posted                      

quote:

---

Cushites in the Hebrew Bible offers a reassessment of Cushite ethnographic representations in the biblical literature as a counterpoint to misconceptions about Africa and people of African descent which are largely a feature of the modern age. Whereas current interpretations have tended to emphasize unfavourable portraits of the people biblical writers called Cushites, Kevin Burrell illuminates the biblical perspective through a comparative assessment of ancient and modern forms of identity construction. Past and present modes of defining difference betray both similarities and differences to ethnic representations in the Hebrew Bible, providing important contexts for understanding the biblical view. This book contributes to a clearer understanding of the theological, historical, and ethnic dynamics underpinning representations of Cushites in the Hebrew Bible.

Readership

All interested in the place of Africa and Africans in the Bible and the Ancient Near East, and students and specialists researching Cush and Cushites in the Hebrew Bible

---

Posts: 2685 | From: Sweden | Registered: Mar 2020  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Archeopteryx:
Sometimes suggestions of papers, theses, books and other stuff come into my mailbox. I got this suggestion for a book the other day. The author Kevin Burell has been mentioned here on ES before. He is PhD in Hebrew Bible/Old Testament and his main field of research investigates ethnic identity and representation in the Hebrew Bible and the ancient Near East. He is particularly interested in the history and identity of the ancient Kushites/Nubians of North Africa.

Here is an introduction to the book

quote:

---

Cushites in the Hebrew Bible offers a reassessment of Cushite ethnographic representations in the biblical literature as a counterpoint to misconceptions about Africa and people of African descent which are largely a feature of the modern age. Whereas current interpretations have tended to emphasize unfavourable portraits of the people biblical writers called Cushites, Kevin Burrell illuminates the biblical perspective through a comparative assessment of ancient and modern forms of identity construction. Past and present modes of defining difference betray both similarities and differences to ethnic representations in the Hebrew Bible, providing important contexts for understanding the biblical view. This book contributes to a clearer understanding of the theological, historical, and ethnic dynamics underpinning representations of Cushites in the Hebrew Bible.

Readership

All interested in the place of Africa and Africans in the Bible and the Ancient Near East, and students and specialists researching Cush and Cushites in the Hebrew Bible

---

Cushites in the Hebrew Bible: Negotiating Ethnic Identity in the Past and Present-2020

Google books offer a sneak peak into the book

Preview

---

Posts: 2701 | From: New York | Registered: Jun 2015  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Archeopteryx:

Here is an article in Biblical Archaeology Magazine by the same author

Representing Cush in the Hebrew Bible

Picture from the article


Statues of various rulers of the late 25th Dynasty to the early Napatan period.

---

Yes, Kush's role in the salvation of Judah from Assyrian conquest was discussed before. In fact here is one best-selling book on the topic below.



One thing though, that Burrell whom you cite, and Aubin fail to take into account is that the Biblical 'Cush' was not limited to Africa let alone the land south of Egypt.

As Rev. Walter McCray in his book The Black Biblical Presence in the Bible and the Table of Nations cites:

According to Genesis 10:7,8, it says, "The sons of Cush: Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah, and Sabteca. The sons of Raamah: Sheba and Dedan. Cush became the father of Nimrod...."
So, according to the Hebrew Bible, Cush had six sons. Most of these sons(and grand sons) are linked, or identified with, parts of Arabia. This includes:

1)Havilah. Havilah is a place located somewhere in Arabia, but there are no specifics... However, some Biblical scholars say that Havilah may be used in regard to the entire land of Arabia...

2)Sabtah. The people of Sabtah were located in Arabia. Sabtah has been identified with Sabota, the chief city of the land of Hadramaut (the Hazarmaveth of Gen. 10:26) on the south coast of Arabia. It is well established that Cushite people did extend their presence across the Red Sea from Nubia northeastward over the Arabian Peninsula.

3) Raamah. The placement of Raamah in Arabia is beyond dispute. But where exactly in Arabia is the question. Raamah has been identified both with Rhegma located in east Arabia and with Ragmat, a central town in northern Yemen; the latter being mentioned in Miaean and Sabean inscriptions. On the other hand, based on its association with Sheba and Dedan, Raamah could have been located in Northern Arabia. A strong position states that Raamah appears to reference a location in Southwestern Arabia near Maan. If this identification is correct the list of tribes in Genesis 10:7 proceeds from the African to the Asiatic side of the Red Sea...

3a)Sheba. Sheba appears not only in Ham's genealogical line, but also in Shem's as a descendent of Joktan(Gen. 10:28). Hence, Sheba apparently represents an interconnection between Hamitic and Semitic peoples. In Cush's genealogical line, "Sheba", descended from Raamah, is a reference to Saba and are the Sabeans in Yemen...

3b)Dedan. Dedan, the other descendant of Raamah, was located in northwestern Arabia along the Red Sea. The name oocurs in South Arabic inscriptions. Dedan was an important tribe controlling caravan routes between South and North Arabia.

4)Sabteca. Sabteca was the fifth son of Cush. His name is thought to have passed on to a southeastern Arabian locality. It has not been certainly identified....

Rev. McCray is of course a Christian clergyman but then we have Jewish scholar David M. Goldenberg who cites not only Tanakh (Old Testatment) texts in the original Hebrew but also other Jewish sources like Talmud and Midrash and they also speak of "Cushite" presence in Southwest Asia.

Posts: 26252 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Yatunde Lisa Bey:
So reading that old thread that you linked... this quote from Dana..

quote:

---

We mostly know through Hebraic texts that the Hebrews and the Arabians were in times before Christ the same people . They came from the southern Hijaz and Yemen. The Hudhail a remnant black skinned Arabian tribe still living near Mecca speak Arabic which in fact was found to possess many extant Hebrew elements in it. See Chaim Rabin's, Ancient Western Arabian, first published 1951.

---

---

quote:

---

For those who find it difficult to imagine how so many of the Biblical peoples ended up in Africa under their ancient names it would be good to look at Kamal Salibi’s The Bible Came from Arabia first published in the 1970s. Salibi was actually able to locate hundreds of names of the towns of ancient Canaan, Israel and Judah cited in the Bible in Arabia explaining why only a handful of Biblical place names have been found in the modern region of Israel-Palestine and why many modern Biblical archeologists have even begun to suspect that King Solomon and David themselves never even existed in the modern Israel.

The book seems to provide more than abundant evidence that the home of the original Jerusalem and followers Moses, the Canaanites and Phoenicians and Judaeans was much further south in Arabia then the early Greek interpreters of Hebraic tradition implied they originated. Even such names as Kush, Kuth and Misra have been by Salibi and others discovered to correlate with the names of ancient tribes and towns in southern and northern Arabia as much as with Africa and Syria, as will be shown. At the time of the flooding of the South Arabian dam of Marib (Meriba of the Bible Exodus 17:7) many of the people dispersed to the north and into Africa. Among them were the followers of a man named Muzaikiyya also called Amr or Amru bin Amir, who was the Biblical Moses. The descendants of these people were the Khazras and Aus or Awza (Biblical Gezer and Uz, children of Aram) who settled in Hejaz in the area of a brook or stream called Kushan or Kishon not long after the time of their leader Amru bin Amir. Their descendants were called the Kushan or Kassan or Kusim in Syrian dialects. They were the Biblical Jokshan who was said to be brother of Midian, whom in Habbakuk are called Kushan.

