Monday, October 17, 2011
African Americans Israelite African History
"According to most accounts, the earliest Jewish settlements in Africa were in places such as Egypt, Tunisia, and Morocco. It is believed that these settlements may have been in existence as early as the kingdoms of David and Solomon, as well as during the Assyrian invasion of northern Israel in 722 BCE and the Babylonian captivity of Judah in 586 BCE in the Punic-Carthaginian age."
Africa, in the broader sense, is clearly indicated where mention is made of the Ten Tribes having been driven into exile by the Assyrians and having journeyed into Africa. Connected with this is the idea that the river Sambation is in Africa. The Arabs, who also know the legend of the Beni Musa ("Sons of Moses"), agree with the Jews in placing their land in Africa.
According to records such as the Tarikh al-Sudan, the first recorded Jewish presence may have emerged in West Africa with the arrival of the first Zuwa ruler of Koukiya and his brother, located near the Niger River. He was known only as Zuwa Alayman (meaning “He comes from Yemen”). Some local legends state that Zuwa Alayman was a member of one of the Jewish communities that were either transported or voluntarily moved from Yemen by the Ethiopians in the 6th century C.E. after the defeat of Dhu Nuwas
Records of the Jewish history of Mali can still be found in the Kati Andalusi library. Ismael Diadie Haidara, a historian from Timbuktu, possesses old Arabic and Hebrew texts among the city's historical records. He has also researched his own past and discovered that he is descended from the Moroccan Jewish traders of the Abana family. As he interviewed elders in the villages of his relatives, he has discovered that knowledge of the family's Jewish identity has been preserved, in secret, out of fear of persecution.
"Its geographical setting made it a natural meeting point for nearby west African populations and nomadic Berber and Arab peoples from the north. Its long history as a trading outpost that linked west Africa with Berber, Arab, and Jewish traders throughout north Africa, and thereby indirectly with traders from Europe, has given it a fabled status, and in the West it was for long a metaphor for exotic, distant lands: "from here to Timbuktu."
"There are several thousand people of undoubted Jewish ancestry in Timbuktu, Mali"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jews_of_Bilad_el-Sudan#Mali_and_Songhay
"And all the Israelites, both small and great, and the captains of the armies, arose, and came to Egypt: for they were afraid of the Chaldees." - 2 Kings
"And all the Israelites, both small and great, and the captains of the armies, arose, and came to Egypt: for they were afraid of the Chaldees." - 2 Kings
"Studies of contemporary documents reveal seven regions from which Africans were sold or taken during the Atlantic slave trade. These regions were Senegambia, encompassing the coast from the Senegal River to the Casamance River, where captives as far away as the Upper and Middle Niger River Valley were sold;The Sierra Leone region included territory from the Casamance to the Assini River in the modern countries of Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Côte d'Ivoire;The Gold Coast region consisted of mainly modern Ghana;The Bight of Benin region stretched from the Volta River to the Benue River in modern Togo, Benin and southwestern Nigeria;The Bight of Biafra extended from southeastern Nigeria through Cameroon into Gabon;West Central Africa, the largest region, included the Congo and Angola; andThe region of Mozambique-Madagascar included the modern countries of Mozambique, parts of Tanzania and Madagascar."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_American_history
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Jews
Descendants of the Jews of the Bilad el-Sudan (West Africa). Jews whose ancestry was derived from the communities that once existed in the Ghana, Mali, and Songhay Empire. Anusim in and around Mali who descend from Jewish migrations from North Africa, East Africa, and Spain. - Wiki
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Le Republicain, May 29, 1996. It announced to the presidents of Mali and Israel, diplomatic missions in Mali and Jewish communities throughout the world, the presence of some 1,000 “Jews” in Timbuktu.
It was in Timbuktu, Mali, in the center of the northwestern hump of Africa, that Gold stumbled upon the lost Jewish community — or at least a group of people who descended from Jews — while serving as director of overall programming for the U.S. Agency for International Development mission from 1993 to 1997.
One of the poorest countries in the world, Mali has some 10 million people (two thirds under age 25), $250 per capita, 3 percent population growth and a mortality rate of 120 out of every 1,000.
It was in Timbuktu, Mali, in the center of the northwestern hump of Africa, that Gold first heard rumors about Timbuktu Jews from his colleagues at USAID and the Peace Corps, and from academics who followed the movement of Jews south from Spain and Morocco.
One of these academics was Ismael Diadie Haidara who founded the organization that issued the manifesto.
Zakhor, or the Timbuktu Association for Friendship with the Jewish World, began as an informal, unpublicized association in 1993. Then the manifesto came out, and Jews of Mali became international news.
The group went public in 1995-96.
Gold translated the manifesto from French to English and distributed it to academic, black and Jewish Internet groups.
A historian at the documentation center in Timbuktu, Haidara had discovered 19th century trading documents that referenced links between Jews running the caravan route from southern Morocco and Jews in Timbuktu. These documents, written in Arabic, had Hebrew script around the margins, a sort of “code” to let people know the documents were authentic, according to Gold. The trading documents referred to three families in particular: the Kehath family (Ka’ti) that came from southern Morocco and converted with the rest of the population in 1492; the Cohen family descended from the Moroccan Jewish trader al-Hajj Abd al-Salam al Kuhin, who arrived in the Timbuktu area in the 18th century; and the Abana family, which came in the first half of the 19th century.
“We are Jews because our ancestors were Jews, whose genes are found in all our families,” state the members of Zakhor in the manifesto. In the process of discovering descendants of these three families in Timbuktu, Gold said, Haidara also realized his own Jewish heritage, descended from Moroccan Jewish traders of the Abana family.
What happened to these Jewish families over the years that made them lose their Jewish identity and caused them to convert?
According to Gold, Timbuktu was important from the 12th to 16th centuries because of salt, gold and Islam. It was ruled by a series of empires including Ghana, Mali, Senegal and Morocco.
Under the Moroccan Empire, which controlled Timbuktu and the trade between Morocco and Timbuktu for some 300 years beginning in the late 1500s, Gold said Jews had a monopoly on the caravan route.
Rabbi Mordechai Abi Serour came from Morocco in 1860 to be a trader in Timbuktu. As a Jew, he couldn’t set up his trading business, so he appealed to the emperor and negotiated dhimmi, or protected people, status. He brought enough Jews with him from Morocco to have a minyan and establish a synagogue. A Jewish cemetery from Serour’s time remains.
Jews also came to Mali from Spain after the Inquisition in 1492. The leadership at the time accepted Jews from Europe with open arms, and allowed them to live relatively peacefully until a new leader came to power and forced them to convert.
The Jews who remained Jews in Timbuktu were dhimmis, allowed to practice their religion silently while continuing to pay taxes to the Empire.
Zakhor’s objective is to reassert its members’ Jewish ancestry — to promote the redevelopment of a Jewish identity in Timbuktu — but not to seek conversion to Judaism. The Jews of Timbuktu have been living under Islam since the ascension of Mohammed Askia in 1492 , and are just now starting to rediscover their roots, explained Gold.
Zakhor’s other objectives include making links with Jewish communities around the world, learning Hebrew and seeking development assistance to improve their daily lives.
Gold and Kulanu have helped them meet some of their objectives. Not only has Gold brought the Malian Jewish community to the attention of Americans through the Internet, but he also helped Zakhor gain access to Jewish, Hebrew and French books and other resources.
Nowadays, Gold gives speeches for organizations like Kulanu to spread the word about the existence of Mali’s lost Jews, as well as to urge outreach to the community.
Gold envisions sending people to teach basic Judaism and Hebrew. “We don’t need to send rabbis. the people are just beginning to learn about it (their Jewish heritage).” We need to educate them first, he said.
Gold stays in touch with Zakhor over the Internet, continuing to send information on subjects such as Halacha. Although, Haidara, the “brainchild” behind Zakhor, divides his time between Timbuktu and Grenada, Spain, his wife is the main contact for the organization in Mali.
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During the 8th century, the Rhadanites (Jewish African, mulit-lingual traders) began to settle in Timbuktu, Mali. There they established a trading center from which they set up a network of trading routes throughout the desert. More Jews began to arrive in the 14th and 15th centuries, fleeing the Spanish Inquisition. Then in 1492, the local King, Askia Muhammed, threatened the Jews with death if they did not convert to Islam. As the historian Leo Africanus wrote in 1526: "The king (Askia) is a declared enemy of the Jews. He will not allow any to live in the city. If he hears it said that a Berber merchant frequents them or does business with them, he confiscates his goods." While some chose conversion, many fled from the country. In 1860, Rabbi Mordechai Abi Serour emigrated from Morocco with several Jews to trade in Timbuktu. Rabbi Serour had to negotiate with the local authorities to obtain “protected people” status. The newly arrived congregation established a synagogue and Jewish cemetery in the area. By the early 20th century no Jews remained in Mali.
In the mid-1990s, however, thousands of so called ‘Hidden Jews,’ began a Malian Jewish revival in Timbuktu, Mali; many reclaiming their Jewish heritage. In 1993, Ismael Diadie Haidara, a historian from Timbuktu, established an organization called Zakhor (Timbuktu Association for Friendship with the Jewish World). This organization is predominately composed of Malians, descendants of Jews. Over the years, much of the Malian Jewry’s history has been uncovered; it was once concealed to avoid persecution.
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"This week’s topic is: Maghrebim Jews
The Maghrebim are Jews from West African Jewish communities who were connected to known
Jewish communities from North Africa, the Middle East, Portugal, and Spain. Historical records
attest to the Maghrebim presence at one time in the Ghana, Mali, and Songhai empires which
was called the Bilad al-Sudan. Jews from Morocco, Portugal, and Spain also formed
communities off the coast of Senegal and on the islands of Cape Verde. After the rise of Islam in
North and West Africa, these communities ceased to exist and have mostly disappeared due to
migration and assimilation.1
The earliest Jewish settlements in Africa were in Egypt, Tunisia, and Morocco. These
settlements may have been in existence as early as the kingdoms of David and Solomon. These
communities were still in existence during the Assyrian invasion of Northern Israel in 722 BCE
and the Babylonian captivity of Judah in 586 BCE. These communities grew by the arrival of
their fellow Jews after the destruction of the Second Beit HaMikdash (Temple) in 70 CE.1
According to historical records – including Tarikh al-Sudan – the first recorded Jewish presence in West Africa may have emerged with the arrival of the first Zuwa ruler – Zuwa Alayman – of Koukiya near the Niger River. Local legends report that Zuwa Alayman was a member of one of the Jewish communities who either voluntarily moved or were transported from Yemen by the Ethiopians in the sixth century CE after the defeat of Dhu Nuwas.
In the eighth century the Radhanim – a group of multilingual Jewish traders – settled in
Timbuktu and its environs. In the tenth century, the Jews of Baghdad experienced a hostile social
and political environment. As a result, many Jewish traders left for Northwest Africa – and
Tunisia in particular. The text of Tarikh el-Fettash described a community called the B’nei
Yisrael that existed in Tirdirma, Mali in 1402.1
In the fifteenth century many Jews migrated south to the Timbuktu area in an attempt to escape the persecution in Spain. Among these immigrants were the family Kehath (Ka’ti) who founded the villages of Kirshamba, Haybomo, and Kongougara near Timbuktu that still exists today. In 1492, Askia Mohammad I came to power and decreed that Jews must either convert to Islam or leave the area of Mali.1
Rabbi Mordechai Abi Serour and several other Jews emigrated from Morocco to Timbuktu in 1860. Rabbi Serour negotiated with the local Muslim authorities to obtain dhimmi (protected people) status. The newly arrived Jews meant there were at least ten adult male Jews to form a minyan. As a result, the community established a synagogue and cemetery. In the mid-1990s thousands of “Hidden Jews” began a Malian Jewish revival in Timbuktu with many reclaiming their Jewish heritage. By the early twentieth century no Jews remained in Mali."
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"Jews of the Bilad el-Sudan (West Africa)
According to the Muslim records the Tarikh el-Fettash (16th cent.) and the Tarikh el Soudan (17th cent.) there were several Jewish communities that existed as a part of the Ghana, Mali, and later Songhay empires. One such community was formed by a group of Egyptian Jews, who traveled by way of the Sahel corridor through Chad into Mali. Manuscript C of the Tarikh el-Fettash describes a community called the Bani Israeel that in 1402 CE existed in Tirdirma, possessed 333 wells, and had seven princes as well as an army.
Another such community was that of the Zuwa ruler of Koukiya (located near the Niger river), whose name is only known as Zuwa Alyaman (meaning “He comes from Yemen”). According to local legends Zuwa Alyaman was a member of one of the Jewish communities transported from Yemen by the Abbysinians in the 6th century C.E. after the defeat of Dhu Nuwas. Zuwa Alyaman is said to have traveled into West Africa along with his brother, and eventually established a community in Kukiya near the Niger River. According to the Tarikh el-Soudan, there were 14 Zuwa rulers of Kukiya after Zuwa Alyaman before the rise of Islam in the region.
Other sources say that other Jewish communities in the region were formed by migrations from Morocco, Egypt, Portugal, and possibly Gojjam, Ethiopia. Some communities are said to have been populated by certain Berber Jews like a group of Kal Tamasheq known as Iddao Ishaak that traveled from North Africa into West Africa for trade, as well as those escaping the Islamic invasions into North Africa." - Am I Jewish.Com
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"The Igbo ( Ibo) Jews of Nigeria, who some consider a community of "Yehudim Maghrebim" (North and West African Jews, note: Maghreb also means northern Africa, and is not exclusive to Ibos) are the Jewish component of the Igbo (Ibo) ethnic group whom are said to be descended from the southern and westward migrations of both ancient Semitic and later Jewish peoples from the Middle East into West Africa. This migration, said to have started more than 1500 years ago, is believed to have taken deeper roots in the region during the reign of the Dja (Dia) rulers of several Songhai Empire regions.
According to the record Tarikh es Soudan recorded by Abderrahman ben Abdallah es-Sadi (trad. O. Houdas) one such community was formed by a group of Egyptian Jews, who traveled by way of the Sahel corridor through Chad into Mali. Another such community was that of the Dji (Dia) ruler of Koukiya (located near the Niger river), whose name is only known as Dialliaman (or Dia min al Yaman) also called Za-al-Ayaman (meaning “He comes from Yemen”). According to local legends Dialliaman (Za-al-Ayaman) was a member of one of the Jewish colonies transported from Yemen by the Abbysinians in the sixth century C.E. Dialliaman is said to have traveled into West Africa along with his brother, and eventually established a local Jewish community in Northern Nigeria.
Other sources say that other Jewish communities in the region from Morocco, Egypt, Portugal, and possibly even Gojjam Ethiopia made their way into West Africa by way of the Niger. Some communities are said to connected to the Jewish Berber population like a group of Kal Tamasheq known as Iddao Ishaak of Niger that traveled from North Africa into West Africa for trade, as well as those escaping the Islamic invasions into North Africa and Mali."
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"History
Members of the Jewish community mostly come from the Igbo tribe, which is the third largest ethnic group in the country. Members of the Igbo believe that they are descendants of Jews who had migrated to western Africa over many centuries via migrations south into sub-Saharan Africa, as well as west across North Africa, possibly following the path of the Arab conquests. Some Nigerian Jews hold that families amongst the community are descendants of Kohanim and Levites, the Jewish priests and their assistants who functioned in the Temple of Jerusalem. Descendants could also have arisen from migrants from Djerba, Tunisia who had fled to North Africa after the destruction of the 1st and 2nd Temples in Jerusalem. The Jewish community is said to be comprised almost entirely by descendants of Kohens.
Several Israelite/Jewish tribes settled in Western Africa during the glorious days of the Songhai, Mali and Ghana empires. As the early Jews were mainly traders, it is quite likely that Jewish traders made the treck across the African continent and eventually settled in various places of West Africa, just as Jewish traders had settled in Kaifeng, China due to their activity in trade along the Silk Route. Some sources have explained that a Jewish presence was present in Nigeria as early as 638 BCE. The Igbos are not the only group that claims such a heritage; the Sefwi people of Ghana too believe they are descendants of Jews that made their way to West Africa.
In Mali, there had been a documented community for quite some time until all Jewish families were forced to convert to Islam and till today there remains a Jewish Culture Society in Mali where those descendants of Jews seek to explore their culture and heritage.
Perhaps the Jews of Nigeria suffered the same fate and with the arrival of Islam were either forced to leave the territory or submit to the Islamic domination. It is believed that Judaism first came to the region many centuries ago, as many as 1500 years by traders, a profession that Jews during that time were prolific at. The Igbo Jews traditionally claim descent from three particular Israelite tribes: Gad, Zevulun, and Menashe. The Jews of Manipur and Mizoram, the Bnei Menashe, also claim descent from the tribe of Menashe. It is thought that these Jews fled to Africa after the destruction of the biblical Temples in Jerusalem and established communities all across the African continent.
Israel has, to date, not recognized the Igbo as one of the Lost Tribes of Israel. It took many years before the Chief Rabbinate recognized the Bnei Menashe as Jews, and it is thought that in due time the Igbo will also be recognized as descendants of Israel. One of the theories as to why Israel is reluctant to recognize the Igbo is because it has enjoyed good relations with Nigeria, and as the Igbo are a secessionist tribe, recognizing them as part of Israel may injure political and economic ties between the two countries."
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/mali.html
http://www.kulanu.org/timbuktu/JewsOfTimbuktu.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_ethnic_divisions
http://www.scribd.com/doc/23726236/Maghrebim-Jews
http://www.amijewish.info/africa.html
http://www.codewit.com/oceania/african-jew-igbo-ibo-jews.html
http://www.igboezue.com/node/1
Europeans rarely entered the interior of Africa, due to fear of disease and moreover fierce African resistance. - metmuseum.org
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In Senegambia, between 1300 and 1900, close to one-third of the population was enslaved. In early Islamic states of the western Sudan, including Ghana (750–1076), Mali (1235–1645), Segou (1712–1861), and Songhai (1275–1591), about a third of the population were slaves. In Sierra Leone in the 19th century about half of the population consisted of slaves. In the 19th century at least half the population was enslaved among the Duala of the Cameroon, the Igbo and other peoples of the lower Niger, the Kongo, and the Kasanje kingdom and Chokwe of Angola. Among the Ashanti and Yoruba a third of the population consisted of slaves. The population of the Kanem (1600–1800) was about a third-slave. It was perhaps 40% in Bornu (1580–1890). Between 1750 and 1900 from one- to two-thirds of the entire population of the Fulani jihad states consisted of slaves. The population of the Sokoto caliphate formed by Hausas in the northern Nigeria and Cameroon was half-slave in the 19th century. Between 65% to 90% of the population of Arab–Swahili Zanzibar was enslaved. Roughly half the population of Madagascar was enslaved.
When British rule was first imposed on the Sokoto Caliphate and the surrounding areas in northern Nigeria at the turn of the 20th century, approximately 2 million to 2.5 million people there were slaves. Slavery in northern Nigeria was finally outlawed in 1936
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From the middle of the 15th century, Africa entered into a unique relationship with Europe that led to the devastation and depopulation of Africa, but contributed to the wealth and development of Europe. From then until the end of the 19th century, Europeans began to establish a trade for African captives.
At first this trafficking only supplemented a trade in human beings that already existed within Europe, in which Europeans had enslaved each other. Some enslaved Africans had also reached Europe, the Middle East and other parts of the world before the mid-15th century, as a result of a trade in human beings that had also long existed in Africa.
It is estimated that by the early 16th century as much as 10 per cent of Lisbon's population was of African descent
Many of these African captives crossed the Sahara and reached Europe and other destinations from North Africa, or were transported across the Indian Ocean.
The transatlantic slave trade began during the 15th century when Portugal, and subsequently other European kingdoms, were finally able to expand overseas and reach Africa. The Portuguese first began to kidnap people from the west coast of Africa and to take those they enslaved back to Europe.
It is estimated that by the early 16th century as much as 10% of Lisbon's population was of African descent. After the European discovery of the American continent, the demand for African labour gradually grew, as other sources of labour - both European and American - were found to be insufficient.
The Spanish took the first African captives to the Americas from Europe as early as 1503, and by 1518 the first captives were shipped directly from Africa to America. The majority of African captives were exported from the coast of West Africa, some 3,000 miles between what is now Senegal and Angola, and mostly from the modern Benin, Nigeria and Cameroon.
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Africans were not strangers to the slave trade, or to the keeping of slaves. Slavery had existed in West- Africa for centuries. When Leo Africanus traveled to West Africa in the 1500's, he recorded that, "slaves are the next highest commodity in the marketplace. There is a place where they sell countless slaves on market days." Criminals and prisoners of war, as well as political prisoners were often sold in the marketplaces in Gao, Jenne, and Timbuktu.
African slaves were in Europe as early as the eleventh century. America's demand for laborers for the sugar, tobacco and cotton field brought the first cargo of black slaves from West Africa to the Americas in the early 1500's. European, Arab and African merchants were now selling humans as well as gold, ivory, and spices.
Al-Siddiq was born to a well-educated and influential family from Timbuktu. In the early 1800's he was captured and sold to an English slaver. In 1823 he was keeping records in Arabic for his owner's store in Jamaica. Encouraged by his owner's friend, Al-Siddiq was given his freedom. Al-Siddiq joined the Englishman, John Davidson on an expedition to Timbuktu in 1836. On his return to the African continent, Al-Siddiq learned that one of his relatives had become the sheik of Timbuktu. The expedition was attacked and all lives were lost with the exception of Al-Siddiq.
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Leo Africanus: Description of Timbuktu
The king is a declared enemy of the Jews. He will not allow any to live in the city. If he hears it said that a Berber merchant frequents them or does business with them, he confiscates his goods. There are in Timbuktu numerous judges, teachers and priests, all properly appointed by the king. He greatly honors learning. Many hand-written books imported from Barbary are also sold. There is more profit made from this commerce than from all other merchandise.
Instead of coined money, pure gold nuggets are used; and for small purchases, cowrie shells which have been carried from Persia, (6) and of which 400 equal a ducat. Six and two-thirds of their ducats equal one Roman gold ounce. (7)
The people of Timbuktu are of a peaceful nature. They have a custom of almost continuously walking about the city in the evening (except for those that sell gold), between 10 PM and 1 AM, playing musical instruments and dancing. The citizens have at their service many slaves, both men and women.
The city is very much endangered by fire. At the time when I was there on my second voyage, (8) half the city burned in the space of five hours. But the wind was violent and the inhabitants of the other half of the city began to move their belongings for fear that the other half would burn.
There are no gardens or orchards in the area surrounding Timbuktu.
Translated by Paul Brians
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Slave Trade Facts
The level of slave exports grew from about 36,000 a year during the early 18th century to almost 80,000 a year during the 1780s.
The Angolan region of west-central Africa made up slightly more than half of all Africans sent to the Americas and a quarter of imports to British North America.
Approximately 11,863,000 Africans were shipped across the Atlantic, with a death rate during the Middle Passage reducing this number by 10-20 percent.
As a result official records show 15 million Africans arrived in the Americas. This does not account for the casualties of slavery who did not arrive alive.
About 500,000 Africans were imported into what is now the U.S. between 1619 and 1807--or about 6 percent of all Africans forcibly imported into the Americas. About 70 percent arrived directly from Africa.
Well over 90 percent of African slaves were imported into the Caribbean and South America. Only about 6 percent of imports went directly to British North America. Yet by 1825, the U.S. had a quarter of Africans in the New World. The majority of African slaves were brought to British North America between 1720 and 1780. (Average date of arrival for whites is 1890)
Comparisons
American plantations were dwarfed by those in the West Indies. About a quarter of U.S. slaves lived on farms with 15 or fewer slaves. In 1850, just 125 plantations had over 250 slaves.
In the Caribbean, Dutch Guiana and Brazil, the slave death rate was so high and the birth rate so low that they could not sustain their population without importations from Africa. Rates of natural decrease ran as high as 5 percent a year. While the death rate of U.S. slaves was about the same as that of Jamaican slaves, the fertility rate was more than 80 percent higher.
