beanpie

The God Of The Bible Is Black
part 1
by Mr. TrueIslam

Zecharia Sitchin, a scholar of ancient Near East religions, in his The 12th Planet observes,

“In all ancient pictorial depiction’s of gods and men, this physical likeness is evident. Although the biblical admonitions against the worship of pagan images gave rise to the notion that the Hebrew God had neither image nor likeness, not only the Genesis tale but other biblical reports attest to the contrary. The God of the ancient Hebrews could be seen face-to-face, could be wrestled with, could be heard and spoken to; he had a head and feet, hands and fingers, and a waist. The biblical God and his emissaries looked like men and acted like men-because men were created to look and act like the Gods (l).”

Reference is made above to the infamous passage of Gen.1:26 where Eloheim proclaims, “na’aseh’adam beselmenu kidemutenu”-Let us make man in our Image after our Likeness.” Here Adam is said to be made in the image and after the likeness of God. The current orthodox exegesis* of this passage renders the image and likeness here referred to as a “spiritual” likeness, therefore eliminating any possibility that God “looks” like man. However, those who understand Hebrew know that this is a most inappropriate interpretation of that passage. The Hebrew words Selem (image) and demute (likeness), according to Finis Jennings Dake in his Annotated Reference Bible (1963) denotes the “outward form, not (the) attributes (2), “ In Israelite Religion, Helmer Renggren says;

“…the meaning of the words; ‘selem” and ‘demute,’ hardly allows this statement to refer to anything but CORPOREAL SIMILARITY (3),”

Maryanne C. Horowitz, in her article “The Image of God in Man – Is Woman Included?” affirms also that the “image,” Selem, is a Hebrew term which “contained anthropomorphic corporeal imagery (4).” These same Hebrew words are used through out the Old Testament and always have this meaning of corporeality (5). This to apply any meaning here other than Adam’s physical, corporeal similarity to God is to violate the principle of contextual exegesis.

The Prophets, when they saw God, indeed saw a Man. Ezekiel, describing his vision of God, says,

“And above the firmament that was over their heads was a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire stone: and upon the likeness of the throne was the likeness as the appearance of a MAN above it. (v2) And I saw the color of amber, as the appearance of fire round about within him, from the appearance of his loins even upward, and from the appearance of his loins even downward (Ez. 1:26-7.”

In Ez. 10:20, this “Man” sitting on this throne is identified as the God of Israel. The color of this Man/God that Ezekiel saw is also interesting. He was the “color of amber” as though fire was within it Rev. Ishakamusa Barashango notes,

“The Revised Standard Version of the Bible renders the work amber as ‘gleaming bronze.’ The word ‘amber comes from a Hebrew word ‘Chasmal’ which is a golden-brown substance that was used by the ancients to produce static electrical charges. (6)”.

This Man was a Black Man. The Prophet Daniel also beheld God. He saw Him as “the ancient of Days… whose garment was white as snow, and the HAIR ON HIS HEAD LIKE THE PURE WOOL. (Dan.7:9.” The Hebrew word for man is “ish”. This is used in reference to God several times. The author of Exodus states emphatically “YHWH ‘ish milhamah. YHWH semo,” meaning “The Lord is a MAN of war. The Lord is his name. (15:3). “also in SA. 42:13 it reads,

The Lord (YHWH) goes forth like a mighty man (gibbor), like a man of war (‘ish milhamah) he stirs up his fury.”

beanpie

The God of the Bible part 2
by Mr. TrueIslam

In Gen. 18, we read,

"And the Lord appeared unto him (Abraham) in the plains of Mamre: and
he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day; (v2), And he life up
his eyes and looked, and, lo, THREE MEN stood by him: and when he say
them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself
toward the ground, and said, My Lord, if now I have found favor in
thy sight, pass not away… (v4) Let a little water, I pray you, be
fetched, and wash YOUR FEET AND REST YOURSELVES UNDER THE TREE".

Of these three men that appeared unto (Abraham), one of them was
Yahweh. The prophet Joshua (5:13) also sees a man (`ish) over
against him with his sword drawn." The prophet Joshua drops down on
his face and "did worship (v14) "this man, who was God. (7) George
Fohrer, in History of Israelite Religion, says,

"The statements that no man can see him (Ex.33:20) and that is
spirit, not flesh (Isa.31:3) of course do not mean that he is
formless or invisible, but rather that man cannot endure the sight of
him (cf Judge. 13:22) and that, in contrast to transitory `flesh', he
possesses an eternal vitality…All the evidence suggest that FROM THE
OUTSET Yahweh was conceived in HUMAN FORM ("

In The Growth of The Idea of God, Shailer Mathews states,

"Even among the prophets Jahweh was described with such vivid
anthropomorphism as to enable persons to form a mental picture of
this appearance. Not only was he portrayed as AN OLD MAN WITH WHITE
HAIR, but he had passions and policies like those of the rulers of
his time.The conception of God as spirit DID NOT APPEAR IN THE OLD TESTAMENT . To the theologizing historians who in the eighty century
(B.C.) unified and expanded the literary date of their religion, GOD
WAS NOT A SPIRIT BUT POSSESSED A SPIRIT." (9)

beanpie

This is not my or someone else's opinion. This is based on writings, from the Bible .

