Africa and the Bible: The Myth of a Cursed Race (Part 1) | A Day of Discovery Legacy Series

for centuries an ancient curse was used to support the terrible evil of slavery a curse that appears in one isolated verse in the bible even today this misunderstood curse still lingers with us as a legacy of shame but fortunately there are some who through scholarship and honest examination have exposed the lie of a cursed race and in their pursuit of truth they have rediscovered a long lost heritage and identity in africa and in the bible the myth of a cursed race next on day of discovery hello my name is wintley phipps wentley phipps a name that identifies who i am but who am i i'm a husband i'm a father but i'm also a descendant of slaves unless you've lived your life with darker skin you may not appreciate what that question means to people like me sometimes i feel like a motherless child sometimes i feel like a motherless child [Music] sometimes i feel like a motherless [Music] sometimes i feel like a motherless child the music and words of the old spirituals reflected both the heartache and the hope of many slaves just imagine being captured and treated like animals being shipped away forever from your family and your home imagine being sold like cattle imagine losing your language and yes even your name [Music] many of african and slave descent have wondered at some point in their lives about their heritage and their identity they have wondered about who they really are but for those of us who take the bible seriously we know that no matter the race the color or ethnicity we are all god's children we know that in the eyes of god we are all equal and that no one is cursed because of color or race but through the centuries the bible has been used let's just say in some ways that god never intended tragically some found in its pages a curse a curse by the prophet noah that they have said created the black race of africans a curse that they claim sentenced an entire race to servitude and slavery according to professor of history dr edwin yamauchi no other verse in the bible has been so distorted and so disastrously used down through the centuries for the exploitation of africans and african americans as that one obscure verse found in the opening chapters of the bible in the book of genesis if there is one verse in the bible which has adversely affected africans it's the so-called curse of ham found in genesis 9 verse 25. there we read cursed be canaan the laws of slaves will be he be to his brothers this is a curse uttered by noah for those of you who are not familiar with the story noah became drunk and then his three sons ham shem and japheth were there at the time but it was ham who dared to look at noah's naked body and then he tried to encourage his brothers to do so and they would not they went backwards or as not to look at the sight of their naked father in his disgrace see now as the text stands the curse is not upon ham himself but upon his son canaan who's the eponymous ancestor of the canaanites that is the canaanites are named after this particular son according to dr yamauchi the prophetic curse of noah was most likely fulfilled on the canaanites the pagan descendants of ham's son named canaan who according to the bible settled in the region of what came to be called the promised land the same descendants who continued in the disrespect and disobedience of their ancestor named ham as punishment god commanded the hebrews to conquer the canaanites in order to protect his people from their destructive ways including the idolatrous worship and child sacrifice according to the records of history the canaanites and their curse have long been extinct according to the bible none of ham's other three sons were cursed only canaan the descendants of ham's son mitzrayim settled in egypt ham's son named put settled near libya and his fourth son cush settled in a region south of egypt which came to be called by the same name cush as recorded in the hebrew bible most scholars identify cush as the area of modern sudan the way that name kush has been translated in english bibles has created some confusion german author and scholar dr roland werner has researched christian history in africa in the bible we find a reference to the country of kush and we find this in various places in the old testament genesis 10 in the table of nations as one of the neighbors of mitzrayim and mitzrayim of course is egypt sokkus must be a neighbor of egypt we find the same word kush mentioned again in isaiah 18 in psalm 68 and various other places and people have wondered what that actually meant as author and new testament professor dr alan callahan observes the greeks referred to the people from the region of cush as ethiopians these are the guys to whom the greek writers refer to as ethiopians and the derivation of that word is in some dispute most people translated that as the people with the burnt faces but these are at least as as herodotus and people like that greek writers knew of these people they knew of them as skilled warriors you wouldn't want to fight them they tended to be tall dark they're beautiful people and the quintessence of civilization there was a little bit of a confusion because the septuagint translation which was the greek translation of the hebrew bible used the word ethiopia ethiopia wherever crucia occurred in the old testament so people naturally thought that this referred to the country that we now call ethiopia of course that is not entirely true cush is the neighbor of egypt which must be sudan but how and when did ancient cush become mislabeled and misinterpreted as a cursed black slave according to dr yamauchi author of africa and the bible the answer is elusive however he describes the misuse and misapplication of the curse among all three middle east religions