U.S. slaves were further removed from Africa than those in the Caribbean. In the 19th century, the majority of slaves in the British Caribbean and Brazil were born in Africa. In contrast, by 1850, most U.S. slaves were third-, fourth-, or fifth generation Americans. africanholocaust.net
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_slave_trade
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/abolition/africa_article_01.shtml
http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~wldciv/world_civ_reader/world_civ_reader_2/leo_africanus.html
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/slav/hd_slav.htm
http://www.hokiesports.com/rothreport/images/mali.timbuktu.jpg
http://africanhistory.about.com/od/kingdoms/ss/SaharaTradeRoutes.htm
Paul Bairoch suggests a figure of 25 million African people subjected to the Arab slave trade, as against 11 million that arrived in the Americas from the transatlantic slave trade.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_slave_trade
Part 3 Final:
I have compiled again excerpts from colleges, and encyclopedias to dispel myths of what people area teaching that AFRICAN SLAVES in AMERICA were PAGAN and PLAGUED with WITCHCRAFT in TOTAL.
"By the standards of the early nineteenth century, African-Americans were said to be "a wretched stock of heathen, in utter darkness of a loathsome pagan idolatry." Various plantation owners expressed the concern that "the superstitions brought from Africa have not been wholly laid aside." Witchcraft, alleged superstitions, and fetishist practices were often cited as evidence that the plantation slave refused to abandon African paganism for American Christianity."
Is this true, or misinterpreted ? In the same essay later is this fact is claimed.
The African beliefs in one Supreme Being, in a realistic distinction between good and evil, in lesser spiritual powers, and in creation as the handiwork of God, paralleled much in the Hebraic background of Christianity. These similarities lessened the cultural shock as the African came into contact with the tenets of White Evangelicalism. But on occasion there was conflict. A white Methodist reported an aged Negro--to whom he had been trying to explain the dogma of the Trinity--once asked which of the three "was the head man to which he should go when asking for anything."
It is true, anyone who can parallel their beliefs with Hebrews would not understand the significance in any trinity concept.
"During the early history of slavery, the Africanisms that were retained in African American spirituality were often seen to be (by whites) a pagan faith. These rituals and dogmas were variously described as Voodoo, Hoodoo, Witchcraft, and superstitions, and were particularly prominent among the Gullah speakers of South Carolina. Whites often commented on these "pagan practices," and fetishes, and were threatened by them. As a result, great effort was expended on eradicating these practices, and many were lost within a generation. "
What is West African Vodun?
At any rate, it perceives to be a monotheistic set of beliefs affected mainly by the Yoruba and Dahomeyan religion which seems to be native to West Africa unlike monotheistic beliefs of the African Americans. Why Is it so hard for me to accept the Title Vodun as title for the African Slaves in America?
Simply Vodun denotes a god separate to that of the Dahomey goddess, and the Dahomey goddess is originally not a monotheistic deity. If any of this at all seems confusing you can review the facts here
http://www.religioustolerance.org/voodoo.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_African_Vodun
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahomey_mythology
A melting pot of language and native spirituality has seemed to disconnect the African American Slaves from their ancient religion. As They cannot truly understand the Christian Trinity, the Pantheism of Dahomey mythology, nor do the African American slaves seem totally aware of every aspect of the Yoruba religion.
Yoruba religion in the New World
Many ethnic Yoruba were taken as slaves to Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Brazil, Venezuela and other parts of the New World (chiefly in the 19th century, after the Ọyọ empire collapsed and the region plunged into civil war). They carried their religious beliefs with them. These concepts were combined with preexisting African-based cults, Christianity, Native American mythology, and Kardecist Spiritism into various New World lineages:
* Santería or "regla lucumi" (Cuba)
* Oyotunji (U.S.)
* Candomblé (Brazil)
* Umbanda (Brazil)
* Batuque (Brazil)
Relationship with Vodou
The popularly known Vodou religion of Haiti was founded by slaves from a different ethnic group (the Gba speaking peoples of modern Benin, Togo and Ghana), but it does share some aspects of the religion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoruba_religion
Tallying a list you are aware that
African American Slaves Were Charged with Voodoo(Vodun)
Vodun Comes from Yoruba a separate religion,
and African American Slaves seem to apply a god to their religion
which doesn't originally represent their concepts, yet have kept separate
from that of the Islamic invasions and forced conversions.
"The degree to which whites were successful in this, however, is the subject of great debate. Melville J. Herskovits has advanced the thesis that the success of Baptists in attracting blacks was rooted in the appeal of immersion which suggests a connection in the slaves' mind with the river spirits in West African religions. Others have attacked this position including, the black scholar E. Franklin Frazier who argues that enslavement largely destroyed the social basis of religion among blacks, and that the appeal of Baptists to blacks concerns the emotional content of their worship. Stanley Elkins (whose views were heavily influenced by what took place in the concentration camps of World War II Europe), has argued--like Frazier--that slavery was so demeaning that blacks (like the Jews in the camps) were eventually stripped of every shred of dignity and humanity, including their faith. John Blassingame, on the other hand, has provided a significant body of evidence that blacks hung on to their religion as a form of resistence."
http://www.wfu.edu/~matthetl/perspectives/twelve.html
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"The story of African-American religion is a tale of variety and creative fusion. Enslaved Africans transported to the New World beginning in the fifteenth century brought with them a wide range of local religious beliefs and practices. This diversity reflected the many cultures and linguistic groups from which they had come. The majority came from the West Coast of Africa, but even within this area religious traditions varied greatly. Islam had also exerted a powerful presence in Africa for several centuries before the start of the slave trade: an estimated twenty percent of enslaved people were practicing Muslims, and some retained elements of their practices and beliefs well into the nineteenth century. Catholicism had even established a presence in areas of Africa by the sixteenth century."
"
Preserving African religions in North America proved to be very difficult. The harsh circumstances under which most slaves lived—high death rates, the separation of families and tribal groups, and the concerted effort of white owners to eradicate "heathen" (or non-Christian) customs—rendered the preservation of religious traditions difficult and often unsuccessful. Isolated songs, rhythms, movements, and beliefs in the curative powers of roots and the efficacy of a world of spirits and ancestors did survive well into the nineteenth century."
http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/nineteen/nkeyinfo/aareligion.htm
"Many scholars have debated the extent to which African American religion draws upon African religion in its diverse forms. Despite the presence of Africanisms in African American religion, such as the call-and-response pattern characteristic of black preaching, it is evident that no single African culture or religion could have been diffused intact to North America. African religious concepts and rituals, such as ancestor worship, initiation rites, spirit possession, healing and funeral rituals, magical rituals for obtaining spiritual power, and ecstatic ceremonies enlivened by rhythmic dancing, drumming, and singing, are found in African American religion but generally in syncretized ways, blended with diverse European American elements."
http://hirr.hartsem.edu/ency/african.htm
"The second half of the seventeenth century saw the establishment of a plantation economy in Guyana based on African slave labour. The bulk of the African slaves were brought from Senegambia, Sierra Leone, the Windward Coast, Gold Coast and the Bight of Benin. They belonged to several tribes and several language groups.
The general view held by the Dutch planters, and the English planters after them, was that the African slaves did not hold to a system of beliefs that could be described as a religion. At best - so the members of the plantocracy and the church that served them felt - their beliefs amounted to nothing more than heathenish superstition.
Not a few of them, perhaps, felt that the Africans were incapable of religious sentiment. But the Africans held religious beliefs derived from their homeland. It may be useful to note that some of the slaves, particularly these who came from the Fula-speaking area of Senegambia, were Muslims.
Toby, a young Hausa-speaking Muslim slave in Hanover, Berbice, debated religious questions with the Rev. John Wray, the Congregational missionary in Berbice in the early nineteenth century.
Interestingly, Wray's successor in Berbice, Rev. Howe, was very impressed with Toby's intelligence and his desire to acquire knowledge, that after converting him to Christianity, he arranged for the young man to go to England for further training by the London Missionary Society. He was granted his freedom and his name was changed to Thomas Lewis. In 1836, he returned to Berbice as a catechist-teacher.
Toby's ancestors were most likely converted to Islam when that religion penetrated West Africa from the north by way of the Sahara Desert. But Islam among Africans did not long survive the Middle Passage and the plantation system. The practice of the planters of separating tribesmen from one another, and of discouraging the assembling of slaves for any purpose whatsoever, was not calculated to allow Islam to survive.
Again, the small number of African Muslims that came to Guyana lacked the leadership of Imams and the possession of the Qu'ran. Then, too, the plantation life did not lend itself for long prayers at fixed times, worship on a set day, fasting at prescribed periods, or feasting on holidays which did not coincide with those observed by the plantocracy. As such, the plantation which was geared exclusively to sugar production gave no scope for the development of Islam as the Senegambian village did.
But if the Islam that came with African slaves did not survive the conditions of slavery, the name "Fulah" came to be used as a descriptive of indentured Indian Muslims and their descendants. The Blacks who labelled them Fulahs clearly knew Fula-speaking Africans who were Muslims.
On the other hand, indigenous African religious beliefs, which became labelled as "obeah", survived the difficulties of estate life in Guyana. But these beliefs underwent significant changes although they remained clearly "African" in structure. Three factors were mainly responsible for these changes.
In the first place, African religious ideas were capable of modification in response to the new circumstance of estate life. Secondly, the practice of African religion was frowned upon by estate authorities. This meant that the religion could only be practised secretly and irregularly. The result has been that some aspects of African religious practices withered away while others lost their nationality and language and became garbled. Thirdly, the exposure to Christianity led not only to the conversion of Blacks to that religion, but also to the overlapping of African and Christian beliefs.
While in Jamaica, after 1760, it became an offence punishable by death for slaves to practise obeah, it is not clear if the same situation existed in Guyana. Nevertheless, the slaves did not lack "religious" leaders who, however, were not as well trained or as carefully chosen as the priests who served the African villages and compounds.
The policy of the plantocracy of separating African tribesmen from one another (as far as this was practicable) also affected the development of African religion in Guyana, since that religion traditionally had a strong link with the tribe."
http://www.guyana.org/features/guyanastory/chapter28.html
"A small but significant proportion of African slaves, some estimate 10 percent, were Muslim. You might tell the story of Omar Ibn Said (also "Sayyid," ca. 1770-1864), who was born in Western Africa in the Muslim state of Futa Toro (on the south bank of the Senegal River in present-day Senegal). He was a Muslim scholar and trader who, for reasons historians have not uncovered, found himself captive and enslaved. After a six-week voyage, Omar arrived in Charleston, South Carolina, in about 1807. About four years later, he was sold to James Owen of North Carolina's Cape Fear region. In 1819 a white Protestant North Carolinian wrote to Francis Scott Key, the composer of The Star Spangled Banner, to request an Arabic translation of the Bible for Omar, and apparently Key sent one. Historians dispute how much the African Muslim leaned toward Christianity in his final years, but Omar's notations on the Arabic bible, which offer praise to Allah, suggest that he retained much of his Muslim identity, as did some other first-generation slaves whose names have been lost to us. (Omar's Arabic bible, which has recently been restored, is housed in the library of Davidson College in North Carolina.)"
http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/twenty/tkeyinfo/islam.htm
Little is known about the practice of African religions in French Illinois, since the slaves would have needed to hide such beliefs. In Africa, these people would have believed in ancestor worship and the significance of dance, drumming, and shouting during worship. Many of these practices were adapted to fit Christianity and the slave experience.
http://www.museum.state.il.us/exhibits/athome/1700/sideby/a-rel.htm
"Historical records show that Islam and Christianity played an important role in enslavement in Africa. The Arab-controlled Trans-Saharan slave trade helped to institutionalise slave trading on the continent. And during the 'age of expedition', European Christians witnessed caravans loaded with Africans en-route to the Middle East. Others arriving much later in West Africa observed slavery in African societies, leading them to assume that African enslavement was intrinsic to the continent."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/history/slavery_1.shtml
"The practice of harnessing supernatural forces and spirits for one’s own personal use, known in some parts of Africa as ‘Obeye’ (an entity that lives within witches), has taken on many names in the Caribbean islands, such as Shango (Trinidad), Santeria (Cuba), Vodun or Voodoo (Haiti), Ju-Ju (Bahamas), Obeah (Jamaica),. Although African slaves usually practiced Obeah for "evil" or rather self-interested, instrumental purposes, this faith also aided them as a source of strength and clandestine resistance. The practice of Obeah is the belief that one can use certain spirits or supernatural agents to work harm to the living, or to call them off from such mischief. Generally, the British used the term Obeah to describe all slave acts and practices that were considered supernatural or evil in nature, such as rituals and fetishes."
http://scholar.library.miami.edu/slaves/Religion/religion.html
http://sarabe3.tripod.com/images/image059.jpg
"In Sudan and certain other East African cultures exists the Zār Cult, an ethnomedical healing ceremony involving possession typically of Muslim women by a Zār spirit."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z%C4%81r
"The spirit Iblis is a Jinn, which are “mischievous” spirits of earth who reside in a universe parallel to the human world while maintaining the ability to interact in both realms [1]. The Jinn are mortal and powerful [2] spirits whose purpose is to tempt and possess (majnun) humans [3] by creating illusions (ghurur) that familiarize mankind with “the eternal fire” of hell [4]. The Jinn in their natural state are too horrific for mankind to see, they are highly intelligent, they can assume almost any form, and they can do almost anything [5]. There are many different kinds of Jinn: there are those which take on the appearance of the snake; those which fly – the winged Jinn; Jinn that are giants; insect-like Jinn; Jinn that inhabit dead bodies (zombies); and, Jinn that take on human form and, in-so-doing, have the capability of converting to Islam [6]. The Jinn live far longer than humans and the only way they can be detected is through their evil actions – deeds too atrocious for un-possessed humans to enact [7]."
http://web.uvic.ca/~rpn/files/iblis.html
As seen here there is no religion in the area including Islam who didnt believe in spirits roaming and taking possession, this may have been picked up by Islamic influence.
As a final goal lets understand if traces of ancestor worship disqualify West Africans to having Hebrewisms clinging to their culture.
The Jewish Encyclopedia investigates:
Affirmative:
Oracles and Incantations: In various passages of the Old Testament (Deut. xviii. 11, I Sam. xxviii. 11, Isa. viii. 19) mention is made of inquiry of the dead as to the future, thus treating them as oracles and divine personages. On two occasions the dead are termed "elohim" (I Sam. xxviii. 13, Isa. viii. 19, Heb.): the latter passage, "Should not a people seek unto their elohim, for the living to the dead?" is especially significant. In the incantation scene with the witch of En-dor, as soon as "Saul perceived that it was Samuel [I Sam. xxviii. 14], he stooped with his face to the ground, and bowed himself," a regular form of divine homage (see Adoration).
VII.
Honor to Parents: It is contended that in ancient Israel mourning was only for parents; and II Sam. xii. 15 et seq. is quoted in illustration. Men thus became remembered by the honor paid them by their descendants; hence Absalom deplored that he had no son to call upon his name (II Sam. xviii. 18).
VIII.
Household Worship: There are signs that in early days there was a special worship of household gods which could not have been devoted to YHWH, the God of the nation, according to modern theories. They are supposed to be referred to as "elohim" in the passage (Ex. xxi. 4-6) when the servant who desired to remain in the household of his master forever must appear before the elohim (translated "judges" in A. V.), and have his ear bored through. It is contended that the Feast of Purim is a relic of household worship. The household gods thus worshiped are known as teraphim, which were Laban's elohim. (Gen. xxxi. 30), and were heathen gods (Ezek. xxi. 26, Gen. xxxv. 2).
IX.
Family Worship: Fustel de Coulanges has shown, in "La Cité Antique," that the social institutions of the Greeks and Romans were founded upon Ancestor Worship, the essence of which was to keep alive the holy fire on the household hearth on which to offer food for the departed spirits of ancestors. Membership of a family implied the right and duty of making such offering. Only males could offer; and, therefore, inheritance was solely through the agnates. Num. xxvii. shows that this was the custom with regard to inheritance in ancient Israel. The importance of heirs consisted in the posthumous nourishment to be offered by them alone, and this importance is shown to have existed in Israel by the custom of the Levirate. The patria potestas of the father of the family was due to the fact that he was the household priest as well as the father. The Israelites, like the Greeks and Romans, had their family graves.
X.
Ancestor Worship and the Tribes: Graves of the ancestors of the tribes, like that of Abraham at Hebron, and that of Joseph at Shechem, are found associated with worship which probably was originally Ancestor Worship. Some of the tribes seem named after Semitic gods; thus "Asher," the masculine form of "Ashera," Dan and Gad (the latter of which occurs in local names as "Baal Gad" and "Migdal Gad"). There are some indications that the Patriarchs were the subject of local worship; for instance, Jacob at Beth-el, Israel at Peniel, and Isaac at Beer-sheba. Hence the importance attached in the Old Testament to the places where the Patriarchs and heroes were buried; known graves being those of Abraham, Sarah, Rachel, Joseph, Aaron, Miriam, Joshua, Ibzan, Elon, Abdon, Tola, Jair, Jephthah, and Samson. In this connection it is a significant fact that the grave of Moses, the founder of Jahvism, was not known: this indicates that the Jahvistic legislation was against Ancestor Worship. Many of the patriarchal names were originally combinations with "El"; thus Jacob and Joseph are found in Egyptian lists under the form "Jacobel," "Josephel" (compare Ishmael, Jerahmeel, and Jephtahel). All these points seem to imply that clans and tribes were originally unified by a worship of ancestors, which worship was broken down by the national worship of YHWH.
Negative:
6.
Oracles and Incantations: These do not imply the worship of the dead, but merely the belief in the existence of their shadows beyond the grave, and that they were consulted as oracles. The fact that Samuel's ghost was regarded by the witch of En-dor as elohim merely implies that she looked upon Samuel as something divine: the act of adoration is merely one of respect and honor—not necessarily of worship in the technical sense—and is given, not to the ghost as such, but to the personality of Samuel as soon as Saul recognizes who is speaking. Against the saying of Isa. viii. 19, it may be remarked that the ancestral ghost can not be the elohim of the people, but only of a family; besides "elohim" here should be translated "God" and thecontrast made with the dead: "A people should consult its God and not its dead."
7.
Honor to Parents: There are many instances of going into mourning for dead persons other than parents (Jacob for Joseph when he thought he had lost him, Gen. xxxvii. 34; compare I Kings, xiv. 13); widows mourning for their husbands (Gen. xxxviii. 14); the bride for her bridegroom (Joel, i. 8). Absalom did not wish a son to "call upon" his name, but to "keep it alive" in men's memory; and for that reason he raised a monument to himself. Obviously this monument could not "call upon" his name.
8.
Household Worship: The elohim mentioned in Ex. xxi. could easily have been images of YHWH in Judges, xvii. "YHWH" became at an early period the God of the Israelitish family, as is shown by personal names like Jonathan, Joshua, and Abijah. Purim is far from being an early feast, being probably derived from Persia, and can not therefore be the survival of a family worship of the dead. The teraphim are only mentioned as strange gods in Gen. xxxi. and Ezek. xxi., and are elsewhere not divine or used in divine worship, but for the purpose of divination.
9.
Family Worship: The Israelite family does not show so much analogy with that of ancient Rome as to oblige us to transfer the arguments of Fustel de Coulanges to ancient Israel. So far from the patria potestas being all-important, there are late traces of matriarchate, as, for instance, where the mother gives the name to the children, as so frequently occurs in Genesis. Laban regards Jacob, his sister's son, as his "brother," and as being "of his own flesh and blood." Adoption was frequent among Greeks and Romans in order to keep up the family worship; but it is practically unknown among the Jews. The paterfamilias alone could worship in classical lands; whereas Gideon could bring an offering to the angel (Judges, vi. 18 et seq.), though he was still in the house of his father. There are no signs of the reception of the wife into the family cult in ancient Israel, though inheritance is only through males as in Rome. Succession only through agnates does not always occur where Ancestor Worship exists, as, for example, in Egypt, where a daughter has the right to succeed. The need of descendants in Israel is not for the purpose of obtaining offerings to oneself, but to have as large a family as possible, probably for purposes of protection.
10.
Ancestor Worship and the Tribes: If the tribe grew out of Ancestor Worship it must have come first as a family; whereas in nomad tribes, like the ancient Israelites, the clan comes first. In the family sacrifice of the Romans, there is no indication that the eponymous heroes of the clan were worshiped; so that the analogies from the graves of heroes are not an exact parallel. If ancestors had been worshiped, many proper names would have been found expressing such worship; but they do not occur. The local worship at Shechem, Hebron, etc., if it existed, must have been Canaanitish in nature, and could not have been derived from the nomadic period of the Israelites.
Conclusion:
These objections of Grüneisen differ greatly in force. While he has deprived some of Stade's arguments, notably those relating to mourning and burial customs, of some of their weight, he leaves much unexplained with regard to offerings to the dead, oracles and incantations, and family worship. The amount of evidence offered by the Old Testament itself is not sufficient to afford a solution of the question, thus leaving it to be solved on general anthropological principles. At present the general trend of anthropological opinion on this subject is rather against than for Ancestor Worship as the primitive form of religion.
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=1488&letter=A
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"Yahweh"
Many scholars attempting to reconnect African Americans to the Ancient Hebrew Israelites, make the mistake of trying find the supreme God of the Israelites evident within the culture through specific title..
I believe that this is impossible where as even EUROPEAN JEWS do NOT use the term YAHWEH, this should be a clue to many that the title was to be rediscovered by those who meant to worship this specific God.
Why is This? There may be many possible reasons, one could be to irrdicate the paganism this worship may have carried with it throughout eras of the Judahite and Israelite Kingdoms
"Both the archaeological evidence and the Biblical texts document tensions between groups comfortable with the worship of Yahweh alongside local deities such as Asherah and Baal and those insistent on worship of Yahweh alone during the monarchal period.[21] The Deuteronomistic source gives evidence of a strong monotheistic party during the reign of king Josiah during the late 7th century BCE, but the strength and prevalence of earlier monotheistic worship of Yahweh is widely debated based on interpretations of how much of the Deuteronomistic history is accurately based on earlier sources, and how much has been re-worked by Deuteronomistic redactors to bolster their theological views.[22] The archaeological record documents widespread polytheism in and around Israel during the period of the monarchy" - wiki
"Jews ceased to use the name in the Greco-Roman period, replacing it with the common noun Elohim, “god”, to demonstrate the universal sovereignty of Israel's God over all others; at the same time, the divine name was increasingly regarded as too sacred to be uttered, and was replaced in spoken ritual by the word Adonai (“My Lord”), or with haShem (“the Name”) in everyday speech. From about the 6th to the 10th century, it is believed that Jewish scholars used the vowel signs of the Hebrew words Adonai or Elohim as the vowels for YHWH, producing the name Jehovah (YeHoWaH), and this was adopted by Christian scholars after the Renaissance."
NO SOURCE IS EXACTLY SURE HOW THIS NAME CEASED TO BE USED BESIDES CONSTANT PERSECUTION THROUGH CENTURIES..
"Heterodox Yahwism is described by Miller as a mixture of some elements of orthodox worship of Yahweh with particular practices that conflicted with orthodox Yahwism or were not customarily a part of it. For example, heterodox Yahwism included the presence of cult objects rejected in more orthodox expressions, such as the asherah, which seems to have been present in different forms throughout the period of the monarchy and perhaps before. Likewise, the pillar, rejected by orthodox Yahwism, was also used in cultic centers on occasion, as evidenced by objects excavated at some cultic sites. Furthermore, figurines of various sorts (females, horses and riders, animals and birds) have been found at Israelite and Judean sites, usually extramural sites described as "nonconformist" by John Holladay.[47] Miller also asserts that the worship of Yahweh using calves or bulls in the Northern Kingdom should probably also be assigned to the heterodox category"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahweh
The title and name Yahweh not only reveals the God of Israel, but also ironically reveals the problems Israel had with preserving their religion amongst many others, how would the Israelites know how to keep their religion without a publishing manuscript? Very few customs will actually be preserved throughout generations.
European Jews VS African Jews?
