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Below is an article arguing that they were black as well:
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Israel is mentioned in the bible over 2,500 times. The scriptures contain the Hebrews' entire history. In fact, no other people on the face of the Earth have such an extensive recorded history, not even the ancient Egyptians. Every thing we need to know about the ancient Hebrews is contained in Scripture. So, let's examine these facts, information that to this day remains unknown or hidden to many bible readers.
The history of the Israelite nation began in Egypt, the Land of Ham. They entered Egypt 66 in number, (not including Joseph, his wife and two sons who were already in Egypt), and left numbering over two million people. Ancient Israel spent 430 years in Egypt. For half that time they enjoyed good favor with the Egyptians, but for the remainder of those years they were enslaved and horribly mistreated by them.
One of the first facts the Bible gives us about Israel (Ysrayl in the Hebrew tongue) is in regard to their physical appearance. Throughout scripture Israel is described as looking like the sons of Ham (Khawm in the Hebrew tongue).
Ham was one of Noah's three sons, Shem and Japhet were the other two. Noah's descendants repopulated the Earth after the Great Flood. Ham's descendants are traced to the families of Africa. Ham (Khawm) in Hebrew means BLACK, HOT AND BURNT.
Ham had four sons,
CUSH (Ethiopians / Cu****es),
MIZRAIM (Egyptians / Khemet),
PHUT (Ancient Libyans or Somalian),
and CANAAN (Canaanite, the original inhabitants of the Land of Israel) Genesis 10:6-19.
All four of Ham's sons and their descendants settled in and around the Continent of Africa. This includes the so called "Middle East" that is also a part of the Continent of Africa. Let us begin with the story of Jacob's second Youngest son Joseph, and his time in Egypt. Joseph was one of the twelve sons of Jacob (Yaaqob in Hebrew). Jacob sired Joseph in his old age, and he was clearly his favorite son. This caused Joseph's brothers to become jealous of him. Ultimately, their jealousy resulted in Joseph being sold by Arab merchants as a slave to Egyptians.
Over the course of time Joseph became Viceroy of Egypt and was second in command to Pharaoh in authority. There was a famine in Canaan, where Jacob and his sons lived. (Pharaoh had a dream which Joseph interpreted. His dream told of the forthcoming famine and gave Egypt an opportunity to prepare by storing food.) So, Jacob sent his ten sons to Egypt to buy bread. When Joseph's ten brothers came into Egypt they were brought before him. Joseph recognized his brothers, but they didn't recognize him (Genesis 42:1-8).
Since the biblical Egyptians were a black-skinned people, Joseph had to be black-skinned also. If he were white skinned, as over half the world's Jews are today, his brothers would have recognized him easily among the black- skinned Egyptians, or they would have been very curious as to why this white-skinned Hebrew was ruling in Egypt. But his brothers just thought Joseph was another Egyptian.
The ancient Egyptians of Joseph time were indeed what we know today as black skinned. This is a fact attested to by many.
Now I know that this will ruffle a few feathers, but to those who object to this please lets keep everything relevant to the discussion.
The problem I see with trying to view the Israelites as black is that the Egyptians didn't leave any paintings of black Isrealites in their art. All the peoples from the middle east they portrayed were non black. The only black folks the Egyptians portrayed were the Nubians.
Can you find some Egyptian portrayals of any black Isrealites?
But is the OT really history or more like national myth?
After all, if you treated the Nibelungenlied or the Arthurian Tales as history, you could get some pretty weird ideas about German and British history.
How and when did these black Israelites emerge in the Eastern Mediterranean and when did they transform to uniformly-white in the last 10 000 years as agriculture and our historic record begins? The Sahara was the great dividing barrier in pre-history which is why so few original humans made it north of that great desert. There is no genetic evidence to link the Jewish descendents who remained in Judea and across the Middle East to link them with any African genetic groups - the Pygmies, Negroes, Nilo-Saharans, San or Cush. There is no linguistic link to any Sub-Saharan African language groups, and all of the markers point to a close relationship with the other Semitic tribes of Arabia and the Levant. Culturally there is nothing to tie the Jews to Africa - burial practices and religious traditions are all more closely aligned to what we see amongst other Semitic people. Finally there is no archeological evidence describing a late migration of an African group north along the Nile, through Egypt and across the Sinai. The Egyptians did a much better job of recording history and make numerous reference to what they called "the Black Lands" populated by the Nubians and Kush ("black-skinned" peoples, at least in relation to the Egyptians of the Lower and Upper Nile region), somewhere south of the fourth Cataract of the Nile (excepting the 50 years when Nubia took control of the Upper Nile and the shorter reign over the Lower Nile before being expelled by the Assyrians). We have no mention of this great exodus of an African people that would eventually settle Judeah.
