Miriam’s critique of Moses’ wife (Num 12:1) has been used to argue for the Bible’s “color-consciousness, that is, an awareness of physiological differences, including skin color, between ethnic groups.The story begins:

במדבר יב:א וַתְּדַבֵּר מִרְיָם וְאַהֲרֹן בְּמֹשֶׁה עַל אֹדוֹת הָאִשָּׁה הַכֻּשִׁית אֲשֶׁר לָקָח כִּי אִשָּׁה כֻשִׁית לָקָח. Num 12:1 Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Kushite woman he had married: “He married a Kushite woman!”
What does this passage tell us about racial attitudes among the ancient Israelites? To answer this question properly, we must begin by determining what the gentilic כֻּשִׁית, “Kushite” (or “Cushite”) meant in the context of ancient Israel.

The Geographical Meaning of Kush
The geographical term כּוּשׁ “Kush” in the Bible refers broadly to Africa and Africans and more narrowly to the land south of Egypt,[4] as do the cognate terms in Egyptian (kush) and Assyrian (kusu).

In the Table of Nations in Genesis 10, Kush is the eldest son of Ham (10:6) and the older brother of Mitzraim (Egypt), thus placing Kush in Africa in the vicinity of Egypt. In the book of Esther, Kush (Ethiopia) is at the southern extreme of the Persian Empire:

אסתר א:א וַיְהִי בִּימֵי אֲחַשְׁוֵרוֹשׁ הוּא אֲחַשְׁוֵרוֹשׁ הַמֹּלֵךְ מֵהֹדּוּ וְעַד כּוּשׁ שֶׁבַע וְעֶשְׂרִים וּמֵאָה מְדִינָה. Esth 1:1 It happened in the days of Ahasuerus—that Ahasuerus who reigned over a hundred and twenty-seven provinces from India to Kush.
In the Septuagint, Kush is regularly translated as Αιθιοπία, Ethiopia, the kingdom south of Egypt (modern day Sudan).

The Identity of the Kushite Woman
Taking Numbers 12:1 at face value, Moses has a wife who comes from African Kush. Who is this mysterious wife?

Midianite Zipporah
In Exodus 2:21, Moses marries Zipporah, the daughter of Reuel, the Midianite priest. Some ancient (and modern) interpreters equate the two, presumably because there is no explicit biblical record of Moses’ marrying a second wife.

For example, the Hellenistic Jewish author, Ezekiel the Tragedian (3rd cent. B.C.E.), retells the story of Moses meeting Jethro’s daughters at the well, but sets the story in Africa. Speaking in Moses’ voice, he says:

But, lo! These seven maidens I espy!
In response to his question as to who they might be,
Sepphora (=Zipporah) replies:
This land, O stranger, all bears Libya’s name,
but tribes of sundry races dwell throughout;
the dark-skinned Aethiops. Yet there is one
who ruler, prince, and sole commander, he
rules all this state and judges mortal men,
a priest, the father of myself and these.

Ezekiel the Tragedian equates equates Zipporah with Moses’ Kushite wife, and Midian with Libya and “the dark-skinned Aethiops.”

Demetrius the Chronographer (3rd cent. B.C.E.), in a more prosaic manner, simply equates Midian in the east with Ethiopia. After calculating the descent of Moses and Zipporah, to show that it makes sense that they were contemporaries, he writes:

And they lived in the city of Midian, which was named from one of the sons of Abraham. For it says that Abraham sent his sons to the East (Gen 25:6) to settle there. And for this reason also, Aaron and Miriam said at Hazeroth (Num 12:1) that Moses had married an Ethiopian woman.
This, however, is not accurate geographically. Midian, מדין, is located to the east of the present-day Gulf of Aqaba, in the northern Hejaz, many hundreds of miles from Kush. The two peoples, Kushites and Midianites, appear to be completely separate ethnic groups.Thus, equating Moses’ Kushite wife with his Midianite wife Zipporah seems unlikely.

Richwallet:



Richwallet Nairaland is my user name although I am rarely on Facebook.


They block me on every social media because they know who I am and are trying to stop me from telling my testimony.