~Dana Marniche,
WHEN ARABIA WAS EASTERN ETHIOPIA (PART 4) – BY – DANA MARNICHE
JANUARY 18, 2009


https://www.africaresource.com/rasta/sesostris-the-great-the-egyptian-hercules/when-arabia-was-eastern-ethiopia-part-4-by-dana-marniche/

---

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamal_Salibi

Kamal Suleiman Salibi was a Lebanese historian, professor of history at the American University of Beirut (AUB) and the founding Director (later Honorary President) of the Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies in Amman, Jordan. He was a lifetime bachelor, who devoted his life to books


Arabian Judah theory
Kamal Salibi wrote three books advocating the controversial "Israel in Arabia" theory. In this view, the place names of the Hebrew Bible actually allude to places in southwest Arabia. As the Arabian Hebrews migrated and many resettled in Palestine where they established the Hasmonean kingdom under Simon Maccabaeus in the second century B.C.. According to the theory, the place names in the Bible were gradually reinterpreted to refer to places in this new region. In this new Israel, the Jewish peoples switched from Hebrew to Aramaic. It was this switch in language that created the confusions which led to the distortion of the immigrants' stories.[15] He also argued that 'Lebanon' itself in high antiquity was a place in the Southern Arabian peninsula.[15]

His theory has been both attacked and supported for its supposed implications for modern political affairs, although Salibi himself made no such connection. Tudor Parfitt wrote "It is dangerous because Salibi's ideas have all sorts of implications, not least in terms of the legitimacy of the State of Israel".[16]

The (literally) central identification of the theory is that the geographical feature referred to as הירדן, the "Jordan", which is usually taken to refer to the Jordan River, although never actually described as a "river" in the Hebrew text, actually means the great West Arabian Escarpment, known as the Sarawat Mountains. The area of ancient Israel is then identified with the land on either side of the southern section of the escarpment that is the southern Hejaz and 'Asir, from Ta’if down to the border with Yemen.

Salibi argued that early epigraphic evidence used to vindicate the Biblical stories has been misread. Mesha, the Moabite ruler who celebrated a victory over the kingdom of Israel in a stone inscription, the Mesha stele found in 1868, was, according to Salibi, an Arabian, and Moab was a village 'south (yemen) of Rabin' near Mecca. The words translated 'many days' actually meant 'south of Rabin'.[15] He shared the view of such scholars as Thomas L. Thompson that there is a severe mismatch between the Biblical narrative and the archaeological findings in Palestine. Thompson's explanation was to discount the Bible as literal history but Salibi's was to locate the centre of Jewish culture further south.[17]

The location of the Promised Land is discussed in chapter 15 of "The Bible Came from Arabia". Salibi argued that the description in the Bible is of an extensive tract of land, substantially larger than Palestine which includes a very varied landscape, ranging from well-watered mountain-tops via fertile valleys and foothills to lowland deserts. In the southern part of Arabia there are recently-active volcanoes, near to which are, presumably, the buried remains of Sodom and Gomorrah.[18]

The theory is considered to be a fringe theory. According to Itamar Rabinowitz, the theory allegedly embarrassed many of his colleagues. Rabinowitz discounts antisemitism as the impetus for the book because Salibi "was not a sworn enemy of Israel or Zionism." He speculates, however, that it might've been "an intellectual exercise" for Salibi, whom he considers a "top historian."[12] Several academic reviewers criticised Cape for having accepted "The Bible Came from Arabia" for publication.





full text:
https://archive.org/details/thebiblecamefromarabiabykamalsalibi2016pdf


quotes from the book regarding Cushites:

Page n65

Turning to Chronicles II (i4:8f, or I4:9f in the Septuagint and the standard translations), Gerar is mentioned in relation to a war fought between ‘Zerah the Cushite’ or ‘Zerah the Ethiopian’ (zrh h-kwsy) and King Asa of Judah (ca. 908-867 ».c.).1 In this war, the ‘Cushites’ or ‘Ethiopians’ (h-kwsym) reportedly invaded Judah and reached mrsh (transcribed Mareshah), before being defeated by King Asa in nearby gy’ spth (the ‘valley of Zephathah’). Following his victory, King Asa pursued the retreating invaders to Gerar, plundering the town and its sur¬ rounding agricultural and pastoral lands. One is left to assume that Gerar and its vicinity formed part of the ‘Cushite’ territory.

Page n65

In their search for Gerar, Biblical scholars and archaeologists have had nothing to go on other than these Biblical references; nor have they had anything other than Biblical material to identify the territory of the Canaanites or that of the Philistines or, indeed, the Cushites. The place-names sydn and ‘zh, which appear in Genesis 10, have invariably been taken to refer to the Syrian Sidon and Gaza. This has led, quite naturally, to the assumption that the Biblical ‘land of the Canaanites’ comprised 1 he hinterland of these two towns, to the exclusion of any other possibility. Because the Biblical ‘zh features elsewhere in the I lebrew Bible as a city of the Philistines (see Chapter 14),

Page n68

The problem of locating Gerar in Palestine is further com¬ pounded by the reference to it in 2 Chronicles 14. Here the town appears to belong to the ‘Cushites’ (h-kwsym), traditionally identified as being the ‘Ethiopians’, principally because the Biblical texts frequently associate Cush, or kws, with msrym, which is taken invariably to mean ‘Egypt’ (considering that Ethiopia is the southern neighbour of Egypt). In the Greek Septuagint, the Hebrew kws is sometimes rendered in transliteration, and at other times more freely interpreted as Aithiopia or Aithiopes, and this has further encouraged modern Biblical scholars to identify the place as being Ethiopia. Granted

Page n69

that the Cushites were Ethiopians, one might reasonably ask how they were able to control a territory in distant Palestine? (lould these Ethiopians have been Egyptians of the time of the twenty-fifth or ‘Ethiopian’ dynasty (716-656 b.c.)? This is unlikely, considering that they made war against Asa, whose reign as king of Judah had ended about a century and a half earlier. Here is Kraeling again (p. 272), describing the way this problem has so far been resolved:

Page n69

The account in Chronicles . . . claims knowledge (sic) of an invasion in Asa’s time by the Cushite or Ethiopian Zerah . . . The Ethiopians did not come to power in Egypt until the next century, so this Cushite cannot be a Pharaoh. He may, however, have been an Egyptian governor of the colony of the ‘brook of Egypt’2 and Egyptian-held territory to the north of it as far as Gerar. We hear elsewhere, too, that the ‘children of Ham’ (i.e., Cushites) lived adjacent to the tribe of Simeon3 in the south country (1 Chron. 4:39), and the Gedor there mentioned is to be read Gerar (for disagreement on the last point, see Simons, par. 322).

Page n70

4 If the ‘Cushites’ were really Ethiopians, and Gerar was in southern Palestine, the control of Gerar by the ‘Cushites’, which is clearly implied in 2 Chronicles 14, cannot easily be explained.