Sense genes have not been able to prove anyone a Jew over anyone else, can we say European Jews have created a better environment of preservation and have also preserve the most original version of Yahwistic or Judaic worship?
European Jews preserve a Talmud which in some cases can be just as controversial as Voodoo
Christian accusations against the Talmud have tended to fall into several categories, including alleged:
1. Anti-Christian or anti-Gentile content
2. Insults against Jesus or the Virgin Mary (see Yeshu)
3. Absurd or sexually immoral content
4. Falsification of scripture
Such accusations often shade into attacks on Jews or Judaism generally, and should be distinguished from criticisms of the Talmud (including some criticism by Jews) on grounds such as excessive legalism, strained reasoning, unhistoric content and superstitious beliefs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talmud#Attacks_on_the_Talmud
And again European Jews use the popular term Hashem over Yahweh which have absolutely no connection.
"Sanhedrin 90a MISHNAH. ALL ISRAEL28 HAVE A PORTION IN THE WORLD TO COME, FOR IT IS WRITTEN, THY PEOPLE ARE ALL RIGHTEOUS; THEY SHALL INHERIT THE LAND FOR EVER, THE BRANCH OF MY PLANTING, THE WORK OF MY HANDS, THAT I MAY BE GLORIFIED.’ BUT THE FOLLOWING HAVE NO PORTION THEREIN: HE WHO MAINTAINS THAT RESURRECTION IS NOT A BIBLICAL DOCTRINE, THE TORAH WAS NOT DIVINELY REVEALED, AND AN EPIKOROS. R. AKIBA ADDED: ONE WHO READS UNCANONICAL BOOKS. ALSO ONE WHO WHISPERS [A CHARM] OVER A WOUND AND SAYS, I WILL BRING NONE OF THESE DISEASES UPON THEE WHICH I BROUGHT UPON THE EGYPTIANS: FOR I AM THE LORD THAT HEALETH THEE.’ ABBA SAUL SAYS: ALSO ONE WHO PRONOUNCES THE DIVINE NAME AS IT IS SPELT." - Talmud
What about the Tanakh?
THE FIRST TANAKH WAS ACTUALLY PUBLISHED BY A CHRISTIAN
Daniel Bomberg (died 1549) was an early printer of Hebrew language books. A Christian, born in Antwerp, he was primarily active in Venice between 1516 and 1549.
He produced the editio princeps of the Mikraot Gedolot, the Rabbinic Bible, consisting of the Hebrew text plus rabbinical commentaries, between 1516 and 1517, and the first and oldest complete set of the Talmud, between 1520 and 1523, a well-preserved copy of which is contained in the Valmadonna Trust Library.
AND THIS WAS DONE AFTER MANY CHRISTIAN VERSIONS OF THE BIBLE WERE ALREADY PUBLISHED VERSIONS LIKE the Gutenberg Bible in 1455.
Other factors that must be considered are forced conversions of Africans while Europeans generally were free to practice Judaism while they mostly dealt with exile in worse cases.
Though in many cases African Jews seemed to retain their identity using 12 piece breastplates for the priests with head covering, and long robes as instructed in the Old Testament. And almost immediately after the all slaves were free and slavery made unconstitutional, Black Hebrew Israelite sects in America seemed to pop up immediately and even in many cases having more dominance than black muslims...
"The Church of God and Saints of Christ was established in Lawrence, Kansas, in 1896 by William Saunders Crowdy.[24] The group established its headquarters in Philadelphia in 1899, and Crowdy later relocated to Washington, D.C., in 1903."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Hebrew_Israelites
It is discussed that the term MOOR was actually used by black Israelites in Zionist Temples which actually is recorded to be the educational center for the NOI and Moorish movements which would later gain power in America.
Therefore I believe personally that I have given good reason for any African American to be just as Jewish as any European.
I suggest that one would read amongst this group more to rediscover the facts about European Jews vs African Jews.
Just Because You Don't Know Your Jewish Doesn't Mean Your not Jewish
The Jews who didn’t know they were Jewish
http://www.thejc.com/lifestyle/lifestyle-features/25763/the-jews-who-didn%E2%80%99t-know-they-were-jewish
Daniel Bomberg (died 1549) was an early printer of Hebrew language books. A Christian, born in Antwerp, he was primarily active in Venice between 1516 and 1549.
He produced the editio princeps of the Mikraot Gedolot, the Rabbinic Bible, consisting of the Hebrew text plus rabbinical commentaries, between 1516 and 1517, and the first and oldest complete set of the Talmud, between 1520 and 1523, a well-preserved copy of which is contained in the Valmadonna Trust Library.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Bomberg
NO SPECIFIC CULTURE TO PRESERVE THE HEBREW LANGUAGE
Biblical Hebrew, also called Classical Hebrew, is the archaic form of the Hebrew language in which the Hebrew Bible and various Israelite inscriptions were written.
It is not spoken in its pure form today, although it is often studied by Jews, Christian theologians, linguists, and Israeli archaeologists to help them gain a deeper understanding of the Hebrew Bible and Semitic philology. Classical Hebrew is also generally taught in public schools in Israel.
Extinct as a regularly spoken language by the 4th century CE, but survived as a liturgical and literary language; revived in the 1880s
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_Hebrew
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_language
Judaism:
Rabbinic Judaism or Rabbinism (Hebrew: "Yahadut Rabanit" - יהדות רבנית) is a term used by critical bible scholars who believe that the talmudic interpretation of Judaism originated with the closure of the redaction of the Talmud. This is in contrast to the Orthodox Jewish view that the oral law was given along with the five books of Moses, and that the only authentic form of Judaism was always equivalent to Rabbinic Judaism.
According to critical bible scholars Rabbinic Judaism has been the mainstream form of Judaism since the sixth century CE, after the codification of the Talmud.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbinic_Judaism
(This Is The Same Century Of A Massive Nation Wide Convert To "Judaism")
Origin of the term "Judaism"
The earliest instance of the term in English, used to mean "the profession or practice of the Jewish religion; the religious system or polity of the Jews," is Robert Fabyan's The newe cronycles of Englande and of Fraunce a 1513. As an English translation of the Latin, the first instance in English is a 1611 translation of the Apocrypha, 2 Macc. ii. 21 "Those that behaved themselues manfully to their honour for Iudaisme."
The term Judaism derives from the Latin Iudaismus, derived from the Greek Ιουδαϊσμός Ioudaïsmos, and ultimately from the Hebrew יהודה, Yehudah, "Judah";[59][60] in Hebrew: יַהֲדוּת, Yahadut. It first appears as the Hellenistic Greek iudaismos in 2nd Maccabees in the 2nd century BCE. In the context of the age and period it held the meaning of seeking or forming part of a cultural entity, that of iudea, the Greek derivative of Persian Yehud, and can be compared with hellenismos, meaning acceptance of Hellenic cultural norms (the conflict between iudaismos and hellenismos lay behind the Maccabeean revolt and hence the invention of the term iudaismos).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaism
Early Converts:
"Sh'maya (Hebrew: שמעיה, or Shemaiah, Samaias or Sameas) was a rabbinic sage in the early pre-Mishnaic era who lived at the same time as Avtalyon. They are known as one of the zuggot ("couples"): Sh'maya and Avtalyon. Both Sh'maya and Avtalyon were converts to Judaism and were both descendants of King Sancheriv of Assyria who destroyed the northern Kingdom of Israel."
"He was a leader of the Pharisees in the first century BC; president of the Sanhedrin before and during the reign of Herod the Great."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sh%27maya_%28Mishnah%29
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"bht'alyon, also Avtalyon, Avtalion and Abtalion (Hebrew: אבטליון) was a rabbinic sage in the early pre-Mishnaic era who lived at the same time as Sh'maya."
"A leader of the Pharisees in the middle of the first century BC and by tradition vice-president of the great Sanhedrin of Jerusalem. He was of heathen descent (Bab. Yoma, 71b; 'Eduy. v.6; Giṭ. 57b; Yer. M. Ḳ. iii.81b; see Weiss, Dor Dor we-Dorshaw, i.1, and Landau, p. 319). Despite this fact, Abtalion, as well as his colleague, Shemaiah, the president of the Sanhedrin, was one of the most influential and beloved men of his time."
"He was a leader of the Pharisees in the first century BC; president of the Sanhedrin before and during the reign of Herod the Great."
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Onkelos (אונקלוס) is the name of a famous convert to Judaism in Tannaic times (c.35-120 CE). He is considered to be the author of the famous Targum Onkelos (c.110 CE).
The Talmud states that "a person should complete his portions of scripture along with the community, reading the scripture twice and the targum once." This passage is taken by many to refer to Targum Onkelos.
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Helena was queen of Adiabene and wife of Monobaz I. With her husband she was the mother of Izates II and Monobaz II. She died about 56 CE. Her name and the fact that she was her husband's sister indicate a Hellenistic origin. Helena became a convert to Judaism about the year 30 CE.
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"Izates II or Izates bar Monobaz (also known as Izaates) (ca. 1-55 CE) was a proselyte to Judaism who became King of the Parthian client kingdom of Adiabene. He was the son of Queen Helena of Adiabene and Monobaz I. During his youth he was sent by his father to the court of King Abennerig of Characene in Charax Spasinu. While in Charax Izates became acquainted with a Jewish merchant named Ananias"
Ananias of Adiabene was a Jewish merchant and mendicant proselytizer, probably of Hellenistic origin, who, in the opening years of the common era, was prominent at the court of Abinergaos I, king of Characene.
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Symacho (fl. early 1st c. CE) was the daughter of King Abinergaos I of Characene. She was converted to Judaism by Ananias of Adiabene. Symacho married Izates bar Monobaz during the latter's sojourn in Charax as a youth. She presumably went with him when he left to take up his throne in Adiabene.
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Aquila of Sinope was a 2nd Century CE native of Pontus in Anatolia known for producing an exceedingly literal translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek around 130 CE. He was a proselyte to Judaism and a disciple of Rabbi Akiba (d. circa 135 CE).
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Monobaz II or Monobaz bar Monobaz was the son of Helena of Adiabene and Monobaz I. Like his brother Izates bar Monobaz and his mother, Monobaz became a convert to Judaism. He ruled as king of Adiabene after the death of his brother Izates around 55 CE.
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Titus Flavius Clemens was a great-nephew of the Roman Emperor Vespasian. He was the son of Titus Flavius Sabinus (consul 69), brother to Titus Flavius Sabinus (consul 82) and a second cousin to Roman Emperors to Titus and Domitian.
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Fulvia, the wife of Tiberius' 'amicus' Saturninus, lived during the reign of the Roman Emperor Tiberius. (She is sometimes confused with Fulvia the wife of Marcus Antonius who died before the Principate began.)
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Paulina Beturia was a Roman covert to Judaism (about the year 50), known under the name "Sarah," who, according to her Latin epitaph, was eighty-six years and six months old at the time of her death. For sixteen years she was a Jewess, a mother of the synagogues ("mater synagogarum") of the Campesian and Volumnian communities in Rome.
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Tub'a Abu Kariba As'ad (Abu Kariba) was the Himyarite king of Yemen. He ruled Yemen from 390-420 CE.[2] Abu Kariba is commonly cited as the first of several kings of Arabia to convert to Judaism.
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Yūsuf Dhū Nuwas, (Arabic: يوسف ذو نواس) (also Yūsuf Asar Dhū Nuwas or Dunaan; ruled 517 – 525) was the last king of the Himyarite kingdom of Yemen and a convert to Judaism.
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Bulan was a Khazar king who led the conversion of the Khazars to Judaism. His name means "elk" in Old Turkic. The date of his reign is unknown, as the date of the conversion is hotly disputed, though it is certain that Bulan reigned some time between the mid-700s and the mid-800s. Nor is it settled whether Bulan was the Bek or the Khagan of the Khazars.
D.M. Dunlop was certain that Bulan was a Khagan; however, more recent works, such as The Jews of Khazaria by Kevin Brook, assume that he was the Bek due to references to him leading military campaigns. Khazar tradition held that before his own conversion, Bulan was religiously unaffiliated. In his quest to discover which of the three Abrahamic religions would shape his own religious beliefs, he invited representatives from each to explain their fundamental tenets. In the end, he chose Judaism.
In the Khazar Correspondence, King Joseph traces his lineage back to Bulan. He refers to the reforming Khazar ruler Obadiah as being one of "the sons of the sons of Bulan". While Brook assumes this makes Obadiah Bulan's grandson, the Hebrew phrase is less definitive and may allude to a more remote descent. The royal descendants of Bulan are referred to by Khazar researchers as Bulanids, though their self-designation is unknown.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulan_%28Khazar%29
The Khazars were a semi-nomadic Turkic people who dominated the Pontic steppe and the North Caucasus from the 7th to the 10th century. The name "Khazar"[1] seems to be tied to a Turkic verb form meaning "wandering".[2]
In the 7th century, the Khazars founded an independent Khaganate in the Northern Caucasus along the Caspian Sea. Although the Khazars were initially Tengri shamanists, many converted to the Abrahamic faiths through interaction with the Byzantine Empire and successive Islamic caliphates; during the 8th or 9th century, the Khaganate adopted Judaism as the state religion. At their height, the Khazars and their tributaries controlled much of what is today southern Russia, western Kazakhstan, eastern Ukraine, Azerbaijan, large portions of the Northern Caucasus (Circassia, Dagestan), parts of Georgia, the Crimea, and Northeastern Turkey.
Between 965 and 969, their sovereignty was broken by Sviatoslav I of Kiev, and they became a subject people of Kievan Rus'. Gradually displaced by the Rus, the Kipchaks, and later the conquering Mongol Golden Horde, the Khazars largely disappeared as a culturally distinct people.
The origins of the Khazars are unclear.
At some point in the last decades of the 8th century or the early 9th century, the Khazar royalty and nobility converted to Judaism, and part of the general population followed. The extent of the conversion is debated. Ibn al-Faqih reported in the 10th century that "all the Khazars are Jews."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khazars
Medieval Kingdom of Khazaria, 652-1016
Over a thousand years ago, the far east of Europe was ruled by Jewish kings who presided over numerous tribes, including their own tribe: the Turkic Khazars. After their conversion, the Khazar people used Jewish personal names, spoke and wrote in Hebrew, were circumcised, had synagogues and rabbis, studied the Torah and Talmud, and observed Hanukkah, Pesach, and the Sabbath. The Khazars were an advanced civilization with one of the most tolerant societies of the medieval period. It hosted merchants from all over Asia and Europe. On these pages it is hoped that you may learn more about this fascinating culture.
Christian of Stavelot, in Expositio in Matthaeum Evangelistam (864):
"At the present time we know of no nation under the heavens where Christians do not live. For [Christians are even found] in the lands of Gog and Magog -- who are a Hunnic race and are called Gazari (Khazars)... circumcized and observing all [the laws of] Judaism. The Bulgars, however, who are of the same seven tribes [as the Khazars], are now becoming baptized [into Christianity]."
Ahmad ibn Fadlan, in his travellogue (c. 922):
"The Khazars and their king are all Jews."
Ibn al-Faqih (c. 930):
"All of the Khazars are Jews. But they have been Judaized recently."
Khazar King Joseph, in his Reply to Hasdai ibn-Shaprut (c. 955):
"After those days there arose from the sons of Bulan's sons a king, Obadiah by name. He was an upright and just man. He reorganized the kingdom and established the Jewish religion properly and correctly. He built synagogues and schools, brought in many Israelite sages, honored them with silver and gold, and they explained to him the 24 Books of the Bible, Mishnah, Talmud, and the order of prayers established by the Khazzans. He was a man who feared God and loved the law and the commandments."
Abd al-Jabbar ibn Muhammad al-Hamdani, in The Establishment of Proofs for the Prophethood of Our Master Muhammad (c. 1009-1010):
"One of the Jews undertook the conversion of the Khazars, who are composed of many peoples, and they were converted by him and joined his religion. This happened recently in the days of the Abbasids.... For this was a man who came single-handedly to a king of great rank and to a very spirited people, and they were converted by him without any recourse to violence and the sword. And they took upon themselves the difficult obligations enjoined by the law of the Torah, such as circumcision, the ritual ablutions, washing after a discharge of the semen, the prohibition of work on the Sabbath and during the feasts, the prohibition of eating the flesh of forbidden animals according to this religion, and so on."
Abraham ibn Daud of Toledo, Spain, in The Book of Tradition (1161):
"You will find the communities of Israel spread abroad... as far as Dailam and the river Itil where live Khazar peoples who became proselytes. The Khazar king Joseph sent a letter to Hasdai ibn-Shaprut and informed him that he and all his people followed the rabbinical faith. We have seen descendants of the Khazars in Toledo, students of the wise, and they have told us that the remnant of them is of the rabbinical belief."
Dimashqi (1327):
"Ibn-al-Athir tells how in the days of Harun, the emperor of Byzantium forced the Jews to emigrate. They came to the Khazar country, where they found an intelligent but untutored race and offered them their religion. The inhabitants found it better than their own and accepted it."
http://www.khazaria.com/
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In the 6th century most Khazars convert to what would be come known as Judaism
This is the exact century Jewish and secular scholars would coin the birth of Modern Judaism
After the Khazar dissolve in the 9th Century, they would never again be known as Khazar Jews, only Jews.
The oldest synagogue fragments are stone synagogue dedication inscriptions stones found in middle and lower Egypt and dating from the third century BCE.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldest_synagogues_in_the_world
"And all the Israelites, both small and great, and the captains of the armies, arose, and came to Egypt: for they were afraid of the Chaldees." - 2 Kings
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Massive Assyrian Half Conversion And Take Over
And the king of Assyria brought men from Babylon, and from Cuthah, and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel: and they possessed Samaria, and dwelt in the cities thereof.
And so it was at the beginning of their dwelling there, that they feared not the LORD: therefore the LORD sent lions among them, which slew some of them.
Wherefore they spake to the king of Assyria, saying, The nations which thou hast removed, and placed in the cities of Samaria, know not the manner of the God of the land: therefore he hath sent lions among them, and, behold, they slay them, because they know not the manner of the God of the land.
Then the king of Assyria commanded, saying, Carry thither one of the priests whom ye brought from thence; and let them go and dwell there, and let him teach them the manner of the God of the land.
Then one of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria came and dwelt in Bethel, and taught them how they should fear the LORD.
Howbeit every nation made gods of their own, and put them in the houses of the high places which the Samaritans had made, every nation in their cities wherein they dwelt.
And the men of Babylon made Succothbenoth, and the men of Cuth made Nergal, and the men of Hamath made Ashima,
And the Avites made Nibhaz and Tartak, and the Sepharvites burnt their children in fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim.
So they feared the LORD, and made unto themselves of the lowest of them priests of the high places, which sacrificed for them in the houses of the high places.
They feared the LORD, and served their own gods, after the manner of the nations whom they carried away from thence.
Unto this day they do after the former manners: they fear not the LORD, neither do they after their statutes, or after their ordinances, or after the law and commandment which the LORD commanded the children of Jacob, whom he named Israel
(So these nations feared the LORD, and served their graven images, both their children, and their children's children: as did their fathers, so do they unto this day.)
- 2 Kings 17
"They themselves, to the contrary, claimed to be authentic "Israelites,"
the posterity of Jacob-Israel. Since they had no other prophet but Moses, and the Pentateuch was their unique Holy Book, they might appear as the true guardians of the ancient monotheistic belief. In fact, they were a Jewish sect whose members continued to observe
the essential rites of Judaism, but held divergent views concerning the localization of the sanctuary in which the Eternal had ordained that the Hebrews offer Him their sacrifices: for the Samaritans, this sacred site was not Jerusalem but Mount Gerizim"
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Israel Back In Egypt:
The Elephantine papyri are caches of legal documents and letters written in Aramaic, which document a community of Jewish soldiers, with perhaps an admixture of Samaritans, stationed here during the Persian occupation of Egypt. They maintained their own temple (also see House of Yahweh), evincing polytheistic beliefs, which functioned alongside that of Khnum, . The association of the God of Israel with Khnum, a bull-headed deity, is reminiscent of the condemned portrayal of YHWH as a golden calf in Exodus.
The Jewish community at Elephantine was probably founded as a military installation circa 650 BCE during Manasseh's reign, to assist Pharaoh Psammetichus I in his Nubian campaign (See Investigating the Origin of the Ancient Jewish Community at Elephantine: A Review. ) The documents cover the period 495 to 399 BCE.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephantine
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Greeks In Egypt, Palestine And Israel
The Greeks probably were the first to record information about the customs, life styles and societies of the different peoples whom they encountered or heard about during their travels in various parts of the world. Jews were one of the many peoples whom they met and observed.[10] The "father of history", Herodotus, who visited Egypt under Persian rule in the 450s BCE, wrote extensively about the Egyptians and referred to the "Syrians of Palestine" who were circumcised and were assumed to be the Jews.[11] In fact, it is likely that it was Herodotus who coined the name "Palestine," namely, the area of the Land of Israel, as his encounter was with the descendants of the Philistines who inhabited the coastal towns of Gaza, Ashdod, and Ashkelon. The Jews inhabited the landlocked region of Jerusalem and its surrounding hills, known as Judea.[12]
During the decades and centuries following the conquest of the Near East by Alexander the Great in the 330s and 320s BCE, Greek soldiers and civilians populated and colonized the entire area, established major cities, such as Alexandria in Egypt, and spread their system of local government, language, culture, art, religion, and way of life throughout the region. The Greeks promoted and advocated the adoption of their life style and mores; namely, Hellenization, which in contemporary parlance may be termed the first manifestation of "globalization." All the peoples whom they ruled and amongst whom they lived, including the Jews in the Land of Israel and the Diaspora (a Greek term), had to contend with the challenge of Hellenization through assimilation, adaptation or resistance.[13]
The Jewish Identity of Jerusalem in Greek and Roman Sources*
Rivkah Fishman-Duker
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Region. Idumea was a Greek word meaning "pertaining to Edom". This term was given by the Greeks and Romans for the country of Edom on the S borders of Judea inhabited by Idumeans (Edomites) (Mark 3:8; Is 34:5-6; Ezek 35:15; 36:5). After the fall of Jerusalem (587 B.C.) the Edomites began to advance northward (Ezek 36:5). By 312 B.C. the Nabataeans, who established themselves in Edom, drove them from Petra. The Edomites were gradually forced into the S half of Judea, including the region around Hebron, an area that the Greeks later called Idumea.
http://www.bible-history.com/
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Roman Coins Made In Jerusalem
http://fontes.lstc.edu/~rklein/images/CO4C.JPG
4c struck in Jerusalem-Yehud on left, head of Athena on right
http://fontes.lstc.edu/~rklein/Documents/yehud.htm
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Why Would Israel Do Almost Anything To Escape The Greeks?
"This great Greek empire would last no longer than Alexander's brief life; after his death, altercations between his generals led to the division of his empire among three generals. One general, Antigonus and then later Ptolemy, inherited Egypt; another, Seleucus, inherited the Middle East and Mesopotamia. After two centuries of peace under the Persians, the Hebrew state found itself once more caught in the middle of power struggles between two great empires: the Seleucid state with its capital in Syria to the north and the Ptolemaic state, with its capital in Egypt to the south. Once more, Judah would be conquered first by one, and then by the other, as it shifted from being a Seleucid vassal state to a Ptolemaic vassal state. Between 319 and 302 BCE, Jerusalem changed hands seven times.
