Big lies in history and the flaws of them:

Well, if the ancient Hebrews (circa 1500 B.C.E.) were not Black, what were they?? Did any have blue eyes? Did any have red or blond hair or straight hair? Did they have white skin? Did they need Sunblock # 30? No? Then perhaps they were a people of color. Perhaps not looking like they lived in the Congo, but not Caucasian by the current definition.

I think many people who are not Bible believing Christians, per se, do give credence to the basic story line of both Testaments. There was a Moses; he might not have parted the sea, but he did schlep with some Hebrews out of Egypt. And, with the help of some scribes and tools, the Ten Commandments were written. Didn't anyone see the move??

The Bible does mention that Esau had red hair.

bm

Hebrews were not black They were the same as they look now. They are a mediterranean people. Mediterranean people's characteristics were produced over millenia by a mixing between lighter individuals from more northern climes and the darker individuals from around the equator. So they have fair to tanned skin, prominent noses, dark facial and head hair and a tendency to be brown eyed, just like Italians, Spaniards, Egyptians and, to a certain extent, some arabic peoples.

Jesus, Moses and all that biblical ilk, therefore were no black. You sometimes hear total verbal shite like Cleopatra was black. That's crazy. She was Greek.

As someone else said earlier, the Nubians were black, just as anyone else who lives in equatorial Africa tends to be black. The Hebrews hail from nowhere near the equator.

Not all Africans are black, just as you say. There's a tremendous variety of colour in Africa. But the Jews are not African. They come from the shores of the Mediterranean. They are similar to other Mediterranean peoples - Greeks, Italians and northern Africans like Tunisians, etc.

Just like these people, they tend not to be blue eyed. That feature tends to be northern European, where the sun's rays are not strong enough to do damage to the eyes of those with less pigmentation in them. The mutation to being blue eyed has been allowed to survive in greater abundence in the northern parts of the world therefore. In the more southern areas, the blue eyed tendency never really got a foothold, being a non-successful adaptation there.

Therefore, the traditional Renaissance representation of Jesus that we have been left with (blond haired and blue eyed) is mental! He had dark, brown or black hair and beard. Probably brown or at most green eyes, and a mediterranean complexion (fair to tanned). As far as straight or curly hair, like today's mediterranean peoples, it's 50/50.

Good post iamsam82, but trying to educate Foofie is futile.

I give credence to the Exodus story to the degree that Moses did not stand out like a sore thumb amongst the Egyptians. This was all prior to the Arabs conquering Egypt. The Pharohs were a people of color; Moses blended in with them; so did the Hebrews. Hebrews had been a people of color back then. They only became Ashkenazi Jews when they schlepped to Europe, and originally settled as far north as Germany. They mixed with the Germans in the pre-Christian era, since many Jewish males today have the same male pattern baldness by the age of 30 as native German males.

If you ever saw the orthodox Jewish children of today you would be hard pressed to think of them as Semites. More than half have light eyes, blond straight hair. The Semitic traits are in the minority. My own opinion as to why this is so amongst the Orthodox is a great grandparent was a survivor of the death camps, since someone may have tried to keep alive a great grandmother/grandfather that looked non-Jewish? I have no other explanation.

Plus, with the influx into Israel in the last 20 years of ex-Soviet Jews, many have lost that "Jewish Semitic" look, since there was a high rate of inter-marriage since the Bolshevik Revolution.

One needs to remember that the Exodus story is 3,500 years old, I believe, so in that stretch of time, one can change one's appearance if it can happen elsewhere in a few generations.

When one sees Jews today they may just be seeing the results of rapes by Russian Cossacks, inter-marriage prior to the Christianizing of Europe, and the very Semitic looking Jews having a higher rate of victimization over the last two-thousand years in Europe. Oh, and do not forget that many Jews have internalized European criteria of beauty, so a taller, blond, light-eyed Jewish youth has many opportunities to get married.

There was also a book written years ago with the theory that the Khazars mixed with European Jews when they were forced to adopt a monotheistic religion (rather than pay taxes to the Caliph or the Vatican).

All in all, Ashkenazi Jews today may be very watered down Semites. Another reason for Israel to survive, so Jews can regain their ethnic identity with Middle Eastern Jews.

Hey Foofie. Meet Ramses II. He ruled from 1278-1213 BC. He is generally agreed to have been the Pharaoh of the Moses story in the bible. There are a couple of other outside contenders but even these are relations of this fellow, and so would have looked fairly like him in terms of race.

Look at his face. Does he look black? Does he have black features? I know, it's difficult to tell, right, he's all manky. Nose is pretty thin huh? But, fair's fair, they may have lost a little plumpness over 3000 odd years. Still let's keep his features as we see them here at the back of our mind while we read the next bit.

When scientists looked at the roots of his hair they found it had been reddish in life! Red tinged! An african with gingery hair! I know, mental isn't it. Actually it's not.



That cute little girl is a berber. The berbers are a tribe that hail from the area to the west of the Nile valley. UHOH! Are we seeing the point I'm about to make... yeh! They have a tendency to often have reddish hair, just like the little girl. But look at her! And all the other little berbers around her! Wait a minute! They aren't black. They - as I said in previous posts - being a Mediterranean people, tend to be fair to tanned in complexion with fairly slight features, though noses can be slim and long. Have a look at some on an image search. Compare them to what's left of poor old Ramses up there. He's starting to look more like a north-african berber than an equatorial stereotypical black African isn't he.

Lastly, the nail in the coffin of your theory, here is an artist's reconstruction of Rameses II's head...




Oh dear. Not really a black African profile is it. Looks very Mediterranean/North African/Berber no? So there you are. An Egyptian (if not THE Egyptian) from around the time of the Exodus. So they weren't black. Neither were the Jews.

