"As astonishing as it seems most of the prestigious academics and universities in Europe and America have ridiculed the idea that blacks have any substantive history."
This derogatory view has its roots as well in the colonial attitude that tended to see all Black people as inferior in status and 'ignorant' in order to justify the intrusion and invasion of their lands and territories.
In other words, the justification for conquest and what was in reality the theft of African land and wealth was provided to a great extent by the ' rewriting' of Biblical texts. Blacks were cast as 'heathen' people who had not achieved the enlightenment that the white group had attained through the Bible and Christianity and therefore Blacks were seen as inferior and subordinate.
This rewriting or interpretation of the Bible excluded Black people, thereby lending theological and moral validity o the colonizing actions of the European and white ethnic groups. This is of course a very simplistic view and does not take into account many complex and interrelated factors. However, at a fundamental level it serves to illustrate the underlying political motivation that many critics assert played a major part in the virtual eradication of the Black Biblical origins and their profoundly important part in the Biblical texts.
As noted, this underlying discrimination and prejudice has a long history, which manifested itself in the colonial biases of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth centuries and in many other areas besides Biblical interpretation. It is also important to note that this biased ideology that followed in the wake of the colonial domination of Africa was strongly opposed to any view or interpretation that would place Blacks in the forefront of Biblical analysis. This can be seen in the fact that in the period between the fourth century and the Enlightenment in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth centuries, " Europe recast the entire Bible into a saga of European people" and this hegemony has been accepted as fact by most bodies and institutions in the Western world.
Consequently, many scholars and leaders in Black theology have rejected and fought against various ideological assumptions; such as the "Curse of Ham" or curse of Canaan ( Genesis 9:20-27), which has been used to justify prejudice, bigotry and even enslavement. Briefly, the Curse of Ham refers to the curse by Ham's father, Noah, placed on Ham's son, Canaan. This curse was due to the fact that Ham saw his father naked after a bout of drunkenness.
When Noah awoke from his wine and found out what his youngest son had done to him, he said,
"Cursed be Canaan!
The lowest of slaves will he be to his brothers."
(Genesis 9:20-27)
There are many interpretations of this episode of Biblical scripture. Some critics see this as a justification for the conquest of the Canaanites by the Israelites. However, what is more important from the point-of-view of the thesis being discussed is that many commentators are of the view that "The "curse of Ham" had been used by some members of Abrahamic religions to justify racism and the enslavement of people of African ancestry, who were believed to be descendants of Ham."
This is a racist perspective that has been very damaging and was maintained until fairly recently by some theologians and scholars. However, while it has been largely abandoned by even the most conservative theologians the social and theological stigma of this interpretation of scripture still tends to have negative connotations in society.
One could go on to trace this central causative factor of the omission of an Afrocentric approach to the heritage of a colonialist and Eurocentric worldview, which has tended to dominate society during the past two centuries. Eurocentric perspectives in many disciplines were undoubtedly preferred and there was a bias towards what were perceived as 'inferior' African orientations. This can be ascribed to fundamental prejudice that was, and sometimes still is, a hallmark of the colonialist mentality. This view has resulted in criticism that the Bible in particular has been 'recast' and that there have over the decades been continuous efforts to ensure that the Bible 'fits' into the mould of a perception of religion that accords with and exclusively relates to " & #8230;an ancient religious drama of Euro-Asian Hebrews ."
This in essence refers to the central thesis of this dissertation; namely that there has been a biased and prejudicial view of religion that has been expounded by a version of the Bible that favors a mainly Eurocentric and Hebraic worldview. The following quotation from The African Heritage Study Bible sums up this point-of-view.
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