Page n70

To unravel the mystery of Gerar, it might be best to start with evidence provided in 2 Chronicles 14, by trying to deter¬ mine who these ‘Cushites’ really were. ‘Cush’, as already men¬ tioned, is associated in the Biblical texts with msrym, which certainly denotes Egypt in some Biblical passages (e.g. 1 Kings 14:25f; 2 Chronicles I2:2f; also 2 Kings 23:29; 2 Chronicles 35:2of; Jeremiah 46:2). Elsewhere in the Bible, as will be seen (Chapters 13 and 14), the name msrym denotes any of several locations in West Arabia, including the village of Misramah (1msrm) in the A,sir heights, between Abha and Khamis Mushait, or that of Masr (msr) in Wadi Bishah, in inland Asir. Searching for a kws (or ‘Cush’) in that general vicinity, one readily finds it as Kuthah (kwt), near Khamis Mushait. This is an oasis lying a short distance east of Abha, and hence of Misramah; also, it is located at the headwaters of Wadi Bishah, and therefore of the region where Masr is found. In the same Khamis Mushait vicinity lie the oases of Qararah (qrr) and Ghurayrah (gryr, or grr), one of which must have been the Biblical Gerar (or one of the Biblical Gerars). Nearby is also the oasis of Shaba'ah (sb‘h, or sb‘), which must have been the Biblical ‘Shibah’, or ‘Beer¬ sheba’.* If the reader thinks this is just too neat to be true, con¬ sider the following, which seems to clinch my argument.

Page n72

In short, the ‘Cushites’ (certainly those of 2 Chronicles 14) were not ‘Ethiopians’ but the tribesmen of the Kuthah vicinity (i.e., the Khamis Mushait highlands), in the upper reaches of Wadi Bishah, not far downstream from Shaba'ah, the Biblical b’r sb‘, or Beersheba. The ‘Judah’ they invaded, as we shall see in Chapter 8, comprised the western slopes of Asir. Advancing against this ‘Judah’, Zerah of Kuthah reached a ‘Mareshah’ or mrsh which is today either Mashar (msr) or Mashari (msr), in the Qunfudhah hinterland. In the same region lies the valley of Wadi Hall, where there is at least one village called Sifah (with the feminine suffix, spt), one gazetteer listing two, perhaps by mistake. Thus, the Biblical ‘valley of Zephathah’ (gy’ spth) would be a reference either to the main course of Wadi Hall, or to the tributary of this valley where the present village of Sifah is located. Zerah had to cross the main Asir escarpment from Wadi Bishah to reach Mashar (or Masharl) and Wadi Hall in the Qunfudhah hinterland. Defeated there, he retreated across the escarpment to Wadi Bishah, King Asa and his forces pursu¬ ing him: they plundered Gerar and its rich surroundings.

Posts: 42930 | From: , | Registered: Jan 2010  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Djehuti:
^ I disagree with Dana on that thesis-- that the Biblical events and peoples took place in the Yemen instead of the Levant. She takes this thesis from a guy named Kamal Salibi who has written on it. I think some of that confusion stems from the fact that according to the book of Genesis Eber, the father of the Hebrews, had two sons-- Peleg and Joktan. The former stayed in Mesopotamia and his descendants including Abraham moved in the Levant while the younger who was not heir moved into Arabia. Thus the Hebrews had a northern division-- Pelegites, and a southern division-- Joktanites, the latter intermarrying with the indigenous Cushites. Another reason for the confusion in terms of place names is I think that when Israelites began expanding south into Arabia they began giving Hebrew names to localities in Arabia.

So no, the Holy Land is in the Levant not the Yemen. That said, the point of my posts was to show folks like Zarahan who insist that 'Cushite' automatically means Nubia, that the term was not limited to that region alone. In fact most references to "Cushite" refer to Arabian lands directly south of Israel. Take for example Zerah the Cushite spoken of in the Book of Chronicles. Zerah was a warlord who tried to conquer Judah well before the Assyrians and in fact the temporary context implies this invasion took place around the time of either Userkon I or II which was during the 22nd Dynasty of Egypt. Many authors have tried to suggest that Zerah was either a Cushite serving under Userkon or Userkon himself yet nowhere in the text is this suggested. Instead, what's most plausible is that Zerah was simply a native Arabian. This is shown by the fact that his base was in Gerar not far from Beersheba and considered Midianite territory and the fact that his army had skilled riders of horses and camels. This also goes back to Swenet's argument of African or black presence in Southwest Asia being prehistoric.

---

Posts: 2701 | From: New York | Registered: Jun 2015  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by the lioness,:

https://www.walmart.com/ip/The-African-And-Arabic-Origins-Of-The-Hebrew-Bible-An-Ethnohistorical-Study-9781495508172/806476379

I think this was her thesis
that she later turned into a book

from the publisher:
https://www.mellenpress.com/book/The-African-and-Arabian-Origins-of-the-Hebrew-Bible-An-Ethnohistorical-Study/9585/

---

Posts: 2701 | From: New York | Registered: Jun 2015  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Yatunde Lisa Bey:
That is NOT the only thing in the book. [/QB]

---

Posts: 42930 | From: , | Registered: Jan 2010  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Djehuti:
In a past thread the Im Nin'alu article on the origin of Arabs was cited. Im Nin'alu is a Jewish website that uses the Torah as a basis for population histories and notes that Arabs are a mix of "Hamitic" and "Shemitic" ancestries with the former being the older inhabitants of Arabia.



The author of the article notes that some practices or traditions among ancient Arabians were markedly "Hamitic" or African and different from the traditions of Shemite peoples. The author also notes that duplication of names from Cushite descent to later Hebrew descent is evidence of intermarriage which is something Goldenberg fails to mention, however the author seems to be unaware of the details which is something I've only read about in the works of Dr. Alice C. Linsley in her 'Just Genesis' blog. Again, Dr. Linsley is off when it comes to genetics and linguistics but when it comes to cultural anthropology she makes valid points. As Linsley points out, in Hebrew naming tradition as well as other traditions in the Middle East, male heirs who are usually firstborns of the primary wife are typically named after their paternal grandfathers but those sons who are not heirs but marry into the territories of their wives may name their first born sons after their father-in-laws (the child's maternal grandfather). Dr. Linsley postulates a pattern of bigamy among the early patriarchs with a primary and wife and and secondary wife. The primary wife is said to be a half-sister while the secondary is a patrilineal cousin. But her argument is that the lines of Shem and Ham have intermarried multiple times. See her article Was Keturah Abraham's Wife?
, where she explains that Keturah was a cousin of Abraham through her father Sheba son of Joktan, the latter intermarried a daughter a Cushite daughter. Keturah's hometown was Beersheba meaning "Well of Sheba" and her territory was nicknamed "Cushan".

Then there is the issue of Nimrod, the youngest son of Cush who was said to have founded the first empire in Shinar (Mesopotamia) after the flood. Many scholars have speculated that Nimrod represents a migration of Arabian Cushites into the Mesopotamian valley. Also interesing is the claim by Linsley that Nimrod could very well be ancestor of Abraham according to her reconstructed geneology of Nimrod marrying a daughter of Asshur.

---

Posts: 8785 | From: Discovery Channel's Mythbusters | Registered: Dec 2009  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                      

quote:

---

The Arabia Nome was a province in Ancient Egypt(nome being the Greek term for district). It was located in northern Egypt, approximately from the eastern bank of the Nile Delta to the Suez Canal region, and its capital was at Phacusa on the site of what is today known as the city of Faqous in the Sharqiyah governate. It enters the historical record in the mid 4th century BCE after Alexander the Great's invasion of Egypt, when he appoints Cleomenes of Naucratis as governor of the district and as tax collector for all the provinces of Egypt.[The name is presumed to have been derived from the large presence of Arabs living in the region although Arabs are noted to have been living elsewhere in Egypt, especially the eastern deserts along the Red Sea coast, in the Fayyum region (Arsinoite Nome) where a city Ptolemais Arabon (Ptolemais of Arabs) was named after them, in the city of Coptos, and in all the major desert oases in the country. In the Egyptian lists it is recorded as the 20th district of Lower Egypt, although the eastern deserts were also referred to at the time as Arabia, as "locations east of the Nile were indicated as being “of Arabia of such-and-such nome.”" The governor of this district was frequently referred to as an Arabarch. During the Roman period, this region was renamed Aegyptus Herculia, and later in the late Byzantine period renamed again to Augustamnica.