The fact is Africa is fricking massive - and not all Africans are, or were ever, black.

Another reconstruction of Ramses II, still based on his skull and what's left of the mummy, but this time the way he looked at time of death (I seem to remember he was in his 90s!).

Now obviously, skin colour is not preserved in skulls, but the mummy looks fairly light skinned. The mummy may have been tarnished by the embalming process, however (let's anticipate all counterarguments before they can be made). BUT... even if you imagine this face coloured black, it just doesn't look like a black featured face, does it. Long, pointed face; protruding, slim nose; pronounced chin.

This is simply because the Egyptians, then and now, were not a black people. Egypt is closer to Italy than equatorial Africa. It's natural that these Africans should be more similar to Mediterranean peoples than black Africans.

Well, let us just say that when WASP children have "platinum blond" hair, their parents might be very proud of this WASPy trait. So, one may not be Black, per se, but in the hierarchy of the different shades of white that one finds in a good paint store, I just think that being Mediterranean may really not be so impressive, unless one owns grape vineyards, or some such wealth.

I can only make reference to the Ethiopean Jews who were airlifted to Israel in the 1980's and are now thriving there, over a hundred thousand strong. How did they become Jewish in Ethiopea? Regardless, I would like to see Jews become a people of color, whether for the first time or not, since they have not been treated so nicely by European whites. Just desserts I would call it. Not that anything is wrong with being white, but that snub may be an invaluable lesson in humility to those that think being white is better than being a person of color.

But you accept that biblical Egyptians and Jews were not black now, right?

No, since like the painting of Jesus with blue eyes and lovely blond hair, things can be changed, including mummies looks. You know the often told story that Napolean had the nose of the Sphinx shot off with a cannon, since the nose was sort of Negroid . So, many Europeans have a long history of thinking their Snow White whiteness was superior to all other complexions, and therefore, I do not eliminate the possibility that things were changed to fit in with preferences. Sort of like the bible may also have been used as a political tool, or a way to rewrite early Christian history; but do not tell that to a bible believing Christian.

So whites tampered with all the mummies and all the paintings and statues in the tombs to make them appear white, and then moved all the modern day Egyptians who, (for the millionth time) AREN'T black, to Egypt so that we could cover up the fact that the Egyptians of antiquity WERE black?

Really?

Isn't it more likely that Egyptians are and never have been black? Open your mind! They are dusky, at best, like other Mediterraneans, like Tunisians, Berbers and Moroccans.

And in any case, all of this is irrelevant because Cleopatra was Greek!!! Her family (bar one grandmother who was a local - so also mediterranean) were exclusively, interbreedingly Greek. Or were the Greeks of antiquity black too, before the whites kidnapped a load of Italians and placed them in Greece today as part of the cover up?

And OK. Aside from the fact that the Sphinx thing with Napoleon is an urban myth with no evidence to support it whatsoever, your other point about Jesus is good. And I stated a similar point earlier. Jesus clearly is very unlikely to have had blonde hair and blue eyes. He's more likely to have looked LIKE AN EGYPTIAN AS HE WAS ALSO A MEDITERRANEAN!!! So, for the umpteenth time, Mediterranean features - for Jesus, Ramses, Sophia Loren, Theseus, and Cleo-bloody-patra are dark hair, dark eyes, fair or tanned skin and a tendency to fairly pronounced noses!!!

re the Sphinx nose.

I suppose that to be of a similar "truth" like many other of Foofie's myths.
(Foofie: there are etchings/drawing of the Sphinx without a nose, made even before Napoleon was born; the nose was first chronicled as being "missing" during time of one of the Abbasid caliphs, can't actually remember the name, but certainly google might be a help.)

This discussion may be for naught, since the Ethiopean Israelis are increasing in population geometrically. Doubling every 15 years, or so, I believe. Do the math. There will come a tipping point where they will add to the Israeli culture, and then there will be intermarriages, aided by the universal Israeli military draft mingling all Jewish Israelis (Druze are in the mililitary also).

Eventually, your argument may be that Jews were once white. Hope you do live that long.

I... I don't understand. You've gone onto a totally different, though equally mental, argument.

I can't keep up.

Just for clarification do you now accept that biblical Jews, led by Moses, would not have stood out against the Egyptians, since both were white Mediterranean peoples?

Or

Are you saying, having looked at ALL the above evidence, that both were black peoples and that whites have planted all evidence to the contrary (including modern day Egyptian and Jewish populations) in order to cover up the fact that their were black peoples in history?

Foofie, do you think Shakespeare was black too?
Are you Spike Lee?

Whatever Jews (aka, Hebrews) and Egyptians were in the days of the Pharohs, they were not WASPy looking, tall, with straight hair, and blue eyes. Regardless of their features, Europeans would have known they were from another "neighborhood." This is around 3,000 years ago, maybe 3,500 years ago. That makes for a long time to mix with those from a more northern clime.

Yeh, I think we are agreed on this.



I would just add, to be more specific, that NORTHERN Europeans would have known that they were from another "neighbourhood".

Let's not forget that the borders of continents, and countries, are things we humans have invented. It's not like Europe = blonde and blue eyed and Africa = black.

SOUTHERN Europeans would probably not have known they were from another "neighbourhood". They would quite probably not have noticed an Egyptian walking around Rome (forgetting dress styles).

This is because Northern Africans and Southern Europeans are racially virtually identical. They share the borders of the Mediterranean and over millennia of crossing backwards and forwards across that short stretch of water their genes have been shared and they have strong resemblences to each other.

The way that the opening paragraf is drawn,
this thread concerns only what Busma THINKS.