Zionism and the Black Church, 2nd Edition: Why Standing with Israel Will Be a Defining Issue for Christians of Color in the 21st Century

CHAPTER 1

THE AFRICAN BIBLICAL TIE TO ISRAEL

Exodus 2.5-6

5 Pharaoh’s daughter went down to bathe, to the Nile, and her maidens were walking along the Nile, and she saw the basket in the midst of the marsh, and she sent her maidservant, and she took it.

6 She opened [it], and she saw him the child, and behold, he was a weeping lad, and she had compassion on him, and she said, This is [one] of the children of the Hebrews.

(The Complete Jewish Bible with Rashi Commentary, Exodus 2.5-6)

Genesis chapter 10 is known as the Table of Nations, where the Bible tells us how the three sons of Noah repopulated the earth after the Flood. Few passages of scripture are more controversial than Genesis 10 as it has caused endless debates regarding ethnicity and race. However, to understand the African connection to Israel, we must start at the beginning. This is not an attempt to solve any deep anthropological mysteries, but rather point to the line connecting Israel and the continent of Africa, to clarify words as well as their meaning.

We begin with the word Africa, which has no biblical origin but today is used to denote an immense land and category of people. The origin of the name Africa has been in dispute for centuries. In the article, Idea of Africa - Origins of the Name Africa, the Science Encyclopedia states:

At least seven origins have been suggested: (1) it is a Roman name for what the Greeks called Libya, itself perhaps a Latinization of the name of the Berber tribe Aourigha (perhaps pronounced Afarika); (2) it is derived from two Phoenician terms either referring to corn or fruit (pharika), meaning land of corn or fruit; (3) it comes from a Phoenician root faraqa, meaning separation or diaspora; a similar root is apparently found in some African languages such as Bambara; (4) it is drawn from the Latin adjective apricē (sunny) or the Greek aprikē (free from cold); (5) it might even stem from Sanskrit and Hindi in which the root Apara or Africa denotes that which, in geographical terms, comes after—to the west—in which case Africa is the western continent; (6) it is the name of a Yemenite chief named Africus who invaded North Africa in the second millennium B.C.E. and founded a town called Afrikyah; or (7) it springs from Afer who was a grandson of Abraham and a companion of Hercules (Ki-Zerbo; Spivak).¹

In the Bible, the African nations of Egypt and Ethiopia (Cush) were sometimes referred to as dual kingdoms and were also called the Land of Ham.

Psalm 68.31 (verse 32 in Jewish Tanakh or Christian Old Testament) Gifts will be brought from Egypt; Cush will cause his hands to run to God.

(The Complete Jewish Bible with Rashi Commentary, Psalm 68.31)

Psalm 105.23

Israel came to Egypt, and Jacob sojourned in the land of Ham.

(The Complete Jewish Bible with Rashi Commentary, Psalm 105.23)

Isaiah 20.5

And they shall be broken and ashamed because of Cush, their expectation, and because of Egypt, their boasting.

(The Complete Jewish Bible with Rashi Commentary, Isaiah 20.5)

As is the case with language, the word Africa morphed and was eventually used to refer to the entire continent. The Bible names lands after their human progenitors. What is known today as Africa and parts of the Middle East were originally territories named after Noah’s grandsons, the sons of Ham.

Genesis 10.1

And these are the generations of the sons of Noah: Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and sons were born to them after the Flood.

(The Complete Jewish Bible with Rashi Commentary, Genesis 10.1)

We learn that Japheth, the youngest of Noah’s three sons, is the father of those who settled on the coastal lands of the Mediterranean spreading north into Europe and parts of Asia. We also learn that Shem, from whom we get the term Shemite or Semite, is the father of many tribes in the Afro-Asiatic region, including Eber, from whom we get the word Ivrit or Hebrew.

Genesis 10.22

The sons of Shem were Elam and Asshur and Arpachshad and Lud and Aram.

(The Complete Jewish Bible with Rashi Commentary, Genesis 10.22)

Genesis 10.24

And Arpachshad begot Shelah, and Shelah begot Eber.

