I have a question

[quote=madame_zora,Jan 19 2005, 10:59 AM]
Okay, someone with more historical knowledge than I may have a different view, but here's mine: Yes, Moses had a black (negroid) wife, but that doesn't mean HE was white (caucasian). He was most likely mongoloid, as was almost every other character in the Bible because of where it is set.

Jana,
Our problem is terms. my father had a master's degree in ancient history and I learned lots from him. It is true that many so called "experts" list Arabs as in the caucacian race, but that doesn't make them "white". "White" refers to people from Europe and primarily Northern Europe. We now mark white, black and Hispanic for race on most forms. Not that that is accurate.

The Romans in the Bible were of course from Italy. The Middle East is in Asia. Regardless what you call them, they were not Europeans. They weren't Germanic or teutonnic which means blue eyed and blond hair.

The point of the story about Moses is simple. There is no basis in the Bible for any condemnation for interracial mariages. That was the point of that story. But the Hebrews were to marry people who believed in Jehovah or the Hebrew God. I brought that out as a digression in my previous post to point out that for those who try to say the Bible condemns interracial marriages, you are wrong. Nowhere is there any reference to marriages based on skin color, eyes, hair, body type or any other body feature. That false teaching just has no Biblical basis whatsoever. Yet I hear it all the time. Just not so.

Jana, your point that painting the Biblical characters as Italians is not accurate is very true. A true historian will have a problem with doing that. But I have been in African-American churches that portray Jesus as black.

We don't have a picture of Jesus. We are almost sure of what he looked like. Just like the Palistinians that live there today. You can name them what you want, but it won't change what they look like.

Jana, sorry you weren't treated kindly about your looks. That was inexcuable. I think you are a very attractive lady. To those who think differenly, that is there loss.

I totally understand your frustration over trying to remake the narrative in the Bible as a European document. That is a false thing to do.

But many people want to think Jesus looked just like them. So I guess it doesn't hurt anything to picture Jesus as how you want him to look. Just don't go and try to rewrite history to fit your comfort zone.

Jana, everything you have said is correct except possible one label and that is the label for the Arabs. For what ever reason the antropoligists list them as caucacian, though a definite different breed then Europeans. I guess they go on skeletal features. I don't know. Most of the Jews looked just like the Arabs in Biblical times.

The bottom line is look at the Palistinins. Find one with very short hair. Bingo, that is probably what Jesus looked like. At least the Biblical scholars including my dad have said that this is true. I can only repeat what the experts say. There is no way for me to contridict them with historicial evidence to the contrary.

Hope this clears this up. As long as we all know what Jesus looked like and who the people in the Bible were, we can leave it up to the antropologists to wrangle over what term to put on the various peoples that have lived throughout history.

CONCLUSION

For me, I just say Jesus was not a European. He was from the Middle East and this is what he probably looked like - A Palistinean of today.

Marry people with compatable beliefs, dreams, interests etc. who turn you on. Body types, hair color, skin color and all of that is just in the eye of the beholder. If that person turns you on then he or she just does. And you can't use the Bible to say that any relationship is wrong based on different body characteristics.

People who want to paint Jesus as an Italian or a blue eyed, blonde guy just might as well get over it.

The world is not Eurocentric. Northern Europe breed of Caucacians are in a minority world wide. And it is getting increasingly more so.

I hope I have cleared everything up. If my father were still alive. He could explain all of this better than I can. But then there would be tons of more pages to read :excl:

We all love you Jana. You are a good person. You want to help people. Blessed are those who serve God by trying to help their fellow people. The blessings God has for you are many in this world and the next.

Freddie

Okay, allow me to throw some fuel on the fire. These opinions come from my time studying in the seminary, so they are not my personal opinions.

First, the Jews in the Bible. They were Semites. The dictionary definition of Semite: "A member of any of the Caucasoid peoples of the Middle East speaking a Semitic language (e.g. Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic, Phoenician, Akkadian, Ge'ez, etc.); traditionally viewed as having descended from Shem, one of Noah's sons." The Jews were/are members of the Caucasian race. Darker than European 'whites', to be sure, but not Negroid or Mongoloid. I am speaking of Jews in the ethnic, not religious, sense. Yes, there were Negroid communities that practiced Judaism, notably the Falasha of Ethiopia. Their claim is that Judaism came to Ethiopia with Solomon as he consorted with the Queen of Sheba. Never mind that historical Sheba was not in Ethiopia, but rather in modern day Yemen. However they came to adopt Judaism, it is generally accepted that they are biracial: Caucasoid and Negroid. Ethiopia is the point where sub-Saharan Black Africa and Semitic North Africa meet.

