older 

 writers as, e.g., Sprenger ( Geographie Aj-abiens, p. 294 seq^ who lays strong 

 emphasis on the point, but since the days of Dillmann has been generally aban- 

 doned. The attempts, however, that have been made to account for the place 

 assigned to Canaan are singularly inadequate. Kecent writers either ignore the 

 point entirely or content themselves, like Holzinger {Genesis, p. 96), with the 

 suggestion that the inclusion of Canaan among Hamites is merely characteristic 

 of the prevailing ignorance among the Hebrews in matters pertaining to 

 ethnology. 



2 See above, p. 187. 



