Experience with Black Israelites?

[cdowis]

Black people are the true Israelites from the tribe of Judah.   Jesus was black.  Salvation is found only in he true name of Jesus which was Yeshua/Yashua.

Anyone had experience with these folks?  
They stand on the street corners and are very aggressive.  Several videos with them talking to the missionaries.

Edited October 28, 2016 by cdowis

[PeterPear]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_Israel

 

Look up:

Operation Joshua

Operation Moses

Operation Solomon

Edited October 28, 2016 by PeterPear

[BlueDreams]

We had a bunch of them in philly on my mission. I only met/taught one and it was in a center  for those with mental illnesses. It was surprising that he would listen to us period. But part of that had to be that both us sisters were minorities...and I think he liked one of us. It compensated for a white ward mission leader we took with us. It stopped though soon with the BoM paintings of a white Jesus. The man also wasn't African-American, but Puerto Rican/Hispanic if I remember correctly. 

Generally though the elders would talk about run-ins with them. I never heard anything super dangerous. Back to work...

 

with luv, 

BD 

 

[cdowis]

I have a feeling that ethnicity (black pride) is the major attraction ==  "the Bible tells us that Christ was black."  I suspect they avoid the name Jesus for Yeshua because the former invokes the image of a white man.

You seem to have confirmed my impression that they are peaceful and very committed.

Edited October 28, 2016 by cdowis

[thesometimesaint]

Jesus in mortality looked very much like today's Palestinians.

[JLHPROF]

24 minutes ago, thesometimesaint said:

Jesus in mortality looked very much like today's Palestinians.

We really have no idea what Jesus would have looked like.
All we can do is assume he would have looked like everyone else in his society.  He probably did look like today's Palestinians, but it is an assumption.

[VideoGameJunkie]

I'm sure Jesus looks different in His exalted current form than He might have while in mortality. We don't know what race looks like in the eternities. We know gender is eternal, but it's never been mentioned if race is eternal.

[JLHPROF]

12 minutes ago, VideoGameJunkie said:

I'm sure Jesus looks different in His exalted current form than He might have while in mortality. We don't know what race looks like in the eternities. We know gender is eternal, but it's never been mentioned if race is eternal.

True.  But a controversial topic - one anti's like to use in their criticisms of the Book of Mormon.

[BlueDreams]

4 hours ago, cdowis said:

I have a feeling that ethnicity (black pride) is the major attraction ==  "the Bible tells us that Christ was black."  I suspect they avoid the name Jesus for Yeshua because the former invokes the image of a white man.

You seem to have confirmed my impression that they are peaceful and very committed.

That would be apart of the simplified answer yes. There's a pretty good page on them at Wikipedia. They're not violent general but several groups within it are black supremacist. 

Pride in blackness is apart of this but like most extreme groups that hinge on ethnic pride, this is only a part of it. If I had to take a shot in the dark based on what I know about race in the u.s. And the scant I've heard about the group, it's partially a reclamation of religion into a black diaspora identity. Mixed in with disenfranchisement/prejudice/racism of the dominant society. Sprinkle in reactivity to dominating white presence that has also been repressive. This would be felt as a way to reestablish power and a sense of respect in one's racial heritage. This has other benign flavors in the AA community and the black diaspora (reclaiming African Art, culture, religious/spiritualist ties, black beauty pushes, etc). I would say this would probably be on the more negative end of any ethnic/racial group trying to reclaim cultural heritage.

 

with luv, 

BD 

[rodheadlee]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cristo_Negro_(Portobelo) We missed the celebration because we arrived too late. Portobelo is a wonderful anchorage and a nice village with an interesting history. The locals we very friendly to us.

