The Evil One

Whoa there. Two points: firstly, Ham is a fictitious character. Yes, the ancient Jews thought that Africans descedn from Ham. Unfortunately, the ancient Jews were wrong.

Secondly, pretty much everything we know about the Canaanites and the Phoenicians makes them, like the Israelites and today's arabs, a Semitic people. They are very close realtives, ethnically speaking, of the Israelites. True, Jewish legend has them desceding from Ham instead of Shem. However, no one said that actual real-world ethnic groupings have to reflect the divisions that the ancient Jews put in their legend.
IT'S A FAIRY TALE. A fairy tale written so the Israelites could justify their bad treatment (in another fairy tale) of their close kin the Canaanites.
Evidence? I live in Britain. I know of no evidence of Phoenician settlements here (although there is evidence that they sailed here to trade).
Yeah, whatever. Can I say again: even if you were right, which you aren't, you would still be applying our modern concepts of racial groups onto an age that did not have such concepts. Even if the Phoenicians were physically what we would call "Black", they would not have used their skin colour as the defining feature of their ethnicity, and so could not be said to be part of some Black ethnic group. And aside from that, they were a Semitic people speakign a semitic language!

Doctor X

Ah . . . I remember something. . . .

--J.D.

Reference: Levenson JD. The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son: The Transformation of Child Sacrifice in Judaism and Christianity. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993.

beanpie

"The original Jews in Africa 2000 years ago were a Black African people as an
ethnic group. (Massey: Egypt Light of the Word p501) Many of them still
are Black, in northenrn Africa such as the Falasha Jews of Ethiopia. A
New York Times editorial (3/2/84) described them as "a lost tribe that
has kept it identiy for more than 2,000 years in a remote corner of
Africa." Abraham, ancestor of the Hebrews, was from Chaldea; the ancient
Chaldeans were Black. In fact, Africa takes it name from Ophren, a son
of Abraham by his wife, Keturah (Whiston: The Life and Works of Flavius
Josephus p50) Like Jesus, Mary and Joseph, the lineage of Ethiopian
Emperor, Haile Selassie also goes back to Judah -through Solomon/Queen of
Sheba and King David. Roman historian Tacitus wrote that many of his
time believed that the Jews "were a race of Ethiopian origion." The
Bible classifies the Ethiopians & Jews together, "Are ye not as children
of the Ethiopians unto me, O children of Israel? saith the Lord." (Amos
9:7) Black Paul is mistaken for an "Egyptian" and declares himself to be
a "Jew." (Acts 21:37-39, 22: 2,3) That the Jews got their language,
religion & culture from the Canaanites & Sumerians through Babylon, is
well documented by historians. The original ancient Hebrew alphabet was
identical to that of the Phoenicians. "Semitic languages" are really
dialectical variants of African languages.



The word Semite is from semi which means half. Half what? Half BLACK!
(mulatto!) Semite refers to the descendants of Shem, one of Noah's
sons. The word originates from the Latin prefix semi which means half.
"half Black and half white... therefore Black (since Black is genetically
dominant)" points out Dr. Cress Welsing. Historian Cheikh Anta Diop
also points out that the "Semitic" arises in the 4th millennia B.C. from
crossbreeding between Black inhabitants of the holy land and white
northern invaders. While many Semites (such as Jews & gypsies) have
mixed so much with whites that they've forgotten or deny their African
roots, racism (whtie supremacy) will never let them forget this no matter
how light-skinned they become, as proved by Hitler, who mandated their
destruction because they were classified by whites as "non-white" peple
originating in Africa."
http://www.ibiblio.org/nge/blacked/bl4.html

Doctor X

Absolutely incorrect. It comes from the Latin Sem, from the Greek Σημ rendering of the Hebrew Shem. It has nothing to do with "half." The "half" of semi- is from Latin which, last I looked, developed after Hebrew.