The Bible has its limits as a historic reference. At least until being swallowed by and living in a whale, talking snakes, or being turned into a pillar of salt for looking behind you all become plausible historic references. Keep in mind its use as a collection of origin myths, religious legal code and oral traditions passed over generations, and you'll find it not the definitive authority on matters of the ancient world but one of many views with some clues to the past and some stories completely fiction - nothing more, no less.
In the Egyptian Museum in Cairo is the Merneptah Slab. It is generally beleived to contain the oldest extra-biblical reference to Israel. Two things. No 'images' appear and there are questions as to it being the oldest reference. However, there is another hieroglyphic inscription on a slab in the Egyptian Museum of Berlin which may or may not answer some questions posed about 'Israel.'
The ancient pharoahs did put up inscriptions about their conquests on their temples. A scholar studying a slab at the museum noticed that there was a cartouche showing 3 heads and hieroglyphic name-rings representing foreign enemies identified as Ashkelon, Canaan and the third, which was partially broken, Israel. Archaeologists note that the 3 heads shown represent West Semitic prisoners identified by pointed beards, shoulder-length hair and headbands. In contrast on another slab made of the same granite there is a name-ring of a prisoner who is clearly shown as 'Nubian'.
The ref is here for deeper reading and analysis on this interesting issue. And you can also see the cartouches.
(Biblical Archaeology-Jan-Feb 2012 'When Did Ancient Israel Begin?")
I have often observed that the online world seems a lot like the offline world and threads such as these are no exception.
Many people often claim once certain minority groups come into an area, the behavoiral bar steadily becomes lowered and said groups proceed to trash the place and tear everything apart, causing flight among the more responsible and productive residents of the area. Calling out the destructive behavior can and often does lead to being labelled as a racist, traitor or some other derogatory term by the limousiners.
Of course, the limousiners have the luxury of retiring to their gated communities at the end of the day. They still get their quota of votes and the carnage and consequences of boosting the self esteem of the more destructive elements of society doesn't affect their families and properties. So to them, its all good.
About the only good thing that comes out of these kinds of threads is that for once, Dr. Frankenstein comes face to face with his monster.
when did they transform to uniformly-white in the last 10 000 years
Well that's the argument. The people who are most often labeled as "Jews" today are not the biological descendants of the original Hebrews, but instead Khazar Kingdom converts.
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The Sahara was the great dividing barrier in pre-history which is why so few original humans made it north of that great desert.
That's actually very false. I thought that it was common knowledge amongst history buffs that the ancient Sahara had a fertile period. During this fertile period it was inhabited by a mosaic of different African peoples, though linguistic and archaeological evidence suggest that the region was dominated by Nilo Saharan speakers:
In fact it was desertification of the Sahara that drove those black African inhabitants to migrate both southwestward and towards the East onto the Nile Valley.
There is no genetic evidence to link the Jewish descendents who remained in Judea and across the Middle East to link them with any African genetic groups
That is actually very false. Genetic studies conducted in the early 2000's confirmed the oral tradition of the Lemba tribe of southern Africa that they are Jews. In fact these Africans have more of the Jewish genetic marker then the Jews who inhabit Israel today:
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This is the element in the Y chromosome that appears to be a signature element, if you like, for the Cohanim or Jewish priesthood. The fact that we found this marker in such high concentrations in one of the Lemba subclans, the Buba—much higher, incidentally, than the general Jewish population—seemed finally to provide a real, useable link between the Lemba and Jews.
Culturally there is nothing to tie the Jews to Africa - burial practices and religious traditions are all more closely aligned to what we see amongst other Semitic people.
Actually that is false. The Lemba tribe members abstain from eating pork, wear yarmulke-like skull caps, conduct ritual animal slaughter, and even put a Star of David on their gravestones. It was these traditions that first garnered the attention of scholars.
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The Egyptians did a much better job of recording history and make numerous reference to what they called "the Black Lands" populated by the Nubians and Kush
That is actually false and you will not find one contemporary Egyptologist to validate that claim. The Egyptians never identified Nubian populations as black (as the Egyptians themselves were black). Today's Egyptologist have finally began to step back from the racialist views that held sway over the subject for centuries and have finally began to recognize that Egypt and Sudan formed a biological and cultural continuum rather then a racial divide:
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“We now recognize that populations of Nubia and Egypt form a continuum rather than clearly distinct groups,” Mr. Emberling writes, “and that it is impossible to draw a line between Egypt and Nubia that would indicate where ‘black’ begins.”
