Extemporaneous musings, occasionally poetic, about life in its richly varied dimensions, especially as relates to history, theology, law, literature, science, by one who is an attorney, ordained minister, historian, writer, and African American.
Thursday, November 7, 2013
MOSES WAS A BLACK MAN, AN EGYPTIAN
MOSES WAS A BLACK MAN, AN EGYPTIAN
Thursday, November 07, 2013
By Rev. Dr. Larry Delano Coleman
Moses was a black man, an Egyptian.
Therefore the phrase ‘BLACK MOSES’ is unnecessary, being redundant; and tautological.
Moses was black. Period. No need to double-down on the obvious.
An album title of Isaac Hayes even bears that duplicative, misguiding legend “Black Moses.”
Sadly, many black and white Americans have been brainwashed to believe that Moses was ‘white.’
After all, Charlton Heston, the dead movie star, who played Moses in the movie, THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, was white. That was proof enough for many of them!
Yet, before either Charlton Heston or the film industry was born American writer, Mark Twain, himself a white man from Missouri, had already written in his travelogue classic, THE INNOCENTS ABROAD, the following, respecting the residents in Tangiers, Morocco in 1869:
“There are stalwart Bedouins of the desert here, and stately Moors proud of a history that goes back to the night of time; and Jews whose fathers fled hither centuries upon centuries ago; and swarthy Riffians from the mountains—born cut-throats—and original, genuine Negroes as black as Moses…”
The Bible, itself describes the miracle of a black man’s hand being turned white as “snow:”
6 And the LORD said furthermore unto him, Put now thine hand into thy bosom. And he put his hand into his bosom: and when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous as snow. EXODUS 4:6
Elsewhere in Midian, Moses was also mistaken for an Egyptian. Exodus 2 says:
18 When the girls returned to Reuel their father, he asked them, "Why have you returned so early today?" 19 They answered, "An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds. He even drew water for us and watered the flock." 20 "And where is he?" he asked his daughters. "Why did you leave him? Invite him to have something to eat." 21 Moses agreed to stay with the man, who gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage. EXODUS 2:18-21.
Moreover, the Bible says that Moses was “wise” in all Egyptian wisdom: Acts 7:22
New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
22 So Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in his words and deeds.
That would make Moses equivalent to an Egyptian scribe, savant or hierophant. Moses was very wise, as one might suspect, being raised in Pharaoh’s house by Pharaoh’s daughter, since an infant.
He had spent 40 years being educated as an Egyptian, and away from the Israelites, according to Acts 7:23--
t “When he was forty years old, he decided to visit his kinsfolk, the Israelites.”
Unquestionably, Moses was a black man, because the Egyptians were black people. Yet, one is free to “believe” whatever one wishes despite the evidence.
#30