Like all others in the region, the Jews bitterly resented the Greeks. They were more foreign than any group they had ever seen. In a state founded on maintaining the purity of the Hebrew religion, the gods of the Greeks seemed wildly offensive. In a society rigidly opposed to the exposure of the body, the Greek practice of wrestling in the nude and deliberately dressing light must have been appalling! In a religion that specifically singles out homosexuality as a crime against Yahweh, the Greek attitude and even preference for homosexuality must have been incomprehensible. "
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/Greeks.html
The Greeks promoted and advocated the adoption of their life style and mores; namely, Hellenization, which in contemporary parlance may be termed the first manifestation of "globalization." All the peoples whom they ruled and amongst whom they lived, including the Jews in the Land of Israel and the Diaspora (a Greek term), had to contend with the challenge of Hellenization through assimilation, adaptation or resistance - Rivkah Fishman-Duker
A map would show that Israel would be surrounded by Greek Cities in both Palestine and Northern Israel
http://www.bible-books-maps.com/Historical-Maps/The-Greek-cities-in-Palestine.asp
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Simon Magus:
A personage frequently mentioned in the history of primitive Christianity. According to Acts viii. 9-23, he was greatly fearedthroughout Samaria on account of his magic powers; but he permitted himself to be baptized, and wished to purchase the gift of the Holy Ghost, being cursed by Peter for this presumptuousness. In spite of the definiteness of the statements regarding him, the historicity of Simon has been doubted by many critics, especially by Baur and his school, who held that he was a caricature of the "Apostle of the Gentiles." Such a view must, however, be regarded as a grave critical aberration (Harnack, "Dogmengeschichte," 1st ed., i. 179, note 1).
The early Christian Clementine "Recognitiones" (vii.-x.) represent Simon as a Jewish magician instead of a Samaritan, stating that he was a member of a Jewish household in Cæsarea, and that, when pursued by Peter, he fled to Judea. Mention is made, moreover, of a magician named Simon who lived in this very city of Cæsarea about the year 40 of the common era (Josephus, "Ant." xx. 7, § 2); so that some scholars consider the two to be identical (Hilgenfeld, "Ketzergeschichte," p. 170; Albert, "Die Ersten Fünfzehn Jahre der Christlichen Kirche," p. 114, Münster, 1900; Waitz, in "Zeitschrift für Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft," v. 128). This view can hardly be correct, however, although the notice, like other similar ones, serves to show that there were such magicians even among the Jews. The most reliable sources, including Justin Martyr, who was a Samaritan by birth, call Simon a native of Cæsarea; and, in harmony with this statement, the same authorities regard him as a pupil of Dositheus, the Samaritan heresiarch (but see Dositheus). Simon was, furthermore, regarded by all the Church Fathers as the great heretic from whose school and teaching sprang all the later motley heresies of Christianity; and inasmuch as his system contained Gnostic teaching, Gnosticism itself was ascribed to him, and a Gnostic figure was seen in his alleged wife Helena.
Read more: http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=798&letter=S#ixzz0z38Vz2da
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Forgeries In The Hebrew Religion May Occur As Early As 200 B.C.E:
"Susanna or Shoshana (Hebrew: שׁוֹשַׁנָּה, Modern Šošana Tiberian Šôšannâ: "lily") is one of the additions to Daniel, considered apocryphal by Protestants, but included in the Book of Daniel (as chapter 13) by the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. It is listed in Article VI of the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England as unscriptural. It is not included in the Jewish Tanakh, and is not mentioned in early Jewish literature."
"The Greek puns in the texts have been cited by some as proof that the text never existed in Hebrew or Aramaic, but other researchers have suggested pairs of words for trees and cutting that sound similar enough to suppose that they could have been used in an original. The Anchor Bible uses "yew" and "hew" and "clove" and "cleave" to get this effect in English. Others suggest that the puns were added by the Greek translator and say nothing about the original form of the text."
"The Greek text survives in two versions. The Septuagint's text appears only in the Codex Chisianus. The version of Theodotion, is the one that appears in Roman Catholic bibles. It was regarded as a part of the Daniel literature and was placed at the beginning of the Book of Daniel in manuscripts of the Old Testament. Jerome placed it at the end of Daniel, with a notice that it is not found in the Hebrew Bible."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susanna_%28Book_of_Daniel%29
What Does DNA Say About Relations Between the Converts and Modern Judaism
"Modern Samaritans have always claimed to be the descendants of Israelites of the Northern Kingdom who escaped the deportations. They remained behind during the Babylonian Captivity, and thus introduced none of the religious changes brought about among the Jews during this time.
However, Jewish tradition states, The king of the Assyrians then brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, and other places to Samaria. The king of the Assyrians sent one of the priests from Bethel to teach the new settlers about God's ordinances. The eventual result was that the new settlers worshipped both the God of the land and their own gods from the countries from which they came. Modern DNA evidence validates both local and foreign origins for the Samaritans.
One genetic study (Shen, et al., 2004) concluded from Y chromosome analysis that Samaritans descend from the Israelites (including Kohen, or priests). Other evidence using mitochondrial DNA analysis shows descent from Assyrians and other foreign women.
By the beginning of the 20th century there were only 150 of them left. With the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 this minute community was split into two centers --- one under Jordanian rule and the other in Israel. The Six-Day War in 1967 ended the isolation of the two branches and under the protection of the Israel government, their population has grown to about 500 persons." (Encyclopedia Judaica Jr.)
Although living in Israel, the Samaritans do not pledge allegiance to either the Palestinians and the Israeli's, preferring to maintain neutrality on the issue of the state of Israel. "
http://www.ldssundayschool.org/Samaritans
Israel ruled by preIslamic Convert Nabateans
"Herod was born around 74 BCE. He was the second son of Antipater the Idumaean, a high-ranked official under Ethnarch Hyrcanus II, and Cypros, a Nabatean. A loyal supporter of Hyrcanus II, Antipater appointed Herod governor of Galilee at 25, and his elder brother, Phasael, governor of Jerusalem. He enjoyed the backing of Rome but his excessive brutality was condemned by the Sanhedrin."
"For about 100 years there has been a consensus among scholars that Herod the Great reigned from 37 to 4 BCE. However, there have been several challenges to this consensus over the past four decades, the most notable being the objection raised by W.E. Filmer. This paper argues that Herod most likely reigned from late 39 BCE to early 1 BCE, and that this reconstruction of his reign can account for all of the surviving historical references to the events of Herod's reign more logically than the current consensus can. Moreover, the reconstruction of Herod's reign proposed in this paper accounts for all of the datable evidence relating to Herod's reign, whereas the current consensus is unable to explain some of the evidence that it dismisses as ancient errors or that it simply ignores."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herod_the_Great
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/brill/not/2009/00000051/00000001/art00001
Israel Ruled By Samaritans and Nabateans
http://www.mideastweb.org/christ.jpg
"Palestine inhabited by a mixed population
The "chauvinist Arab version of history," then--so important to the current claim of "Palestinian" rights to "Arab Palestine," which Arab Palestinians purportedly inhabited for "thousands of years" --omits several relevant, situation-altering facts
History did not begin with the Arab conquest in the seventh century. The people whose nation was destroyed by the Romans were the Jews. There were no Arab Palestinians then -- not until seven hundred years later would an Arab rule prevail, and then briefly. And not by people known as "Palestinians." The short Arab rule would be reigning over Christians and Jews, who had been there to languish under various other foreign conquerors, -- Roman, Byzantine, Persian, to name just three in the centuries between the Roman and Arab conquests. The peoples who conquered under the banner of the invading Arabians from the desert were often hired mercenaries who remained on the land as soldiers -- not Arabians, but others who were enticed by the promise of the booty of conquest.
From the time the Arabians, along with their non-Arabian recruits, entered Palestine and Syria, they found and themselves added to what was "ethnologically a chaos of all the possible human combinations to which, when Palestine became a land of pilgrimage, a new admixture was added."1 Among the peoples who have been counted as "indigenous Palestinian Arabs" are Balkans, Greeks, Syrians, Latins, Egyptians, Turks, Armenians, Italians, Persians, Kurds, Germans, Afghans, Circassians, Bosnians, Sudanese, Samaritans, Algerians, Motawila, and Tartars.
John of Wurzburg lists for the middle era of the kingdom, Latins, Germans, Hungarians, Scots, Navarese, Bretons, English, Franks, Ruthenians, Bohemians, Greeks, Bulgarians, Georgians, Armenians, Syrians, Persian Nestorians, Indians,Egyptians, Copts, Maronites and natives from the Nile Delta. The list might be much extended, for it was the period of the great self-willed city-states in Europe, and Amalfi, Pisans, Genoese, Venetians, and Marseillais, who had quarters in all the bigger cities, owned villages, and had trading rights, would, in all probability, have submitted to any of the above designations, only under pressure. Besides all these, Norsemen, Danes, Frisians, Tartars, Jews, Arabs, Russians, Nubians, and Samaritans, can be safely added to the greatest human agglomeration drawn together in one small area of the globe."
http://www.eretzyisroel.org/~peters/mixed.html
Alexandria
Alexandria in Easton's Bible Dictionary the ancient metropolis of Lower Egypt, so called from its founder, Alexander the Great (about B.C. 333). It was for a long period the greatest of existing cities, for both Nineveh and Babylon had been destroyed, and Rome had not yet risen to greatness. It was the residence of the kings of Egypt for 200 years. It is not mentioned in the Old Testament, and only incidentally in the New. Apollos, eloquent and mighty in the Scriptures, was a native of this city (Acts 18:24). Many Jews from Alexandria were in Jerusalem, where they had a synagogue (Acts 6:9), at the time of Stephen's martyrdom. At one time it is said that as many as 10,000 Jews resided in this city. It possessed a famous library of 700,000 volumes, which was burned by the Saracens (A.D. 642). It was here that the Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek. This is called the Septuagint version, from the tradition that seventy learned men were engaged in executing it. It was, however, not all translated at one time. It was begun B.C. 280, and finished about B.C. 200 or 150. (See VERSION ¯T0003768.)
http://www.bible-history.com/eastons/A/Alexandria/
Sirach, by Ben Sira, also known as Wisdom of Jesus son of Sirach, the Wisdom of Ben Sira, or Ecclesiasticus, is a work from the second century BC, originally written in Hebrew.
In Egypt, it was translated into Greek by the author's grandson, who added a prologue. The Prologue to Ben Sira is generally considered the earliest witness to a canon of the books of the prophets, and thus the date of the text as we have it is the subject of intense scrutiny.
The Book Ben Sira ("ספר "בן סירא) was originally written in Hebrew, and is also known as Proverbs of Ben Sira (משלי בן סירא) or Wisdom of Ben Sira (חכמת בן סירא).
Ben Sira wrote his work in Jerusalem at some point before 180 BC, and worked as a scribe.
In the early 20th century several substantial Hebrew texts of Ben Sira, copied in the eleventh and twelfth centuries AD, were found in the Cairo geniza (a synagogue storage room for damaged manuscripts). Although none of these manuscripts is complete, together they provide the text for about two-thirds of the book of Ben Sira. According to Frederic Kenyon, this shows that the book was originally written in Hebrew. (Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts. Rev. by A.W. Adams. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1958. 83.) That Sirach was originally written in Hebrew may be of some significance for the biblical canon. The book was accepted into the canon of the Old Testament by Catholicism and Eastern Orthdoxy but not by Judaism or Protestantism. (Palestinian Jews apparently determined the final form of the Jewish scriptures at the rabbinic university at Jamnia or "Javneh" c. AD 100) Since Talmudic references to Jamnia suggest that at least some decisions about which books to include in the Bible were based on language (e.g., to be inspired a book must have been written in Hebrew), perhaps Sirach was rejected because no Hebrew manuscripts of it were known at Jamnia at that time.
In the 1950s and 1960s three copies of portions of Ben Sira were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. The largest scroll was discovered at Masada, the famous Jewish fortress destroyed in 73 AD. The earliest of these scrolls (2Q18) has been dated to the second part of the 1st century BC, approximately 150 years after Ben Sira was first composed. These early Hebrew texts are in substantial agreement with the Hebrew texts discovered in Cairo, although there are numerous minor textual variants. With these findings, scholars are now more confident that the Cairo texts are reliable witnesses to the Hebrew original.
"Ben Sirah, a Jew who had been living in Jerusalem, may have authored the work in Alexandria, Egypt circa 180–175 BC, where he is thought to have established a school"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirach
http://www.earlyjewishwritings.com/text/sirach.html
Bona-Fied Israelites Deep in Africa again After exile.....
"Further waves of Jewish immigrants settled in Egypt during the Ptolemaic era, especially around Alexandria. Thus, their history in this period centers almost completely on Alexandria, though daughter communities rose up in places like the present Kafr ed-Dawar, and Jews served in the administration as custodians of the river."
"The history of the Alexandrian Jews dates from the foundation of the city by Alexander the Great, 332 B.C., at which they were present. They were numerous from the very outset, forming a notable portion of the city's population under Alexander's successors. The Ptolemies assigned them a separate section, two of the five districts, of the city, to enable them to keep their laws pure of indigenous cultic influences. The Alexandrian Jews enjoyed a greater degree of political independence than elsewhere. While the Jews elsewhere throughout the later Roman Empire formed private societies for religious purposes, or else became a corporation of foreigners like the Egyptian and Phoenician merchants in the large commercial centers, those of Alexandria constituted an independent political community, side by side with that of the indigenous population."
"For the Roman period there is evidence that at Oxyrynchus (modern Behneseh), on the east side of the Nile, there was a Jewish community of some importance. It even had a Jews' street. Many of the Jews there must have become Christians, though they retained their Biblical names (e.g., "David" and "Elisabeth," occurring in a litigation concerning an inheritance). There is even found a certain Jacob, son of Achilles (c. 300 AD), as beadle of an Egyptian temple.
The Jewish community of Alexandria was virtually wiped out by Trajan 's army during a revolt in 115-117 CE., and Josephus puts the figure for those slaughtered in the vast pogrom at 50,000."
"The Arab invasion of Egypt found support not only from Copts, and other Christians, but from Jews as well, all disgruntled by the corrupt administration of the Patriarch Cyrus of Alexander, notorious for his Monotheletic proselytizing. In addition to the Jews settled there from early times, some must have come from the Arabian peninsula. The letter sent by Muhammad to the Jewish Banu Janba in 630 is said by Al-Baladhuri to have been seen in Egypt. A copy, written in Hebrew characters, has been found in the Cairo genizah.
16 The bronze from the two pillars, the Sea and the movable stands, which Solomon had made for the temple of the LORD, was more than could be weighed. 17 Each pillar was twenty-seven feet [e] high. The bronze capital on top of one pillar was four and a half feet [f] high and was decorated with a network and pomegranates of bronze all around. The other pillar, with its network, was similar.
18 The commander of the guard took as prisoners Seraiah the chief priest, Zephaniah the priest next in rank and the three doorkeepers. 19 Of those still in the city, he took the officer in charge of the fighting men and five royal advisers. He also took the secretary who was chief officer in charge of conscripting the people of the land and sixty of his men who were found in the city. 20 Nebuzaradan the commander took them all and brought them to the king of Babylon at Riblah. 21 There at Riblah, in the land of Hamath, the king had them executed.
So Judah went into captivity, away from her land.
22 Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon appointed Gedaliah son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, to be over the people he had left behind in Judah. 23 When all the army officers and their men heard that the king of Babylon had appointed Gedaliah as governor, they came to Gedaliah at Mizpah—Ishmael son of Nethaniah, Johanan son of Kareah, Seraiah son of Tanhumeth the Netophathite, Jaazaniah the son of the Maacathite, and their men. 24 Gedaliah took an oath to reassure them and their men. "Do not be afraid of the Babylonian officials," he said. "Settle down in the land and serve the king of Babylon, and it will go well with you."
25 In the seventh month, however, Ishmael son of Nethaniah, the son of Elishama, who was of royal blood, came with ten men and assassinated Gedaliah and also the men of Judah and the Babylonians who were with him at Mizpah. 26 At this, all the people from the least to the greatest, together with the army officers, fled to Egypt for fear of the Babylonians.
2 Kings 25
Pork only introduced to the African American cuisine during slavery?
"The term soul food became popular in the 1960s. The origins of soul food, however, are much older and can be traced back to Africa. Foods such as rice, sorghum (known by Europeans as "guinea corn"), and okra — all common elements in West African cuisine — were introduced to the Americas as a result of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and became dietary staples among enslaved Africans. They also comprise an important part of American southern cooking. Many culinary historians believe that in the beginning of the 14th century, around the time of early African exploration, European explorers brought their own food supplies and introduced them into the African diet. Foods such as corn and cassava from the Americas, turnips from Morocco and cabbage from Portugal would play an important part in the history of African American cuisine.[1]
When the European slave trade began in the early 15th century, the diet of newly enslaved Africans changed on the long journeys from their homeland. It was during this time that some of the indigenous crops of Africa began showing up in the Americas.[2]
Enslavers fed their captives as cheaply as possible, often with throwaway foods from the plantation, forcing slaves to make do with the ingredients at hand. In slave households, vegetables were the tops of turnips and beets and dandelions. Soon, slaves were cooking with new types of greens: collards, kale, cress, mustard, and pokeweed. They also developed recipes which used lard; cornmeal; and offal, discarded cuts of meat such as pigs' feet, oxtail, ham hocks, chitterlings (pig small intestines), pig ears, hog jowls, tripe and skin. Cooks added onions, garlic, thyme, and bay leaf to enhance the flavors. Some slaves supplemented their meager diets by maintaining small plots made available to them to grow their own vegetables, and many engaged in subsistence fishing and hunting, which yielded wild game for the table. Foods such as raccoon, squirrel, opossum, turtle, and rabbit were, until the 1950s, very common fare among the still predominantly rural and southern African American population."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soul_food
Age of Hellenism: Alexander the Great changed the face of Judea along with the rest of the known world. In 336 BC he became king of Macedomia and of the Greek city-states conquered by his father (Philip II). Within a decade he defeated the Persians and fell heir to their empire. In 332 BC he conquered Judea ..... The Greeks were interested not only in military victories, political expansion and economic gain; thet were also committed to disseminating their way of life. In addition to political hegemony and imposition of taxes, Greek conquest exposed the eastern Mediterranean lands and beyond to Hellenism (ibid) ...
Addendum: The shift from Hellenic to Hellenistic in the history of the Mediterranean world represents the shift from a culture dominated by ethnic Greeks - however scattered geographically - to a (1) culture dominated by Greek-speakers of whatever ethnicity and from (2) the political dominance of the city-state to that of larger monarchies (See WIKIPEDIA) ...
http://ancientneareast.tripod.com/Israelites.html
(3) THE GREEK EMPIRE
During this time, Alexander the Great conquered the known world; obviously, it was under God's sovereignty (as prophesied in Daniel 2:36-45). In fact, Alexander conquered the known world so quickly that it is beyond belief.
You see, Alexander the Great had a very, very small army that was always outnumbered by opposing forces; however, they moved with such a rapidity that even a modern army could not keep up. Somebody was helping them behind the scenes; that Person was God.
http://radicalgrace.com/matt5.htm
- Hellenized Jews
Large numbers of Jews lived outside Palestine in the first century. These are the Jews of the Diaspora, the "scattering," or "exile" of the Jews throughout the Greek world - first in 722 BC when the Assyrians declared war and conquered the northern kingdom of Israel, then in 588 BC the Chaldeans conquered the southern kingdom of Judah. The victors in both instances forced the Jews to be relocated, thus diluting their national and cultural strength. Over the next few centuries the Hebrew language was neglected and forgotten by these exiled Jews. Most diaspora Jews of the first century spoke Greek. In fact, sometime in the third century BC the Jewish scriptures (Old Testament, OT) were translated from Hebrew into Greek so that these Greek-speaking Jews could hear and understand the Law of Moses. This famous translation is known as the Septuagint (or LXX), a reference to the legendary story that 72 scribes translated the various texts in a 72 day period with a divinely inspired perfection of agreement.
These Jews of the diaspora were referred to as "Hellenized" ("Greek influenced") by the politically important, Hebrew-speaking Jews of Palestine. Palestinian Jews despised this Hellenization and these Hellenized Jews, believing they had compromised their religion. They could not speak Hebrew, God's language, nor could they understand the Law of Moses when read in Hebrew. When Hellenized Jews came to Jerusalem they were urged to attend Greek speaking synagogues so they could hear and understand Moses being read. They were not wanted in the Temple. We know that the Jews hated Samaritans, and were not fond of Gentiles. Luke tells us this prejudice found its way into the primitive church - Hellenized widows were being neglected.
http://www.churchhistory101.com/century1-p2.php
Foundation of the city of Alexandria. This city quickly becomes the most advanced center of learning in the whole of the Mediterranean and thus important for Jewish studies too.
323 Death of Alexander the Great. Body taken to Alexandria thus instantly elevating this city to preeminence within the vast confines of the Alexandrian empire. The Ptolemaic dynasty of which Cleopatra is the last of the rulers, strives to raise Alexandria to a position of unrivaled importance in the cultural world of the times. Most important is the fabulous library that they endow in Alexandria.
250 The Ptolemies in their active support of the arts and literature encourage the creation of a Greek Bible. This is the "Septuagint" Bible, meaning "The Seventy" named for the 70 Jewish scholars are are reputed to have collaborated on the creation of an authoritative text of the Jewish Bible in Greek. This Bible has enormous influence because it is in Greek and thus can carry the fame and power of the Jewish Bible all over the Mediterranean world.
http://www.westernciv.com/chronologies/chronisrael.shtml
The Christians and the Jews come into conflict, committing violent acts against each other, with the Christians ultimately wresting power from the only other religious group remaining. Davus, remembering how Hypatia forgave him, suggests that perhaps the Christians should forgive the Jews, as Jesus did, but the Christians respond by rebuking him for comparing himself with Jesus.
The leader of the Christians, Cyril (Sami Samir), views Hypatia as having too much influence over Orestes and stages a public ceremony intended to force Orestes to subjugate her. Hypatia's former pupil, Synesius, now the Bishop of Cyrene, comes to her rescue as a religious authority counterweight, but says he cannot help her unless she accepts Christianity; she refuses. Hypatia makes a great discovery, finding that the Earth orbits around the Sun in an elliptic, not circular, orbit with the Sun at one of the foci. Cyril convinces a mob of Christians that Hypatia is a witch and they vow to kill her. Davus tries to run ahead to warn Hypatia, but she is captured by the mob. They strip Hypatia naked and are about to skin her alive until Davus persuades the mob otherwise, settling to stone her instead. When everyone goes outside to collect stones, Davus, with Hypatia's consent, secretly suffocates her and tells the mob that she fainted. Since she is already dead, she does not feel anything when the crowd begins to stone her.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agora_%28film%29
power when the city was at its height of influence and power within the Roman Empire. Cyril wrote extensively and was a leading protagonist in the Christological controversies of the later 4th and 5th centuries. He was a central figure in the First Council of Ephesus in 431, which led to the deposition of Nestorius as Patriarch of Constantinople.
Cyril is counted among the Church Fathers and the Doctors of the Church, and his reputation within the Christian world has resulted in his titles Pillar of Faith and Seal of all the Fathers, but Theodosius II, the Roman Emperor, condemned him for behaving like a proud pharaoh, and the Nestorian bishops at the Council of Ephesus declared him a heretic, labelling him as a "monster, born and educated for the destruction of the church".[1]
Cyril is controversial because of his involvement in the expulsion of Novatians and Jews from Alexandria and the murder of the hellenistic philosopher Hypatia. Historians disagree over the extent of his responsibility for these events.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyril_of_Alexandria
So the Greeks wanted a copy and set about translating it. Called the Septuagint after the number of translators it required ("septuaginta" is Greek for "seventy"), the text is far from perfect. The Hebrew Torah had not settled down into a definitive version, and a number of mistranslations creep in for reasons ranging from political expediency to confusion. For instance, the Hebrew Torah is ruthlessly anti-Egyptian; after all, the founding event of the Hebrew people was the oppression of the Hebrews by the Egyptians and the delivery from Egypt. The Septuagint translators—who are, after all, working for the Greek rulers of Egypt—go about effacing much of the anti-Egyptian aspects. On the other hand, there are words they can't translate into Greek, such as "berit," which they translate "diatheke," or "promise" (in Latin and English, the word is incorrectly translated "covenant").