BlackAdam65:
i would like to ask how did white people and other races came to existance ?

Shem's Children
From the wife of Shem, the nation of Israel was born. This is the genealogy of Shem and his wife from Shem to Abram: Shem begot Arphaxad, Arphaxad begot Salah, Salah begot Eber, Eber begot Peleg, Peleg begot Reu, Reu begot Serug, Serug begot Nahor, Nahor begot Terah, and Terah begot Abram (Abraham), Nahor, and Haran. Shem's descendants today are the Semetic people of the Middle East.

WARREN, R.I. (AP) — A nearly 150-year-old stained-glass church window that depicts a dark-skinned Jesus Christ interacting with women in New Testament scenes has stirred up questions about race, Rhode Island’s role in the slave trade and the place of women in 19th century New England society.

The window installed at the long-closed St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Warren in 1878 is the oldest known public example of stained glass on which Christ is depicted as a person of color that one expert has seen.

Passage
Resources
Hebrew/Greek

2 Kings 3
Good News Translation
War between Israel and Moab
3 In the eighteenth year of the reign of King Jehoshaphat of Judah, Joram son of Ahab became king of Israel, and he ruled in Samaria for twelve years. 2 He sinned against the Lord, but he was not as bad as his father or his mother Jezebel; he pulled down the image his father had made for the worship of Baal. 3 Yet, like King Jeroboam son of Nebat before him, he led Israel into sin and would not stop.

4 King Mesha of Moab raised sheep, and every year he gave as tribute to the king of Israel 100,000 lambs and the wool from 100,000 sheep. 5 But when King Ahab of Israel died, Mesha rebelled against Israel. 6 At once King Joram left Samaria and gathered all his troops. 7 He sent word to King Jehoshaphat of Judah: “The king of Moab has rebelled against me; will you join me in war against him?”

“I will,” King Jehoshaphat replied. “I am at your disposal, and so are my men and my horses. 8 What route shall we take for the attack?”

“We will go the long way through the wilderness of Edom,” Joram answered.

9 So King Joram and the kings of Judah and Edom set out. After marching seven days, they ran out of water, and there was none left for the men or the pack animals. 10 “We're done for!” King Joram exclaimed. “The Lord has put the three of us at the mercy of the king of Moab!”

11 King Jehoshaphat asked, “Is there a prophet here through whom we can consult the Lord?”

An officer of King Joram's forces answered, “Elisha son of Shaphat is here. He was Elijah's assistant.”

12 “He is a true prophet,” King Jehoshaphat said. So the three kings went to Elisha.

13 “Why should I help you?” Elisha said to the king of Israel. “Go and consult those prophets that your father and mother consulted.”

“No!” Joram replied. “It is the Lord who has put us three kings at the mercy of the king of Moab.”

14 Elisha answered, “By the living Lord, whom I serve, I swear that I would have nothing to do with you if I didn't respect your ally, King Jehoshaphat of Judah. 15 Now get me a musician.”

As the musician played his harp, the power of the Lord came on Elisha, 16 and he said, “This is what the Lord says: ‘Dig ditches all over this dry stream bed. 17 Even though you will not see any rain or wind, this stream bed will be filled with water, and you, your livestock, and your pack animals will have plenty to drink.’” 18 And Elisha continued, “But this is an easy thing for the Lord to do; he will also give you victory over the Moabites. 19 You will conquer all their beautiful fortified cities; you will cut down all their fruit trees, stop all their springs, and ruin all their fertile fields by covering them with stones.”

20 The next morning, at the time of the regular morning sacrifice, water came flowing from the direction of Edom and covered the ground.

21 When the Moabites heard that the three kings had come to attack them, all the men who could bear arms, from the oldest to the youngest, were called out and stationed at the border. 22 When they got up the following morning, the sun was shining on the water, making it look as red as blood. 23 “It's blood!” they exclaimed. “The three enemy armies must have fought and killed each other! Let's go and loot their camp!”

