The Mormon Faith & Black Folks
Question #29
Q. But doesn’t the Bible reveal that Abraham married
an Egyptian, that Joseph, the son of Israel, married an Egyptian woman Asenath
and bore Ephraim and Manesseh, that Moses married “an Ethiopian woman”, that
Judah married a Canaanite women that
Jesus Himself is a descendant of? How can Mormons say that Hamites
couldn’t have the Priesthood when the Israelites themselves were
partially Hamitic?
A. Abraham did indeed marry Hagar; an Egyptian. The Egyptians were a Mulatto people; part
white and part black. The Egyptians of the north of Egypt were whiter than
those of the south of Egypt. Hagar was probably from the north of Egypt. But she wasn’t Abraham’s wife, but his
concubine. There is a difference. Sarah, the wife of Abraham, could not
conceive (at that time), so she gave her ‘handmaid’ (bondswoman) Hagar to
Abraham; to act as a surrogate mother. Of course, in those days, there was no
such thing as artificial insemination. Abraham had a child with Hagar he
named Ishmael. But he did not inherit the birthright. He did not inherit the
Priesthood. The descendants of Ishmael are the Bedouins.
The skin-color of Bedouins are from white to a light
brown. All Bedouins are Arabs, but most Arabs are not Bedouins. Since Bedouins
are the descendants of Ishmael, the son of Abraham and Hagar, the Egyptian, they
are both Semites (from Abraham) and Hamites (from Hagar). The Bedouins live in
Palestine, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, and some in North Africa. Muhammad, the
Prophet of Islam, was a Bedouin. He was described as having white skin, large
black eyes, and black curly hair.
Sarah finally
conceived, and she bare Isaac; who is called the ‘firstborn’ of Abraham. He
inherited the birthright to the Priesthood. The sons of Isaac were Esau and
Jacob. Esau sold his birthright to Jacob for a pot of red potage. Jacob
inherited the birthright, and his name was changed by an Angel of God to Israel.
*Joseph married to a Hamitic woman?
Joseph was a son of Israel (Jacob), and he had
prophetic dreams. In one of these dreams he dreamt that all the other sons of
Jacob bowed to him. This made the other sons of Jacob enraged with jealousy; so
they decided to kill him. Judah convinced them not to kill him, but to sell him
as a slave to some Ishmaelites; who then sold him as a slave to the Egyptians.
He worked for Potiphar, a minister of Pharoah, but Potiphar’s wife tried to
seduce him. He escaped, but she claimed he tried to seduce her. Potiphar placed
him in prison.
While in prison Pharaoh himself had prophetic
dreams; about 7 fat cows becoming 7 lean cows. The wise men couldn’t
interpret his dream. But one of Pharaoh’s bakers, who knew Joseph in prison,
knew he could interpret prophetic dreams. The baker told Pharaoh, who called
Joseph out of prison, and Joseph interpreted Pharaoh’s prophetic dreams
correctly; that the 7 fat cows would be 7 years of good harvests, and the 7
lean cows would be 7 years of famine. The Pharaoh released Joseph and made him
what we would call today ‘Minister of Agriculture’. Joseph had the Egyptians
store grain during the next 7 good years, and, just as he said, the 7 years
following that were years of great famine. Joseph had saved the Egyptians from
starvation.
To escape the famine in Canaan the sons of Israel went
to Egypt to buy grain, and they went to the Minister of Agriculture; their
brother, who had been given an Egyptian name. They didn’t recognize him, but
they all bowed low to him; as his old prophetic dream had prophesied. Joseph
eventually revealed himself, and he saved his father Jacob and all his sons,
their wives, and their children, from starvation; by inviting them to live in
Egypt.
*The Hyksos (Shepherd Kings)
All Bible scholars, of whatever church, agree that the
Pharaohs of Egypt in the time of Joseph were the Hyksos; which means
“Shepherd Kings”. They were Semitic invaders who conquered Lower Egypt (i.e.
North Egypt). They were Semites, and not Hamites. But they took Egyptian names
and titles. Asenath, the wife of Joseph and the mother of Ephraim and
Mannesseh, was a Semite. This is why the sons of Jacob thought Joseph was one
of them (the Hyksos); because he was not a Nubian like the Southern Egyptians, but resembled a Hyksos; a Semite.
Later, the Nubians reconquered Egypt from the Hyksos, and made the Hebrews
(which included the Israelites and all other Semites) their slaves. This
slavery lasted for over 400 years; only to end with the coming of Moses; a
Levite who was adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter.
*Moses Married a Black Woman?
The Bible says that Moses has married an “Ethiopian
woman”. In Hebrew it says “Cushite”, and Cush was a son or grandson of Ham and
Egyptus. It also says that Moses married Zipporah; the daughter of Reuel (also
named Jethro) who is called the “priest of Midian” (Exodus 2:16). Some feel
that this means that Moses married a black woman whose father was a priest of
the Most High God; thus repudiating the Curse of Cain doctrine.
