Black Hebrew Israelite's: a false pseudo healing alternative to whitewashed theology
Black Hebrew Israelites (also called Hebrew Israelites, Black Hebrews, Black Israelites, and African Hebrew Israelites) are groups of African Americans who believe that they are the descendants of the ancient Israelites. To varying degrees, Black Hebrew Israelites incorporate certain aspects of the religious beliefs and practices of both Christianity and Judaism, though they have created their own interpretation of the Bible. Many choose to identify as Hebrew Israelites or Black Hebrews rather than Jews in order to indicate their claimed historic connections
The Black Hebrew Israelite movement originated at the end of the 19th century, when Frank Cherry and William Saunders Crowdy both claimed to have received visions that African Americans are descendants of the Hebrews in the Bible; Cherry established the Church of the Living God, the Pillar Ground of Truth for All Nations, in 1886, and Crowdy founded the Church of God and Saints of Christ in 1896. 
According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), "Some, but not all [Black Hebrew Israelites], are outspoken anti-Semites and racists." As of December 2019, the Southern Poverty Law Center "lists 144 Black Hebrew Israelite organizations as black separatist hate groups because of their antisemitic and anti-white beliefs". Former KKK Grand Wizard Tom Metzger once remarked to the Southern Poverty Law Center, "They're the black counterparts of us.
OFFENSE LEADS TO DECEPTION
Many Black Christians are one step away from a false Black Hebrew Israelite theology, because of an offense with a false White Jesus theology. Listening, preaching and teaching on reconciliation in the Black church for 32 years.....very few have processed through the healing of the cross, carrying hidden, subtle and often times blatant offense against White people for what was done to us, and our ancestors. And many don't want to let go of the offense. It's so ingrained into their message that to be healed and receive the biblical ministry of reconciliation they would have nothing to preach. Of course I'm generalizing, but in my experience I've met very few that are healed, and want to let go of their offense.
The Black Hebrew Israelite movement is now offering Black Christians who are offended and needing healing from racism, White supremacy, and the westernized presentation of a White Jesus, a false pseudo healing alternative to a whitewashed theological concept of scripture, with a blackwashed theological concept of scripture. As a result, many Black Hebrew Israelites believe that it's not enough to focus on salvation through the Blood of Yeshua Hamishiach, but we must focus also on the skin color of Yeshua Hamishiach, as a Black man, to not only save us, but to restore our stolen identity.
Conversely, they believe that to focus only on the blood of Yeshua, is a spiritual overemphasis on salvation through Christ that ignores our stolen identity or linage. And that because we've had our identity stolen, in particular by those they call "ish" people, that we must counteract against our stolen identity with an overemphasis placed upon our restored identity as the original Hebrews of scripture.
My push back against this Black Hebrew Israelite theology and ideology is not against our biblical identity being restored. It's not against our Blackness in scripture being revealed. It's not even against Hebrews being black....I'm against the butchering and improper exegesis of scripture to attempt to make everyone that's Black, a Hebrew Israelite and everyone that's any other hue, subservient to us....
This is what White supremacist theology has done to black and brown people for over a thousand years. They Incorrectly interpreted, and in many cases intentionally misrepresented scripture to build a whole doctrine of superiority of one people group over another, and the inferiority of all other people groups, based on skin color.
However, there are Hebrews in every nation of the earth, in every skin color, because of the Deuteronomy 28 scattering of God's people to the nations of the earth. Are there black Hebrews, YES! Are there Black Hebrews in America, that don't know who they are? Yes. Are there White Hebrews? Yes! Are there White Hebrews in America and in the land of Israel? Equally, Yes! But to make our election skin deep, and attempt to make the scriptures line up with African-Americans being the fulfilment of Abraham's 400 year prophecy in Genesis 15:13 is deceptive and just wrong....Just as wrong as it has been when White Supremacists theology did it to us.....
Black Hebrew Israelite's: African Americans in America are NOT the fulfillment of Abraham's 400 year prophecy of Genesis 15:13
To twist the scriptures to make this generation of Americans, both African-Americans, and all Americans, believe this fallacy that African Americans are the fulfillment of Abraham's 400 year prophecy from Genesis 15:13, is not only theologically disingenuous, but it is harmful to the legitimate message of Black presence in the scriptures. Let's look briefly at Abraham's prophecy in Genesis 15:13 and why African Americans in America are not the fulfillment of this prophecy:
13 Then God said to Abram, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed for four hundred years. 14 But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve, and afterward they will come out with many possessions.
The main verse that Black Hebrew Israelites use to base their faulty premise of African American's being the prophetic fulfilment of Abraham's 400 year prophecy, is found in Acts 7:6.
6 But God spoke to this effect, that his descendants would be Alien's in a foreign land, and that they would be enslaved and mistreated for four hundred years.
Black Hebrew Israelites presume that because African-Americans came over as slaves and have been in America for four hundred years, from 1619 -2019, that we are the people Abraham's prophecy was referring to, highlighted by this verse in Acts 7:6.
However, this verse is taken out of context.
In the context of Stephen's message in Acts 7:6, recalling Abraham's 400 year prophecy, Stephen goes on to reveal when the fulfillment of this prophecy in Acts 7:34 was fulfilled.
As much as a growing number of us want to believe, Stephen's message was NOT looking forward to us in America, 1500 years in the future, being in American slavery and Jim crow for 400 years, from 1619 -2019. He was looking back 3500 years to the Exodus and the deliverance of the Hebrews from Egypt by God. Acts 7:34 is where Acts 7:6 is fulfilled.
