The African Ancestors of Jesus

[Humble_Disciple]

The concept of "race" didn't exist in ancient history like it does today. Inter-racial marriage was practiced throughout the Bible, including the genealogy of Jesus.

Matthew 1:1-14 - The genealogy of Jesus, in which four Afro-Asiatic women are included: Rahab, Tamar, Ruth, and Bathsheba.
https://bibleresources.americanbible.org/resource/blacks-in-biblical-antiquity

It makes sense that King Solomon would become romantically involved with the Queen of Sheba, if his mother, Bathsheba, was a black woman.

The Queen of Sheba. She ruled a kingdom that included territory in both Arabia and Africa. When she visited Solomon, she was accorded the dignity and status of a head of state (1 Kings 10:1-13)...
Matthew 12:42 - The Queen of the South, meaning "the Queen of Sheba" (parallel reference in Luke 11:31; compare 1 Kings 10:1-10 and 2 Chronicles 9:1-9).
https://bibleresources.americanbible.org/resource/blacks-in-biblical-antiquity

Song of Solomon 1:4
I am black but beautiful, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Cedar, as the curtains of Solomon.

The Solomonic dynasty (Amharic: ሰሎሞናዊው ሥርወ መንግሥት Sälomonawīwi širiwä menigišiti), also known as the House of Solomon, was a dynasty of the Ethiopian Empire formed in the thirteenth century. Its members claim lineal descent from the biblical King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Tradition asserts that the queen gave birth to Menelik I after her biblically described visit to Solomon in Jerusalem.[1]
Solomonic dynasty - Wikipedia

The Bible's only descriptions of Jesus' skin color are in Daniel 10:6 and Revelation 1:15.

Daniel 10:6
…his arms and legs had the color of burnished bronze, and the sound of his speech was like the noise of a multitude.

Revelation 1:15
His feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters.

The African presence in the Bible is not limited to the Old Testament. Indeed many Jews of the first century lived in regions where Africans intermingled freely with other racial and ethnic types. We too easily forget today that miscegenation or interracial marriage was an explicit part of Alexander the Great's policy; he wanted all subjects to have Greek blood flowing through their veins! Of course there was no notion of the modern idea of "race" during that time, but suffice it to say that the ancients had no problem with Black people nor did the Greeks and Romans consider them to be inferior.

In the Gospel of Matthew, we find the quotation from Hosea 11:1 which reads, "out of Egypt I called my son." The passage is part of the notorious "Flight into Egypt" that describes the way in which Mary and Joseph fled to Egypt to hide the one that King Herod feared would displace him. Assuming that we can lend some historical credence to this report, it is difficult imagining, if the holy family were indeed persons who looked like typical "Europeans," that they could effectively "hide" in Africa. One must remember and take most seriously the fact that Egypt has always been and remains part of Africa. Her indigenous people are noticeably different from the European types, notwithstanding the Hellenistic cultural incursions, beginning in earnest just over 300 B.C. In fact, it has only been in recent centuries that the Egyptians and other North Americans have been officially racially classified as "Caucasian." Nevertheless, for thousands of years, Africans have migrated out of biblical Ethiopia and Egypt and have passed through Palestine en route to the Fertile Crescent or Mesopotamia. Thus, the term Afro-Asiatic emerged, and it is a fitting description of persons from Abraham to Jesus and his disciples.

For the most part by modern standards of ethnicity, first-century Jews could be considered Afro-Asiatics. This is to say that Jesus, his family, his disciples and, doubtless, most of the fellow Jews he encountered in his public ministry, were persons of color.
https://bibleresources.americanbible.org/resource/blacks-in-biblical-antiquity

According to the Jim Crow era’s one drop rule, anyone with even a drop of African ancestry was denied access to public accommodations. This would have included Jesus if He were around in the segregationist South, including in churches that claimed to worship Him.

The historical, Biblical Jesus, with "burnished bronze" skin, whose foremothers were Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Bathsheba, loves you.

 

[TzephanYahu]

Well, it's a good thing that skin colour is not important isn't it! But imagine someone actually being concerned about such a topic - that would be very sad.

The Messiah certainly never wanted His skin tone discussed over His words. But if He was black or closer to black than semitic in appearance, your OP has been very unconvincing to bolster this theory.

But again, imagine actually researching and being concerned about this topic! That would be such a poor way to spend time in the Word.

 

[Humble_Disciple]

Well, it's a good thing that skin colour is not important isn't it! But imagine someone actually being concerned about such a topic - that would be very sad.