The Evil One

Wouldn't that make it the opinion of whoever wrote the bible? Doesn't that qualify as "someone else's opinion"?

beanpie

I suppose that is absolutely correct.

Doctor X

Similar to the discussion on Junior, one can make of them what they will despite the lack of evidence. Isis depictions are quite different than the one shown. Same with Buddha.

A good source page for the pictures is: BibleOrigins

Regarding the OT, we have two gods--El and YHWH with variations on the theme. Of YHWH, I have only found a depictio of a coin in the Persian era. The other "big depiction" is at Kutillet 'Ajrud where we have Bes figures and an invocation to "YHWH of Samaria and his Asherah." Whether or not the Bes figures represent Mr. and Mrs. YHWH is controversial. For our purposes, with enough wine you can see anything you want. Search through the page and you can find depictions of the "Bull" aspects of both El and YHWH.

El, the Big Daddy of Big Daddys, is depicted thusly in 13th century BCE:

El

I suppose with more wine you could make this depiction appear black . . . maybe even Japanese.

The bottom line is contemporary attempts to rewrite religious conceptions of the past do little to progress knowledge.

--J.D.

beanpie

This may be true but, no amount of wine can change the words of the Bible.

Doctor X

Yet it certainly influences the interpretation of them, unless one wishes to blame it on racism.

Nevertheless, one cannot change the depictions.

Nor can it mix and match texts from different centuries and make them say things they do not.

--J.D.

JoeWallack

JW:
Maimonides demonstrated the opposite in "The Guide Of The Perplexed":

Page 21
"in the Hebrew language the proper term designating the form that is well known among the multitude, namely, that form which is the shape and configuration of a thing, is to'ar . Thus Scripture says: beautiful in form [to'ar] and beautiful in appearance, (Judg. 8:18)...This term is also applied to an artificial form: thus: He marketh its form [yeta'arehu] ...[Isa.44:13]...Those terms are never applied to the deity"

"The term image, on the other hand, is applied to the natural form, I mean to the notion in virtue of which a thing is constituted as a substance and becomes what it is....with regard to the scriptural expression: images of your emerods I Samuel 6:5. For what was intended by them was the notion of warding off the harm caused by the emerods, and not the shape of the emerods....As for the term likeness [demuth], it is a noun derived from the verb damoh [to be like], and it too signifies likeness in respect of a notion. For the scriptural dictum, I am like a pelican in the wilderness, does not signify that its author resembled the pelican with regard to its wings and feathers,"

beanpie, Maimonides lists many more than just these two examples ("emerods" and "pelicans" - "The Rabbis" had quite the sense of humor) but these are two more than you have to support your position and I prophesize that you will have difficulty finding any more to support you since you don't speak Hebrew (which is exactly how Christianity got started in the first place).

If you want to write good pulp religious fiction you need to avoid assertions that can be directly disproven such as the above. I suggest reading Hoskins "In The Beginning". As a white supremist he's on the other side of the spectrum from you (I'm going out on a limbaugh and guessing you're black) but knows how to support his position with nebulous proof-texting such as concluding that the real Jews are Scottish ("if it's not a Scottish Messiah...it's crap!") because "Isaacson" is a popular Scottish name and means "sons of the Biblical Isaac". He also knows how to add just a touch of logic to his assertions such as concluding that the Catholic Church and "The Jews" must be in cahoots because how else could the "The Jews" have survived Christian persecution (think about it). Similarly, Rosenberg (an Aryan) asserted that Jesus was Aryan and Ahmed Osmen (an Egyptian and no relation to Donnie) asserts that Moses and Jesus were Egyptian! [Satire] Peter Kirby (an atheist) asserts that Jesus was atheist.[/Satire]


Joseph

In honor of the three year anniversary of the defeat of the invading Yankee hordes in Afghanistan, Al-Queda announced today that it is coming out with a commemorative candy bar called the Allah Ackbar which is fruit filled chocolate that turns to crap after you bite into it - Al-Jazeera

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Errors...yguid=68161660

http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/abdulreis/myhomepage/

Doctor X

JoeWallack:

That earns a :notworthy

Which gives visions of Groundskeeper Willy as Caiphas. "We canna allow this haggish to deserCRATE the Temple!"

Jesus--Bart
Mary--Marge
Joseph--Homer "She says she was a virgin. . . ."
Satan--Flanders "of course."

we can think of others.

Also, if you do not mind, I will quote your observation on the "Glorious" victory of the Taliban. . . .

--J.D.