---

Posts: 2701 | From: New York | Registered: Jun 2015  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by BrandonP:
To play devil's advocate, do we actually know that those Arabian populations were "cushi" based on their skin tone? I don't doubt that there were still very dark-skinned people in parts of Arabia during the Bronze Age (e.g. the Shulamite woman in the Song of Songs book), but isn't the Hebrew word for "black" or "dark" supposed to be something like shakhor rather than cushi?

---

Posts: 8785 | From: Discovery Channel's Mythbusters | Registered: Dec 2009  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                         

quote:

---

Originally posted by Swenet:

quote:

---

Originally posted by BrandonP:
To play devil's advocate, do we actually know that those Arabian populations were "cushi" based on their skin tone? I don't doubt that there were still very dark-skinned people in parts of Arabia during the Bronze Age (e.g. the Shulamite woman in the Song of Songs book), but isn't the Hebrew word for "black" or "dark" supposed to be something like shakhor rather than cushi?

---

The way I see it, they were described as Cushite because they were thought to be descendants of patriarch Cush, whose descendants happened to have dark skin. This is different from saying they were called Cushites because they had dark skin. Hebrews filtered their 'anthropology' through the Table of Nations and likely used overriding reasons mostly unknown to us, as far as why some dark skinned population would be thought as Cushite, while others were considered to fall under other Hamite patriarchs, no different from Egyptians not being fooled by dark skin in Asia when they applied 'Nehesy'.

---

Posts: 7080 | From: Fallbrook, CA | Registered: Mar 2004  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by BrandonP:

To play devil's advocate, do we actually know that those Arabian populations were "cushi" based on their skin tone? I don't doubt that there were still very dark-skinned people in parts of Arabia during the Bronze Age (e.g. the Shulamite woman in the Song of Songs book), but isn't the Hebrew word for "black" or "dark" supposed to be something like shakhor rather than cushi?

---

Posts: 26252 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                      

quote:

---

we have clear evidence that most Cushite figures encountered in the Old Testament were of Arabian extraction.

---

Posts: 2701 | From: New York | Registered: Jun 2015  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Djehuti:
Again, many tend to translate "Cushite" as 'Ethiopian' or 'Nubian' but we have clear evidence that most Cushite figures encountered in the Old Testament were of Arabian extraction.

I think that the label of Biblical Cush vs. Egyptian Kush resulted from the linguistic error of 'false friends' that is is words that seem to be cognate or even related but are not related at all.

So the Nehesy (Nubian) people called Ksh (Kesh?) was different from the name of 'Cush' or Cushim people of Arabia. That said, there seemed to be a relation as Greek commentators have noted similarities in appearance and dress between them.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Swenet:

quote:

---

The addition of vv. 8-12 to Cush's lineage appears to be a conflation of Cush
with a northern group (Kassites) whose name employs the same unpointed root
consonants. Confusion with this known northern group would account for the
introduction of peoples native to lands non-contiguous with those of other
Hamites.

---

—Rodney Steven Sadler Jr., Can a Cushite Change His Skin?An Examination of Race, Ethnicity, and Othering in the Hebrew Bible

---

Posts: 8785 | From: Discovery Channel's Mythbusters | Registered: Dec 2009  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                         

quote:

---

Originally posted by Djehuti:
I think that the label of Biblical Cush vs. Egyptian Kush resulted from the linguistic error of 'false friends' that is is words that seem to be cognate or even related but are not related at all.

So the Nehesy (Nubian) people called Ksh (Kesh?) was different from the name of 'Cush' or Cushim people of Arabia. That said, there seemed to be a relation as Greek commentators have noted similarities in appearance and dress between them.

---

Posts: 7080 | From: Fallbrook, CA | Registered: Mar 2004  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                      

quote:

---

In his essay “Three Thousand Years of Biblical Interpretation with Reference to Black Peoples,” Copher examines biblical, Jewish, Christian, and Islamic sources with respect to their use of color designators and other terms for persons of African ancestry.° He argues that before any examination can take place regarding the way in which later interpreters have understood the Bible’s color designators, one must consider how the biblical authors used the terms in their own writings. According to him, the Hebrew term
shahar , hum , kedar , cush , and hoshek were used as indicators of blackness.” After examining the use of these terms in various Hebrew Bible texts, Copher concludes, “[The] most probable original text of the Hebrew was free of pejorative statements about peoples regarded as Black by the original authors.

---

Posts: 2701 | From: New York | Registered: Jun 2015  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Yatunde Lisa Bey:

quote:

---

In his essay “Three Thousand Years of Biblical Interpretation with Reference to Black Peoples,” Copher examines biblical, Jewish, Christian, and Islamic sources with respect to their use of color designators and other terms for persons of African ancestry.° He argues that before any examination can take place regarding the way in which later interpreters have understood the Bible’s color designators, one must consider how the biblical authors used the terms in their own writings. According to him, the Hebrew term
shahar , hum , kedar , cush , and hoshek were used as indicators of blackness.” After examining the use of these terms in various Hebrew Bible texts, Copher concludes, “[The] most probable original text of the Hebrew was free of pejorative statements about peoples regarded as Black by the original authors.

---

---

quote:

---

The evidences testify that, according to American sociological definitions of Negro, the ancient Egyptians were Negroes; that according to modern anthropological and ethnological definitions the ancient Egyptian population included a large percentage of so-called Negroes; possibly 25% as an average across the long period of time that was ancient Egyptian history. They indicate that the African Cushites (Ethiopians) were predominantly of Negroid identity; and that Blacks, including Negroes, during Biblical times, inhabited parts of Asia from the Indus River Valley westwards into Elam-Persia, Mesopotamia, parts of Arabia, Phoenicia, Canaan, Crete, and Greece. Further, the evidences indicate that, in the main, wherever in the Bible Hamites are referred to they were people who, today in the Western world, would be classified as Black, and Negroid. Additionally, they establish a Black element within the ancient Hebrew-Israelite Jewish population itself.
Rev. Dr. Charles B. Copher (1993), Chapter 3 — Blacks and Jews in Historical Interaction. In Black Biblical Studies, p.36


And today one need not wonder at the fact that the present population of Israel
is as mixed in color as are the Black people in the United States of North America.
Rev. Dr. Charles B. Copher (1993), Chapter 1 — Perspectives and Questions: The Black Religious Experience in Biblical Studies. In Black Biblical Studies, p.14

Preliminary to a consideration of interpretation within the Bible, with reference to Black peoples, must come a prior consideration of the presence of Black peoples, or of peoples, whom the Biblical writers regarded as Black, in the Biblical text itself. Such a presence is determinable by the use of words or terms employed to designate black when applied to persons and peoples — Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. Relevant words and terms are Shahar, in Hebrew, meaning black, and used twice denoting skin or complexion, apart from occurrences associated with color caused by disease; Hum, in Hebrew of doubtful meaning, and limited to Genesis, chapter 30;^ Kedar, in Hebrew, meaning black, and occurring some twelve times; Cush, and related words such as Cushite, in Hebrew, which occurs some fifty times, and bearing a color notion through most typical visual features
Rev. Dr. Charles B. Copher (1993), Chapter 7 —Three Thousand Years of Biblical Interpretation with Reference to Black Peoples. In Black Biblical Studies, p.97

---

Posts: 42930 | From: , | Registered: Jan 2010  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                      

quote:

---

Identification of Africa and Africans in the book of Jeremiah

Cush, Cushitic and Cushi

Cush was mentioned several times in terms of geographical location and as persons' names in the book of Jeremiah. Although debates still exist among scholars as to whether Cush, as a geographical location, refers to Africa or Mesopotamia, I am of the opinion that where Cush is used in the entire Old Testament, it refers to nowhere but Africa and persons of African ancestry (Adamo 1986; 2005:14).

