The Final Call

Was Jesus Black?

By Dr. Ridgely Abdul Mu’min Muhammad -Guest Columnist- | Last updated: May 16, 2012 - 6:50:12 PM

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(FinalCall.com) - On April 13th, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan gave a monumental speech to a packed audience at the Jefferson Street Missionary Baptist Church in Nashville, TN. Instead of praising Minister Farrakhan for his encouragement to Black students to become masters of their disciplines, a Catholic blog called “Catholic Online” claimed that his speech was “inflammatory” and that he himself “continues to divide Americans.” This Catholic writer failed to report that the reason Minister Farrakhan spoke at the church was that the administration at Tennessee State University would not allow the Black students to invite the Minister on their campus, so the lecture was given across the street from the college. By using the term “inflammatory” one would think that the Minister had encouraged the students to burn down Nashville, instead of encouraging them to pursue fields of study that would uplift their people with the mind of a ruler instead of a slave. But it is just this type of education that the children of the slave owners don’t want taught to the children of the slaves.

In the Book of Daniel, it says the hair of the Messiah’s head would be “like the pure wool” of a lamb and the Book of Revelation likens the prophetic Jesus’ feet to “fine brass, as if burned in a furnace.”

White Catholics and the Catholic Church should be careful when throwing stones at Minister Farrakhan, for he frees the minds of Black people, who have been deceived and held captive by false religious doctrines that include lies about Jesus. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad has pointed out that it is the Pope, and not Jesus, that is the head of the Catholic Church. In his monumental book Message to the Black Man in America, he states: “The Pope takes his place as the head of the Christian church, while the church at the same time claims Jesus Christ to be its head. But in reality, they recognize the Pope (Father) as being their head.” So we ask the question, “Would Jesus Christ have condoned the placing of Black people in perpetual slavery?” The Pope did.

In his book Jews and Judaism in African History, Richard Hull points out that the trade in African slaves, which was started by the Portuguese, was sanctioned by the Pope of Rome when Papal bulls or edicts had full power over the entire Catholic world. In about 1452, Pope Nicholas V permitted the Portuguese to enslave “enemies of Christ” and infidels, as though Jesus would permit such an evil. This “bull” also proclaimed that in the name of Christianity, “pagans” could be expelled from their own land, brought to Europe and placed under perpetual servitude.

So the Pope, under the influence of the Jewish-inspired myth of the “cursed children of Ham” and the Roman Catholic portrayal of Jesus as a White man, used his religious authority to put Black people in a state of perpertual slavery based on the color of their skin. Now, when Minister Farrakhan comes to the victims of such Papal evil to relieve their souls of the very lie that maligns their skin color and to teach that Jesus was not White, White Catholics cry foul and label him a “monger of division.” It was the Vatican, as the seat of the Catholic Church, that hired Leonardo Da Vinci and Michelangelo to make “graven images” of Jesus, Mary and God in the likeness of White people—in direct contravention of God’s Second Commandment. It was Pope Julius II who commissioned Michelangelo to paint these White images on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Prior to Michelangelo, images of Mary and Jesus as the Madonna and Child were invariably depicted with Black skin. These Black Madonnas still exist in over 140 churches throughout Europe. One of the most famous is The Black Madonna of Częstochowa, housed since 1382 at the Jasna Góra Monastery in Częstochowa, Poland.

So when Minister Farrakhan points out the fact that Jesus could not have been the pale-skinned, blue-eyed figure portrayed in such art, White folk get upset. When speaking of Jesus Christ, Minister Farrakhan also stated that if Jesus were White, it would not matter to Black people, because we are trying to follow his teachings and not his skin color. But, with the Pope of Rome sentencing all Black-skinned people to a state of perpetual servitude as though it were divinely ordained, it was White people who made an issue of skin color and enshrined White supremacy all around the world, demonstrating that they are in fact the actual “mongers of division.” If Minister Farrakhan says that Jesus had Black skin, the Bible itself says that when Jesus returns he will be a Black man. In the Book of Daniel, it says the hair of the Messiah’s head would be “like the pure wool” of a lamb and the Book of Revelation likens the prophetic Jesus’ feet to “fine brass, as if burned in a furnace.”

