Gods, Myths and Heroes - Part 15

Drunkenness of Noah

Those who think the Bible is the source of proper morality have never read it.  The Bible is full of stories of Biblical "heroes" engaging in awful behavior.  One of these has become known as the Drunkenness of Noah, which occurs after the story of Noah's Ark.

By the way, don't get me started on the story of Noah's Ark, which is one the most humungous lies ever told.

Anyway, according to Genesis 9:20-27, after the Ark landed, Noah got drunk and naked.  Noah's son Ham saw his father naked and told his two brothers.  His brothers covered up Noah without looking at him.  Noah then woke up and cursed Canaan, the son of Ham, into slavery, even though the whole thing was Noah's fault for getting drunk and naked, and Canaan had nothing to do with it.  What the hell?

For centuries, artists have illustrated this story, and since it revolves around Noah being naked, it was an excuse for the artists to show frontal male nudity.  Above is a mosaic in St. Mark's Cathedral, Venice, dating from the 12th or 13th century.

A medieval illustration by Bartolo di Fredi, 1367.  At first I was puzzled by who those other men in the background were, since at this point the entire population of the Earth (according to the Bible) would have been just Noah, his sons, and their wives.  Then I realized that, just like medieval artists had no concept of perspective, their concept of a picture was not a snapshot in time.  Instead, this picture mixes multiple time periods into one scene to tell a story: Noah's sons crush grapes to make wine, Noah drinks the wine, and the sons cover the drunken Noah.

Another medieval picture from a book in the British Library called the Biblia Pauperum, c. 1395-1400.  Note that Ham, at right, is pointing to Noah's nakedness.  The Church taught that Noah's curse was justified because Ham had ridiculed and shamed his father.  This is absolutely not supported by the Biblical text, which merely says that he told his brothers that Noah was naked.

What does this Biblical story teach us?

1. Nudity is shameful.

2. Seeing your father naked is unforgivable, even if it's totally his fault, not yours.

3. It's perfectly OK to condemn your innocent grandson into slavery.

Slaveowners cited this story to justify the institution of slavery.  So much for Biblical morality.

To emphasize how alien the morality of the Bible is, let's imagine if the same thing happened today.  A father gets drunk and is lying around naked.  His adult son finds him and says, "Uh, Dad, you might want to cover yourself."  The father says, "Oh, sorry," and covers himself.  End of story.

The Gates of Paradise are a set of bronze doors made by Lorenzo Ghiberti for the Baptistery in Florence from 1425 to 1452.  This scene from the doors depicts the drunkenness of Noah at left.  At the top, the pyramid thing is Noah's Ark.  Yes, a pyramid-shaped Ark.  Note the wild animals around its base.  What was Ghiberti smoking?

This is Michelangelo's painting of the drunkenness of Noah, 1509, part of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican.  Michelangelo, who was gay, was fond of depicting nude males, so in this scene not only is Noah naked, but all his sons are as well.

Another Renaissance depiction of naked Noah by Moretto da Brescia, 1521-1528.

A bas-relief by Baccio Bandinelli, c. 1530, in the Bargello museum, Florence.  Again, everybody is naked, which kind of defeats the purpose of the story, but I'm not complaining.

After the Renaissance, when paintings became realistic depictions of a scene at a single point in time, the drunkenness of Noah remained a popular theme.  This is The Drunkenness of Noah by Carlo Saraceni, c. 1600-1610.

The Drunkenness of Noah by Bernardo Cavallino, 1640-1645.

The Drunkenness of Noah, by Andrea Sacchi, 18th century.  Ham, at right, seems to be telling us, "Hey look, he's naked."   Someone later painted some grapes over Noah's genitals, which was stupid, because if Noah isn't naked, there's no point to the story.  The painting was restored in 2010 by removing the grapes.

Drunkenness of Noah, facade of the City Hall, Leuven, Belgium.  Although the City Hall is medieval, the sculptures were added c. 1850.

Even modern artists have used the theme.  This is The Drunkenness of Noah II by James Gleeson, 1980.  The weird, partly inside-out bodies each seem to be sporting a dick and balls, though not necessarily attached at the normal place.

We close with The Drunkenness of Noah by Van Arno, 2000, in which Noah has a jug of moonshine whiskey, and he's seeing a pair of pink elephants.  The artist said he deliberately included two elephants because the animals in the Ark were in pairs.

I would only add that the Biblical story of Noah, like other Biblical stories, is as real as the pink elephants seen by a drunk.