The Evil One

All right, beanpie, I'm calling you out on this one.

1) AMBER: "amber" usually means "orangey-yellow". Why are you interpreting "amber" to mean "African"? Does it not seem more reasonable to assume that, if any skin colour at all is intended (which I doubt - it seems to describe a magical glow more than anything else), it is the light-brown skin of the peoples of the Mediterranean and Middle East?

2) HAIR LIKE THE PURE WOOL: "wooly" is a common contemporary description of the hair of many persons of African descent. Do you have any evidence AT ALL to suggest that in the Biblical Hebrew language a) "like the pure wool" described the kinked type of hair that is associated with Africans; b) "like the pure wool" was, like English "wooly", associated in any way at all with Africans?

To me, it seems as if they were just complimenting God on a swish mullet.

Ah, to the devil with this. Come back when you have an argument.

beanpie

Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary

Main Entry: 1am·ber
Pronunciation: 'am-b&r
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English ambre, from Middle French, from Medieval Latin ambra, from Arabic 'anbar ambergris
1 : a hard yellowish to brownish translucent fossil resin that takes a fine polish and is used chiefly in making ornamental objects (as beads)
2 : a variable color averaging a dark orange yellow
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Encarta® World English Dictionary


am·ber [ ámbər ]

noun

1. yellow fossil resin: a hard translucent fossil resin varying in color from yellow to light brown, used for making jewelry and ornaments


2. browny yellow color: a yellow to brown color


3. signal for caution: in a system of traffic signals, the yellow-colored light that advises caution. A car at an amber must halt if it safely can, but a train may proceed with caution.



adjective

yellowish-brown: of a yellowish-brown color


[14th century. Via French ambre from Arabic anbar “ambergris,� the original sense in English, from a perceived similarity between the two.]

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noun: a hard yellowish to brownish translucent fossil resin; used for jewelry

http://www.onelook.com/?w=amber&last=a_mber&loc=spell1based on?Do you posses ANY evidence, it does not?

This makes sense since the Ancient of Days is being discussed. I believe that "wool" is more indicative of "texture" than "color".

lpetrich

I'm sure that if there was a historical Jesus Christ, he would have looked stereotypically Jewish -- and neither Nordic nor black. Xenophanes was right:

tracer

Wool can also be spun into threads and woven into cloth. Daniel could've meant that God's hair looked like a blanket. (And it goes without saying that such cloth would have to be of pure wool, because YHWH Himself commanded the Israelites not to make any garments out of mixed kinds of threads.)

The Evil One

All right beanpie, hold the dictionaries! I agree with you, "amber" means "yellowish brown". But that does not answer my question. So I'll ask it again:

Why are you interpreting "amber" to mean "African"?

Or if you prefer,

Why are you interpreting "yellowish brown" to mean "African"?

Africans are not usually described as "yellowish brown".

Based on reading it. My first impression upon reading the section you refer to. Thus why I used the word "seems". Now, if you have any EVIDENCE as to why that first impression is incorrect, please post it, and I will revise my position.

Your argument so far is as follows:

"The Bible writers used a colour-word which doesn't really describe the colour of Africans' skin in a context where they may just possibly (but probably not) have been talking about God's skin colour. Therefore God is black!!"

This is not very convincing.

Don't shift the burden of proof. You are making the assertion, it is up to you to provide evidence for it.

I am calling you out because you are taking a feature of modern English (the semantics of "woolly") and assuming that it is the same with regard to ancient Hebrew ("Wool"). Now ancient Hebrew and modern English are in practically every aspect very different. So if you're proposing that in this respect they are the same, you need some evidence to back it up. Or else withdraw the claim.

You may or may not have noted that the final comment you responded to was not mine, but Doctor x's.

Even if this belief of yours happens to be correct, it does not imply that when an ancient Hebrew says hair is "like the pure wool" he means the same thing that a modern American English speaker means when they say that Africans' hair is "woolly". It is this that you need to prove and so far, you've failed.

Beanpie, you haven't a leg to stand on. As has been suggested by other posters, the overwhelming tendency is for human beings to imagine that their God or gods have pretty much the same appearance as themselves. Therefore, it is reasonable to hypothesise that the ancient hebrews did likewise.

Now, if you had some evidence that the ancient hebrews pictured their God as a black African, we could happily throw out that hypothesis and accept your theory. But you don't have any evidence. Not one shred. All you've got is word games founded in semantic strait-jacketing of selected lexical items, rooted in an ignorance of the linguistic issues.

Unless you've got some actual, real evidence that you're holding out on us? If so, let's see it!

Occams_Razor

Like many people on this site, I am an atheist. If I had to choose I would use the bible as kindling before a used newspaper. Black, white, who gives a flying fuck? I think a better place for you post would be a forum where the majority of members don't think of the bible as an inane, confused and rather boring work of fiction. The bible is only important in so far as it is inexplicably offered as nonfiction by the gibbering masses on their knees before the magic boogeyman in the sky.