Columbus and the Bible
When Christopher Columbus arrived at the coasts of America he never imagined that his new undertaking would affect the world of the Bible, in addition to the political, economic, cultural and ethnical factors.
If Columbus had come to the Indies which he was ardently looking for, there would not have been so many major difficulties. But little by little, he became more and more conscious of the reality that he found a “new world” as Amerigo Vespucci would affirm eleven years later, in 1503. It meant that the natives were not Asians but a group of people who were then unknown. And these things presented problems to theologians and the educated people of that era.
All From One
In the 16th century CE, it was believed that all the nations of the world originally descended from Noah, as it is told in Genesis 10.
According to this, since all the inhabitants of the world perished in the deluge, the only people who survived were the three sons of Noah, namely Shem, Ham and Japheth and their respective wives. It was through them that the re-population of the earth was made possible. And so, a list of all nations of the world and their progressive expansion are attributed to them.
This ethnographic list is a unique document of ancient literature. No other example of its kind is as complete as this. In the Bible, it serves to show that the descendants of Noah fulfilled the divine command of multiplying and filling the earth (Gen 1:28). In this manner, Noah became the new father of humanity.
The “List of Nations”
From where did this list come? In reality, it is an old catalogue of peoples and nations composed in the year 10 BCE, when King David was just beginning to organize his reign. In fact, as they were beginning to relate with other neighboring nations through commerce and ambassadors, they discovered the enormous diversity of peoples who lived around the world. They decided to classify them to put order in such multiplicity and so, they came out with the “list of nations.”
The author made a simple grouping into three categories of the known groups of peoples.
In the first group, they put together all the nations with which Israel maintained friendly relations due to historical, commercial or ethnical reasons and placed them as sons of Shem. In the second group, they brought together the enemies of Israel, relating them to the descendants of Ham, the son Noah cursed (Gen 9:22-25). Finally, all the remaining races, which were either indifferent or neutral, were grouped as Japheth’s offspring.
In this way, they were able to achieve a tripartite division of the world. Generally speaking, these categories have geographical considerations. The North and the West of Israel that belonged to Asia Minor and the islands of the Mediterranean were called Japheth. Those who lived in the South in the area of Egypt, its surroundings and zones of influence, these were considered to be under Ham. Those who were in the East, in Mesopotamia and neighboring regions, were designated to Shem.
As “Fathers” and “Sons”
In putting together this list, the author utilized a special literary genre called “genealogy” which was very common in antiquity. It consisted of commercial, historical or ethnical relationships in terms of parentage. Major or minor proximity among the nations was considered in terms of being “brothers,” “half-brothers,” “nephews.” The major and minor distance in time was constituted by being “fathers,” “sons,” or “grandsons.”
The towns and nations were presented as persons and short stories were attributed to them to identify the important characteristics and events about these peoples. This is the same literary genre that we can encounter in Genesis 36, or in Chapter 1-11 of 1 Chronicles.
A Limited Undertaking
The list in Genesis 10 mentions only people of black and white races. Nothing is said about people of other ethnic groups. This is because the sacred author was just describing a limited area, the Near East. The rest of the globe was not yet known.
Ancient Israel with its strong nationalism and with Yahweh’s prohibition to have too many contacts with other nations due to the danger of apostasy was not so interested with those who lived outside its territories.
Since their geographical knowledge was very limited, they simply proposed to compose a symbolic table without pretending exactness. In total, there were 70 among those who were mentioned. It must be clear that this is not a scientific document. In the Bible, the number 70 symbolizes totality, universality, and perfection.
The Danger of Literal Reading
Biblical scholars did not understand these things in the time of Columbus. Taking the side of those who interpreted the Bible literally, they knew that those who were so recently found in America were not Asians. They concluded then that they were not the descendants of Shem, Ham or Japheth. Since Noah did not have a fourth son who could have served as the source of a fourth race, these people were not to be considered as part of the family of truly human beings, unless the Bible was mistaken.
Isaac Pereyre in 1655, timidly suggested that these natives formed part of another creation, a “preadamic” creation which was not destroyed by the flood, but was unheard of.
A fierce debate was initiated in Europe yielding many different opinions. There were those who tried to defend the rights of the Indians, and those who wanted to impose the biblico-theological argument that the Indians did not belong to the human race.
The “Educated” and the Virgin
In 1531 an unexpected factor emerged to help solve the question. The erudite, knowledgeable minds presented their fine arguments regarding the issue. The issue concerned the strange beings with coppery skin, half-naked, who communicated in an incomprehensible language, who lived in a primitive state. Did these people have authentic human souls? Were they also deserving of Christ’s redemption? Meanwhile in the of slopes of Tepeyac, near Mexico City, the Indio Juan Diego received a vision of a lady, the virgin of Guadalupe who left him her image imprinted in a mantle.
