Series of Events before the Bible Created

The New Beginning

As I said the only Naamah that I am familiar is listed in Cain’s lineage but she is the daughter of Lamech and the twin sister of Tubal-cain, born 5 generations apart from Enoch, the son of Cain. As the daughter of Lamech, the blind, this would make her the great-great granddaughter of Enoch from Cain’s line and not his daughter as cited in this passage.

Another thing of importance which one must consider when examining the context of this verse, is that the first 10 generations of Adam’s line are repeatedly told by the Most High, His angels, and their fathers, to never ever marry or mix with the line of Cain, as I covered previously in chapter on the enmity between the seed lines.

The next piece to putting together this puzzle is cited in the last 2 verses of the Jasher 5 passage that I quoted. In those verses Shem and Japheth, are referenced as having been born from Noah’s marriage to Naamah and that “the boys grew up and went in the ways of the Lord, in all that Methuselah and Noah their father taught them.” This passage to me indicates that this Naamah was holy and sanctified like the other generations of Adam. Thus, I believe she was the daughter of Enoch from Adam’s line.

Another intriguing aspect of the story of Noah and Naamah as cited in Jasher 5, is that it does not include reference to Ham as offspring of their coupling. Ham is nowhere mentioned in this text and remains silent on his pedigree. I believe this ambiguity to be both purposeful and meaningful as I will now explain.

We know specifically that as the children of promise, the priesthood passes from Noah to Shem and that Shem is cited in many texts as Melchizedek and the carrier of the priesthood as passed down to him by Adam, Enoch, Lamech, and his father Noah. It is, my opinion, that the reason Ham is nowhere mentioned in chapter 5 of the Book of Jasher, is because he is not a full-blooded brother of Shem and Japhet but a child from a different marriage and mother just as Cain was not a child of Adam’s directly but the offspring of a different father. My question is Ham’s being left out of this account inference that he is Noah’s stepson or implication that he is the offspring of Noah but from a different wife. I believe that as Ishmael was Abraham’s son so was Ham, Noah’s physical progeny but I do question the significance of their relations as well as the nature of their blood ties as there seems to be something peculiar about him as there was with Cain and Ishmael.

What that distinction is remains to be determined, however his being excluded from the parentage of Shem and Japheth as the children of promise seems to be somewhat significant as was Ishmael and Esau’s exclusion from the birthrights which skipping them were passed on to their brothers Isaac and Jacob.

I believe the key to understanding Ham’s pedigree lies in the story of his having seen the nakedness of his father. Which according to the interpretation of Scripture actually means that he saw his mother or mother-in-law depending on which story you are interpreting, drunken and passed out in his father’s tent, and taking advantage of the situation slept with her as did Rueben to Billah, his father Jacob’s concubine.

11 For had I not seen Bilhah bathing in a covered place, I had not fallen into this great iniquity. 12 For my mind taking in the thought of the woman's nakedness, suffered me not to sleep until I had 13 wrought the abominable thing. For while Jacob our father had gone to Isaac his father, when we were in Eder, near to Ephrath in Bethlehem, Bilhah became drunk and was asleep uncovered in her 14 chamber. Having therefore gone in and beheld nakedness, I wrought the impiety without her 15 perceiving it, and leaving her sleeping I departed. And forthwith an angel of God revealed to my father concerning my impiety, and he came and mourned over me, and touched her no more. - The Testament of the 12 Patriarchs, Reuben 11-15