24 But when they reached the camp, the Israelites attacked them and drove them back. The Israelites kept up the pursuit,[a] slaughtering the Moabites 25 and destroying their cities. As they passed by a fertile field, every Israelite would throw a stone on it until finally all the fields were covered; they also stopped up the springs and cut down the fruit trees. At last only the capital city of Kir Heres[b] was left, and the slingers surrounded it and attacked it.

26 When the king of Moab realized that he was losing the battle, he took seven hundred swordsmen with him and tried to force his way through the enemy lines and escape to the king of Syria,[c] but he failed. 27 So he took his oldest son, who was to succeed him as king, and offered him on the city wall as a sacrifice to the god of Moab. The Israelites were terrified[d] and so they drew back from the city and returned to their own country.

Envy is often rooted in low self-esteem – sometimes from very early unmet childhood needs where the person feels inherently not good enough. An envious person may frequently ‘compare and despair’ and find themselves wanting. And so they seek to bring down the object or person who they perceive is making them feel that way. It’s almost as though the other person is responsible for the envious person’s happiness – because their self-image is dependent on things outside of themselves. They feel deficient in themselves and have a constant hunger to fill that deficiency.

By denigrating the thing that makes them feel ‘less than’, the envious person can make the other feel bad, so they can ultimately begin to feel ‘more than’. It’s a shaky way of building self-esteem, but it’s as though the envious person needs to absorb some of the other’s energy in order to feel whole and functioning. Except the ‘feel good’ effect never lasts, and they may need to up the ante to continue to feel better about themselves. Envious people can be competitive. More than that, they can seem to take pleasure in another’s misfortune. We see this kind of envious attack carried out on social media daily, where celebrities’ looks and behaviours are criticised – and the tiniest slip is magnified and vilified.

Why There are No White People in the Bible
Dan Bouchelle

Did you know there are no white people in the Bible? Does that surprise you? It’s true, I assure you. Not Adam, Abraham, Moses, Deborah, David, Elijah, Jezebel, Daniel, Jesus, Peter, Paul, or even Lydia or the church in Rome were white. Most of the people in the Bible were Jews of middle eastern origin. The few people in the Bible from the region we now call Europe may have had light-colored skin and would be considered white today, but they were not white in their day.

How can I say this? Because the concept of whiteness didn’t exist yet. Since the beginning of recorded history, humans have always thought in terms of tribes or nations (as in the Cherokee nation or Navajo nation, not a modern nation-state), but the idea of race is a fairly new concept. The Greek word for nation is “ethnos” (from which we get the word “ethnic”) and referred to any group of people with a common language, culture, story, and territory. Some nations were related to others with common historical roots and cultural overlaps. Some nations were greatly different from each other and far removed in every way.

Nations or tribes were categorized in various ways in the ancient world, as reflected in the Bible, but skin color was not one of them. It’s not that the Bible never notes that some nations had darker skin than others, but that is an exceedingly rare thing for the writers of scripture to mention. It just wasn’t considered a relevant factor for identifying people groups.

Skin color in antiquity was more like hair color is for us today. We see it and occasionally mention it. We can even build a few stereotypes and jokes around it. But no one really considers blonde, red, brown, grey, or black hair to be a marker of value, superiority, personality traits, or humanity. It’s just one of those things that can vary among humans like height, body type, or eye color. Humans come in endless varieties, but we are all humans. As N.T. Wright once quipped on a podcast, “In the Middle Ages, no one in Europe would have called anyone ‘white’ unless they had seen a ghost or were dead.”

However, starting in the 15th century, for the first time in human history, skin color began to take on a new significance. Europeans began placing people of different nations on a continuum of skin color, with baseless generalizations being made about people on either end. This way of thinking grew in prominence until the formulation of legal justifications for race-based chattel slavery in the 17th century.

Creating the language of “black” or “white” people was driven by economics and empire. It was an effort to justify the enslavement of people from Africa or the Americas by Europeans as they expanded their global empires and needed cheap labor. What developed was a diabolical but baseless theory of race that classified all nations on some color scale of “red, yellow, black, and white,” which was combined with a developmental scale that put white people at the top, black people at the bottom, and red and yellow people somewhere in between.

