Can Africans Trust The Bible

2 Timothy 3:16-4:4.

2 Tim 3:16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:

2 Peter 1:19.

2 Pet 1:19 We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts:

The bible is Gods attempt to communicate with man. At first he communicated face to face, as he walked with Adam in the cool of the day on the continent of Africa. But when Adam sinned the face to face communication was broken and God had to find a new way to communicate with man. Thus he chose the prophets. As God spoke to the prophets, they wrote down what God said.

According to Heb 1:1-2. It was God who does the speaking in the Bible.

1 God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,
2 Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;

The bible was written from about 1500 BC to 400 BC. It consist of 66 Books written by 35-40 authors over a period of 1100 years. The Old testament was at first 39 scrolls, which were later divided into small groups. Law, Prophets and writings.

The Law which comprise the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers Deutoronomy were historical books but were called the law because the 10 Commandments were central to Israelite History.

The Prophets which included former and latter prophets

Then the Writings which included poetic books, historical books and books read on feast days.

1. It was ordained of God.
2. It speaks extensively of Blacks ( The Descendants of Ham.)Cush, Nimrod, Nebuchadnezzar, Zepheniah, Midianites. Egypt. (Mizraim) Ephraim & Manasseth, Joshua & Most of the Children of Israel, Phut (Libya) Canaanites - All the Cities and people encountered by Israel, with with they mingled.

According to Luke 24:27 Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible.

3. Moses lived on the continent of Africa most of His life until he was cast out and forced to live among the Ethiopian Midianites.
4. E. G. White. said he wrote the Book of Genesisn while living among the Midianites.
5. Moses was described as an Egyptian.? Exodus 2:19

Exod 2:17-21
17 And the shepherds came and drove them away: but Moses stood up and helped them, and watered their flock.
18 And when they came to Reuel their father, he said, How is it that ye are come so soon to day?
19 And they said, An Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds, and also drew water enough for us, and watered the flock.
20 And he said unto his daughters, And where is he? why is it that ye have left the man? call him, that he may eat bread.
21 And Moses was content to dwell with the man: and he gave Moses Zipporah his daughter.

Describing the Egyptians, Herotitus writes: 440 BC- Moses is presumed to have died 1407 BC.

"Thirdly, it is certain that the natives of the country are black with the heat,"

"There can be no doubt that the Colchians are an Egyptian race. Before I heard any mention of the fact from others, I had remarked it myself. After the thought had struck me, I made inquiries on the subject both in Colchis and in Egypt, and I found that the Colchians had a more distinct recollection of the Egyptians, than the Egyptians had of them. Still the Egyptians said that they believed the Colchians to be descended from the army of Sesostris. My own conjectures were founded, first, on the fact that they are black-skinned and have woolly hair, which certainly amounts to but little, since several other nations are so too; but further and more especially, on the circumstance that the Colchians, the Egyptians, and the Ethiopians, are the only nations who have practised circumcision from the earliest times."

Paul the Apostle according to Acts 21:36-39 also looked like an Egyptian.

Most of the Bible was written by Moses and the Apostle Paul. Both of these men were identified as being from the continent of Africa.,/P>

6. It was originally written by people of Color
7. It was popularized by people of color.
8. It is based on translations that existed before African slavery.

In today's world there are many Holy Books and different religions striving for our attention. Thus the traditional role of the Bible in everyday life is being challenged. This book the bible having survived thousands of years of attacks and miss-use now finds itself besieged by a ever increasing secular community, which holds it in little regard.

The "Nation of Islam" claims the bible is the book of the "white man". This is further fueled by preachers, churches and denominations who depict all biblical characters with characteristics of European, with little regard for the people of color who must read and study their literature. The reality is however, that the bible existed among people of color long before it was translated into any European language. It existed in First in Aramaic then later in Coptic and Syriac which are languages of people of color. It was not until the time of Wycliffe 1380-93 that the first English version of the entire Bible was available with the King James version coming later in 1611.

Athanasius, AD 367 wrote the First known list of 27 Canonical Books. He was bishop of Alexandria, in Egypt on the Continent of Africa and he composed the first known list of Canonical Books. His Black Heritage is documented in Mark Hyman's Book. "Blacks who died for Jesus."

Augustine 354-430, was a foremost church Theologian and a Nubian

The Council of Hippo 393, Third Council of Carthage 397. All recognized the twenty seven books as the New Testament Canon and both these Council were help in North Africa.

There are four known Codex of the bible and two of them are African. The Cairo Codex of AD 895 which is the oldest known Masoretic manuscript of the Prophetic Books and the Alleppo codes of AD 930 of the whole Bible, The most valuable Codex in existence.