However, there is ample evidence that the “Ethiopian
woman” that Moses married was not Zipporah, but rather his first wife he
married as an Egyptian prince. The Egyptians were often at war with the Nubians
(Cushites) to their south. Sometimes they conquered the Nubians, and sometimes
the Nubians conquered them. Sometimes arranged marriages were made between
Egyptian and Nubian princes and princesses; a common practice in ancient times
between rival kingdoms. Moses lived as an Egyptian for the first 40 years of
his life, and it should not be surprising that he would marry a Nubian princess
as part of an allegience between the royal houses of Egypt and Nubia.
Yet, the Bible presents Zipporah as a woman he only
met after he was stripped of his royal rank and driven out of Egypt; because of
his killing of an Egyptian taskmaster. The Egyptians were part Negro, and they
knew that Moses was an adopted Hebrew child. They knew he was a Semite, and,
Prince or no Prince, they would not tolerate a Semite killing an Egyptian; not
even in self-defence. Had had not been a Prince, they would have killed him.
But because he was the adopted son of an Egyptian queen, they only banished
him. Once he got to Midian he chased off a group of shepherds who were
intimidating Zipporah and her sisters. This engraciated him with her father
Jethro; the priest of Midian. The Midianites were the descendants of Midian;
the son of Abraham and Keturah, his last wife (Genesis 25:1-2). The Midianites
were descendants of Abraham and Keturah. They were not Cushites (Nubians). The
“Ethiopian woman” mentioned in the Bible was thus not Zipporah the daughter of
Jethro of Midian.
The ancient Jewish historian Flavius Josephus confirms
that Moses married a black Cushite woman while a young man, but says that he
did not have sexual relations with her. Josephus writes:
“So Moses took the city and the children of Cush set
him on the throne And they gave him Queen Adonijah the Cushite to wife. But
Moses feared the Lord and he went not in unto her For Moses remembered how
Abraham had made Eliezer his servant swear, saying: ‘Take no a wife of the
daughters of Canaan, nor shalt thou make marriages with any of the children of
Ham’” (Post-Biblical Hebrew Literature, p.132)
Was Keturah a Canaanite?
Abraham told his son Isaac not to marry a Canaanite,
but he sent one of his servants to Haran, in Syria, to fetch a pure Semite
(Rachel) for Isaac to marry.
Although Abraham did have a child by an Egyptian
concubine (Hagar) it is doubtful that he would have married a Canaanite woman
after Sarah was dead.
Mormon writer Cleon Skousen writes:
“Since the Canaanites were of the Hamitic tribes who
could not enjoy the Priesthood, Abraham was greatly concerned about the
marriage of Isaac to a young woman of the proper lineage so that the promise of
the Lord concerning the Priesthood could be perpetuated through him. To marry a
Canaanite would cut the promise off because the children of such a union could
not receive the Priesthood.” (The Third Thousand Years, p.18)
Abraham’s second son, Isaac, his son by Sarah (a
Semite) received the birthright; not his firstborn Ishmael; who was his son by
a Hamite (Hagar). Ishmael became the father of the Bedouins. Isaac wished to
preserve the lineage from Hamitic blood:
“And Isaac called Jacob, and blessed him, and charged
him, and said unto him, Thou shalt not takes a wife of the daughters of the
Canaanites.” (Genesis 28:1)
Jacob, the second son of Isaac, obeyed this command.
He became known as “Israel”. And his descendants, the Israelites, became God’s
Chosen People. The firstborn son of Isaac, Esau, disobeyed, and married
Canaanite wives. He lost the birthright, and the Edomites did not become the
Chosen People.
*Jesus: A Canaanite?
Jesus is the descendant of Judah and Tamar; a
Canaanite woman. Would this not make Jesus Himself a Canaanite, and thus a
Hamite? Indeed, would not this make all Jews (descendants of Judah)
Canaanites/Hamites?
The answer is: No.
This is true because of the fact that after a certain
number of generations a person no longer has any “blood” (DNA) in them of a
certain ancestry. For example, if a white man marries a black woman, they would
have Mulatto children, and their children would be half black and half white.
They would be known as 1st generation Negro. If these children
married white people, then their children would be 1/4th black. If their
children married white people then the offspring of this generation would be
1/8th black, and so it goes. Unless more black blood comes into this lineage,
then the black or Negro bloodline is gradually washed-out. A person who
is 1/8th black (Negro) usually doesn’t look it, and appears white; although
they may have some Negro characteristics; such as thick lips or broad nostrils,
or curly hair. A person 1/16th Negro
appears white, and usually have no Negro characteristics at all. A person
1/32nd Negro never has Negro characteristics, and would appear as European as a
pure European. A person who is 5th
generation is 1/32nd Negro. A person who is 6th generation is
1/64th. A person who is 7th generation is 1/128th. There are more
than 10 generations from Jesus to Tamar the Canaanite woman. He would thus have
no “Canaanite blood” in His veins. The same is true for all Jews.
The Prophet Joseph Smith was a direct descendant of
the Merovees; the Jewish kings of the Languedoc in southern France in the 4th
to 6th centuries A.D. But this didn’t make Joseph Smith a “Jew”. The Merovees
claimed to be the descendants of one of the daughters of King Zephaniah of
Judah; a descendant of King David.
Please feel free to e-mail Darrick Evenson
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