Despite these imperfections, the Septuagint is a watershed in Jewish history. More than any other event in Jewish history, this translation would make the Hebrew religion into a world religion. It would otherwise have faded from memory like the infinity of Semitic religions that have been lost to us. This Greek version made the Hebrew scriptures available to the Mediterranean world and to early Christians who were otherwise fain to regard Christianity as a religion unrelated to Judaism. Even with a Greek translation, the Hebrew scriptures came within a hair's breadth of being tossed out of the Christian canon. From this Greek translation, the Hebrew view of God, of history, of law, and of the human condition, in all its magnificence would spread around the world. The dispersion, or Diaspora, of the Jews would involve ideas as well as people.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/Greeks.html
Africa, in the broader sense, is clearly indicated where mention is made of the Ten Tribes having been driven into exile by the Assyrians and having journeyed into Africa. Connected with this is the idea that the river Sambation is in Africa. The Arabs, who also know the legend of the Beni Musa ("Sons of Moses"), agree with the Jews in placing their land in Africa.
According to records such as the Tarikh al-Sudan, the first recorded Jewish presence may have emerged in West Africa with the arrival of the first Zuwa ruler of Koukiya and his brother, located near the Niger River. He was known only as Zuwa Alayman (meaning “He comes from Yemen”). Some local legends state that Zuwa Alayman was a member of one of the Jewish communities that were either transported or voluntarily moved from Yemen by the Ethiopians in the 6th century C.E. after the defeat of Dhu Nuwas
Records of the Jewish history of Mali can still be found in the Kati Andalusi library. Ismael Diadie Haidara, a historian from Timbuktu, possesses old Arabic and Hebrew texts among the city's historical records. He has also researched his own past and discovered that he is descended from the Moroccan Jewish traders of the Abana family. As he interviewed elders in the villages of his relatives, he has discovered that knowledge of the family's Jewish identity has been preserved, in secret, out of fear of persecution.
"Its geographical setting made it a natural meeting point for nearby west African populations and nomadic Berber and Arab peoples from the north. Its long history as a trading outpost that linked west Africa with Berber, Arab, and Jewish traders throughout north Africa, and thereby indirectly with traders from Europe, has given it a fabled status, and in the West it was for long a metaphor for exotic, distant lands: "from here to Timbuktu."
"There are several thousand people of undoubted Jewish ancestry in Timbuktu, Mali"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jews_of_Bilad_el-Sudan#Mali_and_Songhay
"And all the Israelites, both small and great, and the captains of the armies, arose, and came to Egypt: for they were afraid of the Chaldees." - 2 Kings
"And all the Israelites, both small and great, and the captains of the armies, arose, and came to Egypt: for they were afraid of the Chaldees." - 2 Kings
"Studies of contemporary documents reveal seven regions from which Africans were sold or taken during the Atlantic slave trade. These regions were Senegambia, encompassing the coast from the Senegal River to the Casamance River, where captives as far away as the Upper and Middle Niger River Valley were sold;The Sierra Leone region included territory from the Casamance to the Assini River in the modern countries of Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Côte d'Ivoire;The Gold Coast region consisted of mainly modern Ghana;The Bight of Benin region stretched from the Volta River to the Benue River in modern Togo, Benin and southwestern Nigeria;The Bight of Biafra extended from southeastern Nigeria through Cameroon into Gabon;West Central Africa, the largest region, included the Congo and Angola; andThe region of Mozambique-Madagascar included the modern countries of Mozambique, parts of Tanzania and Madagascar."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_American_history
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Jews
Descendants of the Jews of the Bilad el-Sudan (West Africa). Jews whose ancestry was derived from the communities that once existed in the Ghana, Mali, and Songhay Empire. Anusim in and around Mali who descend from Jewish migrations from North Africa, East Africa, and Spain. - Wiki
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Le Republicain, May 29, 1996. It announced to the presidents of Mali and Israel, diplomatic missions in Mali and Jewish communities throughout the world, the presence of some 1,000 “Jews” in Timbuktu.
It was in Timbuktu, Mali, in the center of the northwestern hump of Africa, that Gold stumbled upon the lost Jewish community — or at least a group of people who descended from Jews — while serving as director of overall programming for the U.S. Agency for International Development mission from 1993 to 1997.
One of the poorest countries in the world, Mali has some 10 million people (two thirds under age 25), $250 per capita, 3 percent population growth and a mortality rate of 120 out of every 1,000.
It was in Timbuktu, Mali, in the center of the northwestern hump of Africa, that Gold first heard rumors about Timbuktu Jews from his colleagues at USAID and the Peace Corps, and from academics who followed the movement of Jews south from Spain and Morocco.
One of these academics was Ismael Diadie Haidara who founded the organization that issued the manifesto.
Zakhor, or the Timbuktu Association for Friendship with the Jewish World, began as an informal, unpublicized association in 1993. Then the manifesto came out, and Jews of Mali became international news.
The group went public in 1995-96.
Gold translated the manifesto from French to English and distributed it to academic, black and Jewish Internet groups.
A historian at the documentation center in Timbuktu, Haidara had discovered 19th century trading documents that referenced links between Jews running the caravan route from southern Morocco and Jews in Timbuktu. These documents, written in Arabic, had Hebrew script around the margins, a sort of “code” to let people know the documents were authentic, according to Gold. The trading documents referred to three families in particular: the Kehath family (Ka’ti) that came from southern Morocco and converted with the rest of the population in 1492; the Cohen family descended from the Moroccan Jewish trader al-Hajj Abd al-Salam al Kuhin, who arrived in the Timbuktu area in the 18th century; and the Abana family, which came in the first half of the 19th century.
“We are Jews because our ancestors were Jews, whose genes are found in all our families,” state the members of Zakhor in the manifesto. In the process of discovering descendants of these three families in Timbuktu, Gold said, Haidara also realized his own Jewish heritage, descended from Moroccan Jewish traders of the Abana family.
What happened to these Jewish families over the years that made them lose their Jewish identity and caused them to convert?
According to Gold, Timbuktu was important from the 12th to 16th centuries because of salt, gold and Islam. It was ruled by a series of empires including Ghana, Mali, Senegal and Morocco.
Under the Moroccan Empire, which controlled Timbuktu and the trade between Morocco and Timbuktu for some 300 years beginning in the late 1500s, Gold said Jews had a monopoly on the caravan route.
Rabbi Mordechai Abi Serour came from Morocco in 1860 to be a trader in Timbuktu. As a Jew, he couldn’t set up his trading business, so he appealed to the emperor and negotiated dhimmi, or protected people, status. He brought enough Jews with him from Morocco to have a minyan and establish a synagogue. A Jewish cemetery from Serour’s time remains.
Jews also came to Mali from Spain after the Inquisition in 1492. The leadership at the time accepted Jews from Europe with open arms, and allowed them to live relatively peacefully until a new leader came to power and forced them to convert.
The Jews who remained Jews in Timbuktu were dhimmis, allowed to practice their religion silently while continuing to pay taxes to the Empire.
Zakhor’s objective is to reassert its members’ Jewish ancestry — to promote the redevelopment of a Jewish identity in Timbuktu — but not to seek conversion to Judaism. The Jews of Timbuktu have been living under Islam since the ascension of Mohammed Askia in 1492 , and are just now starting to rediscover their roots, explained Gold.
Zakhor’s other objectives include making links with Jewish communities around the world, learning Hebrew and seeking development assistance to improve their daily lives.
Gold and Kulanu have helped them meet some of their objectives. Not only has Gold brought the Malian Jewish community to the attention of Americans through the Internet, but he also helped Zakhor gain access to Jewish, Hebrew and French books and other resources.
Nowadays, Gold gives speeches for organizations like Kulanu to spread the word about the existence of Mali’s lost Jews, as well as to urge outreach to the community.
Gold envisions sending people to teach basic Judaism and Hebrew. “We don’t need to send rabbis. the people are just beginning to learn about it (their Jewish heritage).” We need to educate them first, he said.
Gold stays in touch with Zakhor over the Internet, continuing to send information on subjects such as Halacha. Although, Haidara, the “brainchild” behind Zakhor, divides his time between Timbuktu and Grenada, Spain, his wife is the main contact for the organization in Mali.
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During the 8th century, the Rhadanites (Jewish African, mulit-lingual traders) began to settle in Timbuktu, Mali. There they established a trading center from which they set up a network of trading routes throughout the desert. More Jews began to arrive in the 14th and 15th centuries, fleeing the Spanish Inquisition. Then in 1492, the local King, Askia Muhammed, threatened the Jews with death if they did not convert to Islam. As the historian Leo Africanus wrote in 1526: "The king (Askia) is a declared enemy of the Jews. He will not allow any to live in the city. If he hears it said that a Berber merchant frequents them or does business with them, he confiscates his goods." While some chose conversion, many fled from the country. In 1860, Rabbi Mordechai Abi Serour emigrated from Morocco with several Jews to trade in Timbuktu. Rabbi Serour had to negotiate with the local authorities to obtain “protected people” status. The newly arrived congregation established a synagogue and Jewish cemetery in the area. By the early 20th century no Jews remained in Mali.
In the mid-1990s, however, thousands of so called ‘Hidden Jews,’ began a Malian Jewish revival in Timbuktu, Mali; many reclaiming their Jewish heritage. In 1993, Ismael Diadie Haidara, a historian from Timbuktu, established an organization called Zakhor (Timbuktu Association for Friendship with the Jewish World). This organization is predominately composed of Malians, descendants of Jews. Over the years, much of the Malian Jewry’s history has been uncovered; it was once concealed to avoid persecution.
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"This week’s topic is: Maghrebim Jews
The Maghrebim are Jews from West African Jewish communities who were connected to known
Jewish communities from North Africa, the Middle East, Portugal, and Spain. Historical records
attest to the Maghrebim presence at one time in the Ghana, Mali, and Songhai empires which
was called the Bilad al-Sudan. Jews from Morocco, Portugal, and Spain also formed
communities off the coast of Senegal and on the islands of Cape Verde. After the rise of Islam in
North and West Africa, these communities ceased to exist and have mostly disappeared due to
migration and assimilation.1
The earliest Jewish settlements in Africa were in Egypt, Tunisia, and Morocco. These
settlements may have been in existence as early as the kingdoms of David and Solomon. These
communities were still in existence during the Assyrian invasion of Northern Israel in 722 BCE
and the Babylonian captivity of Judah in 586 BCE. These communities grew by the arrival of
their fellow Jews after the destruction of the Second Beit HaMikdash (Temple) in 70 CE.1
According to historical records – including Tarikh al-Sudan – the first recorded Jewish presence in West Africa may have emerged with the arrival of the first Zuwa ruler – Zuwa Alayman – of Koukiya near the Niger River. Local legends report that Zuwa Alayman was a member of one of the Jewish communities who either voluntarily moved or were transported from Yemen by the Ethiopians in the sixth century CE after the defeat of Dhu Nuwas.
In the eighth century the Radhanim – a group of multilingual Jewish traders – settled in
Timbuktu and its environs. In the tenth century, the Jews of Baghdad experienced a hostile social
and political environment. As a result, many Jewish traders left for Northwest Africa – and
Tunisia in particular. The text of Tarikh el-Fettash described a community called the B’nei
Yisrael that existed in Tirdirma, Mali in 1402.1
In the fifteenth century many Jews migrated south to the Timbuktu area in an attempt to escape the persecution in Spain. Among these immigrants were the family Kehath (Ka’ti) who founded the villages of Kirshamba, Haybomo, and Kongougara near Timbuktu that still exists today. In 1492, Askia Mohammad I came to power and decreed that Jews must either convert to Islam or leave the area of Mali.1
Rabbi Mordechai Abi Serour and several other Jews emigrated from Morocco to Timbuktu in 1860. Rabbi Serour negotiated with the local Muslim authorities to obtain dhimmi (protected people) status. The newly arrived Jews meant there were at least ten adult male Jews to form a minyan. As a result, the community established a synagogue and cemetery. In the mid-1990s thousands of “Hidden Jews” began a Malian Jewish revival in Timbuktu with many reclaiming their Jewish heritage. By the early twentieth century no Jews remained in Mali."
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"Jews of the Bilad el-Sudan (West Africa)
According to the Muslim records the Tarikh el-Fettash (16th cent.) and the Tarikh el Soudan (17th cent.) there were several Jewish communities that existed as a part of the Ghana, Mali, and later Songhay empires. One such community was formed by a group of Egyptian Jews, who traveled by way of the Sahel corridor through Chad into Mali. Manuscript C of the Tarikh el-Fettash describes a community called the Bani Israeel that in 1402 CE existed in Tirdirma, possessed 333 wells, and had seven princes as well as an army.
Another such community was that of the Zuwa ruler of Koukiya (located near the Niger river), whose name is only known as Zuwa Alyaman (meaning “He comes from Yemen”). According to local legends Zuwa Alyaman was a member of one of the Jewish communities transported from Yemen by the Abbysinians in the 6th century C.E. after the defeat of Dhu Nuwas. Zuwa Alyaman is said to have traveled into West Africa along with his brother, and eventually established a community in Kukiya near the Niger River. According to the Tarikh el-Soudan, there were 14 Zuwa rulers of Kukiya after Zuwa Alyaman before the rise of Islam in the region.
Other sources say that other Jewish communities in the region were formed by migrations from Morocco, Egypt, Portugal, and possibly Gojjam, Ethiopia. Some communities are said to have been populated by certain Berber Jews like a group of Kal Tamasheq known as Iddao Ishaak that traveled from North Africa into West Africa for trade, as well as those escaping the Islamic invasions into North Africa." - Am I Jewish.Com
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"The Igbo ( Ibo) Jews of Nigeria, who some consider a community of "Yehudim Maghrebim" (North and West African Jews, note: Maghreb also means northern Africa, and is not exclusive to Ibos) are the Jewish component of the Igbo (Ibo) ethnic group whom are said to be descended from the southern and westward migrations of both ancient Semitic and later Jewish peoples from the Middle East into West Africa. This migration, said to have started more than 1500 years ago, is believed to have taken deeper roots in the region during the reign of the Dja (Dia) rulers of several Songhai Empire regions.
According to the record Tarikh es Soudan recorded by Abderrahman ben Abdallah es-Sadi (trad. O. Houdas) one such community was formed by a group of Egyptian Jews, who traveled by way of the Sahel corridor through Chad into Mali. Another such community was that of the Dji (Dia) ruler of Koukiya (located near the Niger river), whose name is only known as Dialliaman (or Dia min al Yaman) also called Za-al-Ayaman (meaning “He comes from Yemen”). According to local legends Dialliaman (Za-al-Ayaman) was a member of one of the Jewish colonies transported from Yemen by the Abbysinians in the sixth century C.E. Dialliaman is said to have traveled into West Africa along with his brother, and eventually established a local Jewish community in Northern Nigeria.
Other sources say that other Jewish communities in the region from Morocco, Egypt, Portugal, and possibly even Gojjam Ethiopia made their way into West Africa by way of the Niger. Some communities are said to connected to the Jewish Berber population like a group of Kal Tamasheq known as Iddao Ishaak of Niger that traveled from North Africa into West Africa for trade, as well as those escaping the Islamic invasions into North Africa and Mali."
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"History
Members of the Jewish community mostly come from the Igbo tribe, which is the third largest ethnic group in the country. Members of the Igbo believe that they are descendants of Jews who had migrated to western Africa over many centuries via migrations south into sub-Saharan Africa, as well as west across North Africa, possibly following the path of the Arab conquests. Some Nigerian Jews hold that families amongst the community are descendants of Kohanim and Levites, the Jewish priests and their assistants who functioned in the Temple of Jerusalem. Descendants could also have arisen from migrants from Djerba, Tunisia who had fled to North Africa after the destruction of the 1st and 2nd Temples in Jerusalem. The Jewish community is said to be comprised almost entirely by descendants of Kohens.
Several Israelite/Jewish tribes settled in Western Africa during the glorious days of the Songhai, Mali and Ghana empires. As the early Jews were mainly traders, it is quite likely that Jewish traders made the treck across the African continent and eventually settled in various places of West Africa, just as Jewish traders had settled in Kaifeng, China due to their activity in trade along the Silk Route. Some sources have explained that a Jewish presence was present in Nigeria as early as 638 BCE. The Igbos are not the only group that claims such a heritage; the Sefwi people of Ghana too believe they are descendants of Jews that made their way to West Africa.
In Mali, there had been a documented community for quite some time until all Jewish families were forced to convert to Islam and till today there remains a Jewish Culture Society in Mali where those descendants of Jews seek to explore their culture and heritage.
Perhaps the Jews of Nigeria suffered the same fate and with the arrival of Islam were either forced to leave the territory or submit to the Islamic domination. It is believed that Judaism first came to the region many centuries ago, as many as 1500 years by traders, a profession that Jews during that time were prolific at. The Igbo Jews traditionally claim descent from three particular Israelite tribes: Gad, Zevulun, and Menashe. The Jews of Manipur and Mizoram, the Bnei Menashe, also claim descent from the tribe of Menashe. It is thought that these Jews fled to Africa after the destruction of the biblical Temples in Jerusalem and established communities all across the African continent.
Israel has, to date, not recognized the Igbo as one of the Lost Tribes of Israel. It took many years before the Chief Rabbinate recognized the Bnei Menashe as Jews, and it is thought that in due time the Igbo will also be recognized as descendants of Israel. One of the theories as to why Israel is reluctant to recognize the Igbo is because it has enjoyed good relations with Nigeria, and as the Igbo are a secessionist tribe, recognizing them as part of Israel may injure political and economic ties between the two countries."
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/mali.html
http://www.kulanu.org/timbuktu/JewsOfTimbuktu.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_ethnic_divisions
http://www.scribd.com/doc/23726236/Maghrebim-Jews
http://www.amijewish.info/africa.html
http://www.codewit.com/oceania/african-jew-igbo-ibo-jews.html
http://www.igboezue.com/node/1
Europeans rarely entered the interior of Africa, due to fear of disease and moreover fierce African resistance. - metmuseum.org
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In Senegambia, between 1300 and 1900, close to one-third of the population was enslaved. In early Islamic states of the western Sudan, including Ghana (750–1076), Mali (1235–1645), Segou (1712–1861), and Songhai (1275–1591), about a third of the population were slaves. In Sierra Leone in the 19th century about half of the population consisted of slaves. In the 19th century at least half the population was enslaved among the Duala of the Cameroon, the Igbo and other peoples of the lower Niger, the Kongo, and the Kasanje kingdom and Chokwe of Angola. Among the Ashanti and Yoruba a third of the population consisted of slaves. The population of the Kanem (1600–1800) was about a third-slave. It was perhaps 40% in Bornu (1580–1890). Between 1750 and 1900 from one- to two-thirds of the entire population of the Fulani jihad states consisted of slaves. The population of the Sokoto caliphate formed by Hausas in the northern Nigeria and Cameroon was half-slave in the 19th century. Between 65% to 90% of the population of Arab–Swahili Zanzibar was enslaved. Roughly half the population of Madagascar was enslaved.
When British rule was first imposed on the Sokoto Caliphate and the surrounding areas in northern Nigeria at the turn of the 20th century, approximately 2 million to 2.5 million people there were slaves. Slavery in northern Nigeria was finally outlawed in 1936
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From the middle of the 15th century, Africa entered into a unique relationship with Europe that led to the devastation and depopulation of Africa, but contributed to the wealth and development of Europe. From then until the end of the 19th century, Europeans began to establish a trade for African captives.
At first this trafficking only supplemented a trade in human beings that already existed within Europe, in which Europeans had enslaved each other. Some enslaved Africans had also reached Europe, the Middle East and other parts of the world before the mid-15th century, as a result of a trade in human beings that had also long existed in Africa.
It is estimated that by the early 16th century as much as 10 per cent of Lisbon's population was of African descent
Many of these African captives crossed the Sahara and reached Europe and other destinations from North Africa, or were transported across the Indian Ocean.
The transatlantic slave trade began during the 15th century when Portugal, and subsequently other European kingdoms, were finally able to expand overseas and reach Africa. The Portuguese first began to kidnap people from the west coast of Africa and to take those they enslaved back to Europe.
It is estimated that by the early 16th century as much as 10% of Lisbon's population was of African descent. After the European discovery of the American continent, the demand for African labour gradually grew, as other sources of labour - both European and American - were found to be insufficient.
The Spanish took the first African captives to the Americas from Europe as early as 1503, and by 1518 the first captives were shipped directly from Africa to America. The majority of African captives were exported from the coast of West Africa, some 3,000 miles between what is now Senegal and Angola, and mostly from the modern Benin, Nigeria and Cameroon.
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Africans were not strangers to the slave trade, or to the keeping of slaves. Slavery had existed in West- Africa for centuries. When Leo Africanus traveled to West Africa in the 1500's, he recorded that, "slaves are the next highest commodity in the marketplace. There is a place where they sell countless slaves on market days." Criminals and prisoners of war, as well as political prisoners were often sold in the marketplaces in Gao, Jenne, and Timbuktu.
African slaves were in Europe as early as the eleventh century. America's demand for laborers for the sugar, tobacco and cotton field brought the first cargo of black slaves from West Africa to the Americas in the early 1500's. European, Arab and African merchants were now selling humans as well as gold, ivory, and spices.
Al-Siddiq was born to a well-educated and influential family from Timbuktu. In the early 1800's he was captured and sold to an English slaver. In 1823 he was keeping records in Arabic for his owner's store in Jamaica. Encouraged by his owner's friend, Al-Siddiq was given his freedom. Al-Siddiq joined the Englishman, John Davidson on an expedition to Timbuktu in 1836. On his return to the African continent, Al-Siddiq learned that one of his relatives had become the sheik of Timbuktu. The expedition was attacked and all lives were lost with the exception of Al-Siddiq.
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Leo Africanus: Description of Timbuktu
The king is a declared enemy of the Jews. He will not allow any to live in the city. If he hears it said that a Berber merchant frequents them or does business with them, he confiscates his goods. There are in Timbuktu numerous judges, teachers and priests, all properly appointed by the king. He greatly honors learning. Many hand-written books imported from Barbary are also sold. There is more profit made from this commerce than from all other merchandise.
Instead of coined money, pure gold nuggets are used; and for small purchases, cowrie shells which have been carried from Persia, (6) and of which 400 equal a ducat. Six and two-thirds of their ducats equal one Roman gold ounce. (7)
The people of Timbuktu are of a peaceful nature. They have a custom of almost continuously walking about the city in the evening (except for those that sell gold), between 10 PM and 1 AM, playing musical instruments and dancing. The citizens have at their service many slaves, both men and women.
The city is very much endangered by fire. At the time when I was there on my second voyage, (8) half the city burned in the space of five hours. But the wind was violent and the inhabitants of the other half of the city began to move their belongings for fear that the other half would burn.
There are no gardens or orchards in the area surrounding Timbuktu.
Translated by Paul Brians
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Slave Trade Facts
The level of slave exports grew from about 36,000 a year during the early 18th century to almost 80,000 a year during the 1780s.
The Angolan region of west-central Africa made up slightly more than half of all Africans sent to the Americas and a quarter of imports to British North America.
Approximately 11,863,000 Africans were shipped across the Atlantic, with a death rate during the Middle Passage reducing this number by 10-20 percent.
As a result official records show 15 million Africans arrived in the Americas. This does not account for the casualties of slavery who did not arrive alive.
About 500,000 Africans were imported into what is now the U.S. between 1619 and 1807--or about 6 percent of all Africans forcibly imported into the Americas. About 70 percent arrived directly from Africa.
Well over 90 percent of African slaves were imported into the Caribbean and South America. Only about 6 percent of imports went directly to British North America. Yet by 1825, the U.S. had a quarter of Africans in the New World. The majority of African slaves were brought to British North America between 1720 and 1780. (Average date of arrival for whites is 1890)
Comparisons
American plantations were dwarfed by those in the West Indies. About a quarter of U.S. slaves lived on farms with 15 or fewer slaves. In 1850, just 125 plantations had over 250 slaves.
In the Caribbean, Dutch Guiana and Brazil, the slave death rate was so high and the birth rate so low that they could not sustain their population without importations from Africa. Rates of natural decrease ran as high as 5 percent a year. While the death rate of U.S. slaves was about the same as that of Jamaican slaves, the fertility rate was more than 80 percent higher.