The image that was imprinted was an Indian, with dark skin, large eyes, and endowed with the features of a native. Unashamedly, the Mother of God acknowledged as her children those whom the European community had difficulty accepting as their brothers and sisters.
The Pope Had to Say it
Six years later, on June 2, 1537, Pope Paul III, promulgated a solemn letter called Sublimis Deus. It issued the definitive opinion of the Church by declaring “the Indians to be real human beings and capable of receiving the Catholic faith.” They “cannot be enslaved nor induced to embrace the Catholic faith by means other than the proclamation of the divine word and the example of a holy life.”
This pronouncement led the biblical researchers at that time to a singular conclusion: the natives of the new world arrived in America shortly after the deluge. They must have been connected to a certain son of Noah through a known ethnical group. But this is already another story. What is certain is that Our Lady of Guadalupe facilitated the unfolding of the “list of nations” in Genesis to the shores of America.
What Can An Old List Teach
From this episode, the inventory of Genesis 10 presented to biblical readers the names of the descendants of Shem, Ham and Japheth. Whoever came to read the story were either bored or indifferent.
What was the intent of conserving the ancient page in the Word of God, among the sublime teachings of Genesis? Can this boring genealogical list of peoples, some of which are no longer identifiable, still contribute in any way to Christian spirituality?
This chapter has its own importance. It talks about an authentic theology of the community of peoples.
The first teaching that we can glean from it is the diversity of the human phenomenon. The text repeats three times that humanity is made up of a rich variety of “nations, language, territories and respective lineages” (Gen 10:5, 20, 31). It is evident for the author that the diversity of cultures and languages is not a consequence of sin or the lack of human intelligence, but God’s blessing. It is a facet of the multi-faceted beauty of creation.
For the same reason, the holding of a single language or culture as the most superior, imposing its dominion on others is contrary to the natural order. According to our author, the natural order is made up of a community of distinct peoples and different cultures interacting with one another.
Israel, One Nation Among Others
Maybe the most important doctrine that this paragraph contains is the equality of nations. None of them was considered the eye of the list, the center of history. On the contrary, it denounced any intention of putting a single nation or race as the absolute one.
It is also surprising that in this document, Israel does not appear at the center of the scene, nor does it occupy an imminent place. It is not even mentioned in the list. What is mentioned is one of their ancestors, Heber, from whom the Hebrews could have descended. It is a neutral name for faith and salvation, Arpachad (Gen 10:24).
While other religions considered their people as the apex of the world, Israel was grateful for being connected to some god who has come from heaven and has given them dominion and power, making them more important than their neighbors. Israel renounced any myth that imposed themselves on other nations. The supposed superiority of the Hebrew race is very unconnected from revelation. The supremacy of Israel does not belong to a natural order but to an election that is totally gratuitous. As a nation, it is considered among others as just one more nation.
The Big Family
This chapter finally teaches the fundamental unity of all peoples in the midst of diversity. Being united in blood as one family, everyone is sibling to each other and everyone is loved by God in the same way whatever the language, custom or color.
God elected a nation to give service in bringing God’s promise to all the families of the earth (Gen 12:3), thus it is not for this people to keep the election to themselves. They have to bring these promises to all the families of people. Therefore, the whole human race has the same origin and the same destiny.
Genesis 10 gives a suggested philosophy. Certain organizations, such as the United Nations, whose purpose is keeping the just relationships among the nations of the world, can derive much inspiration from this.
Because of not being able to understand the teachings of this 3000-year old document about the unity of the human race in the fraternity of one family, passing centuries have witnessed horrendous crimes, racial enmities and genocides that are not related in any way to the fraternity that the biblical Noah taught his sons.
A Thousand Years After
In the New Testament, we have one exquisite allusion to the “list of nations.” The Gospel according to Luke tells us that Jesus, embarking on his public life, decided to send his first missionaries to evangelize the different towns, going to their houses and repeating what they heard from him. This served as a preparation for Jesus’ coming. The number of these first messengers, according to many manuscripts was 70 (Lk 10:1).
It was not without purpose that the gospel used this number. It symbolically represented the number of nations to which the Christian faith had to be proclaimed. This is what Luke, who possessed a universal perspective, wanted to teach us. And as long as certain peoples, places, hamlets, or corners do not rejoice in the Good News of Jesus, these 70 missionaries will fall short of what has been commanded them. The Church which is always in pilgrimage, without discriminating against its audience, must prepare for the day when all the nations of the world will know and love the Lord.