In the Major Prophets, the terms used to refer to Africa and Africans appear more than 180 times. Cush appears also as a geographical location. Cushi was also used in terms of names of people such as in the book of Jeremiah 36:14 where the ancestors of Yehudi, the prince who read Jeremiah's script to King Jehoiakim, were traced to Cushi. Ebed-Melech, the Cushite who delivered one of the greatest prophets, the prophet Jeremiah, from death was also mentioned in Jeremiah. He was specifically described as a Cushite. It is quite interesting that, while Cush or Egypt occurs 53 times in the LXX, in the MT they occur 67 times in the book of Jeremiah. This indicates that the prophet Jeremiah is very familiar with Africans (Cush or Egypt) (Galvin 2011:125). 2

---

quote:

---

Identity, respect and human dignity

As said above, 'Cush' is an important way of identifying those of African ancestry by describing them according to the colour of their skin. The word Cush in Modern Hebrew still means black.4 In Isaiah 18:1 the river in Africa is described as river Cush, that is, river Nile. In Isaiah's woe oracle against Africans, the river Nile is also described as river Cush, that is, river 'black'. Likewise in Isaiah 20:3-5, Africans were described as Cushites, that is, black people.

---

Posts: 2701 | From: New York | Registered: Jun 2015  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Djehuti:
In a past thread the Im Nin'alu article on the origin of Arabs was cited. Im Nin'alu is a Jewish website that uses the Torah as a basis for population histories and notes that Arabs are a mix of "Hamitic" and "Shemitic" ancestries with the former being the older inhabitants of Arabia.

---

quote:

---

https://www.imninalu.net/myths-Arabs.htm

Myths, Hypotheses and Facts
Concerning the Origin of Peoples
Origin and Identity of the Arabs


Arabs are primarily Hamitic, with a relevant Semitic contribution.

_____________________________

The Canaanites were culturally conquered by the Arameans, adopting their Semitic language and therefore are generally regarded as a Semitic people. They developed in two different areas: the "coastland Canaanites" are best known in history as Phoenicians, the "mountain Canaanites" were assimilated by the Israelites and disappeared as an identifiable people around the 8th century b.c.e. - when the Assyrians took the Hebrews into exile they did not make any difference because the Canaanites were already Israelites. Canaanites were NOT Arabs.

The Arabian peninsula is undoubtedly the Arabs' homeland, and the peoples that inhabited it in ancient times are to be regarded as the ancestors of the modern Arabs. Now, the query consists in establishing how much Semitic these peoples were and up to what amount the Ishmaelites have contributed to the formation of the Arab identity.
In the most ancient records the whole Arabia was commonly designed under the generic name of "Kush", which was extended throughout the entire region comprised between Southern Mesopotamia in the north and the White Nile Basin in the south, that is, including both sides of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. Subsequently, there has been a clear distinction between Northern and Southern Arabia since early times, distinction that endured for centuries. The Arabs are the result of the progressive fusion of both entities developed over the original Kushite background.

·Southern Arabian peoples:
Seven Kushite peoples: Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Ra'mah, Sabtekha, Sheba and Dedan.
Twelve Semitic tribes (Yoqtanites): Almodad, Shelef, Hatzarmawt, Yerah, Hadoram, Uzal, Diqlah, Obal, Abima'el, Shaba, Hawilah and Yobab.
·Northern Arabian peoples:
Early Kushite population: Kûsh, Mušuri, Hawilah, Makkan.
Eight Semitic tribes (Midyanites/Lihyanites): Zimran, Yoqshan, Medan, Midyan, Yishbaq, Shuwah, Sheba and Dedan.
Twelve Ishmaelite tribes: Nebayot, Qedar, Adbe'el, Mibsam, Mishma, Dumah, Massa, Hadar, Teyma, Yetur, Nafish and Qedmah.
The characteristics of these peoples are exposed under the next title.

The Arabian Kush and the Ishmaelite Myth

Even though the name Kush is usually associated with Ethiopia because of the Greek translation of that name, Kushite peoples were in early times the inhabitants of the whole Arabia, Southern Mesopotamia, Elam and a branch of them reached India as well.

1) Southern Arabians were originally Kushitic (Ethiopic). The most ancient Sabeans were closely related with Nubians and Abyssinians dwelling on the opposite shores of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. Their country roughly coincides with modern Yemen, where the Kushitic Sabeans have left some hints that allow to identify them as tribes that created a sort of organized states or kingdoms, reported in ancient chronicles as Sabatan, whose capital was the city of Shabwah. They transferred some typical Ethiopic features to their Semitic successors, like the female-ruled monarchy, common to all ancient Arabia.

2) Northern Arabians were called mainly after Avrahamic tribes, which apparently would grant them to be classified into the Semitic stock. Nevertheless, the Kushitic character is strongly remarkable since these lands were inhabited by Hamitic peoples (Kush, Havilah and Mušuri) long before the first Semites arrived in this territory and both groups intermarried. The process of Semitization was completed only under the Assyrian rule, around the 7th century b.c.e.
The origin of these Arabian tribes is connected with Avraham's concubines, Hagar and Qeturah, from whom respectively originated the Ishmaelites (or Hagarites) and the Midyanites (actually one of these tribes, whose name was extended to the others). Avraham was an Akkadian that moved first into the land of Hurrians and then into Canaan. His wife Sarah was an Akkadian belonging to his own family, and this fully Semitic couple generated the Israelites and not any Arab people. Avraham traded also in Egypt and acquired for his wife an Egyptian servant, Hagar, with whom he fathered Yishmael. Besides them, Avraham took also another woman, Qeturah, whose origin is unknown and that is the mother of the Midyanite tribes. Consequently, Ishmael was a Semite only on his father's side, but by his mother's lineage he was Egyptian, and the sons of Qeturah were surely Semitic after their father Avraham, but we do not know where did their mother come from. Here we will consider first the ethnic features of the Midyanites before dealing with the origin and culture of the Ishmaelites.
·The Midyanites settled in the region of Mount Sinai and by the Gulf of Eylat, in Arabia. That land was already inhabited by non-Semitic peoples, namely, the Kûsh and Mušuri of the Assyrian records, and very likely Avraham's children and successive generations married women from the local people, consequently it is correct to assume that the Midyanites were ethnically less Semitic than Hamitic.

In fact, the Kushite cultural heritage lasted much longer in Central Arabia, the cradle of Islam, rather than in the Northern and Southern regions, where the Nabatean and Himyarite civilizations were in contact with the western world and had become quite cosmopolitan.