The Messiah certainly never wanted His skin tone discussed over His words. But if He was black or closer to black than semitic in appearance, your OP has been very unconvincing to bolster this theory.

But again, imagine actually researching and being concerned about this topic! That would be such a poor way to spend time in the Word.

The concept of "race" didn't exist in ancient history like it does today. Inter-racial marriage was practiced throughout the Bible, including the genealogy of Jesus.

Matthew 1:1-14 - The genealogy of Jesus, in which four Afro-Asiatic women are included: Rahab, Tamar, Ruth, and Bathsheba.
https://bibleresources.americanbible.org/resource/blacks-in-biblical-antiquity

 

[IceJad]

I dislike it when people try to misread the Bible to suit their own interpretation. What race Jesus is is important because it is to fulfill the prophesy about the messiah. Not because of race but because of God's promise. If God promise that the messiah would come from India, I would be anticipating a person of Indian facial features and complexion. And He would still be God incarnate.

Lucky there is a video made recently to explain the Bible verses in original language. I can't be sure how Jesus look like but I can be very certain He is neither a blue eyes blond nor curly black African.

He is Jewish and will look like every other people of the Levant during that age. Even if and that is a very big IF there is a mixing of blood by the times of Jesus' birth the facial features will look like everyone around Levant.

 

[Humble_Disciple]

He is Jewish and will look like every other people of the Levant during that age. Even if and that is a very big IF there is a mixing of blood by the times of Jesus' birth the facial features will look like everyone around Levant.

Matthew 1:1-14 - The genealogy of Jesus, in which four Afro-Asiatic women are included: Rahab, Tamar, Ruth, and Bathsheba...

The African presence in the Bible is not limited to the Old Testament. Indeed many Jews of the first century lived in regions where Africans intermingled freely with other racial and ethnic types. We too easily forget today that miscegenation or interracial marriage was an explicit part of Alexander the Great's policy; he wanted all subjects to have Greek blood flowing through their veins! Of course there was no notion of the modern idea of "race" during that time, but suffice it to say that the ancients had no problem with Black people nor did the Greeks and Romans consider them to be inferior.

In the Gospel of Matthew, we find the quotation from Hosea 11:1 which reads, "out of Egypt I called my son." The passage is part of the notorious "Flight into Egypt" that describes the way in which Mary and Joseph fled to Egypt to hide the one that King Herod feared would displace him. Assuming that we can lend some historical credence to this report, it is difficult imagining, if the holy family were indeed persons who looked like typical "Europeans," that they could effectively "hide" in Africa. One must remember and take most seriously the fact that Egypt has always been and remains part of Africa. Her indigenous people are noticeably different from the European types, notwithstanding the Hellenistic cultural incursions, beginning in earnest just over 300 B.C. In fact, it has only been in recent centuries that the Egyptians and other North Americans have been officially racially classified as "Caucasian." Nevertheless, for thousands of years, Africans have migrated out of biblical Ethiopia and Egypt and have passed through Palestine en route to the Fertile Crescent or Mesopotamia. Thus, the term Afro-Asiatic emerged, and it is a fitting description of persons from Abraham to Jesus and his disciples.

For the most part by modern standards of ethnicity, first-century Jews could be considered Afro-Asiatics. This is to say that Jesus, his family, his disciples and, doubtless, most of the fellow Jews he encountered in his public ministry, were persons of color.
https://bibleresources.americanbible.org/resource/blacks-in-biblical-antiquity

The concept of "race" didn't exist in ancient history like it does today. Inter-racial marriage was practiced throughout the Bible, including the genealogy of Jesus.

 

[IceJad]

The concept of "race" didn't exist in ancient history like it does today. Inter-racial marriage was practiced throughout the Bible, including the genealogy of Jesus.

The concept of race did exist but as a collect of people from a region. Like how the Egyptian know there are difference between native and the immigrant Hebrews. All over the Bible there is a division of race. Egyptian are genetically distinct from central and southern Africans.

Also the Rahab, Tamar, Ruth, and Bathsheba have no reference to any relations to people from the the central and southern Africans. Neither in Rabbinic traditions nor original Hebrew/Aramic verses.

 

[Ignatius the Kiwi]

What special reason is there to believe that the Egyptians were similar in complexion to either Ethiopian or Sub-Saharan Africans? Copts are the most direct descendants of the ancient Egyptians and given their resistance to conversion to Islam and forbidding of that community intermarrying with the Arab part of the population it does not seem like such a leap to suppose ancient Egyptians more resembled the Copts than the Nubians.

Also what reason is there to suppose that Bathsheba was black?