the muslims the jewish faith and christians among the muslims one contributing factor seems to be linked to the expansion of islam after muhammad's death in 632 which brought arabs into contact with black africans many centuries after noah spoke his prophetic words muslims then used this curse evidently in a garbled tradition to say that black africans were doubly cursed they were black because of the curse and they were destined to be slaves because of the curse now there are also some jewish passages in the talmud that have been argued as the basis of as being the basis of this curse however the talmud is a vast incomprehensible work for most non-jews and it is highly likely that this would have become the basis of this famous curse of ham unfortunately christians were no better than those of other religious traditions carrying the flag and cross of christ the crusaders used war in the name of god after the crusades using the same myth of the curse of ham christian europeans practice slavery in the name of god the curse of ham also appears among european writers and was strongly used by pro-slave advocates in the united states before the civil war african slaves were first offered for sale to the british colony in virginia in 1619. then between 1680 and 1700 more than 300 000 african slaves were imported into the british colonies of north america the earliest use of the curse of ham to justify slavery in america dates back to the 1670s but the effect of that teaching is still felt today the myth of a cursed black slave race came from the misinterpreted and misapplied curse of the prophet noah that isolated ancient verse in the book of genesis became a convenient lie a rationalization for greed the truth was using slaves meant cheap labor christians who believed in this curse often ignored the central teaching of the bible god's love for the whole world the apostle john wrote about god's all-inclusive love for god so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life [Music] unfortunately the effect of that so-called black curse teaching still lingers in the hearts and minds of many some have taken a pilgrimage a journey back before the days of slavery a journey back to africa and back into the pages of the bible these travelers are part of a study tour some look to see themselves in the ancient past and others search for the truth the truth about who they really are well i wanted to come because the title of the course was the great africans of the bible and being an african-american and just having a strong interest in the development of identity and what that has meant for my people really and also as a christian and knowing that christianity in the past has been used for an evil purpose and enslavement and you know really in the history of slavery in america what we want to do is um appreciate all of god's creation and uh it's hard to appreciate god's creation if you yourself feel that you are inferior part of god's creation and so and so when when one would feel that they um are very much apart and equal with all other humans that god have created now we could come together in a sense of unity a lot easier because if you feel inferior you'll be trying to trying to work against mitigate the whole idea of the inferiority complex and that would be the driving force of your union as opposed to trying to come together to do something for god well my journey actually began almost a couple of years ago when a staff person of mine announced in a group meeting that blacks were descendants of a curse so that got me searching and that's how i started this journey then i met dr krieger took a class with her and she literally opened my eyes to what the word of god has to say about all people especially people of color the study tour leader is an enthusiastic professor in her 80s at first appearance she's an unlikely source of information about african history but she's earned the respect of her students so after all he's going to make the gods look himself that's called anthropomorphism while others her age might be inclined to limit their activities to enjoying their grandchildren and great grandchildren dr catherine craga also pursues another passion i hoped that if we could bring people face to face with their tradition if they could actually see representations of ancient people highly civilized brilliant people and how strong their african features were if they could look face to face at objects of material civilization created by uh early africans that they would understand the importance that the bible gives to africans and the importance that is there in history that has so often been stolen many places of historical importance can be discovered along the nile river and along the nile evidence of the advanced culture of black africans can be seen in the middle of one of the most important archaeological sites in egypt in the city of thebes here a thieves stand monumental temples including egypt's largest temple the temple of karnak nearby rises the imposing temple of luxor they display the grand legacy of the egyptian pharaohs but located in the temple complex of karnak rises one giant papyrus shaped column one of the last remaining columns erected by a black pharaoh of egypt one of the black pharaohs from cush who also ruled egypt a pharaoh whose name is even recorded in the bible his name terhaka terhaka from the ancient kingdom of cush over 1 000 small statuettes of figurines of tahaka were found in his tomb [Music] we are now at the back colonnade of the four great colonnades that tirhaka built and we're at the base of the columns made distinctively in his style of building here is the pharaoh himself he has a flail in his hand and he is all pharaoh and all power the pharaoh here has a strong chin it's a little hard to see because of the false beard but look