Twenty nine years ago,the world lost the man who had been described as the "first Third World superstar". The Hon. Robert Nesta Marley O.M. died on 11th May 1981 in a Miami hospital after an 8 month battle with cancer. He was 36.

To the masses he was known as Bob Marley - the man who brought them reggae and Rastafarianism. His was the voice of classics like "No Woman No Cry" recorded live at the London Lyceum Ballroom in 1975.

However, what most people don't know, and many try to cover up, is the fact that Bob Marley converted to Christianity in 1980.

In fact on 4 November 1980 he was baptized and became a member of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. When he was buried under Orthodox rites on 21st May 1981 it was with his Bible and his Gibson guitar!

Bob Marley was born at Nine Miles, St Ann's in Jamaica. His father was Norval Sinclair Marley, a 50 something Liverpool born captain in the British Army. His mother, an 18 year old teenager, was Cedella Booker. His birthday is thought to be 6th February 1945 although no birth certificate has ever been found.

His mum, and his grandparents, read the Bible at home and worshiped in a Christian church. Bob Marley strayed away from that upbringing as a teenager and as an adult embraced Rastafarianism.

He married Alpharita Anderson (Rita)in February 1966 and while he was away in the USA earning some money to pursue his musical career she converted to Rastafarianism following the visit to Jamaica of Haile Selassie I, Emperor of Ethiopia.

Rastafarians worshiped Selassie as the Messiah and Savior. Bob followed suite and spent his career exposing the beliefs of Rastafari in songs like "One Love", "Jammin'" and "Exodus".

The worship of Selassie is a little ironic as Selassie was a Christian and in the 1970's personally commissioned Archbishop Abuna Yesehaq to go to Jamaica to start a church that worshiped Christ and not himself in the hope that Jamaicans would follow the true Christ. Yesehaq became the head of the Kingston chapter of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.

The Jamaicans.com website says that Bob remained outside the church for several years after Rita and the children converted in 1972.

Bob was under the spiritual guidance of the archbishop but was baptised just a year before his death, after 3 aborted attempts to convert in Kingston. He backed out each time, says the Archbishop, after being threatened by other rastas.

Marley was finally baptized in the Ethiopian Church in New York where less resentments were less inflamed. The Archbishop christened him Berhane Selassie - "light of the Trinity".

Judy Mowatt, one of Marley's backing singers the "I-Threes", which also included his wife Rita Marley and Marcia Griffiths, sang with Bob for years and told British journalist and broadcaster Mike Rimmer in an interview that was published in Christian Herald in March 2005 of a phonecall she received from Rita when Bob was dying. "She said to me that Bob was in such excruciating pain and he stretched out his hand and said 'Jesus take me'.

I was wondering to myself 'Why is it that Bob said 'Jesus' and not 'Selassie'? But I never said it to anyone. Then I met a friend whose sister is a Christian and was a nurse at the hospital where Bob was treated and she had led him to the Lord Jesus Christ. So when Rita saw him saying 'Jesus take me', I now know it was after he had received the Lord Jesus Christ in his life."

Serious?

Well that's good news, for there's JOY in Heaven over the repentance of one terrible sinners.
I pray that sinners on nl will also come to know Christ our Lord.

There shall be enough ganja in heaven. I must be there too

I had to do this in order to debunk the judgmental insinuations of some who never though that God can use mankind in diverse ways, Bob was actually a Prophet of God who miss used some of the opportunities that was given to him by the Almighty but was quick enough to reconcile with his creator shortly before dying!

I'm glad you did this post. It just shows how great God is and that a great man can come to recognize the truth that is Jesus Christ. Can't wait to see him in heaven.