(The Complete Jewish Bible with Rashi Commentary, Genesis 10.24)

In Genesis 11.10–26, we learn that six generations separate Eber from Abram, whose name God changed to Abraham, the chief patriarch of the children of Israel. The line of succession from Abraham to Israel is as follows: Abraham and his wife Sarah had a son named Isaac. Isaac and his wife Rebekah had a son named Jacob. God changed Jacob’s name to Israel (Genesis 32). Jacob fathered twelve sons with his two wives, Leah and Rachel, and their maidservants. Those sons became the heads of the twelve tribes of the Israelite nation. The Israelites have many titles including, children of Israel, children of Jacob, children of Abraham, Jewish people, and Jews, from the word Judah. The term Israeli is a general word used for a citizen of the modern Jewish State, whether they are ethnically Jewish or not.

Though Abraham established no organized religion, Abraham is known as the father of the world’s three largest and most influential religious faiths: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Genesis 10.6

And the sons of Ham were Cush and Mizraim and Put and Canaan.

(The Complete Jewish Bible with Rashi Commentary, Genesis 10.6)

It is interesting to note that, of Noah’s three sons, it is only Ham that receives the group designation Land of Ham in the Bible. There does not seem to be a similar title, Land of Shem or Land of Japeth. According to scripture, the descendants of all three sons populated the entire earth, and as such, covered vast regions of the globe. Yet, Land of Ham seems to have a dual meaning of both land (Egypt, Ethiopia) and people (referred to as Africans today).

As Genesis chapter 10 unfolds, we learn that the descendants of each of the four sons of Ham settle the regions of Ethiopia (Cush or Kush), Egypt (Mizraim), Libya (Put or Phut), and Canaan. The descendants of these four sons of Ham inhabited virtually all of the continent we call Africa and portions of present-day Saudi Arabia. So the biblical land of Ham can, in one sense, refer to Africa and parts of Southwest Asia (Middle East). However, based on Western teaching,

both biblical and secular, Hamite is generally used to describe sub-Saharan Africans. While referring to sub-Saharan Africans as Hamites is not entirely inaccurate, it is somewhat misleading for three fundamental reasons:

1. Ham had four sons representing four distinct branches of the Hamitic tree stretching throughout Africa (including east, west, and north) and the Middle East.

2. Throughout biblical history, Hamites and Semites intermingled. For example, Ishmael is the son of Abram—a Semite, and Hagar—a Hamite (Egyptian).

3. The misapplication or manipulation of race/ethnicity, or modern notions of race and anti-Black bias read into the scriptures.

It is difficult to overstate the issue of race/color in American or Western society. If the reader of this book is not from the United States or is unaware of our history with Black versus White relationships, they may not fully appreciate the complexity of this topic. In 1883, Frederick Douglass, a former slave and abolitionist described the color line, a term used to reference racial segregation in the United States after the abolition of slavery. The color line still haunts us in various forms today as racial strife persists, especially when used by those in power to divide. To remain focused and on topic, we will concern ourselves with race and the Church. To that end, we must address the centuries-old false teaching of the Curse of Ham. It is arguably the faux proof text of biblically-based racism and the biblical justification for hatred and discrimination against black Africans.

THE CURSE OF HAM

In Genesis chapter nine, the Bible tells of Noah becoming drunk, and his son, Ham, saw his father naked in his tent and left without covering his body. Noah’s other sons, Shem and Japheth, entered their father’s tent, walking backward so as not to see his nakedness, and covered him. After he awoke, Noah uttered these words:

Genesis 9.25–26

26 . . . Cursed be Canaan; he shall be a slave among slaves to his brethren. 25 And he said, "Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem, and may Canaan be a slave to them.

(The Complete Jewish Bible with Rashi Commentary, Genesis 9.25-26)

As previously mentioned, this story is often referred to as the Curse of Ham. For generations, this text was used to justify, even celebrate the enslavement and subjugation of African people. The curse was defined as black skin and was a sign of perpetual servitude. Of the many things incorrect about this teaching, two are most glaring:

1. Nowhere in Genesis nine is hue or skin color mentioned.

2. Ham was not cursed. His son, Canaan, was.

Most people believe Ham was cursed and, therefore, so were all black people of African/Hamitic descent. However, careful study of the Scriptures reveals that the curse was placed upon Canaan (Gen 9.25), a son of Ham. However, Ham’s other sons, Mizraim, Phut, and Cush . . . were not cursed. This particular curse justified Abraham’s inheritance of the land of Canaan as his blessing because Shem and his descendants (Gen 9.26) received the blessing of his father Noah due to his strong desire to be in his father’s image and his love for God.²

In his book Africa and the Bible, Edwin M. Yamauchi also affirms that Ham was not cursed and dispels that somehow Hamitic blackness is undesirable.

