Afrocentrism: A Mass of Mistakes
Dr. William Banks

Here is an example of Afrocentrism gone awry. The following was written by the Reverend Cecil L. Murray, Senior Minister, First African Methodist Episcopal Church, Los Angeles:

"To put the spirit back into CHRISTMAS is to make further identification between the CHRIST of CHRIST MASS and the sheep of his pasture - the Black sheep, that is, Jesus was a homeboy, descended through 'Black and comely' Solomon; as a Baby, taken down into Black Egypt to hide him from the wrath of Herod, demonstrating the efficacy of hiding chocolate among chocolate, not vanilla.

Jesus' folks were home folks: Moses marrying Zipporah, the Ethiopian, whose father, Jethro, teaches Moses a model for jurisprudence still in effect today, and - whose tribe walked the freed Israelites through the wilderness to the gates of the promised land, there to spawn Solomon and Jesus - blood kin. Merry CHRIST MASS, Jesus' family. You are somebody! Love one another!"

Three errors converge to form one horrible mistaken conclusion! The first error concerns Solomon. The words "black and comely," or "black and lovely," are not spoken by Solomon, but by the Shulamite woman. She laments what the sun has done to her skin, to her complexion (her vineyard). What she states has nothing whatever to do with race (Song of Solomon 1:5-6).

The second mistake has to do with Zipporah, the first wife of Moses. She was not a Cushite. She was a Midianite (Exodus 2:11-22). The Land of Midian was in what is present day Arabia. Though no mention is made of Zipporah's death, we can safely assume she had died prior to the incident in Numbers 12:1, where Miriam and Aaron rebelled against Moses' authority.

Moses then remarried. His second wife, unnamed, was indeed an Ethiopian or Cushite: "For he had married a woman of Cush," a phrase which "does not sound like a reference to a marriage that had been in existence about forty years." This wife also died and no mention is made of her decease.

The third error has to do with the genealogy of the Lord Jesus Christ. Matthew's account (chapter 1) gives us the legal aspect of His birth. Though Solomon was a son of David, it was not to be that the Messiah's bloodline would come from that branch of David's offspring. Rather, as Luke's account (chapter 3) points out, the physical line is through another son of David, Nathan (v.31).

The entire effort by the Reverend Murray to be Afrocentric is off base. Attempts to increase the numbers of Blacks present in the Bible soon reach the point of fiction and wishful thinking, or what is called "revisionism." The good Reverend should be ashamed of himself in his misuse of God's Word - the very Word that teaches that, God is no respecter of faces or races, and shouts: "That no flesh should glory in his presence." (1 Corinthians 1:29).

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