at the full lips and look at the molded nose and the angle of the nose please notice that some of the other columns lost their tops remember though that this much nice stone is a big temptation for somebody else to swipe and they did the prophet isaiah described the powerful nation of cush go swift messengers to a nation tall and smooth to a people feared far and wide a powerful and oppressive nation whose land the rivers divide ancient historical accounts describe how the bow was a formidable weapon in the hands of these cushite honubian warriors according to the bible the assyrians under their king sennacherib had overrun the region and captured judah's southern fortress lakish tihaka and his warriors came to the aid of king hezekiah of judah in second kings chapter 19 there is an incidental reference to a king of egypt who's actually from nubia now sanaka received a report that terhaka the kushai king of egypt was marching out to fight against him biblical tihaka is called paharkal in the egyptian sources and he belongs to the 25th dynasty i knew that kush was associated with black people with africans but i did not know that it was mentioned 52 times in the entire bible and that's and she was saying that that's like the more than any other ethnic group any other nation besides israel and i just i love the fact that um we're looking into proof and facts not stuff that we're making up and saying you know this is probably african we're looking at facts we're looking at um facial characteristics we're looking at everything here in africa saying we're not making anything up we're just showing you church biblical history with african figures those who are not african-americans or not blacks will tend to gloss over those legitimate passages where africans are indeed mentioned for example in my opinion moses cushite wife was a black woman from kush she should not be equated with zipporah who was moses's wife from midian minion is an area of northwestern arabia also there are some remarkable cushites mentioned in jeremiah one of whom saved jeremiah's life and also the of course the eunuch from ethiopia in acts 8 was no doubt black on the other hand there are some who are not black because not all people who lived in africa were black i think a basic principle is that it is not necessary for one to find one's ethnic group mentioned in the bible in order to accept the biblical message for oneself for example there are no asians mentioned in the bible i've sometimes gotten a call from chinese christians who wonder if the magi were chinese no they're not nor are any native americans mentioned it matters not if the pharaoh was black uh that matters not to me uh what matters to me is uh is is that the truth just be just be brought forth i think um especially we as blacks in america with our history of slavery and and our um church traditions being um grown and and the lord's providential hand upon us in that in the context of you know a history of slavery and segregation and um and oppression and just being raised um with images of jesus and um as blonde hair and blue-eyed and not only jesus but church fathers and um and biblical heroes in the movies we see in the paintings and um you really get um raised feeling like um your people didn't have anything to do with this and it's just amazing to see that we did and that god's providential hand has been on black people and on people of african descent not only in our history in america but all the way back here it is something that that everyone needs to understand everyone needs to know that even in the bible that there is equality there is no question in my mind that god loves the people of africa and as a matter of fact that he had us in mind from the very beginning from creation and you know he has us in mind all the way through to the vision that i believe john saw in the island of patmos while exiled on the island of patmos the aging apostle john received a vision of the future in that vision recorded in the book of revelation the last living apostle saw not a cursed people but a blessed people for there before the throne of god and the lamb of christ were people from every tribe and tongue john wrote and they sang a new song saying worthy are you for you were slain and purchased for god with your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation you have made them to be a kingdom and priests to our god and they will reign upon the earth and centuries before the apostle john the prophet isaiah looked down the rivers of time to that time of the future kingdom of god and there in the kingdom he saw a blessed people the people of cush ancient nubia coming to jerusalem coming to mount zion with gifts at that time gifts will be brought to the lord almighty from a people tall and smooth skin whose land is divided by rivers the gifts will be brought to mount zion the place of the name of the lord almighty so all people everywhere are invited to be a part of god's family and god's kingdom no one is excluded no one is left out no one is cursed because of some shade of color or one's appearance or because they're a man or a woman for god sees nothing but our hearts and when our hearts are his we are all one in christ the great apostle to the gentile nations wrote there is neither jew nor greek there is neither slave nor free man there is neither male nor female for you are all one in christ jesus i'm wently phipps remember no matter your color jesus loved you all the way to the cross and he's coming back again for men and women from every race nation kindred tongue and people [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Our Daily Bread

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Keywords: our daily bread, Bible

Id: RLX92CI5Loo

Length: 26min 4sec (1564 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 07 2021