[Robert F. Smith]

10 hours ago, PeterPear said:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_Israel

 

Look up:

Operation Joshua

Operation Moses

Operation Solomon

On DNA, your source here says the following:

Quote

A 2012 study showed that although the Beta Israel more closely resemble the indigenous populations of Ethiopia, they have some distant Jewish ancestry, going back 2000 years. This has resulted in speculation that the community was founded by a few Jewish itinerant traders who moved to Ethiopia, converted locals to Judaism, and married into the local population. This evidence has been used as an explanation as to why the Beta Israel had no idea about the holiday of Hanukkah until they were resettled in Israel. The holiday commemorates events in the second century BC, long after their ancestors had left Israel.

Is this the sort of result which one might expect in a group descended from Clan Lehi in the Americas?

[Robert F. Smith]

7 hours ago, JLHPROF said:

We really have no idea what Jesus would have looked like.
All we can do is assume he would have looked like everyone else in his society.  He probably did look like today's Palestinians, but it is an assumption.

Today's Palestinian Arabs and their Jewish neighbors are very similar genetically.  Both are Semites, speak a Semitic language, and many of them are descended from the same Canaanite peoples.  The people of Lebanon, for example, are nearly all (80%) Canaanite, i.e., they share identity with the ancient Canaanite DNA.  Moreover, modern DNA science can tell us the eye and skin color of ancient peoples.  Together with ancient paintings of Semites, that can tell us what Jews and their neighbors typically looked like.  Hollywood rarely uses the correct skin pigmentation for Jesus and his contemporaries, but they do occasionally get it right.  For example, in the recent film "Risen" (2016), the guy playing Jesus (a Maori named Cliff Curtis) is very convincing in that respect -- you can seem him briefly at 1:24 online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bu6IRE01lrw , or see the entire film.  It is very well done.  Another good example from that film is Mary Magdalene, played brilliantly by a Jewish actress from Argentina, Maria Botto (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlIV8lMvz6I ).  Jesus certainly had an olive complexion, most likely with brown eyes, a Jewish nose, and dark hair, and probably fit in rather well with his Jewish neighbors.  He did not look at all like a Nordic or Viking god, such as Arnold Friberg gave us.

 

[VideoGameJunkie]

Hopefully we will be able to recognize Him on sight when we're reunited.

[Robert F. Smith]

12 hours ago, VideoGameJunkie said:

Hopefully we will be able to recognize Him on sight when we're reunited.

It would be difficult not to recognize him in his transfigured and glorified state.

[thesometimesaint]

20 hours ago, JLHPROF said:

We really have no idea what Jesus would have looked like.
All we can do is assume he would have looked like everyone else in his society.  He probably did look like today's Palestinians, but it is an assumption.

His mother was Palestinian. As to his biological father that is a matter of religion.

[JLHPROF]

1 hour ago, thesometimesaint said:

His mother was Palestinian. As to his biological father that is a matter of religion.

Exactly.
Given half his mortal DNA came from God the Father (at least according to MY religion) there is no reason to believe he didn't have any non-Palestinian biological traits.

As for his Jewish mother, as Robert pointed out:

14 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Today's Palestinian Arabs and their Jewish neighbors are very similar genetically.  Both are Semites, speak a Semitic language, and many of them are descended from the same Canaanite peoples. 

2000 years is a long time for intermarriage to mix up DNA.  A descendant of the Royal line of Judah from David 2000 years ago may have had some different biological traits from a Palestinian Jew of today.

Not arguing a point here.  Just playing a bit of Devil's Advocate.  We can only make educated guesses as to the appearance 2000 years ago of a man who had God as a Father and a virgin from the Royal blood of Judah as a Mother.

[thesometimesaint]

Today's Jews in Palestine are genetically from Germany and eastern Europe.

SEE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jews

[Robert F. Smith]

2 hours ago, thesometimesaint said:

Today's Jews in Palestine are genetically from Germany and eastern Europe.

SEE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jews

You have two major errors here, sometimes:

1.  The vast majority of Jews living in Israel today are Sephardic, which means that they come from (and are descended from those who came from) Muslim countries and not from West or East Europe.