U.S. slaves were further removed from Africa than those in the Caribbean. In the 19th century, the majority of slaves in the British Caribbean and Brazil were born in Africa. In contrast, by 1850, most U.S. slaves were third-, fourth-, or fifth generation Americans. africanholocaust.net
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_slave_trade
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/abolition/africa_article_01.shtml
http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~wldciv/world_civ_reader/world_civ_reader_2/leo_africanus.html
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/slav/hd_slav.htm
http://www.hokiesports.com/rothreport/images/mali.timbuktu.jpg
http://africanhistory.about.com/od/kingdoms/ss/SaharaTradeRoutes.htm
Paul Bairoch suggests a figure of 25 million African people subjected to the Arab slave trade, as against 11 million that arrived in the Americas from the transatlantic slave trade.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_slave_trade
Part 3 Final:
I have compiled again excerpts from colleges, and encyclopedias to dispel myths of what people area teaching that AFRICAN SLAVES in AMERICA were PAGAN and PLAGUED with WITCHCRAFT in TOTAL.
"By the standards of the early nineteenth century, African-Americans were said to be "a wretched stock of heathen, in utter darkness of a loathsome pagan idolatry." Various plantation owners expressed the concern that "the superstitions brought from Africa have not been wholly laid aside." Witchcraft, alleged superstitions, and fetishist practices were often cited as evidence that the plantation slave refused to abandon African paganism for American Christianity."
Is this true, or misinterpreted ? In the same essay later is this fact is claimed.
The African beliefs in one Supreme Being, in a realistic distinction between good and evil, in lesser spiritual powers, and in creation as the handiwork of God, paralleled much in the Hebraic background of Christianity. These similarities lessened the cultural shock as the African came into contact with the tenets of White Evangelicalism. But on occasion there was conflict. A white Methodist reported an aged Negro--to whom he had been trying to explain the dogma of the Trinity--once asked which of the three "was the head man to which he should go when asking for anything."
It is true, anyone who can parallel their beliefs with Hebrews would not understand the significance in any trinity concept.
"During the early history of slavery, the Africanisms that were retained in African American spirituality were often seen to be (by whites) a pagan faith. These rituals and dogmas were variously described as Voodoo, Hoodoo, Witchcraft, and superstitions, and were particularly prominent among the Gullah speakers of South Carolina. Whites often commented on these "pagan practices," and fetishes, and were threatened by them. As a result, great effort was expended on eradicating these practices, and many were lost within a generation. "
What is West African Vodun?
At any rate, it perceives to be a monotheistic set of beliefs affected mainly by the Yoruba and Dahomeyan religion which seems to be native to West Africa unlike monotheistic beliefs of the African Americans. Why Is it so hard for me to accept the Title Vodun as title for the African Slaves in America?
Simply Vodun denotes a god separate to that of the Dahomey goddess, and the Dahomey goddess is originally not a monotheistic deity. If any of this at all seems confusing you can review the facts here
http://www.religioustolerance.org/voodoo.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_African_Vodun
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahomey_mythology
A melting pot of language and native spirituality has seemed to disconnect the African American Slaves from their ancient religion. As They cannot truly understand the Christian Trinity, the Pantheism of Dahomey mythology, nor do the African American slaves seem totally aware of every aspect of the Yoruba religion.
Yoruba religion in the New World
Many ethnic Yoruba were taken as slaves to Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Brazil, Venezuela and other parts of the New World (chiefly in the 19th century, after the Ọyọ empire collapsed and the region plunged into civil war). They carried their religious beliefs with them. These concepts were combined with preexisting African-based cults, Christianity, Native American mythology, and Kardecist Spiritism into various New World lineages:
* Santería or "regla lucumi" (Cuba)
* Oyotunji (U.S.)
* Candomblé (Brazil)
* Umbanda (Brazil)
* Batuque (Brazil)
Relationship with Vodou
The popularly known Vodou religion of Haiti was founded by slaves from a different ethnic group (the Gba speaking peoples of modern Benin, Togo and Ghana), but it does share some aspects of the religion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoruba_religion
Tallying a list you are aware that
African American Slaves Were Charged with Voodoo(Vodun)
Vodun Comes from Yoruba a separate religion,
and African American Slaves seem to apply a god to their religion
which doesn't originally represent their concepts, yet have kept separate
from that of the Islamic invasions and forced conversions.
"The degree to which whites were successful in this, however, is the subject of great debate. Melville J. Herskovits has advanced the thesis that the success of Baptists in attracting blacks was rooted in the appeal of immersion which suggests a connection in the slaves' mind with the river spirits in West African religions. Others have attacked this position including, the black scholar E. Franklin Frazier who argues that enslavement largely destroyed the social basis of religion among blacks, and that the appeal of Baptists to blacks concerns the emotional content of their worship. Stanley Elkins (whose views were heavily influenced by what took place in the concentration camps of World War II Europe), has argued--like Frazier--that slavery was so demeaning that blacks (like the Jews in the camps) were eventually stripped of every shred of dignity and humanity, including their faith. John Blassingame, on the other hand, has provided a significant body of evidence that blacks hung on to their religion as a form of resistence."
http://www.wfu.edu/~matthetl/perspectives/twelve.html
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"The story of African-American religion is a tale of variety and creative fusion. Enslaved Africans transported to the New World beginning in the fifteenth century brought with them a wide range of local religious beliefs and practices. This diversity reflected the many cultures and linguistic groups from which they had come. The majority came from the West Coast of Africa, but even within this area religious traditions varied greatly. Islam had also exerted a powerful presence in Africa for several centuries before the start of the slave trade: an estimated twenty percent of enslaved people were practicing Muslims, and some retained elements of their practices and beliefs well into the nineteenth century. Catholicism had even established a presence in areas of Africa by the sixteenth century."
"
Preserving African religions in North America proved to be very difficult. The harsh circumstances under which most slaves lived—high death rates, the separation of families and tribal groups, and the concerted effort of white owners to eradicate "heathen" (or non-Christian) customs—rendered the preservation of religious traditions difficult and often unsuccessful. Isolated songs, rhythms, movements, and beliefs in the curative powers of roots and the efficacy of a world of spirits and ancestors did survive well into the nineteenth century."
http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/nineteen/nkeyinfo/aareligion.htm
"Many scholars have debated the extent to which African American religion draws upon African religion in its diverse forms. Despite the presence of Africanisms in African American religion, such as the call-and-response pattern characteristic of black preaching, it is evident that no single African culture or religion could have been diffused intact to North America. African religious concepts and rituals, such as ancestor worship, initiation rites, spirit possession, healing and funeral rituals, magical rituals for obtaining spiritual power, and ecstatic ceremonies enlivened by rhythmic dancing, drumming, and singing, are found in African American religion but generally in syncretized ways, blended with diverse European American elements."
http://hirr.hartsem.edu/ency/african.htm
"The second half of the seventeenth century saw the establishment of a plantation economy in Guyana based on African slave labour. The bulk of the African slaves were brought from Senegambia, Sierra Leone, the Windward Coast, Gold Coast and the Bight of Benin. They belonged to several tribes and several language groups.
The general view held by the Dutch planters, and the English planters after them, was that the African slaves did not hold to a system of beliefs that could be described as a religion. At best - so the members of the plantocracy and the church that served them felt - their beliefs amounted to nothing more than heathenish superstition.
Not a few of them, perhaps, felt that the Africans were incapable of religious sentiment. But the Africans held religious beliefs derived from their homeland. It may be useful to note that some of the slaves, particularly these who came from the Fula-speaking area of Senegambia, were Muslims.
Toby, a young Hausa-speaking Muslim slave in Hanover, Berbice, debated religious questions with the Rev. John Wray, the Congregational missionary in Berbice in the early nineteenth century.
Interestingly, Wray's successor in Berbice, Rev. Howe, was very impressed with Toby's intelligence and his desire to acquire knowledge, that after converting him to Christianity, he arranged for the young man to go to England for further training by the London Missionary Society. He was granted his freedom and his name was changed to Thomas Lewis. In 1836, he returned to Berbice as a catechist-teacher.
Toby's ancestors were most likely converted to Islam when that religion penetrated West Africa from the north by way of the Sahara Desert. But Islam among Africans did not long survive the Middle Passage and the plantation system. The practice of the planters of separating tribesmen from one another, and of discouraging the assembling of slaves for any purpose whatsoever, was not calculated to allow Islam to survive.
Again, the small number of African Muslims that came to Guyana lacked the leadership of Imams and the possession of the Qu'ran. Then, too, the plantation life did not lend itself for long prayers at fixed times, worship on a set day, fasting at prescribed periods, or feasting on holidays which did not coincide with those observed by the plantocracy. As such, the plantation which was geared exclusively to sugar production gave no scope for the development of Islam as the Senegambian village did.
But if the Islam that came with African slaves did not survive the conditions of slavery, the name "Fulah" came to be used as a descriptive of indentured Indian Muslims and their descendants. The Blacks who labelled them Fulahs clearly knew Fula-speaking Africans who were Muslims.
On the other hand, indigenous African religious beliefs, which became labelled as "obeah", survived the difficulties of estate life in Guyana. But these beliefs underwent significant changes although they remained clearly "African" in structure. Three factors were mainly responsible for these changes.
In the first place, African religious ideas were capable of modification in response to the new circumstance of estate life. Secondly, the practice of African religion was frowned upon by estate authorities. This meant that the religion could only be practised secretly and irregularly. The result has been that some aspects of African religious practices withered away while others lost their nationality and language and became garbled. Thirdly, the exposure to Christianity led not only to the conversion of Blacks to that religion, but also to the overlapping of African and Christian beliefs.
While in Jamaica, after 1760, it became an offence punishable by death for slaves to practise obeah, it is not clear if the same situation existed in Guyana. Nevertheless, the slaves did not lack "religious" leaders who, however, were not as well trained or as carefully chosen as the priests who served the African villages and compounds.
The policy of the plantocracy of separating African tribesmen from one another (as far as this was practicable) also affected the development of African religion in Guyana, since that religion traditionally had a strong link with the tribe."
http://www.guyana.org/features/guyanastory/chapter28.html
"A small but significant proportion of African slaves, some estimate 10 percent, were Muslim. You might tell the story of Omar Ibn Said (also "Sayyid," ca. 1770-1864), who was born in Western Africa in the Muslim state of Futa Toro (on the south bank of the Senegal River in present-day Senegal). He was a Muslim scholar and trader who, for reasons historians have not uncovered, found himself captive and enslaved. After a six-week voyage, Omar arrived in Charleston, South Carolina, in about 1807. About four years later, he was sold to James Owen of North Carolina's Cape Fear region. In 1819 a white Protestant North Carolinian wrote to Francis Scott Key, the composer of The Star Spangled Banner, to request an Arabic translation of the Bible for Omar, and apparently Key sent one. Historians dispute how much the African Muslim leaned toward Christianity in his final years, but Omar's notations on the Arabic bible, which offer praise to Allah, suggest that he retained much of his Muslim identity, as did some other first-generation slaves whose names have been lost to us. (Omar's Arabic bible, which has recently been restored, is housed in the library of Davidson College in North Carolina.)"
http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/twenty/tkeyinfo/islam.htm
Little is known about the practice of African religions in French Illinois, since the slaves would have needed to hide such beliefs. In Africa, these people would have believed in ancestor worship and the significance of dance, drumming, and shouting during worship. Many of these practices were adapted to fit Christianity and the slave experience.
http://www.museum.state.il.us/exhibits/athome/1700/sideby/a-rel.htm
"Historical records show that Islam and Christianity played an important role in enslavement in Africa. The Arab-controlled Trans-Saharan slave trade helped to institutionalise slave trading on the continent. And during the 'age of expedition', European Christians witnessed caravans loaded with Africans en-route to the Middle East. Others arriving much later in West Africa observed slavery in African societies, leading them to assume that African enslavement was intrinsic to the continent."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/history/slavery_1.shtml
"The practice of harnessing supernatural forces and spirits for one’s own personal use, known in some parts of Africa as ‘Obeye’ (an entity that lives within witches), has taken on many names in the Caribbean islands, such as Shango (Trinidad), Santeria (Cuba), Vodun or Voodoo (Haiti), Ju-Ju (Bahamas), Obeah (Jamaica),. Although African slaves usually practiced Obeah for "evil" or rather self-interested, instrumental purposes, this faith also aided them as a source of strength and clandestine resistance. The practice of Obeah is the belief that one can use certain spirits or supernatural agents to work harm to the living, or to call them off from such mischief. Generally, the British used the term Obeah to describe all slave acts and practices that were considered supernatural or evil in nature, such as rituals and fetishes."
http://scholar.library.miami.edu/slaves/Religion/religion.html
http://sarabe3.tripod.com/images/image059.jpg
"In Sudan and certain other East African cultures exists the Zār Cult, an ethnomedical healing ceremony involving possession typically of Muslim women by a Zār spirit."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z%C4%81r
"The spirit Iblis is a Jinn, which are “mischievous” spirits of earth who reside in a universe parallel to the human world while maintaining the ability to interact in both realms [1]. The Jinn are mortal and powerful [2] spirits whose purpose is to tempt and possess (majnun) humans [3] by creating illusions (ghurur) that familiarize mankind with “the eternal fire” of hell [4]. The Jinn in their natural state are too horrific for mankind to see, they are highly intelligent, they can assume almost any form, and they can do almost anything [5]. There are many different kinds of Jinn: there are those which take on the appearance of the snake; those which fly – the winged Jinn; Jinn that are giants; insect-like Jinn; Jinn that inhabit dead bodies (zombies); and, Jinn that take on human form and, in-so-doing, have the capability of converting to Islam [6]. The Jinn live far longer than humans and the only way they can be detected is through their evil actions – deeds too atrocious for un-possessed humans to enact [7]."
http://web.uvic.ca/~rpn/files/iblis.html
As seen here there is no religion in the area including Islam who didnt believe in spirits roaming and taking possession, this may have been picked up by Islamic influence.
As a final goal lets understand if traces of ancestor worship disqualify West Africans to having Hebrewisms clinging to their culture.
The Jewish Encyclopedia investigates:
Affirmative:
Oracles and Incantations: In various passages of the Old Testament (Deut. xviii. 11, I Sam. xxviii. 11, Isa. viii. 19) mention is made of inquiry of the dead as to the future, thus treating them as oracles and divine personages. On two occasions the dead are termed "elohim" (I Sam. xxviii. 13, Isa. viii. 19, Heb.): the latter passage, "Should not a people seek unto their elohim, for the living to the dead?" is especially significant. In the incantation scene with the witch of En-dor, as soon as "Saul perceived that it was Samuel [I Sam. xxviii. 14], he stooped with his face to the ground, and bowed himself," a regular form of divine homage (see Adoration).
VII.
Honor to Parents: It is contended that in ancient Israel mourning was only for parents; and II Sam. xii. 15 et seq. is quoted in illustration. Men thus became remembered by the honor paid them by their descendants; hence Absalom deplored that he had no son to call upon his name (II Sam. xviii. 18).
VIII.
Household Worship: There are signs that in early days there was a special worship of household gods which could not have been devoted to YHWH, the God of the nation, according to modern theories. They are supposed to be referred to as "elohim" in the passage (Ex. xxi. 4-6) when the servant who desired to remain in the household of his master forever must appear before the elohim (translated "judges" in A. V.), and have his ear bored through. It is contended that the Feast of Purim is a relic of household worship. The household gods thus worshiped are known as teraphim, which were Laban's elohim. (Gen. xxxi. 30), and were heathen gods (Ezek. xxi. 26, Gen. xxxv. 2).
IX.
Family Worship: Fustel de Coulanges has shown, in "La Cité Antique," that the social institutions of the Greeks and Romans were founded upon Ancestor Worship, the essence of which was to keep alive the holy fire on the household hearth on which to offer food for the departed spirits of ancestors. Membership of a family implied the right and duty of making such offering. Only males could offer; and, therefore, inheritance was solely through the agnates. Num. xxvii. shows that this was the custom with regard to inheritance in ancient Israel. The importance of heirs consisted in the posthumous nourishment to be offered by them alone, and this importance is shown to have existed in Israel by the custom of the Levirate. The patria potestas of the father of the family was due to the fact that he was the household priest as well as the father. The Israelites, like the Greeks and Romans, had their family graves.
X.
Ancestor Worship and the Tribes: Graves of the ancestors of the tribes, like that of Abraham at Hebron, and that of Joseph at Shechem, are found associated with worship which probably was originally Ancestor Worship. Some of the tribes seem named after Semitic gods; thus "Asher," the masculine form of "Ashera," Dan and Gad (the latter of which occurs in local names as "Baal Gad" and "Migdal Gad"). There are some indications that the Patriarchs were the subject of local worship; for instance, Jacob at Beth-el, Israel at Peniel, and Isaac at Beer-sheba. Hence the importance attached in the Old Testament to the places where the Patriarchs and heroes were buried; known graves being those of Abraham, Sarah, Rachel, Joseph, Aaron, Miriam, Joshua, Ibzan, Elon, Abdon, Tola, Jair, Jephthah, and Samson. In this connection it is a significant fact that the grave of Moses, the founder of Jahvism, was not known: this indicates that the Jahvistic legislation was against Ancestor Worship. Many of the patriarchal names were originally combinations with "El"; thus Jacob and Joseph are found in Egyptian lists under the form "Jacobel," "Josephel" (compare Ishmael, Jerahmeel, and Jephtahel). All these points seem to imply that clans and tribes were originally unified by a worship of ancestors, which worship was broken down by the national worship of YHWH.
Negative:
6.
Oracles and Incantations: These do not imply the worship of the dead, but merely the belief in the existence of their shadows beyond the grave, and that they were consulted as oracles. The fact that Samuel's ghost was regarded by the witch of En-dor as elohim merely implies that she looked upon Samuel as something divine: the act of adoration is merely one of respect and honor—not necessarily of worship in the technical sense—and is given, not to the ghost as such, but to the personality of Samuel as soon as Saul recognizes who is speaking. Against the saying of Isa. viii. 19, it may be remarked that the ancestral ghost can not be the elohim of the people, but only of a family; besides "elohim" here should be translated "God" and thecontrast made with the dead: "A people should consult its God and not its dead."
7.
Honor to Parents: There are many instances of going into mourning for dead persons other than parents (Jacob for Joseph when he thought he had lost him, Gen. xxxvii. 34; compare I Kings, xiv. 13); widows mourning for their husbands (Gen. xxxviii. 14); the bride for her bridegroom (Joel, i. 8). Absalom did not wish a son to "call upon" his name, but to "keep it alive" in men's memory; and for that reason he raised a monument to himself. Obviously this monument could not "call upon" his name.
8.
Household Worship: The elohim mentioned in Ex. xxi. could easily have been images of YHWH in Judges, xvii. "YHWH" became at an early period the God of the Israelitish family, as is shown by personal names like Jonathan, Joshua, and Abijah. Purim is far from being an early feast, being probably derived from Persia, and can not therefore be the survival of a family worship of the dead. The teraphim are only mentioned as strange gods in Gen. xxxi. and Ezek. xxi., and are elsewhere not divine or used in divine worship, but for the purpose of divination.
9.
Family Worship: The Israelite family does not show so much analogy with that of ancient Rome as to oblige us to transfer the arguments of Fustel de Coulanges to ancient Israel. So far from the patria potestas being all-important, there are late traces of matriarchate, as, for instance, where the mother gives the name to the children, as so frequently occurs in Genesis. Laban regards Jacob, his sister's son, as his "brother," and as being "of his own flesh and blood." Adoption was frequent among Greeks and Romans in order to keep up the family worship; but it is practically unknown among the Jews. The paterfamilias alone could worship in classical lands; whereas Gideon could bring an offering to the angel (Judges, vi. 18 et seq.), though he was still in the house of his father. There are no signs of the reception of the wife into the family cult in ancient Israel, though inheritance is only through males as in Rome. Succession only through agnates does not always occur where Ancestor Worship exists, as, for example, in Egypt, where a daughter has the right to succeed. The need of descendants in Israel is not for the purpose of obtaining offerings to oneself, but to have as large a family as possible, probably for purposes of protection.
10.
Ancestor Worship and the Tribes: If the tribe grew out of Ancestor Worship it must have come first as a family; whereas in nomad tribes, like the ancient Israelites, the clan comes first. In the family sacrifice of the Romans, there is no indication that the eponymous heroes of the clan were worshiped; so that the analogies from the graves of heroes are not an exact parallel. If ancestors had been worshiped, many proper names would have been found expressing such worship; but they do not occur. The local worship at Shechem, Hebron, etc., if it existed, must have been Canaanitish in nature, and could not have been derived from the nomadic period of the Israelites.
Conclusion:
These objections of Grüneisen differ greatly in force. While he has deprived some of Stade's arguments, notably those relating to mourning and burial customs, of some of their weight, he leaves much unexplained with regard to offerings to the dead, oracles and incantations, and family worship. The amount of evidence offered by the Old Testament itself is not sufficient to afford a solution of the question, thus leaving it to be solved on general anthropological principles. At present the general trend of anthropological opinion on this subject is rather against than for Ancestor Worship as the primitive form of religion.
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=1488&letter=A
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"Yahweh"
Many scholars attempting to reconnect African Americans to the Ancient Hebrew Israelites, make the mistake of trying find the supreme God of the Israelites evident within the culture through specific title..
I believe that this is impossible where as even EUROPEAN JEWS do NOT use the term YAHWEH, this should be a clue to many that the title was to be rediscovered by those who meant to worship this specific God.
Why is This? There may be many possible reasons, one could be to irrdicate the paganism this worship may have carried with it throughout eras of the Judahite and Israelite Kingdoms
"Both the archaeological evidence and the Biblical texts document tensions between groups comfortable with the worship of Yahweh alongside local deities such as Asherah and Baal and those insistent on worship of Yahweh alone during the monarchal period.[21] The Deuteronomistic source gives evidence of a strong monotheistic party during the reign of king Josiah during the late 7th century BCE, but the strength and prevalence of earlier monotheistic worship of Yahweh is widely debated based on interpretations of how much of the Deuteronomistic history is accurately based on earlier sources, and how much has been re-worked by Deuteronomistic redactors to bolster their theological views.[22] The archaeological record documents widespread polytheism in and around Israel during the period of the monarchy" - wiki
"Jews ceased to use the name in the Greco-Roman period, replacing it with the common noun Elohim, “god”, to demonstrate the universal sovereignty of Israel's God over all others; at the same time, the divine name was increasingly regarded as too sacred to be uttered, and was replaced in spoken ritual by the word Adonai (“My Lord”), or with haShem (“the Name”) in everyday speech. From about the 6th to the 10th century, it is believed that Jewish scholars used the vowel signs of the Hebrew words Adonai or Elohim as the vowels for YHWH, producing the name Jehovah (YeHoWaH), and this was adopted by Christian scholars after the Renaissance."
NO SOURCE IS EXACTLY SURE HOW THIS NAME CEASED TO BE USED BESIDES CONSTANT PERSECUTION THROUGH CENTURIES..
"Heterodox Yahwism is described by Miller as a mixture of some elements of orthodox worship of Yahweh with particular practices that conflicted with orthodox Yahwism or were not customarily a part of it. For example, heterodox Yahwism included the presence of cult objects rejected in more orthodox expressions, such as the asherah, which seems to have been present in different forms throughout the period of the monarchy and perhaps before. Likewise, the pillar, rejected by orthodox Yahwism, was also used in cultic centers on occasion, as evidenced by objects excavated at some cultic sites. Furthermore, figurines of various sorts (females, horses and riders, animals and birds) have been found at Israelite and Judean sites, usually extramural sites described as "nonconformist" by John Holladay.[47] Miller also asserts that the worship of Yahweh using calves or bulls in the Northern Kingdom should probably also be assigned to the heterodox category"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahweh
The title and name Yahweh not only reveals the God of Israel, but also ironically reveals the problems Israel had with preserving their religion amongst many others, how would the Israelites know how to keep their religion without a publishing manuscript? Very few customs will actually be preserved throughout generations.
European Jews VS African Jews?
Sense genes have not been able to prove anyone a Jew over anyone else, can we say European Jews have created a better environment of preservation and have also preserve the most original version of Yahwistic or Judaic worship?
