Question #19

Was Jesus black?

What happened to the Africans in the Bible? Since the Garden of Eden was in Africa would it not be feasible to assume Adam was African/black? Since Adam was created in God’s image is it not possible God was/is black? Noah and his sons, were they not black as was their lineage? All of the middle east, the birth place of Christ, is in Africa. In Genesis 2:8-14 the first two rivers in Eden were in “ Cush,” Greek meaning “burnt face people.” Eden was within the continent of Africa. Genesis 2:10-14 clearly locates four key rivers, Pishon, Gihon, Hiddikal, and Cush, in Africa. Africa and the Middle East were connected centuries ago. Has hollowod (sic., Hollywood?) and western civilization so jaded and distorted history that Africans were completely removed from Africa except as slaves? In Matthew 2:15 and Hosea 11:1 I find the words “Out of Egypt, I have called my son.” Mary and Joseph were hiding from King Herod while fleeing Egypt. Imagine Europeans hiding in Africa.

The Answer:

This is a meandering question containing many parts, so many in fact that it is hard to follow. Its essence seems to inquire if Jesus was black. The interest in a “black Jesus” arises primarily from a black hermeneutic that has arisen in recent years. A number of “minority hermeneutics” have arisen along with the political correctness movement, among the female hermeneutic that pictures God as a woman. The question contains some false assumptions and assertions such as the suggestion that “God [might be] black” because man was made in his image. Man was made in God’s image in the sense that man has certain of the communicable attributes of God. Man was not made in the physical image of God because God has no fleshly body – he is a spirit (John 4:24). Further, the “ Cush” of Genesis 2 cannot be identified with the later Cush, or Ethiopia (e.g., Isaiah 20:3, 5; Jeremiah 46:9). In Genesis 10:8 it means the Cassites, the successors to the old Babylonian empire who were at home in the hills of western Iran. Keil and Delitzsch suggest that Cush in Genesis 2 “must be connected with the Asiatic Kassaia [Anglicized], which reached to the Caucasus, and to which the Jews (of Shirwan) still give this name” [K&D was published in about 1869.] As for Mary and Joseph hiding in Egypt, it is a stretch to suggest that Herod would look for them in Egypt. Egypt was cosmopolitan in nature. Whatever the appearance of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus was, it seems based upon the story of Moses that the Egyptians could recognize Jews when they saw them. Exodus 2:6.

Whatever the appearance of Jesus was, he was a Jew. About the only thing that is certain about his appearance is that it was not that which we commonly associate with him based on Renaissance paintings. All of us descended from Noah. Thus we are all related in the flesh regardless of color or nationality. Man’s greatest problem since creation has been his desire to create God in his own image. Now some are seeking to recreate Christ in their own image. Whatever his earthly image was, it is different now. Rev. 1:10-18. Perhaps it is instructive that scripture gives no physical description of Jesus except to say “ For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.” Isaiah 53:2. Surely God desires that we be like him in character and follow him in his full obedience to God. Some of our most un-Christlike conduct occurs when we start fighting over what Christ looked like.