Rabbinic literature in general, following the Bible, holds that Canaan, not Ham, is cursed. According to [Ephraim] Isaac [a scholar from Ethiopia], for the Rabbi‘s, Canaan’s dark complexion, which was not unlike that of the Israelites, was said to be ugly; Cush’s blackness, on the other hand, which was deep and distinguished, had no such stigma attached to it. This was the view also of the main medieval commentators, such as Rashi (d. 1105), Abraham Ibn Ezra (d. 1167), Rambam (d. 1274), and Sforno (d. 1550).³

Why did God punish Ham’s son for his father’s offense? That is a mystery we will not attempt to unravel in this book. Our goal is simply to set the record straight. God never cursed Ham or the African people. He showed neither disdain for people of dark skin nor preference for people with light skin. As the scriptures teach, God is not a respecter of persons. Further, the physical sign of God’s curse on Canaan was not black skin. We do not know exactly what hue Canaan was before or after the curse, and the Bible does not mention a visible sign, unlike the mark God put on Cain after he killed his brother, Abel (Gen 4.15).

Again, the term Hamite generically referring to Africans is not wholly accurate because Ham had four sons. Here the purveyors of racist biblical teaching are hard-pressed to explain how Ham was indeed cursed with black skin but was also the father of the Egyptians (Mizraim), whom they often claim were White, not Black. In his foreword to Diop’s Civilization or Barbarism: An Authentic Anthropology, Dr. John Henrik Clarke addresses the Western race-bias that has obscured the identity of the children of Mizraim.

If Egypt is a dilemma in Western historiography, it is a created dilemma. The Western historians, in most cases, have rested the foundation of what is called Western Civilization on the false assumption, or claim, that the Egyptians were white people. To do this they had to ignore great masterpieces of Egyptian history written by other white historians who did not support this point of view, such as Gerald Massey’s great classic, Ancient Egypt, The Light of the World (1907), and his subsequent works, The Book of the Beginnings and The Natural Genesis. Other neglected works by white writers are Politics, Intercourse, and Trade of the Carthaginians and Ethiopians by A. H. L. Heeren (1833) and The Ruins of Empires by Count C. F. Volney (1787).⁴

The people of Canaan and Phut are also from the line of Ham. Dark or light, all of the tribes would be considered people of color today, all originating from Africa and the Middle East.

Hamites, or the sons of Ham, have come to mean African, but the term is rarely used to describe the people of ancient Libya, Canaan, or Egypt. Today, the entire area of North Africa (Libya, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria) is Arabic.

Though these nations are a part of the African continent, they were conquered and resettled after the death of the Arab Islamic prophet, Muhammad.

When Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam, died in 632 the new religion had already gathered a number of impressive victories on the battlefield. The armies of Islam quickly and easily conquered the Arabian peninsula before moving on to take the homelands of their various neighbours. Marching out of Arabia in 639 they entered non-Arab Egypt; 43 years later they reached the shores of the Atlantic; and in 711 they invaded Spain. In just 70 years they had subdued the whole of North Africa, instituting a new order. This conquest, from the Nile to the Atlantic, was more complete than anything achieved by previous invaders and the changes it wrought proved permanent.⁵

Generally, the Arab people who now inhabit North Africa do not consider themselves African in the genealogical sense. In biblical times, Arabs were located in the region of present-day Saudi Arabia. Again, this area in antiquity was part of the Cushite/Ethiopian territory—the horn of Africa.

Third, the children of Ham and Shem, like all tribes, experienced some intermingling. Within the narrative of the Israelite people (descendants of Shem), we often read of Hamites being included, further complicating who indeed is a biological son or daughter of Abraham.

Though it is speculated that Moses ultimately had two wives, at least one was a Cushite (Ethiopian).

Numbers 12.1

Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses regarding the Cushite woman he had married, for he had married a Cushite woman.