 

[Humble_Disciple]

The concept of race did exist but as a collect of people from a region. Like how the Egyptian know there are difference between native and the immigrant Hebrews. All over the Bible there is a division of race. Egyptian are genetically distinct from central and southern Africans.

Also the Rahab, Tamar, Ruth, and Bathsheba have no reference to any relations to people from the the central and southern Africans. Neither in Rabbinic traditions nor original Hebrew/Aramic verses.

Matthew 1:1-14 - The genealogy of Jesus, in which four Afro-Asiatic women are included: Rahab, Tamar, Ruth, and Bathsheba...

The African presence in the Bible is not limited to the Old Testament. Indeed many Jews of the first century lived in regions where Africans intermingled freely with other racial and ethnic types. We too easily forget today that miscegenation or interracial marriage was an explicit part of Alexander the Great's policy; he wanted all subjects to have Greek blood flowing through their veins! Of course there was no notion of the modern idea of "race" during that time, but suffice it to say that the ancients had no problem with Black people nor did the Greeks and Romans consider them to be inferior.

In the Gospel of Matthew, we find the quotation from Hosea 11:1 which reads, "out of Egypt I called my son." The passage is part of the notorious "Flight into Egypt" that describes the way in which Mary and Joseph fled to Egypt to hide the one that King Herod feared would displace him. Assuming that we can lend some historical credence to this report, it is difficult imagining, if the holy family were indeed persons who looked like typical "Europeans," that they could effectively "hide" in Africa. One must remember and take most seriously the fact that Egypt has always been and remains part of Africa. Her indigenous people are noticeably different from the European types, notwithstanding the Hellenistic cultural incursions, beginning in earnest just over 300 B.C. In fact, it has only been in recent centuries that the Egyptians and other North Americans have been officially racially classified as "Caucasian." Nevertheless, for thousands of years, Africans have migrated out of biblical Ethiopia and Egypt and have passed through Palestine en route to the Fertile Crescent or Mesopotamia. Thus, the term Afro-Asiatic emerged, and it is a fitting description of persons from Abraham to Jesus and his disciples.

For the most part by modern standards of ethnicity, first-century Jews could be considered Afro-Asiatics. This is to say that Jesus, his family, his disciples and, doubtless, most of the fellow Jews he encountered in his public ministry, were persons of color.
https://bibleresources.americanbible.org/resource/blacks-in-biblical-antiquity

 

[Humble_Disciple]

Also what reason is there to suppose that Bathsheba was black?

Matthew 1:1-14 - The genealogy of Jesus, in which four Afro-Asiatic women are included: Rahab, Tamar, Ruth, and Bathsheba.
https://bibleresources.americanbible.org/resource/blacks-in-biblical-antiquity

 

[Ignatius the Kiwi]

Matthew 1:1-14 - The genealogy of Jesus, in which four Afro-Asiatic women are included: Rahab, Tamar, Ruth, and Bathsheba.
https://bibleresources.americanbible.org/resource/blacks-in-biblical-antiquity

This doesn't really answer my question. I skimmed the article and saw nothing about it showing Bathsheba to be an African. The only connection you have to go on is the Egyptian connection and the references to Ethiopia. With regards to Egypt you have a difficult case in establishing the sort of narrative you've given since the Copts as a minority apart from Islamic Egyptians and the influence of Arabization managed the preserve themselves to the current day.

I suppose we could go on Hieroglyphs but they aren't exactly clear either. Take this scene of circumcision for instance:

Or this image of Rameses II conquering some people:

I don't think there is a clear reason to believe the ancient Egyptians were black, at least insofar as they resemble sub-saharan Africans or Ethiopians. More likely I think they had Mediterranean/Arab/Middle Eastern features.

 

[coffee4u]

Jesus appearance would have been that of a brown skinned, brown haired, brown eyed Middle eastern Jew.

As for black ancestors, Ruth was black, I don't know about the others.
But like all of us the linage goes back to Adam and Eve who could not have been of any particular race since all races arose from them.

 

[honey badger]

The concept of "race" didn't exist in ancient history like it does today. Inter-racial marriage was practiced throughout the Bible, including the genealogy of Jesus.



It makes sense that King Solomon would become romantically involved with the Queen of Sheba, given that his mother, Bathsheba, was a black woman.





The Bible's only descriptions of Jesus' skin color are in Daniel 10:6 and Revelation 1:15.

Daniel 10:6
...and his arms and his feet like in colour to polished brass, and the voice of his words like the voice of a multitude.

