INTRODUCTION

The book that you are about to read addresses some of the major questions that exist
about the ethnicity of the people in the Bible , the Torah and the Quran (Koran). Most
people today assume that the people living in lands mentioned in these books at the time
of their writing are the same people who occupy these lands today. Nothing could be
further from the truth. Today’s populations reflect centuries of movement, inter- marrying,
and conquest. As a matter of fact today’s world populations contain people the “Holy
Books” don’t mention at all.

After the creation of Black Studies programs at several American Universities, the
scholarship of several Black professors was questioned in the late 1960’s when they
taught that the people of the Bible were People of Color. Dr. John Henry Clark and Dr.
Yosuf Ben-Jochannan were two of the leading African Studies professors who helped
establish the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations (ASCAC) clearly
advocated this perspective in their writings. On the other hand the official Black church
organizations rejected these teachings as heresy at that time. The Church’s viewpoint was
that the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible and its euro-centric view was complete;
people accepted the pictures, as the absolute word of God. This was not to be challenged
or questioned by Black scholarship.

This work however, the result of modern research, combines modern archeological
conclusions on the origin and migration of early man from his cradle of birth, the African
continent, through his migration to the area called “The Middle East ” today, into southern
Europe around the Mediterranean basin and northward into Europe.

This book challenges the standard images used by most printers who print the Bible and
the people in the Bible. It seems that most European and American publishers select
paintings of white looking people as the characters of the Bible. One can understand that
some cultures adopt imagery out of the context of their own culture to reflect these biblical
characters like those of the Ethiopian Christian church. However for the most part, most
peoples who have adopted Christianity have also adopted the European Bibles imagery
since they were introduced to the Bible through various European missionaries.
And it seems that since most people who accept the Bible as the absolute word of God,
they also mistakenly accept the images of the Bible characters as reflecting what the people
of the Bible times looked like. In other words what I am trying to say is that most people
think that the people of the Bible, with the exception of Ham and his descendants, were
white. Nothing could be farther from the truth; this book will make it absolutely clear.

In our modern era, the confusion is amplified by the European dominated movie industry
and television shows like the History Channel recreating scenes from the ancient world
with white actors, playing the roles of ancient Black people. Most people believe what
they see without questioning the authenticity of those white actors. So the illusion that the
ancient Hebrew people were white people is even stronger today than it has ever been.

When one asks the questions how did this happen? Why did this happen? We are left at
this time to speculate since there are no known writings by the western Church fathers to
explain why they chose paintings from the European culture to reflect what they thought
the people of the Bible looked like. But when we look at the behavior of European society
in general, between the periods of their adoption, of this North African religion as their own,
until relatively recently, non- Europeans find an attitude of European superiority, in defining
what the world was, is and shall be. Once they have named something, the whole world is
expected to use their terms to define what we find in the world. An example of this is the
European renaming the country of Kemet (KMT ) to Egypt . Now, there never was a time
when the people of this land called themselves, Egyptians or their country Egypt. However
after the Greeks renamed the country about 332 B.C., it has been known as Egypt.
Remember now that this country had existed for over two thousand years before there was
a country called Greece. However, the arrogance of European society is such that no
matter, what these ancient indigenous people called themselves, the Greeks named it Egypt,
and that is the name they have decided it shall be known as, and down to this day, over two
thousand years later, it is still known by the name, these Greeks gave it.

Emanuel however, as a research detective, has rolled back all of the layers of European
dishonesty and in this book, reveals to all readers of this work, who the ancient people
were, who are documented in the pages of the Bible .

The reader is also encouraged to pay specific attention to the maps and charts included in
this work. They too, clarify a lot of the confusion, the Europeanization of this ancient Hebrew
text and the religion they have created.

For those of you, whose ministers, have not yet made clear to you, who the people were,
this book will serve as an academic guide, to a better understanding of the ancient world and
its people.