About Jesus having short hair: probably not. Among the first century Jews, short hair was common only on the Hellenisic Jews. That would include St. Paul and St. Stephen, but not Jesus. Keep in mind that besides being a Nazarene, Jesus was also a Nazarite. This was a Jewish sect that forbade the cutting of one's hair at prescribed times. Samson was well-known for his long hair as a symbol of his dedication to God. The Nazarites encouraged the avoidance of cutting one's hair. The typical style among the Jews of Palestine in the first century A. D. was long and parted in the middle. One queue of hair in the back was commonly grown longer than the rest of the hair by Nazarites and Essenes. The beard was generally rather short and forked. Though I don't care to get into the discussion of the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin, the hairstyle of the shroud image fits exactly the writings of Josephus concerning the hairstyle of the Essenes. Some people allude to St. Paul condemning long hair in the NT. That's not accurate. The Greek word he used translates better as 'flowing'. The Jews who wore this style kept their long hair bound unless they were in mourning; they unbound it and let it flow when in a state of mourning. Jesus taught against adopting an aspect of mourning when doing penance.

About Zipporah, the wife of Moses: While it's generally accepted that Zipporah was a Cushite, it was not her race that the Jews frowned upon. The people of Jethro viewed Mt. Horeb as the Home of God and worshipped at its feet. To the Jews, this was not acceptable. This view changed when Moses communed with God on this mountain.

And about the Black Madonna(s): The Black Madonna image is often revered as an image of the Virgin Mary. Brace yourself ... she's not! The cult of the Black Madonna first gained popularity in southern France. So who is this Black Madonna? The imagery surrounding the Black Madonna plus the location of southern France leaves little doubt that she is Mary Magdalene, especially the fact that she is often portrayed as wearing a crown of gold stars, very popularin early representations of the Magdalene. According to mediaeval legend, after the Resurrection it was not safe for Mary Magdalene to continue living in Palestine. Her kinsman Joseph of Arimathea arranged for her passage to Gaul. Her life was in danger because of the religious and political turmoil stirred up by Jesus, and the legend has her as the widow of Jesus. I am not endorsing the legend, only recounting it. What follows is the tradition. A boat landed in Provence. In this boat were Mary Magdalene, her sister Martha, Joseph of Arimathea, Mary (the wife of Cleophas), Salome (the mother of Sts. James and John), the apostle Philip, and Martha's maid Marcella. Mary was with child. This was the son of Jesus, from whom the Merovingian kings descended. Even the Papacy accepted the Merovingians' claim of descent from Jesus and swore fealty to the Merovingian dynasty. Where the boat landed is today called Les Saintes-Maries de la Mer. The figure of Mary Magalene was often portrayed as black. Not Negroid in feature, just black in colour. Black represented power and arcane knowledge. Black was the colour worn by the Nazarites for ceremony.

About Jana: Yes, she is an attractive and kind lady. That's not from my seminary classes, but just personal observation.

Well, race as most Americans think of it wasn't a big deal back then; nationality, class, and lineage were. (One of the ironies: Ham's descendants settled in among other places Egypt, many "soft-line" racists said slavery was the curse of Ham, yet they insisted the Egyptians were white.)

Thanks for your input Jacinto. As I read I remmebered studying some of this myself and hearing my father use the names of the various poeples you mentined. Yes you are right about the groups in Palestine and how they wore their har. It was a seminary person who said Jesus had short hair. He named the sect that wore the short hair. I wish I knew the name of that sect, but I don't. The Bible itself doesn't name what sect Jesus was a membe of so there will be discussion and difference of opinions on that as long as we have historieans. To me it doesn't matter. I have not studied the documents available enough to debate the issue. There are other writings about Jesus from other sources of his day that people use and gather information. As always, the historians don't agree. I am not sure if historians can all agree that the sun comes up in the mornnging and sets in the evening. No they would disagree about that too.

About Mary Magnaline. This is new to me. The official Catholic view that I was taught by non Catholics was that Jesus never had sex and had no children and his brothers in the Bible were step brothers, sons of Joseph from a previous marriage. Most Protestents believe that Mary had other children with Joseph after Jesus an these wre half-brothers.

The Catholic view again as I was taugtht by non Catholic "experts" was that Mary the mother of Jesus never had sex with anyone period. And so these brothers were step brohters.

I was taught that Jesus never had sex and that Mary Magneline wanted to be Jesus's wife. My father did teach there is a non Biblica story from primary sources that Mary Magneline was Jesus's lover. My father did not agree with this schoil of thought.

Suffice it to say there is more then one story floating around. To really know, one must examine the primary sources of which the Bible is the most known and accepted. However, even then, I doubt all seminarians of the different branches of Chrsitainity woud ever agree with each other and would have all these documents and theories to explain there positon.

