"Brit-Am Now"-848
Contents:
1. Yoel Kramsky: Aish Article Answers Paticularism Question
2. Historical Studies Justify Brit-Am Researches
3. Duncan Long: Appreciation
4. Stephen Ray Hale: Personal Anecdote
5. Lee Kelley: The Future Kingdom Open to All
6. Don Brown: Disagrees with Article Against Color Prejudice
followed by Brit-Am Answers
(a) Blacks not in Ancient Israel?
(b) Jethro a Black High Priest?
(c) Is a bastard a mixed-breed?
(d) Was not Adam a red and white man?
7. David Jackson: Autonomy of Israelite Tribes?
1. Yoel Kramsky: Aish Article Answers Paticularism Question
RE: "Brit-Am Now"-847
#3. Jonathan Tillotson:
Questions on "Universality versus Particularism"
The following article titled "Why_Study_History, part 1" answers beautifully Jonathan's question. It is written by Rabbi Ken Spiro of Aish HaTorah.
The subtitle "Abraham's Mission", commencing with the paragraph previous to it specifically answers the question but the whole article is very much worthwhile reading.
http://www.aish.com/literacy/jewishhistory/Jewish_History_Crash_Course_1_-_Why_Study_History.asp
Yoel Kramsky
2. Historical Studies Justify Brit-Am Researches
Book shows how Biblical Prophecy was fulfilled
Alfred W. Crosby, "Ecological Imperialism. The Biological expansion of Europe, 900-1900", 2nd edition, 2004, USA
This work shows how Europeans in general (but in effect as we have shown elsewhere mainly those from the Lost Ten Tribes) expanded outwards mainly into moderate climes. They were helped to do so by biological factors such as their own use of grains and livestock as well as diseases they were immune to whereas the "natives" were vulnerable towards. This was a fulfillment of Biblical Prophecy concerning Israel. More later.
3. Duncan Long: Appreciation
Subject: Re: The Bible Speaks Against Color Prejudice
Very insightful. I appreciate your stepping out on a limb to say this,
and hope it will be received by your readers.
Keep up the good work for the Lord and the Tribes. --Duncan
4. Stephen Ray Hale: Personal Anecdote
From: Stephen Ray Hale <Filiramin@cox.net>
Subject: RE: The Bible Speaks Against Color Prejudice
[Extracts]
Dear friends of Yair,
This time I am writing about a very PERSONAL connection to the item
below dealing with Moses, Miriam and her punishment for talking against
Moses concerning the Cushite Woman.
I am a Geologist and had begun my education for a BS in Geology.
Midway, I felt a need to change my study and study the Bible at Baptist
Bible College in Springfield, Missouri. During my later years there, I met
my future wife who was sent here by a Missionary from the Philippines. She
was very lonely here in that it was difficult for the new Christians to
react well around non-white people and Springfield was a race conscious city
during the late sixties and early seventies. I was kind to her because I
felt if our school was teaching our missionaries to love the people we
minister to, it was extremely inconsistent not to be kind to these very
people among us as we trained. She liked me because of my kindness, BUT, I
had issues concerning being romantically involved with people of different
colors. If it could be proven in the Bible that races should be separate,
then all types of folk should stay within their own kind. When I found out
from her that she liked me, I went to my Bible to show her the above
concepts of keeping within one's own kind.
Dag nab it...how did it happen on my very first opening of the Bible
that I came across the incident of Miriam and Moses concerning the Cushite
woman? Talk about a worst case scenario: My wife was from a brown race, but
with Moses this was Black AND White. But what of the prohibition God
demanded of the Israelites from marrying into other races? With little
effort I found that the only qualifying was that God did not want his people
to be RELIGIOUSLY yoked to the people, who God was going to kill because of
their spiritual depredations. I had no case...and it was at this time when
I looked at some photos the girl gave to me that I discovered she was
beautiful. No beautiful girls ever liked me before (being pockmarked with
extreme acne and having bad teeth...and going bald).
From rumors I knew that if I ever become engaged to this girl or
even marry her, I would be kicked out of school. I had learned something
about the concept of the law of two or three witnesses that was introduced
by Moses in the Torah ...I then queried several
major people in the fellowship involved with the school about whether it was
true I could be in danger of dismissal. I talked to four people. Three of
them would not give me a hard answer, but warned me of the difficulties of
interacting with people when married to someone of another "race." They
said my children would have issues. The fourth person, a Noel Smith, who
was a teacher and an Editor of the Fellowship paper called the Baptist Bible
Tribune, who I remembered chastened us newbie pastors as being "pious
windbags" because of the pious answers we would give as he asked questions
of us. Talk of looking like a southern redneck, he was a very round-faced
Irish looking gent with bushy eyebrows with small but blazing eyes. I asked
for an audience with him and he consented. I told him my story and asked if
he was aware of any policy that would forbid me from continuing my
education. He asked me two questions. He asked me if she was a Christian,
and I said, yes. He then asked me if she was an honorable lady, and, again,
I said, yes. Then he said, "Then why are you asking me about this?" I
understood and was a bit chagrinned when I discovered he was married to a
full blooded Cherokee, the same Indian that I had a bit more than an eighth
of in my own pedigree. What did I have to say about racial purity when I
was myself a mix, and then I remembered my research in the Irish Quinn
family of my mother's who descended from Irish leaders, the beginning of the
line being married to an Egyptian Princess named Scota, and there was
another Egyptian woman named Scota later up in the line before the Milisian
line went to Ireland and defeated the Tuatha De Danaan. Not being able to
get out of the situation from a Biblical standpoint, I felt I would honor
the scriptures by standing with it against unjust prejudice. Having honored
God in this, the attitude concerning "races" in our school never became an
issue again, to the honor of the people who taught at and went to that
school since then.
