FROM DARWIN TO HITLER: EVOLUTIONARY ETHICS, EUGENICS, AND RACISM IN GERMANY
Nice God you have ... From God to the Bible to Slavery.
"Tracing the continuum between racial apartheid and the southern ruling class's exaggerated sense of honor, between the curse of Noah and the Confederate flags that still wave over some state capitols, Stephen R. Haynes here makes the compelling case that the Bible is in fact one of the foundational texts of American slavery."
The ancient rabbis suggested that every biblical text has seventy legitimate meanings (and no doubt an infinite number of illegitimate ones). Stephen Haynes has produced an amazing history of interpretation of the Ham and Nimrod narratives. It becomes clear through his careful research that such texts are supple and vulnerable to misguided theological passion. This book lets us reflect on old mistakes and, by inference, invites us to reflect on our own availability for parallel misreadings. Noah's curse is an exercise in historical disclosure not to be missed by those who care about the crisis of reading in the church and in a Bible-rooted culture.
--Walter Brueggemann,