---

quote:

---

https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/magazine/representing-cush-in-the-hebrew-bible/

Representing Cush in the Hebrew Bible
Kevin Burrell November 01, 2020

The Hebrew Bible mentions “Cush” (Hebrew: כוּשּׁ ) and related terms some 54 times.1 The vast majority of references to Cush as a geographical region denote the African land on the southern border of ancient Egypt, known most commonly today as Nubia. In English Bibles, Cush is most frequently translated as “Ethiopia,” but sometimes “Nubia,” “Cush,” and even “Sudan.” Because ancient Nubia occupied the northern and southern regions of present day Sudan and Egypt, respectively, it is to be distinguished from the country of Ethiopia, located in the Horn of Africa.

In the eighth and seventh centuries, Cushite Egypt competed with Assyria for control of Syria-Palestine, but after a prolonged struggle Assyria gained the upper hand, eventually conquering Egypt and expelling the Cushites from the land of the pharaohs. Under its new political capital of Meroë, the kingdom of Cush would last for yet another thousand years until its final dissolution in the fourth century C.E. The rule of the 25th Dynasty coincided with the age of the classical Hebrew prophets. Thus, the Egypt of much of the prophetic literature (e.g., Isaiah 1-40) was a territory under the dominion of the pharaohs of Cush.

Based on iconographic and textual evidence, Cushites are typically understood as a sub-Saharan African people.

---

quote:

---

Myths, Hypotheses and Facts
Concerning the Origin of Peoples
Origin and Identity of the Arabs

Conclusion:

After a careful and accurate research about the origin and identity of the Arabs, we can distinguish the myths from the facts:

MYTHS

1) Arabs are Ishmaelites: this is not true for the overwhelming majority of them. There are not written records by which not even a single Arab is able prove a direct descent from Ishmael. The alleged genealogies have been invented in Islamic times after some Nabateans converted to Judaism or Christianity discovered the possible link that they had with Ishmael, a name that was completely lost in Arabia and was translated from Greek sources.

2) Arabs are Semites: This is a relative truth - the Arabic language is Semitic, because its sources are ancient Semitic tongues spoken by both Sabeans and Nabateans. Also Ghe'ez and Amharic, languages of the Ethiopians, are Semitic, nevertheless the Ethiopian people are Kushites, not Semites.

3) Arabic was spoken in ancient times: false, it is the most recent of all Semitic languages, and evolved from Nabatean, Sabean, Lihyanite, Safaitic, Thamudic and other tongues. There was not a single document written in Arabic until Roman times.

__________

FACTS:

1) Arabs are primarily Hamitic, with a relevant Semitic contribution.

2) Ancient Nabateans were mainly Kushitic. Although their forefather was Ishmael, he and his offspring married within the Kushite inhabitants of Northern Arabia, and were regarded as "Mušuri" (Egyptians) by the Assyrians, who did not recognize Arabs as a Semitic people.

3) Ancient Yemenites (Sabeans, Mineans and others) were of mixed Semitic/Hamitic stock.

4) The pre-Islamic Arabs had a Kushitic culture; they were mainly ruled by queens like the Nubians, Ethiopians and other Hamitic nations, and had a female-centred society.

5) Islam has reversed the original culture into a male-ruled society, yet not adopting a Semitic style but just imposing a system based on applying the opposite patterns to the previous social rules and customs.

Ancient Arabians had a great culture, that might have evolved into a modern civilization and a developed society like other peoples of the Middle East as the Jews or the Armenians, but their original culture was destroyed and their history was replaced by legends...

---

Posts: 42930 | From: , | Registered: Jan 2010  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Swenet:

It would be good to get a modern work dedicated to this, to get to the bottom of it. But I doubt we'll ever get it because there are too many hurdles in between modern academia and the authority and expertise needed to write such a book. Some bible commentators argue, for instance, that Cushites in Mesopotamia was really a scribal error or ignorance on the part of Hebrew scribes, and that these Cushites were really Kassites.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Swenet:

quote:

---

The addition of vv. 8-12 to Cush's lineage appears to be a conflation of Cush
with a northern group (Kassites) whose name employs the same unpointed root
consonants. Confusion with this known northern group would account for the
introduction of peoples native to lands non-contiguous with those of other
Hamites.

---

—Rodney Steven Sadler Jr., Can a Cushite Change His Skin?An Examination of Race, Ethnicity, and Othering in the Hebrew Bible

---

A strange argument. How could educated scribes have such confusion about a neighboring country?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by BrandonP:

That is what I considered too. Though another possibility is that Kushite commercial or hegemonic influence somehow extended across the Red Sea to Arabia, but I have not seen evidence of that yet (I am not super familiar with the archaeology of the region during the Bronze and Iron Ages).

---

Posts: 26252 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Yatunde Lisa Bey:

quote:

---

we have clear evidence that most Cushite figures encountered in the Old Testament were of Arabian extraction.

---

Which characters are these exactly?

---

Posts: 26252 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by the lioness,:

"black" has no standard. In some instances in older texts it may refer to "a person darker than my people" or a description of countenance as well

---

Don't play dumb snaky. People are smart enough to tell the difference between those with a slightly darker complexion due to tanning and those who complexions approach the color black.

Sinai Bedouin


Jordanian Bedouin


Southern Saudi Bedouin (Shammar)


I am black, and comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon. Look not upon me, because I am black; because the sun hath looked upon me...

The tents of Kedar were made of the fur of black goats and the curtains of Solomon were made of bluish-black linen imported from Egypt.

Is it possible the Shulamite was exaggerating? Perhaps, but even most modern Jews acknowledge that the original Israelites were already dark as it was and not lily white despite what Hollywood and other media will have you believe. So an exaggeration of a tan was 'black' what are we to make of peoples who were outright called 'black' not because of any tanning??

Again let's not play games.

Posts: 26252 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Djehuti:

quote:

---

Originally posted by the lioness,:
[qb]
"black" has no standard. In some instances in older texts it may refer to "a person darker than my people" or a description of countenance as well

---

Don't play dumb snaky. People are smart enough to tell the difference between those with a slightly darker complexion due to tanning and those who complexions approach the color black.

---

Posts: 42930 | From: , | Registered: Jan 2010  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Tazarah:

Ancient Israelites were often mistaken as being Ethiopians, or Cushites.



"The Scripture Gazetteer: A Geographical, Historical, and Statistical Account... Volume 1" by William Fleming, page 479 (1837) Edinburgh Printing and Publishing Company

https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Scripture_Gazetteer/Nm5AAAAAcAAJ

---

Posts: 26252 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                      

quote:

---

Failing to gain a hearing in Byzantium, Sayf made contact with the Lakhmid prince of al-Hira, Amr ibn Mundhir, who introduced him to the shah's court. He complained that his country had been taken over by "ravens," that is, blacks. From Abyssinia or Sind, Khusraw wanted to know. Abyssinians, he was told. "And I have come to you for help and that you may assume the kingship of my country." Though he composed a poem "in the Himyarite language" in praise of the shah, he received no firm

---

quote:

---

When the Persian king heard of this (insurrection against his Himyarite client) he sent Wahriz with 4,000 Persians and ordered him to kill every Abyssinian or child of an Abyssinian and an Arab woman, great or small, and not leave alive a single man with crisp curly hair. Wahriz arrived and in due course carried out these instructions and wrote to tell the king he had done so. The king then gave him viceregal authority and he ruled under Khusraw until his death.

---

(p 100)

Muhammad and the origins of Islam

When it concerns Israelites there would probably have been variations in their looks. Maybe one can get help by looking at images in synagogues in the centuries AD, as Dura Europos or Huqoq.