All this was just a form of tribalism or nationalism on steroids. All these ways of thinking are mere extensions of self-interest in communal forms that are profoundly anti-gospel. The gospel tells us that all people are children of God equally loved and valued by their creator, who will unite us all in Christ to form one people who demonstrate the diverse beauty of God’s creativity (see Rev. 21:22-22:5).

While slavery had been around from the beginning of recorded time, it was not previously based on skin color. Slaves were people conquered in war or people who had fallen on hard economic times. Slavery was typically not a lifelong or hereditary status. It was an ugly reality, but not as evil as it became when it got tied to the myth of race. The idea that people of certain skin colors were superior or could legitimately own and control people of other colors was unknown in the days of the Bible.

All this means that “whiteness” is artificial—a false story humans have created. It is important to know there is no genetic or biological reality that supports the idea that people with certain skin tones constitute a distinct group with common characteristics. People of all races are 99% genetically identical. Exactly who has been considered white has changed over time. Early in U.S. history, neither Jewish, Irish, nor Italian people were considered to be white, but now they typically are. There was a time when the KKK opposed viewing Christopher Columbus as a hero because he was Italian, they did not consider Italians to be white, and they wanted to keep them out of the USA. Who gets counted as white has been amazingly arbitrary.

Now, in saying that whiteness is not a biological reality, I am not seeking to diminish the impact race has on our world. Race is a powerful myth that has impacted billions of lives for half a millennium. Most of us with light-colored skin and European ancestry have been deeply indoctrinated in the mythology of whiteness (often under other names), and we carry unconscious convictions of white primacy, which we are skilled at hiding from ourselves. We may not tie it to skin color or genetics, but we typically assume that “white culture” (which we can’t define) is better, more evolved, or more refined. We assume that other cultures can be improved by being more like “white” culture, regardless of skin color. We believe this because we have been taught it directly or indirectly. You don’t have to be part of some fringe “White Supremacy” group to be infected with white superiority assumptions.

Why does this matter?

Because the amount of evil done in the name of race is staggering and beyond calculation. It must end.

Because there is a false idea, still prominent in many parts of the world, that Christianity is a white or western religion.This makes it difficult for many people to embrace Christ because they have been hurt by “white” people who claim to follow Christ.

Too often, Christians from the western world have bought into false racial ideas that have directly or indirectly supported white primacy. This undercuts the faithfulness, justice, credibility, and impact of the gospel. Lurking behind the struggle American missionaries sometimes have with trusting national leaders in other countries is the unspoken and unrecognized factor of race.

The implications of the myth of race are massive and complex, and the challenges of undoing the injustices in our world fostered by these arbitrary categories are immense. Yet, the one thing we should be able to agree about as followers of Jesus is that skin color is no basis upon which to judge or rank people. Jesus wasn’t white. Seventy percent of Christians globally are not white. And all people matter equally to our creator.

While we should not try to be color blind, which doesn’t acknowledge the realities of people whose life experience is different than ours, we should reject color bias. We should be relentlessly committed to the equality of all people. The cross should be the end of all claims to the superiority of any people groups.

Our hope is not in any race, culture, nation, or other human source. Our hope is in the God who made us all from the same original couple and who is drawing all people from all tribes and nations, regardless of color or culture, toward the same home in the New Jerusalem.

When God created us, he did not intend for us to die; he made us like himself. 24It was the Devil's jealousy that brought death into the world, and those who belong to the Devil are the ones who will die.

Written by Ann Brown

May 17, 2021

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The Nation of Islam (NOI) was founded in the 1930s by Wallace Fard Muhammad and many of its roots were influenced by the teachings of Noble Drew Ali.

Ali founded the Moorish Science Temple of America in 1913, based at his Canaanite Temple in Newark, New Jersey. Ali later relocated to Chicago. He had a following of thousands of converts.

When looking at Moorish Science Temple of America and the Nation of Islam (NOI) side by side, one can see the similarities. In fact, the leaders of the NOI often praise and give credit to Ali. Despite this, there have been tensions between the two groups throughout the years.