Revelation 1:15
And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters.

not that this has anything whatsoever to do with the skin pigment of Jesus ...

and His feet are like fine bronze, as having been refined in a furnace; and His voice is like the voice of many waters;

5474 chalkolibanon (fine copper, bronze or brass)

STRONGS

Neuter of a compound of chalkos and libanos (in the implied meaning of whiteness or brilliancy); burnished copper, an alloy of copper (or gold) and silver having a brilliant lustre -- fine brass.

the book of Revelation of Jesus Christ is a book about the Father revealing Himself in the Son, who we all are ...

feet ( ten toes (law)) relate to our walk , our walk relates to the path and the path relates to a mentality we are in having the law written in us as we are refined in His furnace, God being a consuming fire, as in a threshing floor where the chaff is separated from the seed ... the chaff being our own covering not His ...

it is here where we speak with one mind and one voice as in His voice of many waters ...

 

[IceJad]

DNA from the Bible's Canaanites lives on in modern Arabs and Jews

This insistence that Jesus is somehow genetically African as in Black African is stretching the biblical readings. Egypt while is located in African continent is not what honest historians would categorized as black people. Are there black pharaohs before? Yes. Is Egypt predominantly black? No. Jesus was born in Bethlehem and fled to Egypt to escape King Herod. When God called Him out of Egypt doesn't change Jesus into a black African.

Levant is also located in Asia, is Jesus Asian like me an ethnic Chinese? I wish He was. But then I would be projecting onto Jesus whom I want Him to be.

If the mixing was so pronounce that Israelites during the time of Jesus were African looking then why does the Middle Eastern Jews who have stayed in the region from the times of the Romans looked Middle Eastern? Why is the historical Jewish Roman historian Josephus looked like a modern day Middle Easterner?

 

[Humble_Disciple]

 

[Bible Highlighter]

The concept of "race" didn't exist in ancient history like it does today. Inter-racial marriage was practiced throughout the Bible, including the genealogy of Jesus.



It makes sense that King Solomon would become romantically involved with the Queen of Sheba, if his mother, Bathsheba, was a black woman.





The Bible's only descriptions of Jesus' skin color are in Daniel 10:6 and Revelation 1:15.

Daniel 10:6
...and his arms and his feet like in colour to polished brass, and the voice of his words like the voice of a multitude.

Revelation 1:15
And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters.

The ethiopian enuch is called an ethiopian. Ethiopians are generally black as we know it. So yes. The Bible does refer to those who are of a different race.

The problem is that whites are guilty of making a white version of Jesus, and blacks are guilty of doing the same by making a black version of Jesus. Jesus was neither white and nor was he black.

Jesus was Jewish and Jewish people are from the middle east. People from the middle east are usually midtone in skin color and they are not European or black looking. This is what we see in ancient drawings of those who lived in the region who were Jewish, as well.

Judas had to be able to point out Jesus among the disciples and He did so with a kiss. This means that Jesus looked very similar to His disciples in that they were all Jewish looking. They were able to recognize a Gentile when they seen one because they encountered Gentile people like the Canaanite woman, and the Roman centurion, etc.; But the Jews were not confused as being like that of Ethiopians.

 

[Bible Highlighter]

Here is what the Israelites most likely looked like:

EXODUS & THE CROSSING OF THE READ SEA. WALL PAINTING FROM THE DURA EUROPOS ONE OF THE EARLYEST KNOWN SYNAGOGUES DATED C. 245

Dura-Europos, also spelled Dura-Europus, was a Hellenistic, Parthian and Roman border city built on an escarpment 90 metres above the eastern bank of the Euphrates river. It is located near the village of Salhiyé, in today's Syria.

 

[BNR32FAN]

Jesus appearance would have been that of a brown skinned, brown haired, brown eyed Middle eastern Jew.

As for black ancestors, Ruth was black, I don't know about the others.
But like all of us the linage goes back to Adam and Eve who could not have been of any particular race since all races arose from them.

Yes, and our more close common relative would been Noah and his family.

 

[coffee4u]

Do you have some issue with Jesus being a brown skinned middle eastern Jew?

 

[Humble_Disciple]

According to the one drop rule that was enforced during the Jim Crow era, anyone with even a drop of African ancestry was denied access to public accomodations. This would have included Jesus if He were around in the segregationist south, including in churches that claimed to worship Him.

 

[coffee4u]

According to the one drop rule that was enforced during the Jim Crow era, anyone with even a drop of African ancestry was denied access to public accomodations. This would have included Jesus if He were around in the segregationist south, including in churches that claimed to worship Him.

The one drop rule was created by white colonial powers to control and enslave people. Since if someone had one drop they could legally enslave them. The one drop rule is of course nonsense.