They are confirming what consistent anthropological evidence has proved about the biological overlapping of both Egyptians and Nubians:
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On this basis, many have postulated that the Badarians are relatives to South African populations (Morant, 1935 G. Morant, A study of predynastic Egyptian skulls from Badari based on measurements taken by Miss BN Stoessiger and Professor DE Derry, Biometrika 27 (1935), pp. 293–309.Morant, 1935; Mukherjee et al., 1955; Irish and Konigsberg, 2007). The archaeological evidence points to this relationship as well. (Hassan, 1986) and (Hassan, 1988) noted similarities between Badarian pottery and the Neolithic Khartoum type, indicating an archaeological affinity among Badarians and Africans from more southern regions. Furthermore, like the Badarians, Naqada has also been classified with other African groups, namely the Teita (Crichton, 1996; Keita, 1990).
Nutter (1958) noted affinities between the Badarian and Naqada samples, a feature that Strouhal (1971) attributed to their skulls possessing “Negroid” traits. Keita (1992), using craniometrics, discovered that the Badarian series is distinctly different from the later Egyptian series, a conclusion that is mostly confirmed here. In the current analysis, the Badari sample more closely clusters with the Naqada sample and the Kerma sample. However, it also groups with the later pooled sample from Dynasties XVIII–XXV.
The reoccurring notation of Kerma affinities with Egyptian groups is not entirely surprising. Kerma was an integral part of the trade between Egypt and Nubia. -- Godde K. (2009) An Examination of Nubian and Egyptian biological distances: Support for biological diffusion or in situ development? Homo. 2009;60(5):389-404.
Kerma is the early Nubian sample in case did not know.
Last edited by The Unbreakable; 08-15-2013 at 04:56 PM..
The thing that seems most convincing to me in that video is the biblical scripture reading which almost kind of makes it obvious who the Jews are based on the curse. The bible says that the Hebrews would enslaved for 400 years (blacks). What other people were enslaved brought to all corners of the Earth by ship?
Which race of people seems to be going through perpetual bull****? The people most often called Jews today went through A Holocaust in Europe where around 6 million of them died...What about the first Holocaust of the century in Central Africa that killed over 10 million as a result of King Leopold of Belgium, or the at least 5 million Africans who died on the shape ships on their way to their destination? The so called Jews of today aren't going to through any hardship and instead appear to be...running the media (in other words extremely wealthy). In my opinion the curse of the Hebrews fits black people to the tee.
Well that's the argument. The people who are most often labeled as "Jews" today are not the biological descendants of the original Hebrews, but instead Khazar Kingdom converts.
That's actually very false. I thought that it was common knowledge amongst history buffs that the ancient Sahara had a fertile period. During this fertile period it was inhabited by a mosaic of different African peoples, though linguistic and archaeological evidence suggest that the region was dominated by Nilo Saharan speakers:
In fact it was desertification of the Sahara that drove those black African inhabitants to migrate both southwestward and towards the East onto the Nile Valley.
That is actually very false. Genetic studies conducted in the early 2000's confirmed the oral tradition of the Lemba tribe of southern Africa that they are Jews. In fact these Africans have more of the Jewish genetic marker then the Jews who inhabit Israel today:
Actually that is false. The Lemba tribe members abstain from eating pork, wear yarmulke-like skull caps, conduct ritual animal slaughter, and even put a Star of David on their gravestones. It was these traditions that first garnered the attention of scholars.
That is actually false and you will not find one contemporary Egyptologist to validate that claim. The Egyptians never identified Nubian populations as black (as the Egyptians themselves were black). Today's Egyptologist have finally began to step back from the racialist views that held sway over the subject for centuries and have finally began to recognize that Egypt and Sudan formed a biological and cultural continuum rather then a racial divide:
They are confirming what consistent anthropological evidence has proved about the biological overlapping of both Egyptians and Nubians:
Kerma is the early Nubian sample in case did not know.
Regarding the Lemba people, that does not tie the Jews to Africa, it points to a Jewish penetration of Africa. Arabs have long traded along the East African coast, from the 650s until the 1900s, with few breaks, the Arab slave trade was active among the Swahili ports of East Africa. Zanzibar, Massawa, Malindi, Kilwa, Zeila, Mogadishu - all Arab slaving ports for nearly a dozen centuries, supplying the labor force of Arabia and India especially. Why should it be surprising that a group here have a Y-Chromosome match to Semitic people, either Arabs or Jews. Some Arabs would also hold this haplotype, as people have converted both to and from Judaism. Were it not an Arab descendent but a Jewish one, this is also plausable. Jews held high positions in court during various caliphates, a single Jewish male in the 12th century could be the contributing DNA marker - it was only a positive match for the Y-Chromosome which is passed exclusively from father to son. No match from the matrilineal chromosome was found, meaning a mother to daughter gene isn't evident and this isn't likely a Jewish tribe or small Jewish group but a male or number of males of Semitic origin marrying or at least socializing with the local female population. The Nova link and other articles on them all point out that various customs seem to be Jewish while others seem to be plausibly Muslim, such as late ritual circumcision and tribal clan names that are very near to Arabic tribal names. It would seem adding the Star of David to headstones is a late 20th century tradition.
