Wednesday, June 6, 2012

No, the real Jews were NOT black!

        Right off the bat, let me say that it's not Jesus' skin color that saves you, it's what he did on the cross. If you absolutely have to base his saving grace on a color, pick RED, as in the color of his blood:

Ephesians 1:7
In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace;

        And speaking of blood:

Acts 17:26
And hath made of ONE BLOOD all nations of men for to dwell on the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation.

        Man was divided by tongues and boundaries by God for what we were trying to do with the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:9), but we are all of one blood, and therefore, we are all able to be saved by the blood of Jesus.

        But let's address this on-going claim that's popping up everywhere, which is that the "real" Jews were black and so was Jesus. It's unfortunate that clearing this matter up makes one look like a racist, but this is becoming a more and more popular belief and is leading people to follow a false Jesus that lives only in their wishful thinking. So, for edification and clarity, let's see what the scriptures offer with regards to the skin color of the Jews:

        Let's go back before Jesus was born and start with King David and his son, King Solomon, since some people claim they were black too:

1st Samuel 16:12
And he sent, and brought him (David) in. Now he was RUDDY, and withal of a beautiful countenance, and goodly to look to. And the Lord said, Arise, anoint him: for this is he.

1st Samuel 17:42
And when the Philistine looked about, and saw David, he disdained him: for he was but a youth, and RUDDY, and of a FAIR countenance.

        The word "ruddy" means red or blushed, and "fair" means light-skinned. And we see this in a part of the Song of Solomon where Solomon's bride is describing Solomon, who would have at least been half-black if David had been black:

Song of Solomon 5:10-11
10. My beloved [Solomon] is white and ruddy, the chiefest among ten thousand.
11. His head is as the most fine gold, his locks are bushy, and black as a raven.

        Some people use the following verses to claim that Solomon's bride was black and from her all of the Jews became black, afterwards:

Song of Solomon 1:5-6
5. I am BLACK, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon.
6. Look not upon me, because I am BLACK, because the sun hath looked upon me: my mother's children were angry with me; they made me the keepers of the vineyards; but mine own vineyards I have not kept.

Lamentations 4:7-8
7. Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk, they were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was of sapphire:
8. Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets: their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick.

Lamentations 5:10
Our skin was black like an oven because of the terrible famine.

        But there are two problems with this. First, because of Solomon's sin, the lineage from David to Jesus did not go through Solomon; it went through David's OTHER son, Nathan, and eventually came to Mary (Luke 3:23-31). Jesus' foster father, Joseph, descended from Solomon (Matthew 1:1-16), but he wasn't Jesus' biological father. Jesus was conceived through Mary by the Holy Spirit (Matthew 1:18-20). The second problem is that the word "black," as it's used in those verses simply means pained and woeful, or dirty and worn down, NOT African. And here are the verses that prove it. Read them all:

Joel 2:6
Before their face the people shall be much pained: all faces shall gather BLACKNESS.

        This verse isn't saying that every Israelite's skin will turn the color black as the Anti-Christ's armies approach Jerusalem at the end of Daniel's 70th week; it's saying that the Jews will be sorrowful, pained and filled with dread. And look at this verse:

Jeremiah 8:21
For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt; I am BLACK; astonishment hath taken hold on me.

        Jeremiah was referring to feeling sorrowful. He wasn't black-skinned and here's proof:

Jeremiah 13:23
Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil.

        We all know what color an Ethiopian's skin is (black). If it was the same color as Jeremiah's skin he would have just referenced his own skin. The reason he's referencing the Ethiopian's skin as something different than his own, is because it was.

        And look at this passage which shows the faces of the Jews turning PALE during the seven year time of Jacob's trouble:

Jeremiah 30:5-7
5. For thus saith the Lord; We have heard a voice of trembling, of fear, and not of peace.
6. Ask ye now, and see whether a man doth travail with child? wherefore do I see every man with his hands on his loins, as a woman in travail, and all faces are turned into PALENESS?
7. Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob's trouble, but he shall be saved out of it.

        Notice something here: In all of these verses above, the color "black" is regarded as something undesirable. Not even the verse in the Song of Solomon is speaking highly of the color. She says "I am black, BUT comely," not "I am black AND comely." Why? Because she's not referring to African skin here, but her own, having been worn down and withered. She was a laborer. It's also a spiritualized reference to sin. God doesn't think the Africans are any less desirable than anyone else and for proof of that, look what happened to Miriam, who spoke indignantly about Moses' Ethiopian wife! Indeed, she came down with a SKIN problem!

