|
|
What the Bible says about the RacesAnother good article on this subject - After I had put the above article together, I found this one by David Padfield, which in some ways is even better. Covers slightly different material from the Bible.Origins of the nations
White racists long ago spread a supposed biblical justification for their white supremacist doctrines, in part relying on medieval rabbinic assumptions, and in part relying on sheer bluster. Ham, the son of Noah, they claimed, brought down on the descendants of Canaan (Blacks) a curse of abject servitude and perpetual inferiority.But in actual fact, are blacks even mentioned in the Bible? Other than a few notables like Nimrod in Genesis, the Queen of Sheba, and Queen Candace the Ethiopian in the book of Acts, are Black (negroid) peoples completely ignored?
Where did the races originate.The traditional view which we got from the Rabbis of old is that all the races of mankind are descended from the three sons of Noah.Shem, Ham and Japheth. [Genesis chapter 10]
Black people would all be included among the sons of Ham. Nations traditionally identified as descended from Ham include the Egypts (Mizraim), Phut (said to be Libya or Nubia), Sheba, the Phoenicians and Canaanites, Crete (Caphtor), the Cushites (stretching from Ethiopia to Mesopotamia), and macho NIMROD, perhaps inaccurately described by the King James translators as "mighty hunter before the Lord.".
Semitic peoples are the descendants of Shem, Noah's oldest son. He is called the father of all the children of Eber. Semitic languages in our day include hebrew, aramaic, arabic, the berber languages, amharic of ethiopia, and in times gone by included chaldee (arphaxad), phoenician, pre-aryan persia (elam).
The non-semitic (gentiles), caucasians are descended from Japheth. Javan was Greece, Ashkenaz was Germany, Tarshish was Spain.
If the traditional view is true, Hamitic peoples originally inhabited many of areas where they were later either joined or supplanted by Shemitic peoples. These areas include, apparently, not only Mesopotamia and Phoenicia, but also areas of Arabia, northern Africa, and even the land of Canaan itself. A dominating icon of the pre-semitic middle east was the figure of NIMROD, the black stud whose impact seems to have touched so many ancient nations of the lands of the Bible.
Going outside the Bible, we learn from ethnographic sources that the pre-semitic sumerians were a highly developed black skinned people with a compact population of many thousands, an agricultural economy, the beginnings of writing and a star-gazing priesthood, and tributary peoples from the north whom they tapped for labor service. They were later supplanted by semite peoples, chaldeans and (pre-aryan) elamites.
Similarly, outside the Hebrew scriptures but found in the holy writings of India is a similar tale of a primeval black civilization which was later joined by white, pastoralist peoples from the north, Aryans, and the resulting intermmarriage of the two. Instead of the mighty "Nimrod" however, the Black god-hero-image is a gorgeous being known as KRSNA, krishna.
A second version is that races originated in a pre-Noahic era. There a couple of intriguing hints that suggest such a possibility. This theory depends upon the creation of Adam being only a partial human creation, and it depends upon Noah's flood being a local event, and "the face of the earth" was of limited extent.Genesis chapter one outlines the (first five days) physical creation of the heavens and the earth, all by the word of God, then (day six) slows down considerably, focussing on the hands on creation of Adam.
Someone with some familiarity with Hebrew dug up the fact that the word Adam means, pink, or ruddy, or rosy. Was Adam the first "redneck"? The idea is that between day five and day six of genesis, an entire eon of time time place, during which an aboriginal race of some kind of titans lived, having first been created by God.
Adam is the pink one, the "white" prometheus. He originally lived in the Paradise of God, eastward in Eden, or Africa. Of the four rivers mentioned two, Hiddekel and Gihon, are said to be located in African lands. Thus, white man originated in Africa also, but was evicted, and a flaming sword put in place to keep him out.
This view presents a possible solution to the old connundrum, Where did Cain get his wife? She was one of the pre-Adamic peoples who existed prior to the biblical record.
Obviously there are problems to this scenario. Suppose the angel's flaming sword represents the physical and climate barriers separating Eden from Europe? It is true that there was substantial separation between the two groups for many centuries. But the separation was never total. There were holes through the "flaming sword" of the Sahara. There were deser caravans, there was the Nile River, and later, there were trade routes by sea.
Who were these original peoples, pre-existing before the biblical record? Why so little mention of them? Yet hints exist. There is a verse, Genesis 6:2. Two races of people are referred to, the ben-chelohim, sons of God, and the daughters of man, ADAM, the rosy, or white race. The brief allusion to what must have been a major and no doubt sustained event, is merely this: that the sons of God (ben-chelohim) saw the daughters of Adams, that they were fair, and they took them wives of all they chose. We must not read too much into these words, but the daughters of the Adams were fair. The Clarence Barnhart College Dictionary gives as one of the meanings of fair this one -- "of light hue, not dark."
Sounds eerily like what we are told happened in India. The primordial black civilization of Dravidians, a merchant people, flourished throughout the Indian subcontinent. Around 1500 BC, roving bands of Aryan pastoralists, shepherds, moved in from the north. The resulting intermingling produced the present race inhabiting India.
Some inter-cultural marriages in the Bible
So much for speculation about the origin of Races. Now a brief enumeration of interracial or intercultural marriages in the Bible.
In bygone days, in-marriage between close relatives was apparently far more common than they are in todays urban age. A book on Jewish customs, The Enclosed Garden, idicated that the ideal mate during the schtetl days of meieval judaism was considered to be one's second cousin. In the Bible, several cases are specifically named. Abraham married his half sister, which is equivalent to a first cousin marriage. Isaac married his first cousin Rebecca. Jacob married his first cousins Rachel and Leah.
