Question about the Apostles

[flower_lady]

I’d like to know if any of the 12 Apostles were of African descent. In the series, The Bible A.D. the man that plays the role of St. John is a black man. I know you can’t rely on everything in the movies. However it did arouse my curiosity. Thank You Brenda.

 

[Nelka]

If you mean sub-Saharan African then I doubt it.

 

[GLam8833]

There ARE black Jews, I saw recently
how an organization is trying to repatriate
African Jews, so… since ALL the Apostles
were Jews, ONE of them might be black!

 

[Errham]

There ARE black Jews, I saw recently
how an organization is trying to repatriate
African Jews, so… since ALL the Apostles
were Jews, ONE of them might be black!

That’s Beta Israel (from Ethiopia) who are a part of the diaspora. The apostles were all likely to have been native Palestinian Jews.

 

[GEddie]

We don’t know.

Ethiopia, in Black Africa, was Jewish territory at the time, so it was possible, but the huge distance makes it unlikely.

ICXC NIKA

 

[Columba_Tom]

They were all Jewish boys.
Although the diaspora were already spreading, I believe it was limited to Alexander’s old empire and the Mediterranean, so the chance of intermarrying with sub-Saharan people would have been limited.
However, there has always been a trickle of foreigners converting to Judaism, and freed slaves adopted into Jewish society.
Black Jews today include Falashas, some Ebo (Nigeria) and African Americans whose ancestors had worked for Jews. None of these groups were extant at the time of Our Lord.

 

[GEddie]

They were all Jewish boys.
Although the diaspora were already spreading, I believe it was limited to Alexander’s old empire and the Mediterranean, so the chance of intermarrying with sub-Saharan people would have been limited.
However, there has always been a trickle of foreigners converting to Judaism, and freed slaves adopted into Jewish society.
Black Jews today include Falashas, some Ebo (Nigeria) and African Americans whose ancestors had worked for Jews. None of these groups were extant at the time of Our Lord.

But there was intermarriage with Ethiopia going back to at least Bathsheba (Sheba = Ethiopia) so it was possible.

Israel was the crossroads of three continents. As such, they would pretty much see everybody.

ICXC NIKA

 

[patrick457]

But there was intermarriage with Ethiopia going back to at least Bathsheba (Sheba = Ethiopia) so it was possible.

Israel was the crossroads of three continents. As such, they would pretty much see everybody.

ICXC NIKA

No, ‘Bathsheba’ is just a name meaning either ‘daughter of an oath’ or ‘daughter [of the] seven(th) / seventh daughter’ (cf. Beersheba ‘well [of the] oath’ / ‘seven wells’). ‘Sheba’ doesn’t refer to the place here. In fact, we don’t know where Sheba is exactly supposed to be. (Ethiopia is one of the candidates, but a more likely proposal is that it’s the South Arabian kingdom of Saba, in modern Yemen).

Yes, Ethiopians do have the legend of King Menelik (the supposed son of King Solomon and the queen of Sheba - here identified with Ethiopia), but our records of that legend come from the Middle Ages: a thousand years too late.

The only thing we know is that the Beta Israel are ancient. But just how ancient, we can’t be sure. We know there were already a community of Jews at the Egyptian-Ethiopian border by the 6th-5th century BC, and we know that there also Jews in modern Yemen (which was also close to Ethiopia), so some scholars think, what if Jews from either Egypt or Yemen migrated to Ethiopia and intermarried with/converted locals there? But the problem is, we have no firm historical support for both claims. We don’t know what happened to the Jews in Elephantine (in fact, some of the Beta Israel’s current practices differ from what we know about the Elephantine Jews*), while the Yemenite Jews had a connection to Palestine, whereas the Ethiopian Jews have a distinctive, in many ways somewhat more ‘primitive’ form of Judaism uninfluenced by Rabbinic Judaism (they never knew Hanukkah until recently, for one).

• For one, the Elephantine Jews were either polytheistic or henotheistic: they worshiped Yhwh (or Yhw - ‘Yahu’ - as they called Him), but they seem to have also worshiped a goddess considered as His consort (you also had the same thing going on in pre-exilic Israel) and a few other gods as well. The Jewish temple at Elephantine for instance was built on the same precincts as a temple to the Egyptian god Khnum. In addition, the religious practices of Ethiopian Jews are highly influenced by the Book of Jubilees, which wasn’t written until the mid-2nd century BC.

 

[michaelhager]

Most certainly, neither Jesus or any of His apostles were lily white Anglo Saxons as they are most commonly portrayed in western art and illustrations. For an accurate physical description of the people of that time, look at the Arabic people of today. Many of quite dark skin.

Remember also that Israeli Jews of today are mostly of European descent, having fled Nazi persecution during the war,

 

[Ignatius]

I’d like to know if any of the 12 Apostles were of African descent. In the series, The Bible A.D. the man that plays the role of St. John is a black man. I know you can’t rely on everything in the movies. However it did arouse my curiosity. Thank You Brenda.

All of The Twelve Apostles were Jewish. Though there’s nothing wrong with using an African American actor to play one of them. I wouldn’t read any more into it.

 

[bmonk]

The Twelve were all Jewish–which would not rule out African descent, nor European descent, but in all likelihood they were primarily Semitic in looks and blood.