In the mosaics at Huqoq they paint Israelites in a somewhat middle brown complexion. Egyptians are painted in similar complexion. In one mosaic they contrast the lighter Israelites with darker foreigners who symbolize one of the different peoples who were involved in the building of the Tower of babel. The Mosaic also depicts the division that came about at that time.


This image could be a symbol of racial splits that later were to come about. Maybe it even could symbolize some of the more heated discussions here on ES

One can mention that Egyptians were depicted like this in Huqoq, not lily white but not very dark either:



It is intresting that this carpenter from Huqoq bears resemblances with a well known facial reconstruction of Jesus based on three different skulls from his time (and place).





--------------------
Once an archaeologist, always an archaeologist

Posts: 2685 | From: Sweden | Registered: Mar 2020  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                      

quote:

---

26 Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.”
27 So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian[a] eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of the Kandake (which means “queen of the Ethiopians”). This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, 28 and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the Book of Isaiah the prophet. 29 The Spirit told Philip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.”

30 Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. “Do you understand what you are reading?” Philip asked.

31 “How can I,” he said, “unless someone explains it to me?” So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.

32 This is the passage of Scripture the eunuch was reading:

“He was led like a sheep to the slaughter,
and as a lamb before its shearer is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
33 In his humiliation he was deprived of justice.
Who can speak of his descendants?
For his life was taken from the earth.”[b]

34 The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?” 35 Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.

36 As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water. What can stand in the way of my being baptized?” [37] [c] 38 And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him. 39 When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing. 40 Philip, however, appeared at Azotus and traveled about, preaching the gospel in all the towns until he reached Caesarea.

---

Posts: 2685 | From: Sweden | Registered: Mar 2020  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Djehuti:

Again, many tend to translate "Cushite" as 'Ethiopian' or 'Nubian' but we have clear evidence that most Cushite figures encountered in the Old Testament were of Arabian extraction.

I think that the label of Biblical Cush vs. Egyptian Kush resulted from the linguistic error of 'false friends' that is is words that seem to be cognate or even related but are not related at all.

---

Posts: 42930 | From: , | Registered: Jan 2010  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Djehuti:
^ I don't want to go off topic as to whether ancient Israelites could be called 'black' or not. The point is that the ancient Israelites seemed to have associated 'shakhor' (black) skin with foreigners to their south which were given the ethnic name 'Cushim'. The Assyrians in their annals made note of a kingdom or country of Cush in Arabia well before the rise of the 25th dynasty in Egypt. Thus Biblical 'Cush' as I have expounded had more to do with Arabian populations than African ones of Nubia. And of course these black peoples did have a significant impact and on the Israelite peoples themselves in terms of culture and overall population.

---

Posts: 2513 | From: North America | Registered: Mar 2021  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Djehuti:

Again, many tend to translate "Cushite" as 'Ethiopian' or 'Nubian' but we have clear evidence that most Cushite figures encountered in the Old Testament were of Arabian extraction.

I think that the label of Biblical Cush vs. Egyptian Kush resulted from the linguistic error of 'false friends' that is is words that seem to be cognate or even related but are not related at all.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Djehuti:
if I didn't know any better I'd say you are disturbed by the fact that there are people in the Bible described as "black".

---

Posts: 42930 | From: , | Registered: Jan 2010  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by the lioness,:
https://www.biblegateway.com/resources/encyclopedia-of-the-bible/Cush

biblegateway

Cush
CUSH koosh (כּ֗וּשׁ, LXX Χουσί).

1) The name of an individual in the title of Psalm 7. The person is a Benjaminite against whose words David has uttered this psalm of lament in which he “prays for deliverance from his enemies, especially from a colleague who has betrayed him” (M. Dahood, Psalms I, Anchor Bible [1966], 41).

2) One of the sons of Ham listed in the Table of Nations (Gen 10:6-8; 1 Chron 1:8-10). Cush is both a person and a nation, for from him descended the southernmost peoples known to the Hebrews.

CUSH kush, כּ֗וּשׁ; LXX Χους, and Αἰθιοπία, a land lying to the S of Egypt. See Ethiopia.

1. CONFUSION CORRECTED. In the OT only one word is involved—Kush, which is usually tr. as “Ethiopia,” with the exception of Isaiah 11:11, and in 2 Samuel 18:21-23, where the gentilic Kushi appears, which is rendered (KJV) as a proper noun “Cushi.” The LXX regularly trs. the word Αἰθιοπία (except Gen 10:6-8 and 1 Chron 1:8-10, where it has Χοῦς). Even RSV is not entirely consistent for it twice uses “Cushite” (viz. 2 Sam 18:21-23 and Num 12:1).

2. LAND AND PEOPLE. Sometimes the word Kush is clearly used to refer to the land. This is the case in Isaiah 11:11; 18:1; Zephaniah 1:1, Esther 1:1. The reference of the word to the people appears in Isaiah 20:5; Jeremiah 46:9; Ezekiel 38:5.

3. LOCATION. It would appear that originally Kush referred to a piece of territory lying between the second and the third cataracts of the Nile. Then it came to refer to a broader area corresponding to what is commonly known as Nubia. Sometimes reference is made to Arabia, for in
2 Chronicles 21:16
Moreover the Lord stirred up against
Jehoram the spirit of the Philistines,
and of the Arabians, that were near the Ethiopians:
the Arabians are said to be near the Ethiopians, which may be thought of as being two areas separated merely by the Red Sea.
Ezekiel 29:10
Behold, therefore I am against thee,
and against thy rivers, and I will make the land of Egypt utterly waste
and desolate, from the tower of Syene even unto the border of Ethiopia.
shows that Ethiopia lay at the southern extremity of Egypt, for Syene is the modern Aswan and lies at the first cataract. Passages like
Psalm 68:31;
Princes shall come out of Egypt;
Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God.
Psalm 87:4;
I will make mention of Rahab and Babylon to them that know me: behold Philistia, and Tyre, with Ethiopia; this man was born there.
Zephaniah 2:12;
Ye Ethiopians also, ye shall be
slain by my sword.
Zephaniah 3:10
From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia my suppliants, even the daughter of my dispersed, shall bring mine offering

indicate that for Israel it lay on the edge of the southern horizon. At this point some contend strongly for the claim that Ethiopia did not have a negro population, even though the Gr. word Αἴθιοψ means “burnt face,” allowing only for the possibility that they were negroid but of an olive complexion. Jeremiah 13:23 does not necessarily conflict with this claim.

4. HISTORY. As far as the earliest reference to be found is concerned, it seems to indicate that Ethiopians first appear as part of Egypt in the days of the Egyptian monarch, Sesostris I (1971-1930). Around the year 1000 b.c. Ethiopia broke with Egypt and set up an independent capital at Napata. A few centuries later in the twenty-fifth, or Ethiopian, dynasty, i.e. from 715-663 b.c., Ethiopia ruled over Egypt. During this time it was that Tirhakah “king of Ethiopia” (Isa 37:9) came up to make war against Hezekiah. He was driven off by the Assyrians, when Ashur-banipal got the upper hand of them, somewhere between 689-676 b.c.

5. CONNOTATIONS. At times the reference to Ethiopia is merely one that implies a country lying as far off as possible (cf. Ezek 29:10). During the new kingdom (c. 1570-1085 b.c.) the term Cush takes on a much wider meaning, including at least all of what later became known as Nubia. From passages like Isaiah 45:14 one may deduce that the land of Cush was a land of merchants. It may also be inferred that there may have been Arabian Cushites (2 Chron 21:16). Lastly, one may correctly assert that the Ethiopians, as Judah knew them, were a race of striking appearance (see Isa 18:2).