I did throughly readying your post Jacinto. I am not qualified to make a real judgement on it. A real judgemtns requires that one sift throuth all the documents and theories and determine there vailidity and reliability.

The problem is all I have read it what some one in the present has done and that is to study those sources and write their conclusions.

I enjoy reading your through statements about what you were taught and had those possibiities to the list of possibliies that I already have. I neither agree nor disagree with them. I just add them to my collections of theories that abound.

I greatly admire your abiity to recall details and the names of groups and people. I am a "big pictue" person. I get the big theories and all, but the details I have to go and search for.

Again I admire your great intellect. How I wish my father were still alive. I could get all the facts and details of the theories and schools of thought that he knew. I just though he would live forever and only remembered the main ideas. My father would have just been in heaven discussing all of this iwth you. He was truly an expert. How I wish I had gotton all those details when they were available. We still have his library. It is quite large. I have no idea where to bigin to find the informatin I want. It was arranged to suit him, not by library coding methods.

I hope your being gay does not interfere with your ability to contribute to your church. Man you have so much to offer to the world.

Thanks,

Freddie

Ah yes, but the Cushites lived just a few miles up the river and they were black.

You are ever so right. Nationality, class and lineage were most important. This idea of classifying humans into races is fairly new. I think it is based on skeleton differences.

As I have posted before, race shouldn't be a factor in friendships, job opportunities and things like that. And judging by Jana's your post and mine, we have trouble even decinig just which race some people belong too.

It irony of it all is we are very much related. I doubt that we would have to go that far back to find a common ancestor with anyone here on earth. Here is why:
two parents, four grandparents, eight greatpaents. If you keep doubling that each generation, then at 500 years you have one million ancestors. A bunch of them are on both sides of your parents. If this were not so, your parents could not have successfully produced children. This whole idea of only three races is a but daunting to say the least. But the antropoligists keep saying that when it is said and done, there are only three races. But what do the antropologists do with a skelton of an ancient that is biracial? Interesting question.

You possess great knowledge.

Thanks for sharing.

Freddie

This is so true...men think it about themselves, because the penis "represents" masculinity and everything that a man is supposed to be. Somewhere along the line, we have equated that a big penis=the ultimate man. Maybe it is true for procreation, but a penis in no way represents WHO a person really is. A guy can have a little penis a be a big dick. A guy can be well hung and be a gentleman and vice-versa. I don't seek out friendships based on penis size. I know some of my friends' sizes from seeing them at the gym and also from talking about it, and also because I've messed around with a couple of them, but I don't care if they've got 3" or 15". They are my friends because of their personalities, their talents, their intellect, their honesty, their ethics/values--the qualities that really count.
Some of my friends don't even have penes. (the women LOL)

I'll try to sum this up in a tactful diplomatic way that won't necessitate a shoehorn for my mouth later;

I have known guys, both best friends, classmates, and what have you's who were not porn god endowed, but were both intellectually, and emotionally better than a lot of other people. So, I don't judge people soley predicated on physical attributes. It's not in my nature! Superficiality and arrogance like this is no way to instill a lot confidence in others.

KTownBlondy: nope, i think of people who think of people with small penises like that as lesser people :glare:

OF COURSE i'd stay with him.... in my opinion, any1 who wouldnt either has never been in love, or, is a bit less than smart.... big ones are great for casual flings, but i dont think it really even matters that much if ur in a loving relationship... :mellow:

Mark_S: Hi KTownBlondy

i share your opinion... i think it´s not ok that some guys make fun of other guys with smaller members. I never make small-dick-jokes and things like that.

Well, one time i had a discussion with another guy - he had seen me nude and told me that he thought that i had better chances with the girls, but i stressed the fact that there are much more important things in a guy than just his sex-organs. It was he however who stressed the opinion, that bigger is more arousing for the woman. Hmm, i think i failed in convincing him of the fact that size isnt that important...

Well, i never was really the type of guy for casual flings... however, i like to flirt from time to time and sometimes i notice some kind of female interest in size issues. One time - it was some years ago in my student appartment (we - 3 guys and 2 girls - shared the same kitchen and bathroom), i appeared in the kitchen in the morning to fix some breakfast. I was wearing just my underwear (which was quite tight). My female neighbour came some minutes later and we talked a while. Suddenly she said "did you ever measure it?". We had a complete different topic a sentence earlier but we both knew what she meant. I didnt tell her the exact measurements (wasnt necessary). What i wanted to express: i noticed female interest, but i never made any casual fling (i had a gf). Interestingly, some time later, my gf told her about my length...

Mark

Actually, the American Anthropological Association has revised its position on race; basically, race isn't defined by a single anatomical, physiological, or genetic trait, and races are paraphyletic categories, therefore race can't be said to truly exist biologically. A lot of Ethiopians have long noses, for example; this doesn't make them white any more than my nose makes me white or my skull shape makes me black.