34. I have certainly seen the oppression of My people in Egypt and have heard their groans, and I have come down to rescue them; come now , and I will send you to Egypt.’ “This Moses whom they disowned, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge?’ is the one whom God sent to be both a ruler and a deliverer with the help of the angel who appeared to him in the thorn bush. This man led them out, performing wonders and signs in the land of Egypt and in the Red Sea and in the wilderness for forty years. Acts 7:34-36
HERMENEUTICS - The text can always be interpreted within the context
What Stephen was speaking of in Acts 7:6 he interpreted in Acts 7:34....it's called Hermeneutics. If you don't let scripture interpret itself, you can make it say whatever you want it to say. Stephen tells us in the same chapter when Abraham's prophecy was fulfilled, v.34
This is one of the main passages that Black Hebrew Israelite theology twist to base their premise upon, that African-Americans are the fulfillment of Abraham's 400 year prophecy. And if this faulty premise of African Americans being in America for 400 years as the fulfillment of Abraham's 400 year prophecy in Genesis 15:13, is the proof that we are the Israelite's, scripture doesn't support that premise.
So why do they believe that African Americans are who's being referred to in Genesis 13:15, with us coming out of 400 years of slavery and persecution in America in 2019, and not the Israelites that Moses brought out of Egypt 3500 years ago? What is the basis for this erroneous hermeneutical interpretation?
BLACK HEBREW ISRAELITES: The slavery of the Israelites in Egypt did NOT begin with the Pharaoh that knew not Joseph, two generations after Joseph, but with Joseph's Pharaoh.
They determine that the people that came out of Egypt with Moses' exodus were not enslaved for over 400 years... They determine that Joseph was in a place of authority.. ruler ship and second man in charge to only Pharaoh.. And in it, Joseph had a position as a ruler or king, that had to be succeeded by his children. If so, that would mean years and generations would pass before this new Pharaoh arose.. And if that is the case, the children of Israel were not in slavery for a “FULL 400, or 430 years, but only for approximately half of that time.
The time frame between when God began to act to fulfill the 400 year promise to Abraham to bring His people out of Egypt, of Genesis 15, by calling Moses, and the actual deliverance of the Israelite's in Exodus 12:40 is 30 YEARS.
The 400 years was up in Exodus 2:23-25; Exodus 3 is where God begins to ACT by calling Moses, and having Moses go to Pharaoh and release the judgments. The Judgments on Egypt, getting Pharaoh to the point of letting the children of Israel go from Egypt with great substance, in Exodus 12:40, was 30 years...totaling 430 years.
The 400 years was up in Exodus 2:23-25; Exodus 3 is where God begins to ACT by calling Moses, and having Moses go to Pharaoh and release the judgments. The Judgments on Egypt, getting Pharaoh to the point of letting the children of Israel go from Egypt with great substance, in Exodus 12:40, was 30 years...totaling 430 years.
WHEN DID ISRAEL'S SLAVERY BEGIN IN EGYPT
THE SLAVE years began in Genesis 47 after Jacob and the Israelites came into Egypt, a chapter earlier in Genesis 46, NOT two generations later, with the Pharaoh that knew not Joseph. ALL THE PEOPLE OF EGYPT became slaves to the Pharaoh of Joseph, including Josephs brothers, when Joseph sold the stored up grain in Egypt to the people for slave labor to work Pharaoh's fields, after the money failed in Genesis 46, 47.
They came into Egypt in Genesis 46; their slavery began in Gen 47
Genesis 46:2-7 God spoke to Israel in visions of the night and said, “Jacob, Jacob.” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “I am God, the God of your father; do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for I will make you a great nation there. I will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also surely bring you up again; and Joseph will close your eyes.” Then Jacob arose from Beersheba; and the sons of Israel carried their father Jacob and their little ones and their wives in the wagons which Pharaoh had sent to carry him. They took their livestock and their property, which they had acquired in the land of Canaan, and came to Egypt, Jacob and all his descendants with him: his sons and his grandsons with him, his daughters and his granddaughters, and all his descendants he brought with him to Egypt.
Genesis 46:2-7 NASB1995
Genesis 47:18,19 - When that year was ended, they came to him the next year and said to him, “We will not hide from my Lord that our money is all spent, and the cattle are my Lord’s. There is nothing left for my Lord except our bodies and our lands. Why should we die before your eyes, both we and our land? Buy us and our land for food, and we and our land will be slaves to Pharaoh. So give us seed, that we may live and not die, and that the land may not be desolate.” Genesis 47:18,19
20, 23 So Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh...Then Joseph said to the people, "Behold, I have today bought you and your land for Pharaoh.....
Genesis 47:20-23
Genesis 47:20-23
As we see in these verses the slavery of the Israelites begin upon their entry into the land and lasted for 400 years, with the last 30 years being the 30 years of judgment, shaking all of Egypt until Pharaoh finally would let Israel go. These 400 years are what Stephen was speaking of in Acts 7:6 when he rehearsed Abraham's 400 year prophecy, NOT African Americans.
BLACK PEOPLE: If we have to twist scripture to restore our identity, it's on a faulty premise, and our identity is STILL lost. And it's just a matter of time until it all unravels, and hit's the ground void, just like the theological doctrine of White supremacy has unraveled, from the whitewashing of scripture. In the same manner, a theological doctrine of black washing of scripture and an eventual black supremacy identity presentation will also unravel. Even if most in scripture are black, a faulty premise based on the twisting of scripture, in the end, will also unravel, because our salvation, nor our identity, is rooted in skin color, but in the blood. To hear the truth about Black presence in scripture click the link below to purchase the book and online mini-course;
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