2.  The 8 million Jews of today's state of Israel are all genetically similar with ties to their middle Eastern roots.  See the following:

Almut Nebel, et al., “The Y-Chromosome Pool of Jews as Part of the Genetic Landscape of the Middle East,” American Journal of Human Genetics, 69/5 (Nov 2001):1095-1112.

“Population genetics reveals shared ancestries: DNA links modern Europeans, Middle Easterners to Sub-Saharan Africans,” ScienceDaily, May 24, 2011 (Harvard Medical School). Retrieved June 4, 2011, from http://www.sciencedaily.com- /releases/2011/05/110524153536.htm .

Priya Moorjani, et al., “The History of African Gene Flow into Southern Europeans, Levantines, and Jews.” PLoS Genetics, 7/4 (21 Apr 2011):1371-1373, online at http://genetics.med.harvard.edu/reich/Reich_Lab/Welcome_files/2011Moorjani_PLOS.pdf .

 Gil Atzmon, et al., “Abraham's Children in the Genome Era: Major Jewish Diaspora Populations Comprise Distinct Genetic Clusters with Shared Middle Eastern Ancestry,” American Journal of Human Genetics, 10 (June 2010):1016; “Common genetic threads link thousands of years of Jewish ancestry,” ScienceDaily, June 4, 2010.  Retrieved June 4, 2010, from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100603123707.htm .

 “New study defines the genetic map of the Jewish diasporas,” ScienceDaily, August 6, 2012, online at http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/08/120806151137.htm .

[Robert F. Smith]

3 hours ago, JLHPROF said:

Exactly.
Given half his mortal DNA came from God the Father (at least according to MY religion) there is no reason to believe he didn't have any non-Palestinian biological traits.

................................................  

2000 years is a long time for intermarriage to mix up DNA.  A descendant of the Royal line of Judah from David 2000 years ago may have had some different biological traits from a Palestinian Jew of today.

Not arguing a point here.  Just playing a bit of Devil's Advocate.  We can only make educated guesses as to the appearance 2000 years ago of a man who had God as a Father and a virgin from the Royal blood of Judah as a Mother.

Interesting question as to his Father's DNA.  However, his mother's Jewish DNA would not only be recognizable as Jewish, but a usable sample of skeletal remains from that date would tell us a great deal about the physiognomy of typical Jews in that time.  See my reply to thesometimesaint.

Edited October 29, 2016 by Robert F. Smith

[Guest]

On October 28, 2016 at 11:52 AM, cdowis said:

Black people are the true Israelites from the tribe of Judah.   Jesus was black.  Salvation is found only in he true name of Jesus which was Yeshua/Yashua.

Anyone had experience with these folks?  
They stand on the street corners and are very aggressive.  Several videos with them talking to the missionaries.

Yes I have a decades long friend who is a part of this movement. He described himself as a very bad person, until one day while living in West Virginia (where he was from) having a very bad gang pull a gun on him and robbed him. His Father (a minister) has always taught him to seek truth (just as my minister Father did) and that truth he found was this sect. Early on in our working relationship, everything was all about race and even that Israelites today were white (for the most part) due to intermarriage with other races. Over the 30 years of our friendship, he has mellowed greatly that most everything is about race, and instead more about truth and living good lives and seeking truth from every source that it can be found. After a few years of careful distrust, he has become a person who respects other faiths (although he does not care for the Nation of Islam at all) and a fan of of our Faith, but a true dislike of the "Priesthood Ban". He is a close friend, and brother of mine. 

[theplains]

On 28/10/2016 at 11:52 AM, cdowis said:

Black people are the true Israelites from the tribe of Judah.

I'm not surprised. There are also people who teach about British-Israelism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Israelism. Some can even pronounce you
are from a specific tribe of Israel.

Jim

[PeterPear]

On 10/28/2016 at 7:11 PM, Robert F. Smith said:

On DNA, your source here says the following:

Is this the sort of result which one might expect in a group descended from Clan Lehi in the Americas?