6. PROBLEMS. A few problems are encountered in connection with the meaning of the term “Kush.” The first of these is the land of Cush (Gen 2:13), which is said to be encircled by the Gihon River. This reference demands a location near Mesopotamia and lies therefore almost as far N as Cush lies S. There is also the problem of the wife of Moses, the Cushite woman of Numbers 12:1. She either came from the area adjacent to the Sinai peninsula (the Zipporah of Exod 2:21) or possibly after Zipporah’s death may have been an Ethiopian who, in a manner not known to us, came into that same peninsula. Another problem has to do with Zerah the Ethiopian, who according to 2 Chronicles 14:9, 12, 13, appeared in the land of Judah in the days of King Asa with a huge army. History has yet to find an answer to the question how in a time when Ethiopia had no power in Egypt, Zera should have been able to muster so large a force.

7. PROMINENT PERSONAGES FORM ETHIOPIA Zerah and Tirhakah have already been mentioned as being great Ethiopian kings in their day. A character of less importance is the runner who brought the news of Absalom’s death to King David after the great battle near Mahanaim (2 Sam 18:21-23). Another Ethiopian is the foreigner employed somehow at the king’s court in the days of the siege of Jerusalem by the Babylonians (587 b.c.), the man who took pity upon the Lord’s prophet and secured permission to draw him up out of the cistern into which he had been cast by his adversaries (Jer 38:7ff.).

__________________________________

I noticed this after I posted this,
they say here at the bottom of the location section
" At this point some contend strongly for the claim that Ethiopia did not have a negro population, even though the Gr. word Αἴθιοψ means “burnt face,” allowing only for the possibility that they were negroid but of an olive complexion. Jeremiah 13:23 does not necessarily conflict with this claim"


there are large tribes in Ethiopia which can fit into "Negro", no doubt Kushites as depicted in 18th dynasty Egyptian unless Djehuti is right:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Djehuti:

Again, many tend to translate "Cushite" as 'Ethiopian' or 'Nubian' but we have clear evidence that most Cushite figures encountered in the Old Testament were of Arabian extraction.

I think that the label of Biblical Cush vs. Egyptian Kush resulted from the linguistic error of 'false friends' that is is words that seem to be cognate or even related but are not related at all.

---

---

You bring up some valid points in the above post for a change. The Table of Nations clearly delineates Cush, first born son of Ham and his sons (nations). As I pointed out before while a couple of thse nations (Seba and Havilah) maybe associated with Africa, the rest are all found in Arabia. The Hebrews spoke of Cush or Cushan to their south (in Arabia) but also conflated this label to the Keshli (Kushites) south of the Egyptians. Goldenberg and other Biblical scholars have noted that this close association or even synonymous identity speaks of some close relationship between both sides of the Red Sea one that nobody is quite sure of yet.

You bring up the point of the term 'Arabia'. The root word 'arab' in Hebrew simply means wilderness or desert and thus Arabi is a person of the wilderness. The term is more generic than ethnic while 'Cushi' is an ethnic term.


from Zerah the Cushite

I think another important source on this topic would be the Greeks. As Tukuler and I have pointed out before the Greeks applied the term 'Arabia' not just to the peninsula proper but also to the lands in Africa east of the Nile.



This is why to this day in many maps the Eastern Desert of Egypt and Sudan is also called the 'Arabian Desert'. So apparently the Greeks saw these lands across the Red Sea as geographically continuous with each other. But was this view of continuity based on geology of the lands alone??

I can't find the sources at the moment but I recall one Greek author (Strabo?) describing those Ethiopians east of the Nile River having straighter hair in comparison to those west of the river and that Herodotus in his Persian Wars explicitly states that the Arab and Western Ethiopian (Nubian) contingents were grouped together and that their languages were mutually intelligible. This makes me wonder what languages they were. Most scholars automatically presume them to be Semitic yet there are those linguists like Militarev who postulate the existence of Cushitic substratum in South Semitic languages of Arabia suggesting that language group was once spoken in that peninsula. Not to mention this finding:

There is no real doubt that the ancestors of both epigraphic (ESA) and Modern South Arabian (MSA) were languages spoken in the Near East rather than Ethiopia. But the date and processes whereby the speakers of these languages migrated and diversified are unknown. Apart from inscriptions that can be read, some contain evidence for completely unknown languages co-existing with ESA. Beeston (1981: 181) cites an inscription from Marib which begins in Sabaean but then switches to an unknown language. He mentions several other texts which have similar morphology (a final –k suffix) and which may represent an unknown non-Semitic language (or possibly a Nilo-Saharan language such as Kunama, for which such a feature would be typical)
Blench (2012).

So there was obviously some strong relation between both sides of the Red Sea.

Here is another good source- The Cushites in Herodotus and Chronicles: Revisiting the Asa Narrative

--------------------
Mahirap gisingin ang nagtutulog-tulugan.

Posts: 26252 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                      

quote:

---

Arabia was originally settled by two distinct races, an earlier Cushite Ethiopian race and a later Semitic Arabian. 'The Cushites were the original Arabians and dwelt there before Abraham came to Canaan. Ancient literature assigns their first settlement to the extreme southwestern point of the peninsula. From thence they spread northward and eastward over Yemen, Hadramaut and Oman. A proof that they were Hamites lay in the name Himyar or dusky, given to the ruling race. The Himyaritic language, now lost, but some of which is preserved, is African in origin and character. Its grammar is identical with the Abyssinian. The Encyclopedia Britannica in its article on Arabia says, "The institutions of Yemen bear a close resemblance to African types. The inhabitants of Yemen, Hadramaut,

---

CHAPTER VIII.
ARABIA AND HER ANCIENT RACES.

https://sacred-texts.com/afr/we/we11.htm


Kassahun Joar Tsegie was born in Ethiopia. aka Chef Marcus Samuelsson His father, Tsegie, is an Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church priest.



--------------------
It's not my burden to disabuse the ignorant of their wrong opinions

Posts: 2701 | From: New York | Registered: Jun 2015  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                      

https://ich.unesco.org/doc/src/31502.pdf

I'm not sure what is the original version of this photo.
Other versions:
https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2F0n0l1myd2nh91.jpg

https://www.flickr.com/photos/92278137@N04/10731204285

quote:

---

Originally posted by Djehuti:
It is primarily in the New Testament that we see 'Cushite' be identified with Nubians instead of Arabians, and it is at this time that we see more commerce between Nubia and Israel since the 25th Dynasty.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Djehuti:
It is primarily in the New Testament that we see 'Cushite' be identified with Nubians instead of Arabians, and it is at this time that we see more commerce between Nubia and Israel since the 25th Dynasty.

---

quote:

---

Song of Solomon 1

5 I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon.

6 Look not upon me, because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me: my mother's children were angry with me; they made me the keeper of the vineyards; but mine own vineyard have I not kept.

---

Posts: 42930 | From: , | Registered: Jan 2010  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                      

quote:

---

HEBREW BIBLE/OLD TESTAMENT
Cushite/Ethiopian = Arab

NEW TESTAMENT
Cushite/Ethiopian = Nubian (N. Sudan/S. Egypt)

---

--------------------
It's not my burden to disabuse the ignorant of their wrong opinions

Posts: 2701 | From: New York | Registered: Jun 2015  |  IP: Logged |