I have been married to this wonderful Christian lady from the
Philippine since 1970. We had two too beautiful boys who were never abusive
to womankind and honored the opposite sex during a time when there is such a
temptation to have a double standard. Of course I reminded them if they
were girls I might have had to kill somebody or otherwise end up in jail in
the extremes I would have gone to protect them...so "don't make another
Daddy cry," I told them. The oldest, Nathaniel, looks like the young Keanu
Reeves when he did the movie SPEED. The other, Jonathan, looked like or
acted like Nicolas Cage, though I could never under stand why in that every
single feature was different. But the grandchildren....! I have two
grand-daughters and both are achingly beautiful, and I appreciated the
prayers that Yair promised to give concerning the first one when it was
discovered that she had bleeding in the brain that was discovered when my
son, a nurse, discovered her subtly jerking when she was but a week or two
old. She is now an extremely beautiful girl and energetic and full of
talents. And to the surprise of a bunch of people in that we mention red
hair, my second one fourth Filipina is auburn with a pale complexion, this
side of the white of leprosy...with a bit of an attitude pointing toward
willfulness. When I was warning my first grandchild, Natalie, about eating
too much of the sweet things so that she might grow up being fat and ugly
like her grandfather, she said, "Paw, you are not ugly, you are beautiful."
Thank you God for Moses and his trials.
Stephen Hale from Midland, Texas
5. Lee Kelley: The Future Kingdom Open to All
From: Lee Kelley <doctor@seascape.ns.ca>
Subject: Re: "Brit-Am Now"-847
#3. Jonathan Tillotson: Questions on
(2. Universality versus Particularism.
Yair Shalom,
You suggested to JTillotson that others on the list could probably answer his question better than you. Well, perhaps! I have a suggested answer, but you need be the judge with respect to it being better... I think the bottom line is king (Mashiach ben DVD-Yahudah), kingdom (Yisrael), and constitution (Torah). Any who are not subjects of the kingdom naturally can certainly be grafted in by taking citizenship...which leads to Torah obedience and observance (Bereshiyt 26:4-5). There is a myriad of gods and a whole host of religions on planet earth...(Mic 4:2)
Lee
6. Don Brown: Disagrees with Article Against Color Prejudice
(a) Blacks not in Ancient Israel?
(b) Jethro a Black High Priest?
(c) Is a bastard a mixed-breed?
(d) Was not Adam a red and white man?
Subject: Re: The Bible Speaks Against Color Prejudice
THIS ARTICLE IS NOT CORRECT MOSES DID NOT MARRY A BLACK WOMAN,THE BLACKS WERE NOT IN
THAT PART OF THE COUNTRY AT THAT TIME SO SHE COULD NOT HAVE BEEN BLACK BESIDES JETHRO WAS YAHWEHS HIGH PRIEST DO YOU THINK YAHWEH HAD A BLACK HIGH PRIEST,MOSES GAVE THE LAW TO THE ISRAELITES THAT A BASTARD COULD NOT ENTER THE CONGREGATION THE WORD BASTARD MEANS MIXED RACE.THIS IS THE VERY THING THAT GOT ISRAELITES IN TROUBLE ALL THROUGH THE OLD TESTAMENT,BY THE WAY ADAM MEANS RUDDY OR TO SHOW BLOOD SO THE OTHER RACES DID NOT COME FROM ADAM OR THEY COULD NOT HAVE BEEN A CHOSEN RACE IN THE OLD TESTAMENT EVERYONE WOULD HAVE BEEN A JEW OR ISRALITE,AND THE PEOPLE DID NOT CHANGE COLORS BY CHANGING LOCATIONS THAT HAS BEEN PROVEN NOT TRUE
Brit-Am Reply:
We are unlikely to allow a debate on the issue but probably will choose to move onto other more urgent issues.
(a) Just for the record: Egyptian illustrations, Phoenician statuettes and illustrations, as well as epigraphic evidence and the Bible itself does indicate that groups of black people were present in the Middle East in the general region of Ancient Israel. They appear to have been there both as slaves and as small independent entities.
(b) Jethro was the Priest of Midian, i.e. of his own people. If they were black so could he be black.
(c) "BASTARD" in Hebrew is "Mamzer" and usually means either:
(i) An Israelite under the Law (i.e. in our terminology a Jew) born of a halachically-legally married Israelite woman from another "Jewish-Israelite" other than her husband (Deuteronomy 23:3).