Better than believing "Clan Lehi" morphed into a group called the Maya but were not the Maya, with their flattened heads of royalty, and lived in a 500 x 200 mile area strictly within the confines of Mesoamerica for a thousand years, while the same clan took only 8 years to cross the Arabia Peninsula which is larger than a 500 x 200 mile in Mesoamerica because some LDS Scholars believe Joseph Smith learned the true location of The Book of Mormon events from a travel book written by John Lloyd Stephens gifted to him by a Bishop in NYC. And you know it's true because Bishop Dr. John L. Sorenson has a Ph.D from USC in anthropolgy or some other related man-made infused teaching of science. LOL!

[Robert F. Smith]

1 hour ago, PeterPear said:

Better than believing "Clan Lehi" morphed into a group called the Maya but were not the Maya, with their flattened heads of royalty, and lived in a 500 x 200 mile area strictly within the confines of Mesoamerica for a thousand years, while the same clan took only 8 years to cross the Arabia Peninsula which is larger than a 500 x 200 mile in Mesoamerica because some LDS Scholars believe Joseph Smith learned the true location of The Book of Mormon events from a travel book written by John Lloyd Stephens gifted to him by a Bishop in NYC. And you know it's true because Bishop Dr. John L. Sorenson has a Ph.D from USC in anthropolgy or some other related man-made infused teaching of science. LOL!

Yeh, Hugh Nibley's UC dissertation abstract has a wonderful long sentence, such as you have here.  The only real difference is that his sentence is coherent.  Allow me to clarify it for you:

Quote

The Yucatan Peninsula is bounded by the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, with 700 miles of coastline. It is 76,300 square miles (197,600 square kilometers) in size, and includes parts of Mexico, Belize, and Guatemala.

For comparison, England is 50,500 square miles (130,794 square kilometers) in size.  Without Scotland & Ireland.

Yucatan is the primary area in which the Maya people lived then, and live now -- population currently 2 million, but a much larger population anciently.  Sorenson (whose PhD is from UCLA) does not consider the Maya to have been the Nephites.  Instead he places Nephite culture within the Grijalva River Valley in Chiapas State in Mexico, where one finds a non-Maya culture, and he identifies the Sidon River in the Book of Mormon as the Grijalva River.  He places Lamanite culture in highland Guatemala, at the headwaters of the Grijalva River.  If we include some areas of the Land Northward once belonging to the Jaredites we might reach your suggestion for the size of Book of Mormon territory at 100,000 square miles (500 x 200 = 100,000), which approaches the size of England, Scotland, and Ireland combined.  You are apparently saying that real history cannot take place within such a small area, but the people of Great Britain would be very surprised to hear that, as would the  people of ancient Israel -- peoples who lived in just such  constricted areas.  So you say that the Bible could not have taken place within ancient Israel, and it is all a lie for that reason?

The books by Stephens & Catherwood (1841, 1843, and 1844) certainly demonstrated the high culture and civilization of Central and Mesoamerica, and Joseph and his brethren in Nauvoo were certainly impressed enough to comment on it in their Times & Seasons, but this was long after the translation and publication of the Book of Mormon (1829-1830).

In a graceless age of fake news and false facts, your comments always take the cake, Pete.

[sdc999]

Wait a minute... You're telling me Jesus is not like the pale white dude hanging up in every church with blue eyes across the nation?     

[Robert F. Smith]

7 hours ago, sdc999 said:

Wait a minute... You're telling me Jesus is not like the pale white dude hanging up in every church with blue eyes across the nation?     

Yeh, exactly that.  Jesus was a Jew, a man with dark hair and an olive complexion.  Someone was recently cast as a good likeness of Jesus in the movie "Risen" (TriStar, 2016), which is well worth seeing.  The guy playing him is an excellent Maori actor who looks the part.  A Jewish actress plays the Magdalene brilliantly.  See them pictured at http://www.christiananswers.net/spotlight/movies/2016/risen2016.html .