At this point, it's only forensic artists which use race, and once again, the problem of not having a good sample (and in fact, the samples they do use are all from peoples not mentioned in the Bible: Eastern Chinese, Ghanaians, Iberians. Yeah, that's really what everyone on Earth looks like, NOT!)

Genetically, what's considered the "white" race is what's called a polyphyletic category; Greece, Italy, and the Levant and Africa above the Sahara are all home to peoples closer to Khoisan speakers than they are to northern Europeans. OTOH, who are northern Europeans related to? Siberians and Eskimos! To finish the Caucasians, it should come as no surprise that a billion Indians are genetically closer to the whole Indochina region. Does this make a !Kung, a Buryat, and a Hmong white?

Now let's look at the negroid race. Obviously a paraphyletic category, but even more strange things: Men in Gambia are genetically closer to Japanese than to (say) Kenyans.

Finally, mongoloid. Basaically mongoloid is defined as "anyone not caucasoid or negroid". Unfortunately, outside of the aforementioned Siberians, Eskimos, and Indochinese, you get the mongoloid race as the result of three or four migrations from Africa, none of them very closely related, and only the most recent fitting the stereotypical image of flat faces and slant eyes: All the other migrations from Africa are practically caucasoid or negroid.

And then there are the Ainu...

Well, as I said, "mongoloid" was just a way for Cuvier and others to say "not black or white", and also to make sure their scheme reflected the sons of Noah, regardless of the anatomy of the peoples in question.

A man's penile dimensions do not affect my opinion of them in any way. It's just the luck of the genetic draw. My large penis is not something I achieved, it's just something that happened.

I'll admit that if I happen to see a small one in the locker room I'm taken aback a bit, just because I'm more accustomed to the appearance and size of my own, but I just remind myself that these men are happy, well-adjusted guys with families, so it must be sufficient to get the job done even if it doesn't look impressive.

Size matters much. However, its importance is mostly in that brain between our ears, not the one between our legs. Let’s assume the The Kinsey statistics and presume that 4” or less must be a genuine impediment to function. That indicates that 5 of 1,000 males are affected. Let’s presume that less than 5” requires genuine adaptation in behavior. 2.8% of males are within >4 <5.

So, for about 97% of males, sexual function is not much complicated due to insufficient size. Let’s presume that less than 6” can be embarrassing and impact success or failure in getting mates, but will not rule it out, nor preclude “normal” function. A full 27.3% fall in this cohort, fairly evenly distributed in similar size quarter inch cohorts.

Let’s presume that any importance in the difference between 6” up to 8” can not be attributed to function affected by size, but is social; it may be learned; it may be psychological. It is a matter of preference. Some partners may want bigger guys whom they believe seem more masculine. Many women may feel they can only be satisfied by a large man. There are those who believe the opposite. It is probably not important to most women - kind of important to a lot of gay men.

Let’s assume that greater than 8” could cause a functional problem for some women. 8 of 1,000 men may have to deal with this.

The point is that size is very important, but, an awful lot is made of a little bit of meat on a thing that serves a very wonderful function – rarely affected by total size of said piece of meat.

In the next post, I will describe being “small.”

I have always been very, very, small and it made a huge difference in being who I am. Rock hard and erect, I’m between 5.5” and 5.75” without squeezing. Otherwise I tend to shrink up quite a bit. I am gay and have been a life long size queen. Statistically, I’m not so significantly small – but psychologically, I am.

BTW, I’m just over 60.

As a teenager, I’d have traded places with anyone, looking back, no fucking way.

Not until I was in my mid twenties did I lose my virginity. Soon afterwards, I began one substantial, year-long, relationship with a terrific woman. She was a real knock-out, experienced, and, amazingly, she greatly preferred me and my little buddy over her splendidly well-endowed other man. Go figure. Seems I took longer, hit just the right spot, and didn’t seem as scary.

However, I am really gay and I thought for some time that it would never work out. All those guys were looking for the big one, just like me. Well, not all of them! I saw this guy at a party, fell completely, seduced the hell out of him, poor dude didn’t have a chance, and we were together for many years until he died. Frankly, I thought he brought a lot more to the bedroom than I, but he seemed to have a good time. He didn’t see me, as I did, bothered by being small; he thought I was really cocky with my little buddy.

I will never change my mind in admiring well hung guys. I genuinely like what they have, and like it for them that they have it. Although I didn’t get a big one of my own, some of them let me play with theirs and I have a good time.

There have been sad moments. I know a thing or two about rejection. But, I know a lot about love, first hand. And, despite age and size, it hasn’t stopped yet.