In regards to the Sahara, I'm well aware of it's being "greener" (more of the savannah of the Sahel than a fertile plain), this is a large explanation for the Out-of-Africa theory of human migration and the later migration of the Afro-Asiatic languages of the Tuareg, Berber, Egyptians and Semitic people. This doesn't account for a mosaic of people inhabiting the Sahara region then, or how none of the Nilo-Saharans failed to push northward until the Nubians entered the fold of the Egyptian Kingdom. I don't know how you can claim a linguistic link to the Nilo-Saharans in 7000 BC when writing wouldn't emerge for another 3500 years in Mesopotamia.
Your Khazars-are-today's-Jews theory is difficult to fathom, and you must know few if any historians would align with your views on this, outside of the original theorist of the claim. If it holds any water, and I do not claim it does, it would be for some segment of the Ashkenazi Jews. Khazar nobility adopted Judaism sometime between the mid 8th and early 10th century. Muslim scholars and Byzantine missionaries both report the Khazars as newly converted Jews ~920-930s. The Sephardi in Iberia have lived their since the Phoenician period in all likelihood, but were active during the era when Spain was the Roman province Hispania. There is a wealth of historic information to trace their migrations out of Spain to North Africa, then back to Spain with the Muslim conquest, Jews from North Africa holding high position in Sicily during its heyday as a caliphate, and then the Reconquista and Inquisition that ultimately forced the Jews of Spain and Portugal to convert or leave, becoming New Christians or Marranos, then inquired as to whether the converts and their offspring were really converts or just pretending. They left Spain and Portugal for France, Italy, the Ottoman Empire, Germany, Poland, England, the Netherlands and the New World. Prior to World War II they were in largest numbers in the Balkans and in North Africa.
So if you're presenting the Ashkenazim as the descendents of Khazars, why did they exist in such large numbers in Medieval Germany, and begin pushing eastward toward Bohemia, Moravia, Hungary, then to Poland, Lithuania and Belarus, and finally to Ukraine, Russia and Romania? Seems your migration pattern must be backward since Khazan was centered in the Caucasus. It's not as though Jews had never lived in Central or Western Europe before. Romans taxed them, and Dagobert I of the Franks expelled them from his Merovingian kingdom in 629. Jews in Persia and the Caliphate prospered, they were largely literate, trading and in charge of the financial institutions. Charlemagne welcomed Jews back into the Frankish kingdom north of the Alps around 800, many Jews left southern Italy for Central Europe. Christians were prohibited from usury (making interest) and became merchants and bankers, and they prospered in Germany and Moravia at this time, adopting Germanic language into their own to form Yiddish.
I can't fit Khazar into this narrative, or the Lemba.
As to Nubians and Egyptians - they were not the same people, though I don't think it fair to call either monolithic or completely heterogeneous. Egyptian glyphs and pictures have far too many color ranges to pretend Egypt was anything but a cultural cross-roads. Nubia was the Egyptian bridge to the rest of Africa and trade with Ethiopia and the tropics. There was of course intermarriage, greater in some periods than others, especially between Upper Egypt and Nubians (Nubia itself was rarely unified either), but Nubians were treated as distinct for much of Egyptian history. Egyptian history routinely refer to the "Two Lands" of Upper Egypt (Ta Shemau) and Lower Egypt (Ta Mehu). Later do the Egyptians press further and further into Nubia, incorporating it into their kingdom during the Old Kingdom period, before losing it ca. 2180. It would slowly return to Egyptian control over the next 150-400 years. Egypt would lose Nubia again before regaining it in the New Kingdom, holding it another 350-400 years before losing it again. In these later dynasties do the Nubians become indistinguishable from the Egyptian (this is in pottery, art, architecture and jewelry. We cannot tell from race, except that under certain dynasties, sculptures take on darker pigments and characteristics we'd associate with Nubian, and in many other dynasties, light pigments and characteristics we'd label Egyptian or North African. Individual people not considered Pharaoh are difficult to discern who they are. Early on, Nubia was renown for its archers, but over time this surely was adapted to all of Egypt) We learn that a native dynasty (i.e. non-Egyptian) takes hold in Nubia, they are either invited or take advantage of the fractured Egyptian state in asserting themselves as the 25th dynasty.
Your Egypt seems uniformly Sub-Saharan African by description ("Egyptians were black"), yet has no basis in Assiryan, Greek or Roman accounts, and doesn't match Egyptian reliefs throughout their own historic record. Nor does it really jive with Egypt today - are we missing a great part of Egyptian history as it became more Arab? Egypt today does not appear so different from the old glyphs of yesterday - a little more homogenized perhaps, but not radically more or less colorful.
The Lemba people are probably descendant from non black Jewish men from Yemen who at some point had migrated down into Africa and inter-married with black African women.
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