I don't know if you have seen this or not. This was by Gregory Doudna and was posted on the AC Alumni site. Doudna was the author of Showdown at Big Sandy: Youthful Creativity Confronts Bureaucratic Inertia at an Unconventional Bible College in East Texas.
I came to Ambassador soon after African-Americans were admitted to the student body. The racist comments were still being thrown around by many administrators and ministers as to why the college had to admit those people.
Anon
We came from a white-entitlement church ideology yet saw ourselves as loving and benign not hateful to all races. All here from AC Pasadena before 1970 were part of a college which by explicit policy excluded unmarried African-American applicants, including from tithe-paying church member families, from admission. That practice ended in 1970 when an IRS threat of loss of charitable-organization tax exempt status forced an end to the whites-preferential admissions policies at the two AC campuses in the US. Members were not told this true reason for the change. As an entering student at Big Sandy in 1972, I did not know that that was the reason Big Sandy had begun admitting for the first time unmarried black students only one year earlier in 1971. HWA never explained to the members and coworkers: “I, as chancellor of the three Ambassador Colleges, foretaste of the World Tomorrow, with the advice of counsel at headquarters, hereby decree that it is now time to admit some of our unmarried black brethren applicants to the two campuses of God’s colleges in the United States, not applicable to the campus in England, in repudiation of my longstanding teaching of God’s strictures against racial intermixing, because a higher power, namely the IRS/federal government, has threatened our income and for the good of the Work I am obeying man instead of God.”
The wcg ideology was white identity politics with an entitlement mentality: that white Europeans were Israelites and as such, entitled to the best land and natural resources in North America and worldwide. We believed in a church which broadcast booklets about a World Tomorrow which spoke of the glories of Assyrian-scale forced deportations in the millennium in which African Americans, who have been in America for generations and this is their home, would be forcibly sent to Africa en masse, leaving America all white. HWA, who authored this literature whose circulation we supported, was aware that some people might object to being forcibly removed from the only home they have ever known, but that was no impediment as he explained it; God assisted by Noah and HWA and members of the true church would force those people to go and "no defiance will be tolerated". In this ideology these soon-coming Wonderful World Tomorrow Assyrian-scale ethnic cleansings and mass deportations would be good not bad because they were in the forcibly deported peoples’ best interests, even if the first reaction of some of the ethnically cleansed in this administration in the millennium might be to cry tears not understanding immediately. (Footnote here: that is exactly what the ancient Assyrians told their conquered peoples anciently.)
Yet few of us thought of ourselves as racist. HWA and all of us at the time--probably without exception here-- professed love for all races. There was no hate speech from HWA or in church literature. The racism was institutional, not in most cases on a personal level. It was not hate-speech kind of racism.
32 comments:
The white/black issue for AC has been addressed several times here on Banned.
However, I find it interesting, that the Philippines , where there was quite a presence and response to the WCG in terms of membership etc. , had few if any attendees to Ambassador College.
Same can be said for India. The HWA paradigm was that races would be geographically separated in the Kingdom, assigned with "no tresspassing" signs around the world. American Blacks posed a problem to the paradigm as they were here in the USA residing with the Israelites , as a sort of gentile cohort. Being in residence, and with political and governmental "pressure", HWA conceded to it and allowed American Blacks to attend.
No such concession was available for international non white attendees from other areas of the world, except in the rarest of circumstances, and even then, grudgingly.
An employee on the Big Sandy campus back in the Seventies who had been a student at AC Pasadena told me something quite interesting about this. He said he had been taught in Pasadena that non-Israelites were unable to receive the benefits of an AC education - they were spiritually unfit. I don't know how this explains those considered to be White Gentiles and nevertheless attended AC like Herman Hoeh. It seems to have been in reality a White People versus People of Color policy rather than and Israelite versus Gentile policy.
This is akin to the Nazis asserting in WW 2 that the Aryan mind could not understand nuclear physics (the US nuclear program was ahead of theirs and many of the leading scientists were Jews), that nuclear physics was Jewish physics.
Another little twist is that I heard an AC graduate and former employee of AC Pasadena state that Blacks were descended from Pre-Adamic man - that is, in Armstrongist parlance they were not real human beings - kind of like the Orcs in the Lord of the Rings. This was also a notion held by some Southern Protestants about a hundred years ago.