The early Christians were instructed not to be unequally yoked. And many nations have taboos against interracial marriage. But what about instances in the Bible where intercultural or interracial marriage are referred to positively?
Joseph, sold into slavery by his brothers, wound up the prime minister of Egypt and married an African woman Asenath, daughter of the Priest of On. Their two sons were elevated to the position of Patriarchs, taking their place among the brothers of Joseph as heads of tribes of Israel.
Moses provoked the prejudices of his older brother and sister by marrying an Ethiopian woman. Numbers 12: 1-15.
Later, after spending 40 years in the wilderness, the children of Israel under Joshua scouted out various Canaanite cities. Salmon, a progenitor of David, married Rechab, the Canaanite harlot who saved the Israelite spies in the city of Jericho.
Boaz, a progenitor of David one step closer, married a Moabitess woman, Ruth. Her famous words to Naomi had been, "Thy people shall be my people, and they God, my God."
David himself, named by later prophets as the ancestor of the Messiah, was a Jew who married the wife of a Hitite, Uriah, apparently a convert to Judaism. In the Biblical account, the circumstances of David's initial coupling with her is not treated very kindly at all, but his subsequent acceptance of responsibility is very much validated. Solomon, for one, was the product of their union.It might be instructive to note that this woman's name was Bath-sheba, shiyn-beth-ayin. [S-B-A] Daughter of Sheba.
Solomon's political marriages (alliances) with many non-Israelite women are generally criticized in scripture. Nevertheless, the coptic ethiopian church traces its own origins to the marriage of Solomon with the Queen of Sheba, shiyn-beth-aleph. [S-B-A] See 1 Kings 10:1. If Solomon's mother was a daughter of Sheba, perhaps he was particularly drawn to such a woman himself. At any rate, the contemporary Falasha (black skinned) Jews of Ethiopia trace their own origins to the fusing that took place during the time of Solomon's (and the Qeen of Sheba's) time.
Another pertinent reference in the Hebrew Bible is in The Song of Solomon, a book often considered something like erotic fiction, but the narrative is of a poor girl in love with the mighty King Solomon. Was this Solomon's personal fantasy? Historically, we know that Solomon's father was David, his mother was Bath-Sheba. Perhaps "the daughter of Sheba" Solomon's young "groupie" is identified as a Shulamite girl. She declares, "I am black but comely." "Black"
THE NEW TESTAMENT -- Christian Bible
Passages touching on racial-cultural prejudice
Galilee
- In the gospels there are sevral references highlighting the walls separating Jews from the neighboring peoples. Jerusalem seems to have prided itself in the greater purity of its bloodlines, and correspondingly held Galillean mixing and mingling in contempt. "Galilee of the nations" was a crossroads between cultures, with Syrophoenicians, Samaratans, Greeks and Arabs on all sides, with trade and commerce passing through. Roman resort cities flourished on the Sea of Tiberias. Moreover, Galilleans themselves were said to be descended from Benjamin, the only tribe remaining attached to Judah-Jerusalem, a promise given to the Jews arising from the love of David and Jonathan (a Jew and a Benjamite). 1 Kings 11:32. The Benjamites had a peculiar place among the children of Israel. Nearly wiped ou in the time of the Judges, they were only rescued from extinction by a brutal strategem, the abduction of some unsuspecting maidens of Jabesh Gilead, and their intermarriage with the men of Benjamin. (This is found at the end of the book of Judges.) An odd tale.Samaritans
John 4:9 says it plainly. Samaritans and Jews have no dealings with each other. Nevertheless, for all the prejudice against race-mingling, apparently it did go on. One has the impression that the Samaritans were considered something like unmentionable and unclaimed "poor relations" by the Jews. (And the Galileeans were barely one step above.)-parable of Good Samaritan -- answer to "Who is my neighbor?"
Timothy's parents mother Jewish, father Gentile, or Greek
Among early believers - chuch at Antioch
Acts 13:1 Simeon Niger,
Lucius of Cyrene (Tripoli) in AfricaPeter's dream after Cornelius inquiry. Acts 11: 8
What God that cleansed, that call not thou common.We are told that in the early days of Christianity, most of the Roman Empire was content with their old religion and resistent to this new "cult." Nevertheless, it spread, slowly, around the various Jewis communities of the Roman Empire, and then found welcome among the disaffected, the outcasts, the poor. It was a religion of faith, and hope, and ultimate justice for the meek and lowly. The early adherents were the urban poor throughtout the Roman Empire.
Paul observed even in his time that "not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, were called. But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty {and so on}.
Nevertheless, a few nobles and royalty and affluent WERE called, and DID convert. Paul himself being one. Another was Candace, queen of Ethiopia.
Also of interest -- Hebrew words for North and South [left and right] �In Hebrew, the South (Africa, southern Arabia - and possibly southern India) are spoken of in a very favorable light. Son of the South, is equivalent to Son of MY RIGHT HAND. The explanation is that directions were determined based on an eastward orientation (prayer time early morning, facing the dawn). Northward was the left hand. South the right hand. "Bane Yawmeen" --Yaw-meen is found 139 times in the Hebrew Bible, and I find no time when it was mentioned unfavorably. If God has a preference, the Hebrew scriptures make it look like he favors the continent to the South of the land of Canaan -- i.e. Africa and the Hejaz.
Also of interest -- description in the Apocalypse (Revelations 1: 13- 14) of the Being (said to be "the risen Christ") in the midst of the seven candlesticks . He is described as hair like wool, eyes like a flame of fire, feet like fine brass as if burned in a furnace ......
Was Moses the first "Black Hebreu" ?
here's a bit on the historic Black Jews ("Falashas") of Ethiopia :
Blessed be the Name
. . . and place for the matriarchy . . .