        The word "black" in these cases is figurative of simply being in bad shape; it's not a reference to race. You can't take it literally because, if you do, you have to take verses like this literally:

Daniel 12:10
Many shall be purified, and made WHITE, and tried; but the wickedly shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand.

        Next, some people bring up Amos 9:7 to show that the Jews were black, but they always take it out of context. God wasn't saying that the Israelites were like the Ethiopians to God in regards to origin or RACE, he was saying that they were acting like the Ethiopians in their disobedience, and were going to be destroyed, as we can see if we read verse 8, which follows:

Amos 9:7-8
7. Are ye not as children of the Ethiopians unto me, O children of Israel? saith the Lord. Have not I brought up Israel out of the land of Egypt? and the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Syrians from Kir?
8. Behold, the eyes of the Lord God are upon the sinful kingdom, and I will DESTROY it from off the face of the earth; saving that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, saith the Lord.

        And you can see that God is definitely going to destroy the Ethiopians in the Gog and Magog war:

Zephaniah 2:11-13
11. The Lord will be terrible unto them: for he will famish all the gods of the earth; and men shall worship him, every one from his place, even all the isles of the heathen.
12. Ye Ethiopians also, ye shall be slain by my sword.
13. And he will stretch out his hand against the north, and destroy Assyria; and will make Nineveh a desolation, and dry like a wilderness.

        He's going to destroy the Ethiopians because in the future they will join Iran and Turkey in an attempt to destroy Israel, as shown in Ezekiel chapter 38 and 39.

        Finally, another verse that a lot of people bring up to prove that Jesus was black is this one:

Revelation 1:14
His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire;

        The claim here is that only black people have hair like wool, but the verse is imply using wool as reference to color, not texture. I re-direct you back above to the Song of Solomon 5:11 for a description of the hair of Solomon, who wasn't black.

        Some people try to say that Paul the apostle was black. But if that was the case, how did he pass himself off as a Roman?

Acts 16:37-38
37. But Paul said unto them, they have beaten us openly uncondemned, being Romans, and have cast us into prison; and now do they thrust us out privily? nay verily; but let them come themselves and fetch us out.
38. And the sergeants told these words to the magistrates: and they feared, when they heard that they were Romans.

        Some people say that because a group of blacks went over to Israel recently and claimed that they were Jews and then got thrown a scrap of land that that proves that the real Jews are black. But God said that the princes of Judah are like those that remove the bounds of their land. Unfortunately, the Jews have been giving up lots of land over the years to people that aren't Jews.

Hosea 5:10
The princes of Judah were like them that remove the bound: therefore I will pour out my wrath upon them like water.

        Lastly, some people think that Deuteronomy chap. 28 describes some kind of change of the skin color of the Israelites. If someone is using this to support the notion that the "real" Israelites are black, they either have to believe that the Israelites were black first and turned white, or white first and turned black. But there are problems with both. If they were black first and turned white as a curse, then the blacks that are here today can't be the real Israelites. Makes sense, right? Also, if it was a CURSE, then why does Solomon's bride say he was white and ruddy and the fairest of ten thousand? Doesn't sound like much of a curse. It doesn't get any easier if you try to say that they were white first and got turned black. First off, you have to explain why Solomon's bride said he was white and ruddy. Then you have to explain why Jeremiah wasn't black and the proof that he wasn't black is in Jeremiah 13:23 where he comments on the Ethiopian's skin color in a way that shows it's different than his own skin color.

        By the way, if you looked up the lineages written in Matthew 1:1-16 and Luke 3:23-31 you probably wondered how the one in Luke 3:23-31 was the lineage from David to MARY, seeing as how, just like Matthew 1:1-16, it mentions Joseph again, instead of Mary. In Matthew 1:16 we definitely have the lineage of Joseph back to David, and Joseph is shown to be the son of Jacob. In what sense, then, could he possibly be called the son of Heli in Luke 3:23-31? There is, of course, no way Joseph could be a biological descendant of both Jacob AND Heli. Is there a contradiction? No. There are no contradictions in the Bible (Not the King James Bible, anyway). Here's the difference: Only in Matthew 1:1-16 is Joseph said to have been "begat," which means biologically conceived. In Luke 3:23-31 he is simply called a "son" of Heli. This means "son-in-law" as we see from 1st Samuel 24:16, where Saul calls his son-in-law, David his son. Thus, the lineage in Luke 3:23-31 could be no other than that of Mary, and it went through Nathan, not Solomon.