(The Complete Jewish Bible with Rashi Commentary, Numbers 12.1)

Rahab, the Canaanite of Jericho from the line of Ham, married an Israelite man, and became part of the genealogical line of King David, the Messianic line of Jesus.

Joshua 6.25

But Rahab the harlot, and her father’s household, and all that she had, Joshua saved alive; and she dwelt in the midst of Israel to this day; because she hid the messengers, whom Joshua sent to spy out Jericho.

(The Complete Jewish Bible with Rashi Commentary, Joshua 6.25)

Matthew 1.1–6a

1 The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. 2 Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, 3 and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Ram 4 and Ram the father of Amminadab, and Amminadab the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon, 5 and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, 6 and Jesse the father of David the king. (English Standard Version, Matthew 1.1-6a)

Both Hamites and Semites, the mixed multitude, left Egypt during the Exodus of the children of Israel.

Exodus 12.37–38

37 The children of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand on foot, the men, besides the young children. 38 And also, a great mixed multitude went up with them, and flocks and cattle, very much livestock.

(The Complete Jewish Bible with Rashi Commentary,

Exodus 12.37-38)

In the book of Nehemiah, we learn that all of the people who returned to Israel after 70 years of exile were not Israelite, inferring interbreeding with their Babylonian (Hamite) and Persian captors.

Nehemiah 7.63–64

63 And of the priests: the children of Hobaiah, the children of Hakkoz, the children of Barzillai, who took [a wife] from the daughters of Barzillai the Gileadite and was called by their name. 64 These who traced their genealogy sought their records, but they were not found, and they were disqualified from the priesthood.

(The Complete Jewish Bible with Rashi Commentary, Nehemiah 7.63-64)

We reiterate that Hamite and Semite do not denote Black versus White or Black versus non-Black. We are very narrowly focusing on tribal affiliation or genealogy. The descendants of Ham, son of Noah, were the people who settled in what is called Africa and parts of the Middle East. The descendants of Shem, son of Noah and brother of Ham, were people who settled in much of the Middle East, including Arabs. Both groups share common physical features, though the people of Cush and Mizraim were known for their darker complexion. We will say more about the descendants of Japheth, Noah’s third son, in the next chapter.

As we stated, the initial challenge to understanding Africa’s place in scripture is language. One will not find the word Africa in virtually any Bible translation. However, few nations appear more frequently in the Bible than Egypt (Mizraim) and Ethiopia (Cush). Also, no other nation is more prominent in the story of Israel’s beginning than Egypt. It is important to note that the regions of Egypt and Ethiopia are much different than the borders of those countries today. Some historians believe biblical Egypt and Ethiopia were much larger than the modern states. Ancient Cush could well have included modern-day Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, Kenya, Zimbabwe, and a large portion of what is known today as sub-Saharan Africa. Again, other possible evidence of the larger size of biblical Egypt and Ethiopia is that they are often referred to as dual kingdoms (Isaiah 20, Psalm 105). Today, the African continent is made up of 54 states and provinces. Much of that land division occurred during the relatively recent European colonial era (late 19th century to mid-20th century). By 1900, a handful of European nations controlled 90% of Africa’s lands after the signing of the Treaty of Berlin. It is crucial to know the biblical names and geography of African lands.

For now, we return to the African lands most often mentioned in the Bible: Egypt and Ethiopia—the land of Ham. Their significance cannot be overstated as the people and their nations are mentioned prominently in all three sections of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), what Christians call the Old Testament.

It was to Egypt that Abraham and Sarah (then Abram and Sarai) sojourned because of a famine (Genesis 12). Generations later, Abraham’s great-grandson, Joseph, would be sold into slavery by his brothers and taken into Egypt (Genesis 37). It was in Egypt that Joseph rose from slave to prime minister, second in command only to Pharaoh. Joseph’s brothers and his father, Jacob, were reunited in Egypt, and their descendants remained for 430 years (Genesis 46). It was Moses, the deliverer, who led the children of Israel out from bondage, infanticide, and the oppression of Pharaoh, who knew not Joseph (Exodus 1-12).

Underscoring the lack of physical distinction between the two, Jethro’s daughters mistook Moses, a Semite, for an Egyptian, a Hamite (Exodus 2). It was to