In the first chapter Emanuel examines the creation of Adam and the location of the Garden
of Eden . As you might know, most western churches imply that the Garden of Eden was
some where in the Middle East . The Nile, Tigris and Euphrates rivers still exist today and
by changing the name, of the geographical designation, from Northeast Africa to the
“Middle East”, the stage is set for confusion. Early on in biblical studies, Mr. Emanuel clears
up this confusion, with a detailed analysis, of the geography of the region and a soil analysis,
to correctly point Bible readers, to the location of the cradle of mans origin, according to
modern research. Today, we have a better understanding , as to why the modern church,
does not want to put the origin of man, in Africa. All scientists know that there were no
white people, indigenous to Africa. All white people in Africa migrated there, well after
2,000 B.C. In fact the Black people known as ancient Egyptians today, recorded their
interaction with these strange looking people they designated the “Tamahu”

Western scholars however, still want to start civilization with the people of Sumer , in the
Tigris Euphrates river valley basin, even though modern science shows, that early man
migrated to this area, from the Nile River basin. Modern archeology also shows, that early
man’s first organized cultures were in fact in the Nile River basin.

This book makes clear, what today’s evidence leads one to conclude, on the origin of first
man, Adam , and where the miracle of his birthplace, the Garden of Eden , was located.

Chapter two is dedicated to laying out the genealogy of Ham , Noah ’s first son. It has
generally been accepted by the church that Ham and his descendants were Black people.
However, most biblical scholars have implied that Japheth , Ham’s brother, whose
descendants inhabited Europe , were white. And even more puzzling is the implication that
Ham’s other brother, Shem , was the father of Asian people. This scenario leaves one to
question how Noah could have three sons of three different ethnicities. This book makes
clear that Noah and his sons were all Black. Modern science teaches that original man
was Black, originated in Africa , and migrated to Europe and Asia. And even though
modern science can not answer with 100% accuracy how original man mutated into
different ethnicities, the one fact they are sure of is that the original man was African.

Chapter three addresses Cush , Ham ’s oldest son. It is written in Genesis 10:20 that “These
are the sons of Ham, after their families, after their tongues, in their countries and
their nations.” When expanding what is being stated here we find, that Cush is not just
the name of one person, but also the name of the family line he procreated, and also the
name of the language they spoke, and the name of the nation they formed. History, archeology
and anthropology teach that Cush is the name Europeans changed to Ethiopia . The term
Ethiopia actually is not a name at all but a Greek description of what the Cushites looked
like. This Greek term actually means, “Burnt face people”, or what we would call Black
faced people today. The Greeks were describing what they saw, not reporting what the
people call themselves. Here again we find white supremacy at work. Once white people
name something, that is what they insist it really is named, but this is not the name the
people called themselves. So it’s only been since the conquest of Alexander of Macedon,
(Alexander the Great), that the people of Cush have been called Ethiopian . In fact, when
the people of the country, we know today as Ethiopia, named their nation Abyssinia , the
western world rejected it until they accepted the European name Ethiopia. White supremacy
won again, helping to continue the confusion, as to who the people of the Bible were.

In this book Mr. Emanuel has very skillfully, helped to clear up this confusion, created by
European superiority, which the European mother church, helped perpetuate.

There are several European words which were descriptions of what African people looked
like, that became the general terms used to name people. Niger means black, Negro means
black, Ethiopian means black, and Moor means black. None of theses terms are words that
any ancient Black people called themselves. These are all terms Europeans used, out of
disrespect for the indigenous names, these people call themselves.

Chapter four addresses what might be the center of confusion in the ethnicity of the people
of the Bible . The Land of Canaan , was for most of its history an extension, of or protectorate
of the ancient powerhouse, and her next door neighbor Egypt . Even though the Canaanites
had some nominal independence, documented history shows that for most of her history up
to the conquest by the Greeks about 330 B.C., the land along the Mediterranean eastern
sea cost was a crossroad for the migration of people South, out of Africa to North, into
southern Europe and East from Asia, to West all the way to the Mediterranean cost. The
original Black population was the subject of conquest and inter-marrying which after a
thousand years, produced a mixed race population base, known in ancient times as Semitic
people.

