Curse of Ham unsupported by the text of the Bible, emphatically pointing out that Noah's curse fell not upon all descendants of Ham, but only on the descendants of Canaan, and asserting that it was fulfilled when Canaan was occupied by both Semites (Israel) and Japhetites. The commentary further notes that Canaanites ceased to exist politically after the Third Punic War (149 BC), and that their current descendants are thus unknown and scattered among all peoples. Robert Boyle—a seventeenth-century scientist who also was a theologian and a devout Christian—refuted the idea that blackness was a Curse of Ham, in his book "Experiments and
Ham (son of Noah) he took her and lay with her and defiled her." According to this argument, similar abuse must have happened each time that the Bible uses the same language. The Talmud concludes that, in fact, "both indignities were perpetrated." Although the story can be taken literally, in more recent times, some scholars have suggested that Ham may have had intercourse with his father's wife. Under this interpretation, Canaan is cursed as the "product of Ham's illicit union." The scripture reference for this belief can be found in Leviticus 18:8 and Leviticus 20:11. The chronological scheme of the Book of Jubilees has