European Jews preserve a Talmud which in some cases can be just as controversial as Voodoo
Christian accusations against the Talmud have tended to fall into several categories, including alleged:
1. Anti-Christian or anti-Gentile content
2. Insults against Jesus or the Virgin Mary (see Yeshu)
3. Absurd or sexually immoral content
4. Falsification of scripture
Such accusations often shade into attacks on Jews or Judaism generally, and should be distinguished from criticisms of the Talmud (including some criticism by Jews) on grounds such as excessive legalism, strained reasoning, unhistoric content and superstitious beliefs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talmud#Attacks_on_the_Talmud
And again European Jews use the popular term Hashem over Yahweh which have absolutely no connection.
"Sanhedrin 90a MISHNAH. ALL ISRAEL28 HAVE A PORTION IN THE WORLD TO COME, FOR IT IS WRITTEN, THY PEOPLE ARE ALL RIGHTEOUS; THEY SHALL INHERIT THE LAND FOR EVER, THE BRANCH OF MY PLANTING, THE WORK OF MY HANDS, THAT I MAY BE GLORIFIED.’ BUT THE FOLLOWING HAVE NO PORTION THEREIN: HE WHO MAINTAINS THAT RESURRECTION IS NOT A BIBLICAL DOCTRINE, THE TORAH WAS NOT DIVINELY REVEALED, AND AN EPIKOROS. R. AKIBA ADDED: ONE WHO READS UNCANONICAL BOOKS. ALSO ONE WHO WHISPERS [A CHARM] OVER A WOUND AND SAYS, I WILL BRING NONE OF THESE DISEASES UPON THEE WHICH I BROUGHT UPON THE EGYPTIANS: FOR I AM THE LORD THAT HEALETH THEE.’ ABBA SAUL SAYS: ALSO ONE WHO PRONOUNCES THE DIVINE NAME AS IT IS SPELT." - Talmud
What about the Tanakh?
THE FIRST TANAKH WAS ACTUALLY PUBLISHED BY A CHRISTIAN
Daniel Bomberg (died 1549) was an early printer of Hebrew language books. A Christian, born in Antwerp, he was primarily active in Venice between 1516 and 1549.
He produced the editio princeps of the Mikraot Gedolot, the Rabbinic Bible, consisting of the Hebrew text plus rabbinical commentaries, between 1516 and 1517, and the first and oldest complete set of the Talmud, between 1520 and 1523, a well-preserved copy of which is contained in the Valmadonna Trust Library.
AND THIS WAS DONE AFTER MANY CHRISTIAN VERSIONS OF THE BIBLE WERE ALREADY PUBLISHED VERSIONS LIKE the Gutenberg Bible in 1455.
Other factors that must be considered are forced conversions of Africans while Europeans generally were free to practice Judaism while they mostly dealt with exile in worse cases.
Though in many cases African Jews seemed to retain their identity using 12 piece breastplates for the priests with head covering, and long robes as instructed in the Old Testament. And almost immediately after the all slaves were free and slavery made unconstitutional, Black Hebrew Israelite sects in America seemed to pop up immediately and even in many cases having more dominance than black muslims...
"The Church of God and Saints of Christ was established in Lawrence, Kansas, in 1896 by William Saunders Crowdy.[24] The group established its headquarters in Philadelphia in 1899, and Crowdy later relocated to Washington, D.C., in 1903."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Hebrew_Israelites
It is discussed that the term MOOR was actually used by black Israelites in Zionist Temples which actually is recorded to be the educational center for the NOI and Moorish movements which would later gain power in America.
Therefore I believe personally that I have given good reason for any African American to be just as Jewish as any European.
I suggest that one would read amongst this group more to rediscover the facts about European Jews vs African Jews.
Just Because You Don't Know Your Jewish Doesn't Mean Your not Jewish
The Jews who didn’t know they were Jewish
http://www.thejc.com/lifestyle/lifestyle-features/25763/the-jews-who-didn%E2%80%99t-know-they-were-jewish
Daniel Bomberg (died 1549) was an early printer of Hebrew language books. A Christian, born in Antwerp, he was primarily active in Venice between 1516 and 1549.
He produced the editio princeps of the Mikraot Gedolot, the Rabbinic Bible, consisting of the Hebrew text plus rabbinical commentaries, between 1516 and 1517, and the first and oldest complete set of the Talmud, between 1520 and 1523, a well-preserved copy of which is contained in the Valmadonna Trust Library.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Bomberg
NO SPECIFIC CULTURE TO PRESERVE THE HEBREW LANGUAGE
Biblical Hebrew, also called Classical Hebrew, is the archaic form of the Hebrew language in which the Hebrew Bible and various Israelite inscriptions were written.
It is not spoken in its pure form today, although it is often studied by Jews, Christian theologians, linguists, and Israeli archaeologists to help them gain a deeper understanding of the Hebrew Bible and Semitic philology. Classical Hebrew is also generally taught in public schools in Israel.
Extinct as a regularly spoken language by the 4th century CE, but survived as a liturgical and literary language; revived in the 1880s
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_Hebrew
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_language
Judaism:
Rabbinic Judaism or Rabbinism (Hebrew: "Yahadut Rabanit" - יהדות רבנית) is a term used by critical bible scholars who believe that the talmudic interpretation of Judaism originated with the closure of the redaction of the Talmud. This is in contrast to the Orthodox Jewish view that the oral law was given along with the five books of Moses, and that the only authentic form of Judaism was always equivalent to Rabbinic Judaism.
According to critical bible scholars Rabbinic Judaism has been the mainstream form of Judaism since the sixth century CE, after the codification of the Talmud.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbinic_Judaism
(This Is The Same Century Of A Massive Nation Wide Convert To "Judaism")
Origin of the term "Judaism"
The earliest instance of the term in English, used to mean "the profession or practice of the Jewish religion; the religious system or polity of the Jews," is Robert Fabyan's The newe cronycles of Englande and of Fraunce a 1513. As an English translation of the Latin, the first instance in English is a 1611 translation of the Apocrypha, 2 Macc. ii. 21 "Those that behaved themselues manfully to their honour for Iudaisme."
The term Judaism derives from the Latin Iudaismus, derived from the Greek Ιουδαϊσμός Ioudaïsmos, and ultimately from the Hebrew יהודה, Yehudah, "Judah";[59][60] in Hebrew: יַהֲדוּת, Yahadut. It first appears as the Hellenistic Greek iudaismos in 2nd Maccabees in the 2nd century BCE. In the context of the age and period it held the meaning of seeking or forming part of a cultural entity, that of iudea, the Greek derivative of Persian Yehud, and can be compared with hellenismos, meaning acceptance of Hellenic cultural norms (the conflict between iudaismos and hellenismos lay behind the Maccabeean revolt and hence the invention of the term iudaismos).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaism
Early Converts:
"Sh'maya (Hebrew: שמעיה, or Shemaiah, Samaias or Sameas) was a rabbinic sage in the early pre-Mishnaic era who lived at the same time as Avtalyon. They are known as one of the zuggot ("couples"): Sh'maya and Avtalyon. Both Sh'maya and Avtalyon were converts to Judaism and were both descendants of King Sancheriv of Assyria who destroyed the northern Kingdom of Israel."
"He was a leader of the Pharisees in the first century BC; president of the Sanhedrin before and during the reign of Herod the Great."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sh%27maya_%28Mishnah%29
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"bht'alyon, also Avtalyon, Avtalion and Abtalion (Hebrew: אבטליון) was a rabbinic sage in the early pre-Mishnaic era who lived at the same time as Sh'maya."
"A leader of the Pharisees in the middle of the first century BC and by tradition vice-president of the great Sanhedrin of Jerusalem. He was of heathen descent (Bab. Yoma, 71b; 'Eduy. v.6; Giṭ. 57b; Yer. M. Ḳ. iii.81b; see Weiss, Dor Dor we-Dorshaw, i.1, and Landau, p. 319). Despite this fact, Abtalion, as well as his colleague, Shemaiah, the president of the Sanhedrin, was one of the most influential and beloved men of his time."
"He was a leader of the Pharisees in the first century BC; president of the Sanhedrin before and during the reign of Herod the Great."
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Onkelos (אונקלוס) is the name of a famous convert to Judaism in Tannaic times (c.35-120 CE). He is considered to be the author of the famous Targum Onkelos (c.110 CE).
The Talmud states that "a person should complete his portions of scripture along with the community, reading the scripture twice and the targum once." This passage is taken by many to refer to Targum Onkelos.
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Helena was queen of Adiabene and wife of Monobaz I. With her husband she was the mother of Izates II and Monobaz II. She died about 56 CE. Her name and the fact that she was her husband's sister indicate a Hellenistic origin. Helena became a convert to Judaism about the year 30 CE.
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"Izates II or Izates bar Monobaz (also known as Izaates) (ca. 1-55 CE) was a proselyte to Judaism who became King of the Parthian client kingdom of Adiabene. He was the son of Queen Helena of Adiabene and Monobaz I. During his youth he was sent by his father to the court of King Abennerig of Characene in Charax Spasinu. While in Charax Izates became acquainted with a Jewish merchant named Ananias"
Ananias of Adiabene was a Jewish merchant and mendicant proselytizer, probably of Hellenistic origin, who, in the opening years of the common era, was prominent at the court of Abinergaos I, king of Characene.
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Symacho (fl. early 1st c. CE) was the daughter of King Abinergaos I of Characene. She was converted to Judaism by Ananias of Adiabene. Symacho married Izates bar Monobaz during the latter's sojourn in Charax as a youth. She presumably went with him when he left to take up his throne in Adiabene.
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Aquila of Sinope was a 2nd Century CE native of Pontus in Anatolia known for producing an exceedingly literal translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek around 130 CE. He was a proselyte to Judaism and a disciple of Rabbi Akiba (d. circa 135 CE).
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Monobaz II or Monobaz bar Monobaz was the son of Helena of Adiabene and Monobaz I. Like his brother Izates bar Monobaz and his mother, Monobaz became a convert to Judaism. He ruled as king of Adiabene after the death of his brother Izates around 55 CE.
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Titus Flavius Clemens was a great-nephew of the Roman Emperor Vespasian. He was the son of Titus Flavius Sabinus (consul 69), brother to Titus Flavius Sabinus (consul 82) and a second cousin to Roman Emperors to Titus and Domitian.
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Fulvia, the wife of Tiberius' 'amicus' Saturninus, lived during the reign of the Roman Emperor Tiberius. (She is sometimes confused with Fulvia the wife of Marcus Antonius who died before the Principate began.)
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Paulina Beturia was a Roman covert to Judaism (about the year 50), known under the name "Sarah," who, according to her Latin epitaph, was eighty-six years and six months old at the time of her death. For sixteen years she was a Jewess, a mother of the synagogues ("mater synagogarum") of the Campesian and Volumnian communities in Rome.
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Tub'a Abu Kariba As'ad (Abu Kariba) was the Himyarite king of Yemen. He ruled Yemen from 390-420 CE.[2] Abu Kariba is commonly cited as the first of several kings of Arabia to convert to Judaism.
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Yūsuf Dhū Nuwas, (Arabic: يوسف ذو نواس) (also Yūsuf Asar Dhū Nuwas or Dunaan; ruled 517 – 525) was the last king of the Himyarite kingdom of Yemen and a convert to Judaism.
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Bulan was a Khazar king who led the conversion of the Khazars to Judaism. His name means "elk" in Old Turkic. The date of his reign is unknown, as the date of the conversion is hotly disputed, though it is certain that Bulan reigned some time between the mid-700s and the mid-800s. Nor is it settled whether Bulan was the Bek or the Khagan of the Khazars.
D.M. Dunlop was certain that Bulan was a Khagan; however, more recent works, such as The Jews of Khazaria by Kevin Brook, assume that he was the Bek due to references to him leading military campaigns. Khazar tradition held that before his own conversion, Bulan was religiously unaffiliated. In his quest to discover which of the three Abrahamic religions would shape his own religious beliefs, he invited representatives from each to explain their fundamental tenets. In the end, he chose Judaism.
In the Khazar Correspondence, King Joseph traces his lineage back to Bulan. He refers to the reforming Khazar ruler Obadiah as being one of "the sons of the sons of Bulan". While Brook assumes this makes Obadiah Bulan's grandson, the Hebrew phrase is less definitive and may allude to a more remote descent. The royal descendants of Bulan are referred to by Khazar researchers as Bulanids, though their self-designation is unknown.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulan_%28Khazar%29
The Khazars were a semi-nomadic Turkic people who dominated the Pontic steppe and the North Caucasus from the 7th to the 10th century. The name "Khazar"[1] seems to be tied to a Turkic verb form meaning "wandering".[2]
In the 7th century, the Khazars founded an independent Khaganate in the Northern Caucasus along the Caspian Sea. Although the Khazars were initially Tengri shamanists, many converted to the Abrahamic faiths through interaction with the Byzantine Empire and successive Islamic caliphates; during the 8th or 9th century, the Khaganate adopted Judaism as the state religion. At their height, the Khazars and their tributaries controlled much of what is today southern Russia, western Kazakhstan, eastern Ukraine, Azerbaijan, large portions of the Northern Caucasus (Circassia, Dagestan), parts of Georgia, the Crimea, and Northeastern Turkey.
Between 965 and 969, their sovereignty was broken by Sviatoslav I of Kiev, and they became a subject people of Kievan Rus'. Gradually displaced by the Rus, the Kipchaks, and later the conquering Mongol Golden Horde, the Khazars largely disappeared as a culturally distinct people.
The origins of the Khazars are unclear.
At some point in the last decades of the 8th century or the early 9th century, the Khazar royalty and nobility converted to Judaism, and part of the general population followed. The extent of the conversion is debated. Ibn al-Faqih reported in the 10th century that "all the Khazars are Jews."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khazars
Medieval Kingdom of Khazaria, 652-1016
Over a thousand years ago, the far east of Europe was ruled by Jewish kings who presided over numerous tribes, including their own tribe: the Turkic Khazars. After their conversion, the Khazar people used Jewish personal names, spoke and wrote in Hebrew, were circumcised, had synagogues and rabbis, studied the Torah and Talmud, and observed Hanukkah, Pesach, and the Sabbath. The Khazars were an advanced civilization with one of the most tolerant societies of the medieval period. It hosted merchants from all over Asia and Europe. On these pages it is hoped that you may learn more about this fascinating culture.
Christian of Stavelot, in Expositio in Matthaeum Evangelistam (864):
"At the present time we know of no nation under the heavens where Christians do not live. For [Christians are even found] in the lands of Gog and Magog -- who are a Hunnic race and are called Gazari (Khazars)... circumcized and observing all [the laws of] Judaism. The Bulgars, however, who are of the same seven tribes [as the Khazars], are now becoming baptized [into Christianity]."
Ahmad ibn Fadlan, in his travellogue (c. 922):
"The Khazars and their king are all Jews."
Ibn al-Faqih (c. 930):
"All of the Khazars are Jews. But they have been Judaized recently."
Khazar King Joseph, in his Reply to Hasdai ibn-Shaprut (c. 955):
"After those days there arose from the sons of Bulan's sons a king, Obadiah by name. He was an upright and just man. He reorganized the kingdom and established the Jewish religion properly and correctly. He built synagogues and schools, brought in many Israelite sages, honored them with silver and gold, and they explained to him the 24 Books of the Bible, Mishnah, Talmud, and the order of prayers established by the Khazzans. He was a man who feared God and loved the law and the commandments."
Abd al-Jabbar ibn Muhammad al-Hamdani, in The Establishment of Proofs for the Prophethood of Our Master Muhammad (c. 1009-1010):
"One of the Jews undertook the conversion of the Khazars, who are composed of many peoples, and they were converted by him and joined his religion. This happened recently in the days of the Abbasids.... For this was a man who came single-handedly to a king of great rank and to a very spirited people, and they were converted by him without any recourse to violence and the sword. And they took upon themselves the difficult obligations enjoined by the law of the Torah, such as circumcision, the ritual ablutions, washing after a discharge of the semen, the prohibition of work on the Sabbath and during the feasts, the prohibition of eating the flesh of forbidden animals according to this religion, and so on."
Abraham ibn Daud of Toledo, Spain, in The Book of Tradition (1161):
"You will find the communities of Israel spread abroad... as far as Dailam and the river Itil where live Khazar peoples who became proselytes. The Khazar king Joseph sent a letter to Hasdai ibn-Shaprut and informed him that he and all his people followed the rabbinical faith. We have seen descendants of the Khazars in Toledo, students of the wise, and they have told us that the remnant of them is of the rabbinical belief."
Dimashqi (1327):
"Ibn-al-Athir tells how in the days of Harun, the emperor of Byzantium forced the Jews to emigrate. They came to the Khazar country, where they found an intelligent but untutored race and offered them their religion. The inhabitants found it better than their own and accepted it."
http://www.khazaria.com/
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In the 6th century most Khazars convert to what would be come known as Judaism
This is the exact century Jewish and secular scholars would coin the birth of Modern Judaism
After the Khazar dissolve in the 9th Century, they would never again be known as Khazar Jews, only Jews.
The oldest synagogue fragments are stone synagogue dedication inscriptions stones found in middle and lower Egypt and dating from the third century BCE.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldest_synagogues_in_the_world
"And all the Israelites, both small and great, and the captains of the armies, arose, and came to Egypt: for they were afraid of the Chaldees." - 2 Kings
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Massive Assyrian Half Conversion And Take Over
And the king of Assyria brought men from Babylon, and from Cuthah, and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel: and they possessed Samaria, and dwelt in the cities thereof.
And so it was at the beginning of their dwelling there, that they feared not the LORD: therefore the LORD sent lions among them, which slew some of them.
Wherefore they spake to the king of Assyria, saying, The nations which thou hast removed, and placed in the cities of Samaria, know not the manner of the God of the land: therefore he hath sent lions among them, and, behold, they slay them, because they know not the manner of the God of the land.
Then the king of Assyria commanded, saying, Carry thither one of the priests whom ye brought from thence; and let them go and dwell there, and let him teach them the manner of the God of the land.
Then one of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria came and dwelt in Bethel, and taught them how they should fear the LORD.
Howbeit every nation made gods of their own, and put them in the houses of the high places which the Samaritans had made, every nation in their cities wherein they dwelt.
And the men of Babylon made Succothbenoth, and the men of Cuth made Nergal, and the men of Hamath made Ashima,
And the Avites made Nibhaz and Tartak, and the Sepharvites burnt their children in fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim.
So they feared the LORD, and made unto themselves of the lowest of them priests of the high places, which sacrificed for them in the houses of the high places.
They feared the LORD, and served their own gods, after the manner of the nations whom they carried away from thence.
Unto this day they do after the former manners: they fear not the LORD, neither do they after their statutes, or after their ordinances, or after the law and commandment which the LORD commanded the children of Jacob, whom he named Israel
(So these nations feared the LORD, and served their graven images, both their children, and their children's children: as did their fathers, so do they unto this day.)
- 2 Kings 17
"They themselves, to the contrary, claimed to be authentic "Israelites,"
the posterity of Jacob-Israel. Since they had no other prophet but Moses, and the Pentateuch was their unique Holy Book, they might appear as the true guardians of the ancient monotheistic belief. In fact, they were a Jewish sect whose members continued to observe
the essential rites of Judaism, but held divergent views concerning the localization of the sanctuary in which the Eternal had ordained that the Hebrews offer Him their sacrifices: for the Samaritans, this sacred site was not Jerusalem but Mount Gerizim"
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Israel Back In Egypt:
The Elephantine papyri are caches of legal documents and letters written in Aramaic, which document a community of Jewish soldiers, with perhaps an admixture of Samaritans, stationed here during the Persian occupation of Egypt. They maintained their own temple (also see House of Yahweh), evincing polytheistic beliefs, which functioned alongside that of Khnum, . The association of the God of Israel with Khnum, a bull-headed deity, is reminiscent of the condemned portrayal of YHWH as a golden calf in Exodus.
The Jewish community at Elephantine was probably founded as a military installation circa 650 BCE during Manasseh's reign, to assist Pharaoh Psammetichus I in his Nubian campaign (See Investigating the Origin of the Ancient Jewish Community at Elephantine: A Review. ) The documents cover the period 495 to 399 BCE.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephantine
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Greeks In Egypt, Palestine And Israel
The Greeks probably were the first to record information about the customs, life styles and societies of the different peoples whom they encountered or heard about during their travels in various parts of the world. Jews were one of the many peoples whom they met and observed.[10] The "father of history", Herodotus, who visited Egypt under Persian rule in the 450s BCE, wrote extensively about the Egyptians and referred to the "Syrians of Palestine" who were circumcised and were assumed to be the Jews.[11] In fact, it is likely that it was Herodotus who coined the name "Palestine," namely, the area of the Land of Israel, as his encounter was with the descendants of the Philistines who inhabited the coastal towns of Gaza, Ashdod, and Ashkelon. The Jews inhabited the landlocked region of Jerusalem and its surrounding hills, known as Judea.[12]
During the decades and centuries following the conquest of the Near East by Alexander the Great in the 330s and 320s BCE, Greek soldiers and civilians populated and colonized the entire area, established major cities, such as Alexandria in Egypt, and spread their system of local government, language, culture, art, religion, and way of life throughout the region. The Greeks promoted and advocated the adoption of their life style and mores; namely, Hellenization, which in contemporary parlance may be termed the first manifestation of "globalization." All the peoples whom they ruled and amongst whom they lived, including the Jews in the Land of Israel and the Diaspora (a Greek term), had to contend with the challenge of Hellenization through assimilation, adaptation or resistance.[13]
The Jewish Identity of Jerusalem in Greek and Roman Sources*
Rivkah Fishman-Duker
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Region. Idumea was a Greek word meaning "pertaining to Edom". This term was given by the Greeks and Romans for the country of Edom on the S borders of Judea inhabited by Idumeans (Edomites) (Mark 3:8; Is 34:5-6; Ezek 35:15; 36:5). After the fall of Jerusalem (587 B.C.) the Edomites began to advance northward (Ezek 36:5). By 312 B.C. the Nabataeans, who established themselves in Edom, drove them from Petra. The Edomites were gradually forced into the S half of Judea, including the region around Hebron, an area that the Greeks later called Idumea.
http://www.bible-history.com/
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Roman Coins Made In Jerusalem
http://fontes.lstc.edu/~rklein/images/CO4C.JPG
4c struck in Jerusalem-Yehud on left, head of Athena on right
http://fontes.lstc.edu/~rklein/Documents/yehud.htm
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Why Would Israel Do Almost Anything To Escape The Greeks?
"This great Greek empire would last no longer than Alexander's brief life; after his death, altercations between his generals led to the division of his empire among three generals. One general, Antigonus and then later Ptolemy, inherited Egypt; another, Seleucus, inherited the Middle East and Mesopotamia. After two centuries of peace under the Persians, the Hebrew state found itself once more caught in the middle of power struggles between two great empires: the Seleucid state with its capital in Syria to the north and the Ptolemaic state, with its capital in Egypt to the south. Once more, Judah would be conquered first by one, and then by the other, as it shifted from being a Seleucid vassal state to a Ptolemaic vassal state. Between 319 and 302 BCE, Jerusalem changed hands seven times.
Like all others in the region, the Jews bitterly resented the Greeks. They were more foreign than any group they had ever seen. In a state founded on maintaining the purity of the Hebrew religion, the gods of the Greeks seemed wildly offensive. In a society rigidly opposed to the exposure of the body, the Greek practice of wrestling in the nude and deliberately dressing light must have been appalling! In a religion that specifically singles out homosexuality as a crime against Yahweh, the Greek attitude and even preference for homosexuality must have been incomprehensible. "
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/Greeks.html
The Greeks promoted and advocated the adoption of their life style and mores; namely, Hellenization, which in contemporary parlance may be termed the first manifestation of "globalization." All the peoples whom they ruled and amongst whom they lived, including the Jews in the Land of Israel and the Diaspora (a Greek term), had to contend with the challenge of Hellenization through assimilation, adaptation or resistance - Rivkah Fishman-Duker
A map would show that Israel would be surrounded by Greek Cities in both Palestine and Northern Israel
http://www.bible-books-maps.com/Historical-Maps/The-Greek-cities-in-Palestine.asp
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Simon Magus:
A personage frequently mentioned in the history of primitive Christianity. According to Acts viii. 9-23, he was greatly fearedthroughout Samaria on account of his magic powers; but he permitted himself to be baptized, and wished to purchase the gift of the Holy Ghost, being cursed by Peter for this presumptuousness. In spite of the definiteness of the statements regarding him, the historicity of Simon has been doubted by many critics, especially by Baur and his school, who held that he was a caricature of the "Apostle of the Gentiles." Such a view must, however, be regarded as a grave critical aberration (Harnack, "Dogmengeschichte," 1st ed., i. 179, note 1).