Again, the Catholic Church should be careful when throwing stones at Minister Farrakhan, because there are a lot of stones that the church may not want upturned. Those who see the Bible as God’s word should question not Minister Farrakhan, but the Bible itself, for it (its translated rendition) is confused on the identity and lineage of Jesus. For instance, in the King James Bible there are two distinct and different genealogical trees established for Jesus—one in the book of Matthew and the other in the book of Luke. Each of these books of the Bible saw fit to trace Jesus back to David so that Jesus could fulfill the scripture in the Old Testament of the Messiah coming from the House of David. Matthew 1:6 states, “And Jesse begat David the king; and David the king begat Solomon of her that had been the wife of Urias;” and 27 generations later Jesus is born. However, Luke 3:31 reads: “Which was the son of Melea, which was the son of Menan, which was the son of Mattatha, which was the son of Nathan, which was the son of David, which was the son of Jesse.” Through which House of David was Jesus born?

Was it through King Solomon, who we know was “black but comely,” or the prophet Nathan?

But it gets worse. Both lineages end with Joseph as the father of Jesus, but in Matthew Joseph’s father was “Jacob,” while in Luke, his father was “Heli.” What is this confusion that the Christians have foisted upon the world? But it gets even worse. On the one hand, the Christians teach that Mary was a “virgin” who was impregnated by the “Holy Ghost” and not Joseph, yet on the other hand they run the descent of Jesus from David through Joseph and not Mary. What is this confusion that the Christians have perpetrated against the entire world and Black people in particular? Today one’s Jewishness is determined by one’s mother, yet the lineage of Jesus, who is claimed by Jews to be a Jew, was determined through his mortal father, Joseph?!

The Honorable Elijah Muhammad placed on the back page of the Muhammad Speaks (now the Final Call Newspaper) “What the Muslims Believe,” which includes “3. WE BELIEVE in the truth of the Bible, but we believe that it has been tampered with and must be reinterpreted so that mankind will not be snared by the falsehoods that have been added to it.” Many religious scholars admit that the Old and New Testament texts have been corrupted.

So White Catholics should leave Minister Farrakhan alone with his people to clean up the damage that they have caused in the name of Jesus. According to the Bible, when Herod was seeking the life of the baby Jesus, Mary and Joseph were instructed by an angel to flee to Egypt, not Europe or Asia, and told to stay there until Herod died. At the time of Jesus, the Romans had control of both Palestine and Egypt, so why would Egypt (Africa) be a safe place for them, unless they could easily blend in with the native population? The World Book Encyclopedia classifies North Africans including Egyptians as dark-skinned Caucasians! However, in America they would be labeled as “niggas.” As a matter of fact, after escorting then President Anwar Sadat of Egypt to a joint session of Congress, U.S. Senator James Eastland reportedly said, “How come nobody told me he’s a n----r?”

The Catholic Church wants to proclaim that Jesus was a Jew by birth, yet it denies the possibility that he was also Egyptian, when Catholic scholars know that a large segment of the Jewish population came out of North Africa. There are three major ethnic divisions within the Jewish world: 1. There are the Ashkenazim or “Germanic” Jews of Germany and Eastern Europe; 2. Sephardim are Sephardic Jews from Spain and Portugal; and 3. Mizrahim or Mizrachim, or “Easterners,” (“Mizrach” meaning “East” in Hebrew) are the Middle Eastern and North African Jews. Also notice that “Mizrahim” looks suspiciously like “Mizraim,” a son of Ham (“cursed” Black) and the Old Testament designation for Egypt. So Jesus could be classified as a Mizrahi Jew by Jewish scholars or a “n----r” by the Senator Eastlands of the world or simply a Black man by his own people!

In the past, White people had the power to use language as they saw fit to pull the wool over the eyes of the rest of the world and cause confusion. But today we have the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan to set the historical record straight, get the language straight and free our people of the mental chains that shackle their very souls. Allah (God) is not the author of confusion.

(Dr. Ridgely A. Mu’min Muhammad, Agricultural Economist, National Student Minister of Agriculture, Manager of Muhammad Farms. He can be reached at [email protected])