Now Gerald Massey struck a dim light--writing in the 19th century prior to just about the entire history of biblical archaeology and modern scholarship!--but he was a fan of the charlatan Madam Blavatsky and wrote for theosophy.

Methinks you need more reliable and update scholarship.

--J.D.

beanpie

unfortunately, shall be out of town and away from a computer for 'bout a week and a half.



:notworthy

capnkirk

This scriptural reference begins with "In the Church at Antioch...". Paul's missionary focus is famous for its ministry to Gentiles, and Antioch was a Gentile city. Therefore, there is no assurance that this Simeon was a Jew at all.

Quote:

Someone said Simon from Acts 13:1, which was black, is the same one from Matthew 13:55, which was one of Jesus' brothers.

The first chapter of John Crossan's Excavating Jesus is devoted to the recently "discovered" James ossuary. In this chapter he lists the most popular male and female names found on all the recovered Jewish ossuaries from that period (to demonstrate just how common the names Joseph, Jesus, and James were). The MOST COMMON male name found was Simeon, which appeared on 22 out of 148.

This demonstration of the commonness of the name Simeon effectively reduces the chances of this Simeon being Jesus' other brother to wishful thinking.

The Evil One

Semitic is a branch of the Afro-Asiatic family. The Afro-Asiatic family covers languages of northern Africa and the Middle East. So yes, the family covers some of Africa. However, there is no connection with the Niger-Kordofanian languages spoken in the majority of sub-Saharan Africa.

I have a black friend whose wife is white, their kids are clearly somewhere in between... brownish... not "black".

These racial distinctions are also a load of balls in the first place.

The origin of the Gypsies is in North-Central India. Not in Africa.

If you think otherwise, please quote any pre-1945 anti-semite who cites the origin of JEws in Africa as a reason for disliking them.

Honestly beanpie, don't you get it? It's not about Black and White. It's about Us and Them.

For a time, in America in particular, Us/Them and Black/White have lined up. But it wasn't always this way, and it won't always be this way. By imposing your modern Black/White dichotomy onto other times and other civilisations, you only make yourself look stupid.

spin

He was in the fifth in Joisey. Into the straight he was dying, but there were a lot who were hoping that he would come again. I think they're still out at the track, no shirts and in the dark.

---

I must say this thread has a few hilarious moments. Just love the linguistic acumen of a few of the posters. Keep it up.


spin

beanpie

Now, how the hell can the child be "brownish"? Hell, according to this, most Blacks in America, are not "Black"!

Sheshbazzar

When I was a child I lived in an area with a mixed population, My mother died when I was two years old and my father and I moved in with a COLORED family, and I lived in that household, and loved, and was loved.
In the years living in that household, I never even so much as heard the terms 'Black' or 'black Americans', or 'Afro-Americans', the only context the word black was used was as a descriptive term for some single individual that had skin that was indeed black, or nearly so.
My father re-married in the mid fifties and we moved on, and into a area that was virtually all 'white', for me it wasn't till the racial turmoil of the late fifties and early sixties, that I heard such terms as 'Black Power' and 'Afro-American' on television.

Martin Luther King led the civil rights protests in the name of the 'COLORED PEOPLE' or the 'PEOPLE of COLOR' and it wasn't until the radicalism of the 'BLACK PANTHERS' influenced him that he began to adopt the term 'Black' and use it in his speeches to describe all those people with any percentage of African ancestry.
His acceptance of the term was socially expedient to the unity of the movement, however, he and many others were not really comfortable with the newly popular term. I'm not comfortable with it today, seeing as I now have 'Black' friends and relatives some of which have skin colors lighter than my own. (btw. tracing my family tree back some 200 years, all were 'white' Europeans)
Its my personal opinion and persuasion, that America has made a grave mistake, similar to that of Nazi Germany's, by trying to pigeonhole a mixed population as black and white, or Mexican, yes I also now have relatives of Mexican extraction who have lighter skin than me.
So yes, most 'blacks'... are not 'BLACK"! Resepectfully, Sheshbazzar