There is confusion today over the use of the term Semitic . Europeans state that they use
this term in reference to the descendants of Noah ’s son Shem . With this definition they
account for the mixed ethnic populations of the Middle East . However in the ancient world
this term had another definition. The term was used to refer to people of mixed ethnic heritage.
In other words they were semi African, and semi Asian, or semi African and semi European,
or semi Asian and semi European. In this book, the author shows that Shem, like his two
brothers, Ham and Japheth were also Black. And prior to intermixing with other people who
migrated into this area, the descendants of Shem were also Black.

Chapter five continues the discussion about the intermixing of the people of the Bible . The
author details the intermarrying of the Israelites with other people in that geographic region.
He clearly shows that the Bible documents many instances, of people from Abraham in the
Old Testament , through those in the New Testament , intermarrying people of other nations.

The term “Race” used to denote people is a modern concept that did not exist in the world
of the Bible . People were known by their nations and their language but not by such an
incomplete term as race. Unlike our modern world, plagued by racism , the last four hundred
years, the Biblical world does not appear to have racial conflict. The Bible definitely
documents conflicts among the various nations and it also documents inter-nation conflicts,
but racism as we know it in our time, is not documented in the Bible.

In this chapter it is evident that the people of the day had no prohibitions against marrying
people outside of their own tribes . The way Emanuel carefully documents the many inter-
tribal marriages from the book of Genesis through the New Testament ; he makes clear that
mixed marriages were common place during biblical times. He also documents that many of
these mixed marriages were with African people or descendants of African people.

If we were to use the standard set in the United States of America by law,” if you have one
drop of black blood then you are black”, then we could project by American law that most
of the people of the Bible were in fact, Black. And like Mr. Emanuel concludes, the Bible
is the religious history of Black people.

The New Testament brings the good news that the expected Hebrew Messiah has been
born, killed and resurrected. In chapter six Emanuel addresses who were some of the
documented Black people in the New Testament.

Emanuel documents the ethnic bloodline of the Messiah himself. This is a difficult task,
since with the adoption of Christianity , by the Romans, it seems that most iconography
and most paintings of the image of the Messiah, has been that of a European looking
person. In fact, most of the world today, would dispute the findings of this book. The
world has been socialized, to believe that the Hebrew Messiah was a white man, by the
mother Catholic Church. And those break away Protestant Churches, also adopted the
imagery of the Catholic Church, thereby portraying the Messiah, as white within their
church cultures .

In the United States, Black people finally were freed, from the burden, of forced second
class citizenship, in the decade of the 1960s. After this period, with a new sense of urgency,
African American scholarship began to review ancient literature, in search of the truth about
ourselves and our place in history. The result of this research, has proven, that European
academic, assertions about the inferiority, of African people, by such so called great white
scholars, like Arnold Toyenbee whose statement that “African people had not contributed
anything to world civilization,” was the foundation for what was taught, in American
universities and public school systems , was in fact not just false, but was a deliberate
misstatement, born out of the racism , of European and American society up to that time.

Here in the twenty-first century, all of the misinformation, disseminated about Black people
by whites, is not only being challenged, but the historical record is being corrected, by
books like this one.

Finally, Emanuel’s concluding chapter addresses how the Bible documents, how God has
historically reached out to Black people. He again moves methodically, through the Old
and New Testaments, pointing out scriptures, which shows God’s interaction with specific
ancient people he has previously shown, in preceding chapters to be Black people.

This book is about the history of African people as told in the Bible . It is also a book,
which calls African people to reconsider their spiritual lives and understanding that the
Bible is not a “White Man’s religious book, but a book which relates directly to them.
This book will cause a lot of problems for those academicians and religious scholars who
have, not properly addressed the question of the ethnicity , of the people in the Bible. I
think this book is good because of what it reveals; it will be of lasting value to “People of
Color ,” as they learn that most of the people in the Bible were themselves, People of Color.

A. Tehuti Evan