The early Christian Clementine "Recognitiones" (vii.-x.) represent Simon as a Jewish magician instead of a Samaritan, stating that he was a member of a Jewish household in Cæsarea, and that, when pursued by Peter, he fled to Judea. Mention is made, moreover, of a magician named Simon who lived in this very city of Cæsarea about the year 40 of the common era (Josephus, "Ant." xx. 7, § 2); so that some scholars consider the two to be identical (Hilgenfeld, "Ketzergeschichte," p. 170; Albert, "Die Ersten Fünfzehn Jahre der Christlichen Kirche," p. 114, Münster, 1900; Waitz, in "Zeitschrift für Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft," v. 128). This view can hardly be correct, however, although the notice, like other similar ones, serves to show that there were such magicians even among the Jews. The most reliable sources, including Justin Martyr, who was a Samaritan by birth, call Simon a native of Cæsarea; and, in harmony with this statement, the same authorities regard him as a pupil of Dositheus, the Samaritan heresiarch (but see Dositheus). Simon was, furthermore, regarded by all the Church Fathers as the great heretic from whose school and teaching sprang all the later motley heresies of Christianity; and inasmuch as his system contained Gnostic teaching, Gnosticism itself was ascribed to him, and a Gnostic figure was seen in his alleged wife Helena.
Read more: http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=798&letter=S#ixzz0z38Vz2da
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Forgeries In The Hebrew Religion May Occur As Early As 200 B.C.E:
"Susanna or Shoshana (Hebrew: שׁוֹשַׁנָּה, Modern Šošana Tiberian Šôšannâ: "lily") is one of the additions to Daniel, considered apocryphal by Protestants, but included in the Book of Daniel (as chapter 13) by the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. It is listed in Article VI of the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England as unscriptural. It is not included in the Jewish Tanakh, and is not mentioned in early Jewish literature."
"The Greek puns in the texts have been cited by some as proof that the text never existed in Hebrew or Aramaic, but other researchers have suggested pairs of words for trees and cutting that sound similar enough to suppose that they could have been used in an original. The Anchor Bible uses "yew" and "hew" and "clove" and "cleave" to get this effect in English. Others suggest that the puns were added by the Greek translator and say nothing about the original form of the text."
"The Greek text survives in two versions. The Septuagint's text appears only in the Codex Chisianus. The version of Theodotion, is the one that appears in Roman Catholic bibles. It was regarded as a part of the Daniel literature and was placed at the beginning of the Book of Daniel in manuscripts of the Old Testament. Jerome placed it at the end of Daniel, with a notice that it is not found in the Hebrew Bible."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susanna_%28Book_of_Daniel%29
What Does DNA Say About Relations Between the Converts and Modern Judaism
"Modern Samaritans have always claimed to be the descendants of Israelites of the Northern Kingdom who escaped the deportations. They remained behind during the Babylonian Captivity, and thus introduced none of the religious changes brought about among the Jews during this time.
However, Jewish tradition states, The king of the Assyrians then brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, and other places to Samaria. The king of the Assyrians sent one of the priests from Bethel to teach the new settlers about God's ordinances. The eventual result was that the new settlers worshipped both the God of the land and their own gods from the countries from which they came. Modern DNA evidence validates both local and foreign origins for the Samaritans.
One genetic study (Shen, et al., 2004) concluded from Y chromosome analysis that Samaritans descend from the Israelites (including Kohen, or priests). Other evidence using mitochondrial DNA analysis shows descent from Assyrians and other foreign women.
By the beginning of the 20th century there were only 150 of them left. With the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 this minute community was split into two centers --- one under Jordanian rule and the other in Israel. The Six-Day War in 1967 ended the isolation of the two branches and under the protection of the Israel government, their population has grown to about 500 persons." (Encyclopedia Judaica Jr.)
Although living in Israel, the Samaritans do not pledge allegiance to either the Palestinians and the Israeli's, preferring to maintain neutrality on the issue of the state of Israel. "
http://www.ldssundayschool.org/Samaritans
Israel ruled by preIslamic Convert Nabateans
"Herod was born around 74 BCE. He was the second son of Antipater the Idumaean, a high-ranked official under Ethnarch Hyrcanus II, and Cypros, a Nabatean. A loyal supporter of Hyrcanus II, Antipater appointed Herod governor of Galilee at 25, and his elder brother, Phasael, governor of Jerusalem. He enjoyed the backing of Rome but his excessive brutality was condemned by the Sanhedrin."
"For about 100 years there has been a consensus among scholars that Herod the Great reigned from 37 to 4 BCE. However, there have been several challenges to this consensus over the past four decades, the most notable being the objection raised by W.E. Filmer. This paper argues that Herod most likely reigned from late 39 BCE to early 1 BCE, and that this reconstruction of his reign can account for all of the surviving historical references to the events of Herod's reign more logically than the current consensus can. Moreover, the reconstruction of Herod's reign proposed in this paper accounts for all of the datable evidence relating to Herod's reign, whereas the current consensus is unable to explain some of the evidence that it dismisses as ancient errors or that it simply ignores."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herod_the_Great
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/brill/not/2009/00000051/00000001/art00001
Israel Ruled By Samaritans and Nabateans
http://www.mideastweb.org/christ.jpg
"Palestine inhabited by a mixed population
The "chauvinist Arab version of history," then--so important to the current claim of "Palestinian" rights to "Arab Palestine," which Arab Palestinians purportedly inhabited for "thousands of years" --omits several relevant, situation-altering facts
History did not begin with the Arab conquest in the seventh century. The people whose nation was destroyed by the Romans were the Jews. There were no Arab Palestinians then -- not until seven hundred years later would an Arab rule prevail, and then briefly. And not by people known as "Palestinians." The short Arab rule would be reigning over Christians and Jews, who had been there to languish under various other foreign conquerors, -- Roman, Byzantine, Persian, to name just three in the centuries between the Roman and Arab conquests. The peoples who conquered under the banner of the invading Arabians from the desert were often hired mercenaries who remained on the land as soldiers -- not Arabians, but others who were enticed by the promise of the booty of conquest.
From the time the Arabians, along with their non-Arabian recruits, entered Palestine and Syria, they found and themselves added to what was "ethnologically a chaos of all the possible human combinations to which, when Palestine became a land of pilgrimage, a new admixture was added."1 Among the peoples who have been counted as "indigenous Palestinian Arabs" are Balkans, Greeks, Syrians, Latins, Egyptians, Turks, Armenians, Italians, Persians, Kurds, Germans, Afghans, Circassians, Bosnians, Sudanese, Samaritans, Algerians, Motawila, and Tartars.
John of Wurzburg lists for the middle era of the kingdom, Latins, Germans, Hungarians, Scots, Navarese, Bretons, English, Franks, Ruthenians, Bohemians, Greeks, Bulgarians, Georgians, Armenians, Syrians, Persian Nestorians, Indians,Egyptians, Copts, Maronites and natives from the Nile Delta. The list might be much extended, for it was the period of the great self-willed city-states in Europe, and Amalfi, Pisans, Genoese, Venetians, and Marseillais, who had quarters in all the bigger cities, owned villages, and had trading rights, would, in all probability, have submitted to any of the above designations, only under pressure. Besides all these, Norsemen, Danes, Frisians, Tartars, Jews, Arabs, Russians, Nubians, and Samaritans, can be safely added to the greatest human agglomeration drawn together in one small area of the globe."
http://www.eretzyisroel.org/~peters/mixed.html
Alexandria
Alexandria in Easton's Bible Dictionary the ancient metropolis of Lower Egypt, so called from its founder, Alexander the Great (about B.C. 333). It was for a long period the greatest of existing cities, for both Nineveh and Babylon had been destroyed, and Rome had not yet risen to greatness. It was the residence of the kings of Egypt for 200 years. It is not mentioned in the Old Testament, and only incidentally in the New. Apollos, eloquent and mighty in the Scriptures, was a native of this city (Acts 18:24). Many Jews from Alexandria were in Jerusalem, where they had a synagogue (Acts 6:9), at the time of Stephen's martyrdom. At one time it is said that as many as 10,000 Jews resided in this city. It possessed a famous library of 700,000 volumes, which was burned by the Saracens (A.D. 642). It was here that the Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek. This is called the Septuagint version, from the tradition that seventy learned men were engaged in executing it. It was, however, not all translated at one time. It was begun B.C. 280, and finished about B.C. 200 or 150. (See VERSION ¯T0003768.)
http://www.bible-history.com/eastons/A/Alexandria/
Sirach, by Ben Sira, also known as Wisdom of Jesus son of Sirach, the Wisdom of Ben Sira, or Ecclesiasticus, is a work from the second century BC, originally written in Hebrew.
In Egypt, it was translated into Greek by the author's grandson, who added a prologue. The Prologue to Ben Sira is generally considered the earliest witness to a canon of the books of the prophets, and thus the date of the text as we have it is the subject of intense scrutiny.
The Book Ben Sira ("ספר "בן סירא) was originally written in Hebrew, and is also known as Proverbs of Ben Sira (משלי בן סירא) or Wisdom of Ben Sira (חכמת בן סירא).
Ben Sira wrote his work in Jerusalem at some point before 180 BC, and worked as a scribe.
In the early 20th century several substantial Hebrew texts of Ben Sira, copied in the eleventh and twelfth centuries AD, were found in the Cairo geniza (a synagogue storage room for damaged manuscripts). Although none of these manuscripts is complete, together they provide the text for about two-thirds of the book of Ben Sira. According to Frederic Kenyon, this shows that the book was originally written in Hebrew. (Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts. Rev. by A.W. Adams. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1958. 83.) That Sirach was originally written in Hebrew may be of some significance for the biblical canon. The book was accepted into the canon of the Old Testament by Catholicism and Eastern Orthdoxy but not by Judaism or Protestantism. (Palestinian Jews apparently determined the final form of the Jewish scriptures at the rabbinic university at Jamnia or "Javneh" c. AD 100) Since Talmudic references to Jamnia suggest that at least some decisions about which books to include in the Bible were based on language (e.g., to be inspired a book must have been written in Hebrew), perhaps Sirach was rejected because no Hebrew manuscripts of it were known at Jamnia at that time.
In the 1950s and 1960s three copies of portions of Ben Sira were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. The largest scroll was discovered at Masada, the famous Jewish fortress destroyed in 73 AD. The earliest of these scrolls (2Q18) has been dated to the second part of the 1st century BC, approximately 150 years after Ben Sira was first composed. These early Hebrew texts are in substantial agreement with the Hebrew texts discovered in Cairo, although there are numerous minor textual variants. With these findings, scholars are now more confident that the Cairo texts are reliable witnesses to the Hebrew original.
"Ben Sirah, a Jew who had been living in Jerusalem, may have authored the work in Alexandria, Egypt circa 180–175 BC, where he is thought to have established a school"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirach
http://www.earlyjewishwritings.com/text/sirach.html
Bona-Fied Israelites Deep in Africa again After exile.....
"Further waves of Jewish immigrants settled in Egypt during the Ptolemaic era, especially around Alexandria. Thus, their history in this period centers almost completely on Alexandria, though daughter communities rose up in places like the present Kafr ed-Dawar, and Jews served in the administration as custodians of the river."
"The history of the Alexandrian Jews dates from the foundation of the city by Alexander the Great, 332 B.C., at which they were present. They were numerous from the very outset, forming a notable portion of the city's population under Alexander's successors. The Ptolemies assigned them a separate section, two of the five districts, of the city, to enable them to keep their laws pure of indigenous cultic influences. The Alexandrian Jews enjoyed a greater degree of political independence than elsewhere. While the Jews elsewhere throughout the later Roman Empire formed private societies for religious purposes, or else became a corporation of foreigners like the Egyptian and Phoenician merchants in the large commercial centers, those of Alexandria constituted an independent political community, side by side with that of the indigenous population."
"For the Roman period there is evidence that at Oxyrynchus (modern Behneseh), on the east side of the Nile, there was a Jewish community of some importance. It even had a Jews' street. Many of the Jews there must have become Christians, though they retained their Biblical names (e.g., "David" and "Elisabeth," occurring in a litigation concerning an inheritance). There is even found a certain Jacob, son of Achilles (c. 300 AD), as beadle of an Egyptian temple.
The Jewish community of Alexandria was virtually wiped out by Trajan 's army during a revolt in 115-117 CE., and Josephus puts the figure for those slaughtered in the vast pogrom at 50,000."
"The Arab invasion of Egypt found support not only from Copts, and other Christians, but from Jews as well, all disgruntled by the corrupt administration of the Patriarch Cyrus of Alexander, notorious for his Monotheletic proselytizing. In addition to the Jews settled there from early times, some must have come from the Arabian peninsula. The letter sent by Muhammad to the Jewish Banu Janba in 630 is said by Al-Baladhuri to have been seen in Egypt. A copy, written in Hebrew characters, has been found in the Cairo genizah.
16 The bronze from the two pillars, the Sea and the movable stands, which Solomon had made for the temple of the LORD, was more than could be weighed. 17 Each pillar was twenty-seven feet [e] high. The bronze capital on top of one pillar was four and a half feet [f] high and was decorated with a network and pomegranates of bronze all around. The other pillar, with its network, was similar.
18 The commander of the guard took as prisoners Seraiah the chief priest, Zephaniah the priest next in rank and the three doorkeepers. 19 Of those still in the city, he took the officer in charge of the fighting men and five royal advisers. He also took the secretary who was chief officer in charge of conscripting the people of the land and sixty of his men who were found in the city. 20 Nebuzaradan the commander took them all and brought them to the king of Babylon at Riblah. 21 There at Riblah, in the land of Hamath, the king had them executed.
So Judah went into captivity, away from her land.
22 Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon appointed Gedaliah son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, to be over the people he had left behind in Judah. 23 When all the army officers and their men heard that the king of Babylon had appointed Gedaliah as governor, they came to Gedaliah at Mizpah—Ishmael son of Nethaniah, Johanan son of Kareah, Seraiah son of Tanhumeth the Netophathite, Jaazaniah the son of the Maacathite, and their men. 24 Gedaliah took an oath to reassure them and their men. "Do not be afraid of the Babylonian officials," he said. "Settle down in the land and serve the king of Babylon, and it will go well with you."
25 In the seventh month, however, Ishmael son of Nethaniah, the son of Elishama, who was of royal blood, came with ten men and assassinated Gedaliah and also the men of Judah and the Babylonians who were with him at Mizpah. 26 At this, all the people from the least to the greatest, together with the army officers, fled to Egypt for fear of the Babylonians.
2 Kings 25
Pork only introduced to the African American cuisine during slavery?
"The term soul food became popular in the 1960s. The origins of soul food, however, are much older and can be traced back to Africa. Foods such as rice, sorghum (known by Europeans as "guinea corn"), and okra — all common elements in West African cuisine — were introduced to the Americas as a result of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and became dietary staples among enslaved Africans. They also comprise an important part of American southern cooking. Many culinary historians believe that in the beginning of the 14th century, around the time of early African exploration, European explorers brought their own food supplies and introduced them into the African diet. Foods such as corn and cassava from the Americas, turnips from Morocco and cabbage from Portugal would play an important part in the history of African American cuisine.[1]
When the European slave trade began in the early 15th century, the diet of newly enslaved Africans changed on the long journeys from their homeland. It was during this time that some of the indigenous crops of Africa began showing up in the Americas.[2]
Enslavers fed their captives as cheaply as possible, often with throwaway foods from the plantation, forcing slaves to make do with the ingredients at hand. In slave households, vegetables were the tops of turnips and beets and dandelions. Soon, slaves were cooking with new types of greens: collards, kale, cress, mustard, and pokeweed. They also developed recipes which used lard; cornmeal; and offal, discarded cuts of meat such as pigs' feet, oxtail, ham hocks, chitterlings (pig small intestines), pig ears, hog jowls, tripe and skin. Cooks added onions, garlic, thyme, and bay leaf to enhance the flavors. Some slaves supplemented their meager diets by maintaining small plots made available to them to grow their own vegetables, and many engaged in subsistence fishing and hunting, which yielded wild game for the table. Foods such as raccoon, squirrel, opossum, turtle, and rabbit were, until the 1950s, very common fare among the still predominantly rural and southern African American population."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soul_food
Age of Hellenism: Alexander the Great changed the face of Judea along with the rest of the known world. In 336 BC he became king of Macedomia and of the Greek city-states conquered by his father (Philip II). Within a decade he defeated the Persians and fell heir to their empire. In 332 BC he conquered Judea ..... The Greeks were interested not only in military victories, political expansion and economic gain; thet were also committed to disseminating their way of life. In addition to political hegemony and imposition of taxes, Greek conquest exposed the eastern Mediterranean lands and beyond to Hellenism (ibid) ...
Addendum: The shift from Hellenic to Hellenistic in the history of the Mediterranean world represents the shift from a culture dominated by ethnic Greeks - however scattered geographically - to a (1) culture dominated by Greek-speakers of whatever ethnicity and from (2) the political dominance of the city-state to that of larger monarchies (See WIKIPEDIA) ...
http://ancientneareast.tripod.com/Israelites.html
(3) THE GREEK EMPIRE
During this time, Alexander the Great conquered the known world; obviously, it was under God's sovereignty (as prophesied in Daniel 2:36-45). In fact, Alexander conquered the known world so quickly that it is beyond belief.
You see, Alexander the Great had a very, very small army that was always outnumbered by opposing forces; however, they moved with such a rapidity that even a modern army could not keep up. Somebody was helping them behind the scenes; that Person was God.
http://radicalgrace.com/matt5.htm
- Hellenized Jews
Large numbers of Jews lived outside Palestine in the first century. These are the Jews of the Diaspora, the "scattering," or "exile" of the Jews throughout the Greek world - first in 722 BC when the Assyrians declared war and conquered the northern kingdom of Israel, then in 588 BC the Chaldeans conquered the southern kingdom of Judah. The victors in both instances forced the Jews to be relocated, thus diluting their national and cultural strength. Over the next few centuries the Hebrew language was neglected and forgotten by these exiled Jews. Most diaspora Jews of the first century spoke Greek. In fact, sometime in the third century BC the Jewish scriptures (Old Testament, OT) were translated from Hebrew into Greek so that these Greek-speaking Jews could hear and understand the Law of Moses. This famous translation is known as the Septuagint (or LXX), a reference to the legendary story that 72 scribes translated the various texts in a 72 day period with a divinely inspired perfection of agreement.
These Jews of the diaspora were referred to as "Hellenized" ("Greek influenced") by the politically important, Hebrew-speaking Jews of Palestine. Palestinian Jews despised this Hellenization and these Hellenized Jews, believing they had compromised their religion. They could not speak Hebrew, God's language, nor could they understand the Law of Moses when read in Hebrew. When Hellenized Jews came to Jerusalem they were urged to attend Greek speaking synagogues so they could hear and understand Moses being read. They were not wanted in the Temple. We know that the Jews hated Samaritans, and were not fond of Gentiles. Luke tells us this prejudice found its way into the primitive church - Hellenized widows were being neglected.
http://www.churchhistory101.com/century1-p2.php
Foundation of the city of Alexandria. This city quickly becomes the most advanced center of learning in the whole of the Mediterranean and thus important for Jewish studies too.
323 Death of Alexander the Great. Body taken to Alexandria thus instantly elevating this city to preeminence within the vast confines of the Alexandrian empire. The Ptolemaic dynasty of which Cleopatra is the last of the rulers, strives to raise Alexandria to a position of unrivaled importance in the cultural world of the times. Most important is the fabulous library that they endow in Alexandria.
250 The Ptolemies in their active support of the arts and literature encourage the creation of a Greek Bible. This is the "Septuagint" Bible, meaning "The Seventy" named for the 70 Jewish scholars are are reputed to have collaborated on the creation of an authoritative text of the Jewish Bible in Greek. This Bible has enormous influence because it is in Greek and thus can carry the fame and power of the Jewish Bible all over the Mediterranean world.
http://www.westernciv.com/chronologies/chronisrael.shtml
The Christians and the Jews come into conflict, committing violent acts against each other, with the Christians ultimately wresting power from the only other religious group remaining. Davus, remembering how Hypatia forgave him, suggests that perhaps the Christians should forgive the Jews, as Jesus did, but the Christians respond by rebuking him for comparing himself with Jesus.
The leader of the Christians, Cyril (Sami Samir), views Hypatia as having too much influence over Orestes and stages a public ceremony intended to force Orestes to subjugate her. Hypatia's former pupil, Synesius, now the Bishop of Cyrene, comes to her rescue as a religious authority counterweight, but says he cannot help her unless she accepts Christianity; she refuses. Hypatia makes a great discovery, finding that the Earth orbits around the Sun in an elliptic, not circular, orbit with the Sun at one of the foci. Cyril convinces a mob of Christians that Hypatia is a witch and they vow to kill her. Davus tries to run ahead to warn Hypatia, but she is captured by the mob. They strip Hypatia naked and are about to skin her alive until Davus persuades the mob otherwise, settling to stone her instead. When everyone goes outside to collect stones, Davus, with Hypatia's consent, secretly suffocates her and tells the mob that she fainted. Since she is already dead, she does not feel anything when the crowd begins to stone her.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agora_%28film%29
power when the city was at its height of influence and power within the Roman Empire. Cyril wrote extensively and was a leading protagonist in the Christological controversies of the later 4th and 5th centuries. He was a central figure in the First Council of Ephesus in 431, which led to the deposition of Nestorius as Patriarch of Constantinople.
Cyril is counted among the Church Fathers and the Doctors of the Church, and his reputation within the Christian world has resulted in his titles Pillar of Faith and Seal of all the Fathers, but Theodosius II, the Roman Emperor, condemned him for behaving like a proud pharaoh, and the Nestorian bishops at the Council of Ephesus declared him a heretic, labelling him as a "monster, born and educated for the destruction of the church".[1]
Cyril is controversial because of his involvement in the expulsion of Novatians and Jews from Alexandria and the murder of the hellenistic philosopher Hypatia. Historians disagree over the extent of his responsibility for these events.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyril_of_Alexandria
So the Greeks wanted a copy and set about translating it. Called the Septuagint after the number of translators it required ("septuaginta" is Greek for "seventy"), the text is far from perfect. The Hebrew Torah had not settled down into a definitive version, and a number of mistranslations creep in for reasons ranging from political expediency to confusion. For instance, the Hebrew Torah is ruthlessly anti-Egyptian; after all, the founding event of the Hebrew people was the oppression of the Hebrews by the Egyptians and the delivery from Egypt. The Septuagint translators—who are, after all, working for the Greek rulers of Egypt—go about effacing much of the anti-Egyptian aspects. On the other hand, there are words they can't translate into Greek, such as "berit," which they translate "diatheke," or "promise" (in Latin and English, the word is incorrectly translated "covenant").
Despite these imperfections, the Septuagint is a watershed in Jewish history. More than any other event in Jewish history, this translation would make the Hebrew religion into a world religion. It would otherwise have faded from memory like the infinity of Semitic religions that have been lost to us. This Greek version made the Hebrew scriptures available to the Mediterranean world and to early Christians who were otherwise fain to regard Christianity as a religion unrelated to Judaism. Even with a Greek translation, the Hebrew scriptures came within a hair's breadth of being tossed out of the Christian canon. From this Greek translation, the Hebrew view of God, of history, of law, and of the human condition, in all its magnificence would spread around the world. The dispersion, or Diaspora, of the Jews would involve ideas as well as people.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/Greeks.html
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