In 1947 The Discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that the bible we have today is very accurate and has not been tampered with.

The common language of Alexandria Egypt during the 3rd Century BC was Greek. Greek speaking Jews living there at the time wanted the Hebrew scripture translated into their mother tongue and this brought about the Greek version called the Septuagint. All the Old Testament was translated into Greek by 180 BC This was the Bible Jesus used, a Bible translated on the Continent of Africa.

The Septuagint has a four group division of the Old Testament and this was translated several hundred years before Christ was born.

• Pentateuch
• History
• Poetry
• Prophecy

Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullian AD 150-130 was born in Carthage. Son of a Roman Centurian. A pagan in his youth and thoroughly educated in latin.According to St. Jerome, Tertullian became a priest of the Church of Carthage. He was trained in law and deeply involved in the literary and social life of his day. He was so impressed with the heroism of the African Christians during persecution that he eventually converted to Christianity in AD 193. He wrote the first and greatest defense of the Christian church in Praescriptiione Haereticorum, and De Carne Christi alony with A Matyras. It was he who made Latin popular in the Christian church because he was the first Christian theologian to leave behind an extensive collection of works in Latin.

The Vulgate Bible appeared in the second of third Century AD. An man of color named Origin, a Saint of the Catholic Church was one of the early thinkers of the Christian Church He was the first to write what is known today as a parallel bible, with six parallel columns of the Old Testament scripture to be used by Christians to defend their faith against the Jews. The whole works ran nearly 7000 pages and was used by many church fathers including Jerome at the end of the 4th Century. This massive work was lost or destroyed with the coming of Islam to north African in the 7th Century, but it testifies to the impact africans have upon the development and spread of chrisianity and the bible.

There are those who emphasize that it was believers in the bible that first enslaved the African. This is used as a reason for people of color not to trust the bible. This of course is incorrect as Islam was the originator of the slave trade in their bid to conquer Christian Africa in the early years of Islam.

Because there was so many Latin Translations of the bible, In AD 383 Pope Damascus commissioned a scholar named Jerome to revise the old edition of the Latin translation. Jerome used the bible of Origin to complete his work. It was completed in 405 and became the official bible of the western Church.

When the gospel was preached in western Europe, the Latin Vulgate was the preachers Bible. It was from African that the Latin Text comes, and we have 1000s of Latin manuscripts. It is upon this manuscript that the western bible is built.

When Christianity reached Egypt, the people had a need to read the bible in their own language, and so the Coptic versions of the bible was produced. By the middle of the first century just some 27 years after Christ, Christianity was already established in Africa. The Ethiopic version of the bible also appeared by the 5th Century, so that the people of Ethiopia who had been literate for centuries might read the word of God. Their bible contained some books which are not in the Cannon bible today such as First Eunuch and Jubilees.

Prior to the coming of Islam to Africa, the greatest scholars of the Christian church could be found in Africa, Africans such as Tertullian, Cyprian, and the famous Augustine were student of the bible and Islam was only able to wipe out Christianity where the bible had not yet been translated into the language of the people.

The bible has survived through the centuries because it is the history of the activities of God in the affairs of men. It has survived because it has spoken meaningfully to men through the centuries, and although there were attempts to translate small portions of the scripture into English as far as 700 BC, no real progress was made until John Wycliffe. Wycliff of Oxford England criticized the corrupt Catholic Church and Papal institution and tried to call the people back to God but he knew this was only possible if the people had the bible in their tongue. His first version appeared in 1380, a literal rendering of the Latin Version. He was branded a heretic and forced to retire to his rectory where he died. Wycliff bible was frowned upon in High places, his friends were imprisoned and burned at the stake, some of them with bibles around their necks and people were forbidden to read it but it was so popular, it could not be stopped. People were anxious to learn to read. In 1415 the Council of Constance which condemned John Huss to burn at the stake also condemned the writing of Wycliff and ordered Wycliffe's bones to be dug out of the ground and burned. Then in 1426 Tyndale published his bible from the Greek NT. One Priest tried to burn all the bibles, then buy them all so the people could not have them, but the force could not be stopped. Nine Tens of the King James Version is the same as Tyndale.

We must confess that all English bibles after this came about during the time of slavery. Coverdaly, Matthew, Great Geneva, Bishop. Slavery began in the 15th Century with the discovery of the new world. Archeological discoveries has proved unequivocally however that the bible is not a pious forgery. When the Dead sea scrolls were discovered in 1947, thousands of manuscripts of the bible were found. All Old Testament books were represented except the book of Esther. Compared to the Bible as we have it today, it was noted that what we have is very accurate. Furthermore there is no book on earth with as much archeologist support as the bible.