Africa & The Bible DVD

Africa & The Bible - DVD – Milton K, 02/24/2011
First off, I wish to state I wholeheartedly agree with this film's host: God did not curse the Sub-Saharan Negro peoples of Africa.

However, there are plenty of things wrong with this work.

Slavery was (and is) not a burden peculiar to Black Africans. Slavery has been a fact from the earliest days to, yes, today, for peoples of all heritages, including White Europeans. The generic name of my grandmother's sub-race, the Slavs, is what Western Europeans of the past considered them: slaves. Many Slavic slaves were (and today's Slavic sex-slaves, are) light-eyed blonds, prized for their appearance.

The film glosses over what it admits is the origin of the myth of the cursed Negro race: the Babylonian Talmud (the Talmud is the modern written form of what Christ called "the Traditions of the Elders"). It should have emphasized the extra- and anti-Biblical origin of the "Negroes are cursed, so they should be slaves" myth.

The film ignores other aspects of history (including Biblical history) and archaeology. The sons of Ham were not Sub-Saharan Negro Africans, but Caucasoid North Africans. Cush's appearance survives in the appearance of today's Coptic Christians along the Nile. It equates darker complexions with Negro race. This is either ignorant or dishonest, since Caucasoid Mediterraneans of North Africa & the Middle East are "dark skinned" but not Negro (my other grandmother called Italians "black" - it was a mindset from another era). The "Negro Pharaoh" has a similar appearance as King Tut, described by Afrocentric fanatics as "Negro," despite the fact research has shown him to be ethnically identical to the Caucasoid Mediterraneans who still inhabit the area. In an effort to stretch the facts to make Black Christians "feel welcome" (they should consider if Christ welcomes them, not worry about bigoted White folks), the Truth is sacrificed.

Much of the film makes me feel as though it is an ethnocentric propaganda work. If an archaeologist were to do similar work as the late Catherine Kroeger, focusing on the (factual) predominate "White role in the Bible," it would be decried as "racist" and "un-Christian." Is the effort to make Black Christians feel more close to Christ, or more close to their ancestry? Despite a claim to believe we are all "one in Christ," the material of this film gives me an eerie felling that it borders on "Black Power" (the absurdity of the "Latino-looking" Vince and overtly Caucasoid Diana from the first segment claiming they are "African-Americans" reinforces my perception).

Unless you are looking for a film to critique for your academic paper, skip this and study elsewhere.