There are several similarities of the two movements, from the Fez hat worn by both Ali and NOI leader Elijah Muhammad (who took over the group after Wallace Fard Muhammad’s disappearance in 1934) to both groups naming their meeting places “temples.”


Ali had the male members of his Temple wear a Fez or turban as a head covering; the women wore turbans.


Elijah Muhammad spoke about the Fez hat worn by the Moorish Americans and Noble Drew Ali. “The hat was red. They wore black ones and red ones,” said Muhammad, who himself was wearing a red Fez hat. According to Muhammad, the Fez has been worn by the NOI since the days of the organization’s founder Wallace Fard Muhammad.





“The Fez that the Shriners wear is the Fez of the Moors. And the tassel on it was tied down. It [the tassel] didn’t swing 360 degrees,” explained Farrakhan.

The meaning of the tassel “means the same thing it means when you are graduating from school. That means knowledge,” Muhammad pointed out.

The Fez hat worn by Ali and his followers was a solid color and was not designed with the moon and star that the NOI members wore, according to Elijah Muhammad.


During a speech at the People’s Church Los Angeles in 1960, Muhammad said, “Brother Noble Drew Ali, as Master Fard Muhammad said, was a [devotee] of Islam; he didn’t have enough knowledge in Islam to keep going with it because of the name that he named his organization, which at the time we called it Moorish Americans.”

The use of the term “Asiatics” is common in both groups.

Following the Russo-Japanese war, which occurred in 1905, many Black Americans took pride in Japan’s victory because it symbolized more than a military achievement. W.E.B Dubois saw the outcome as a win for all oppressed people around the world. Activist and religious leader Reverend J.M. Boddy viewed Russia’s defeat as an achievement of the Black race. He declared that the Japanese race “must be akin to the Negro race” and because of their “large infusion of Negro blood in their veins.” Black nationalist groups adopted Reverend Boddy’s view of Afro-Asian relations and “merged the Black and Asiatic identities to serve their agenda,” “Navigating the Pacific: 20th Century Afro-Asian Relations“ blog published by Emory University reported.

When Ali founded the Moorish Science Temple of America one of the major tenets of the movement’s theology was that Black Americans were Moorish Americans and descendants of the Moabites.


Moabites are a West-Semitic people who lived in the highlands east of the Dead Sea (now in west-central Jordan). They flourished in the 9th-century BC, according to Britannica.


“The conception of the Asiatic Black man invalidated claims of inherent racial inferiority, distanced African Americans from the stigmatization of their race and proposed an alternative ancestry marked with prominence,” Emory University reported.

It has been reported that Ali traveled to Egypt where he met a high priest of Egyptian magic. The priest, it is said, trained Ali in mysticism and gave him a “lost section” of the Quran. Ali developed this “lost section” into what is now known as the Holy Koran of the Moorish Science Temple of America (not to be confused with the Islamic Quran).

Ali used this material to claim Jesus and his followers were Asiatic. Ali used the term “Asiatic” to describe all dark or olive-colored people.

But like the common use of the Fez, temples, the Nation also teaches that the first humans were the “original” or “Asiatic” race, whom it describes as members of the Tribe of Shabazz.

“Prophet Noble Drew Ali was the first one to enlighten our people,” Baltimore community leader Taharka Bey said during a 2020 interview on DoggieDiamondsTV. “The Moors come for the Northwest and South western shores of Africa and [they] migrated into the Americans before the Europeans even thought about coming out of the cave…we are all of Moorish bloodline.”

Bey, who is not part of the NOI, hosts the YouTube show “Moorish Science Temple of America.” Bey spoke of the off-and-on conflict between the Moorish Americans and the Nation of Islam over whether there was a connection between Ali and the start of the NOI.

Although there had been disputes between the NOI and Black American Moors, Farrakhan said the two groups were once close.

“The first time Elijah Muhammad came to New York after I had accepted Islam, it was Oct. 1955. Elijah Muhammad spoke on two men who were the forerunners to him, Noble Drew Ali was number one and Marcus Garvey was number two,” recalled Minister Farrakhan during an interview on Dec 19, 2016.

