How Racially Diverse Were Ancient Jews? (Europeans, Chinese, Greek, descendants)
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Well there are some bible sources that state some of the characters had red hair. However its mostly an book based on myths. Palestine several thousand years ago was an completely different society than it is now. There has been large amount of invasions and difference races of people migrating there through out time.
Interesting, my family belong to a community of Jews who moved and lived in India about 1500 yrs ago. They can continue to live there and practice endogamy. In our community, there are some who have red hair. My uncle being one of them.
I assume like the Arabs/Palestinians of today. Certainly no blue-eyed Europeanized Jews as one sees today.
The Hebrew scriptures describe King David as having reddish hair and very blue eyes.Specifically I am referring to the Babylonian Talmud, which was written centuries before Christ.
On the other hand the Queen of Sheba was from modern-day Ethiopia/Eritrea so that indicates there was social contact with people from Africa and south of modern-day Egypt.
The oldest references to the Jews were in Egyptian hieroglyphs mentioning the "Habiru" (Hebrew) people ... and in Egyptian wall illustrations they are depicted as having white skin in contrast with the people of Nubia and Punt with black skin or the Egyptians themselves with reddish tan skin.
Interestingly modern-day Jews from many nations share virtually the same Haplotype as Palestinians and Syrians ... all belong to the DNA Haplogroup
"J" ... so scientists and geneticists have extrapolated that Jews and Palestinians are indeed "cousins"!
In ancient times what did the Jewish population look like racially? For example here are some images of black jews or people who appear to be black. How big or small were they within the ancient Jewish population? Were there Jews of other races in ancient times?
In ancient times what did the Jewish population look like racially? For example here are some images of black jews or people who appear to be black. How big or small were they within the ancient Jewish population? Were there Jews of other races in ancient times?
Clark I wouldn't put much stock into Ashkenazi (European Jewish) definitions of what King David looked like. If you want an idea of what King David looked like I would turn to more Sephardic Jewish interpretations. First off you need to get rid of your western notions of race and ethnicity. Plus the word "ruddy" was used to describe peoples skin color alot in the bible. Many Europeans interpreted this to mean red hair, however it really means tan like skin. The concept of "race" is very different in a place like Saudi Arab or Iraq.
Its not unusual for their to be a large diversity of looks among Semitic looking people ranging from very dark almost black skin to an olive tone complexion. Instead of thinking of the ancient hebrews as one stereotypical looking group, think of them in them in terms of a continuum with most people being somewhere in the middle (dark to olive skin with black hair). Sorta of like Hispanics. Yes some Semitic people can have red hair and dark skin, even in a place like Ethiopia you can find black red heads.
Just look at any group of pictures from modern day Jews living in Arab lands and you will have a good idea of what the jews living in antiquity mostly looked like.
Clark I wouldn't put much stock into Ashkenazi (European Jewish) definitions of what King David looked like. If you want an idea of what King David looked like I would turn to more Sephardic Jewish interpretations ...
The Hebrew Scriptures pre-date the emergence of separate Sephardic, Ashkenazic, Mizrahi, Cochin, Romaniote and all those other sub-classifications of Jewish communities. However, your point is well taken; Lauren Bacall and Goldie Hawn are Jewish but I don't think ancient Hebrew ladies looked like them. I imagine the late Israeli singer, Ofra Haza, who was of Jewish Yemenite descent is a better example:
People need to remember that Ashkenazi Jews intermixed heavily with Northern Europeans as Sephardic Jews interrmarried with Southern Europeans and North Africans. So their features changed. But Jews from the Middle East whose lines have been there for ever still look just like other Middle Easterners.
There is no Jewish gene. There is the Cohen Gene.
The Cohen Modal Haplotype is found among many Jewish populations of the world, including Ashkenazim, Sephardim, and the Bene Israel of India.
The Cohen Modal Haplotype, which belongs to haplogroup J, was a component of the ancient Israelite population, and especially common among the Cohens (priests of the Temple in Jerusalem).
The Cohen Modal Haplotype is not exclusively found among Jews, but rather is also found among Kurds, Armenians, Italians, Palestinians, Arabs, and a few other peoples.
About half of Ashkenazic Levites possess Eastern European non-Israelite haplotypes belonging to the R1a1 haplogroup. This is almost never found among Sephardic Levites, and may have been introduced into the Ashkenazic Levite lines by Slavs or Khazars who converted to Judaism.
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