(ii) An Israelite under the Law (i.e. in our terminology a Jew) born of certain close relatives who are forbidden to have intercourse with each other.
It does not mean someone of mixed race though there are those who say that it can also apply to such people under certain circumstances and even then as a concept "loaned" from the main one.
This application however is doubtful and based on a verse in Zechariah.
It is certainly not something from which general principles may be deduced.
In the Book of Zechariah we find the term "Mamzer" applied to the future inhabitants of Ashdod:
[Zechariah 9:6] AND A BASTARD [Hebrew: "Mamzer"] SHALL DWELL IN ASHDOD, AND I WILL CUT OFF THE PRIDE OF THE PHILISTINES.
A Modern Orthodox-Scientific Commentary, "Daat Sofrim", says that "Bastard" can mean something like "outcast", such as the Gypsies used to be or that it applies to a mixture of foreign peoples associated with the Philistines.
Alternately, says "Daat Sofrim", it means that Israelites who for one reason or another are not allowed to intermarry with the rest of Israel will have their own region in the vicinity of Ashdod. This view says that
Israelite "Mamzers" will never be purified but live separately in Ashdod.
The Radak however disputes this.
Radak:
<<AND A BASTARD [Hebrew: "Mamzer"] SHALL DWELL. There are commentators who says [that "Mamzer"] is the name of a people. There are others who say it means Israelite Mamzers born of forbidden unions who will dwell alone in the cities of the Philistines and be separated from the general community. We find however that the Sages (Kiddushin 71.a) said that Eliyahu (Elijah) is destined to purify the Mamzers and settle them amongst the Assembly of God....[Alternately] it was explained to say that the inhabitants of Ashdod will be of the Philistines who will dwell there as foreign aliens under Israelite administration as the passages continues to says,
AND I WILL CUT OFF THE PRIDE OF THE PHILISTINES [Zechariah 9:6] .
This last explanation is an actuality today.
We now have groups of Palestinian Arabs who identify with the State of Israel and risk their lives for it.
This is partly how in more than 99 times out of a hundred the Israeli Security Services are able to prevent terror attacks before they even take place. These Palestinian agents often cannot return to their own communities nor do they want to. They also do not want to become Jewish. They want their own thing while remaining "attached" but with separate status to the Israelis. A few villages and neighborhoods in Israeli cities have been set aside for them.
This often does not work out well. They sometimes get taken over by drug dealers and criminal elements from their own ranks, disintegrate, or cause problems for their Jewish neighbors.
In the future after most of the Palestinians have been transferred elsewhere [Isaiah 11:14]
http://britam.org/isaiah/chap-eleven.html
a separate region in the vicinity of Ashdod may be apportioned to these people.
(d) Adam means "taken from the earth" (adamah) as the Bible says.
[Genesis 2:7] AND THE LORD GOD FORMED MAN [Hebrew: "ha-Adam"] OF THE DUST OF THE GROUND [Hebrew: "ha-Adamah"], AND BREATHED INTO HIS NOSTRILS THE BREATH OF LIFE; AND MAN BECAME A LIVING SOUL.
[Genesis 5:2] MALE AND FEMALE CREATED HE THEM; AND BLESSED THEM, AND CALLED THEIR NAME ADAM, IN THE DAY WHEN THEY WERE CREATED.
It may be that Adam was white but who knows? or cares?
Whites however can be and frequently are the victims of prejudice and even often of violence on a racial basis.
We should not hide from this
or disregard it. It works both ways.
Whites are often the least prejudiced and the most discriminated against when they are vulnerable than any of the others.
Adam was the forefather of all mankind.
Anyone who says differently is contradicting the Bible.
7. David Jackson: Autonomy of Israelite Tribes?
From: david jackson <djackson22@verizon.net>
Subject: Re: "Brit-Am Now"-847
#4. Jonathan Tillotson: More Points
Yair,
Regarding the question of the supremacy of Judah or Joseph, I may be wrong
but it appears as though the 12 tribes originally had quite a bit of
autonomy within greater Israel. There seem to have been a number of
occasions where some tribes chose to send soldiers to face an external
threat and some did not. Or where a king had to ask the tribes to comply
with his request for assistance.
If something as fundamental as supplying manpower for a war was left to
individual tribes, then surely many lesser issues must have been as well.
(This is much more autonomy than individual US states have with the federal
government.)
On the other hand, Israel prospered most when serving a single righteous
king in unity, as under David.
I think that we of Israel in the Josephite lands, such as the US and
Britain, should be somewhat circumspect about deciding under which
conditions we would choose to go to Israel. Circumstances may someday make
it seem like a good option under any conditions and we would be thankful for
the chance.
If, as seems to be the case, the 12 tribes will exist as long as human
history continues, then all of can rest assured that any future political
structure in Israel will optimally accommodate and preserve the tribes.
They will be free to express themselves as distinct entities and increase
according to their own faithfulness and merits. They will learn from each
other rather than seek supremacy over each other. They will uniquely fulfil
their roles and be content in doing so.
In the end, the Bible says that the Davidic throne will be established
forever. The house of Judah will therefore have supremacy.
David Jackson
Keller, Texas
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