He continued, “On that day he lifted Noble Drew Ali and said that we should honor him respect him and study what he did as a forerunner…and we never clashed with our brothers from the Moorish Science Temple.”



Listen to GHOGH with Jamarlin Martin | Episode 74: Jamarlin Martin Jamarlin returns for a new season of the GHOGH podcast to discuss Bitcoin, bubbles, and Biden. He talks about the risk factors for Bitcoin as an investment asset including origin risk, speculative market structure, regulatory, and environment. Are broader financial markets in a massive speculative bubble?

Even today, the Nation of Islam’s current leader Minister Louis Farrakhan often honors Noble Drew Ali and his teachings for his inspiring the NOI.

“[We] respect and honor Noble Drew Ali and Marcus Garvey as the forerunners to what we are doing right now,” said Farrakhan. “Marcus Garvey and Noble Drew Ali blazed a trail and were forerunners to Islam and to all the Moors.”

During a 2014 Nation of Islam Saviour’s Day event Farrakhan praised Ali. “Now let’s look at Noble Drew Ali…He’s the first man to bring Islam to us in the way he tried to bring it,” he said. “I thank him. I thank Allah for him.”

Ali traveled to Egypt where he met a high priest of Egyptian magic. The priest taught Ali. Elijah Muhammad uses similar story that Master Fard Muhammad a god on earth taught him mystical knowledge.

The Arabs don’t say a man is white [or: ‘white man,’ rajul abya∙] due to a white complexion. Rather, whiteness [al-abyad] with them means an external appearance that is free from blemish [al-zahir al-naqi min al-uyub]; when they mean a white complexion they say ‘red’ (ahmar)… when the Arabs say, ‘so-and-so is white (abyad –[al-zahir al-naqi min al-uyub]; when they mean a white complexion they say ‘red’ (ahmar)… when the Arabs say, ‘so-and-so is white (abyad – bayda), they [only] mean a noble character (al-karam fi l-akhlaq), not skin color. It is when they say ‘so-and-so is red’ (ahmar- hamra) that they mean white skin. And the Arabs attribute white skin to the slaves.

There are multiple reports (hadith) that describe the Prophet’s skin color as brown (asmar) like the following from the Jami of Tirmidhi:

.
In Granada the use, and abuse, of wine and hashish along with prostitution and sodomy extended to all levels of society,” the historian of Moorish sexuality Dr Antonio Arjona Castro has written.

14The hair of his head was as white as white wool or as snow,* and his eyes were like a fiery flame. 15His feet were like polished brass refined in a furnace,* and his voice was like the sound of rushing water. 16In his right hand he held seven stars.

Mummy portraits or Fayum mummy portraits are a type of naturalistic painted portrait on wooden boards attached to upper class mummies from Roman Egypt. They belong to the tradition of panel painting, one of the most highly regarded forms of art in the Classical world. The Fayum portraits are the only large body of art from that tradition to have survived. They were formerly, and incorrectly, called Coptic portraits.

Mummy portraits or Fayum mummy portraits are a type of naturalistic painted portrait on wooden boards attached to upper class mummies from Roman Egypt. They belong to the tradition of panel painting, one of the most highly regarded forms of art in the Classical world. The Fayum portraits are the only large body of art from that tradition to have survived. They were formerly, and incorrectly, called Coptic portraits.

A Prayer for the Defeat of Israel's Enemies[a]
83 O God, do not keep silent;
do not be still, do not be quiet!
2 Look! Your enemies are in revolt,
and those who hate you are rebelling.
3 They are making secret plans against your people;
they are plotting against those you protect.
4 “Come,” they say, “let us destroy their nation,
so that Israel will be forgotten forever.”

5 They agree on their plan
and form an alliance against you:
6 the people of Edom and the Ishmaelites;
the people of Moab and the Hagrites;
7 the people of Gebal, Ammon, and Amalek,
and of Philistia and Tyre.
8 Assyria has also joined them
as a strong ally of the Ammonites and Moabites, the descendants of Lot.

Richwallet:
The American Indians were primarily Indians from India long ago.

Richwallet:



A closed mind is a delusional mind.