Please. The later Japanese secretary of technology and education attended AC. The daughters of Singaporean leaders. Malaya elite children etc etc. Summer courses I guess, but still.
It 's this cultural dating thing in America with black people. I don't know what it is. Dating might be the problem. Luckily the rest of the world doesn't "date".
Nck
The Philippines were represented at AC by Jeremiah Ortiguero and his wife who were students during the time I attended. His father was one of the leaders of the work over there, and in HWA's sermons and Bible Studies, the Philippines were frequently mentioned.
Part of the brainwashing of the membership of the Radio/Worldwide Church of God included re-education, facilitating the ability to believe that practices and attitudes which would normally be considered to be racist amongst reasonable people throughout the civilized world, were in fact the practices and attitudes of God Himself, and were actually evidence of God's love for all the races which He had created. This allowed members to actually be racists without seeing themselves as racists. Sadly, this specific topic illustrates in microcosm so many of the thought patterns and logic of Armstrongism. It also allowed horrible child abusers to see themselves as simply complyng with Prov. 13:24, members who refused medical attention as not committing suicide, people who repudiated the lesson of the Good Samaritan as simply not helping the people whom God was punishing, and members to see themselves as the publican in Luke 18:9-14, but to continue to behave as the Pharisee.
Anyone still believe that Armstrongism is a Christian religion? If so, you may want to consider all of the sleight of hand that was part of the brainwashing and indoctrination. They turned around the law in strange ways which ended up throttling the second of the TGCOL's, "Love thy neighbor as thyself."
BB
though they be as the sands of the sea, only a remnant will be saved; and every day they demonstrate why...and there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth...
how these folks could possibly think that they would be entering Gods Rest given their rotten superiority complex towards their fellow Creation is bizarre and so obviously wrong headed...
God tossed the original arrogant one from heaven, and He certainly wont be admitting any what have embraced the philosophy of the fallen one...
c f ben yochanan
please stop censoring me
because a higher power, namely the IRS/federal government ... for the good of the Work I am obeying man instead of God.
Sometimes I tell people I admire their stubbornness or strictness, but tell them they are being stubborn or strict for the wrong reason. And here it's HWA's racist attitude. Obeying man instead of God? What happened to HWA's "stepping out in faith" when making a bold move rather than giving in?
In my church area, marrying girls from the Philippines became common. Racial bigotry differed between ministers, some refused to marry these couples, and at least one who openly spoke against it in sermons where mixed couples attended. One minister told me personally what he would do to a friend of mine who went to the FOT in Malaysia "if he brings back an Asian wife".
Racism? Superiority complex? This is garbage talk. Whites by law can't own land and houses in Indonesia and many other countries. There are no complaints when gentiles do this. But if a Anglo-Saxon country were to try this, there would be deafening outcry. Let's get this straight. God is the author of the different races. This is good, a blessing for humanity. These differences should therefore be preserved. Hence every nation sticks within its borders, and no inter racial marriage. I look forward to mercilessly enforcing these policies in the kingdom. All the disapproving dissidents can squeal like pigs. I won't care.
BTW, different races have different pounds as pointed out in the parable of the talents. Talents wise, some are therefore superior or inferior to others.
NEO
This dissenter blog has changed HWA's point of people being culturally or educationally unfit in being spiritually unfit.
In I believe 1981 Herman Hoeh sermoned in apartheid South Africa at an all black Feast Site with the title, "why are WE gentiles here?"
Nck
I had sincerely hoped, 9:31, that a human embodiment of my second paragraph from the post at 2:43 would not manifest itself. Yet, here you are, still brainwashed and ignorant. I'd just bet that you don't consider yourself racist because you imagine that your attitudes come from your own anthropomorphic "god". Even cattle and dog breeders realize that when you combine different breeds of animals with certain characteristics, it produces more useful, purpose-orientated animals, such as cattle that can thrive in arid conditions, or herding dogs with thicker skulls that can survive a kick from a cow's hoof. You might want to study the story of the Santa Gertrudis cattle bred in the late 1930s on the King Ranch in Texas. Or Thomas Hall and the Australian Cattle Dog, bred from Drovers and Dingoes in the 1800s
Hope you are a loner, cause it would really suck if you had people close to you on whom to practice your attitudes.
BB
First of all, those who are not merciful to others will not receive God's mercy. "For judgement without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgement." James 2:13. If we do not learn to show mercy to others we simply won't be there, period.
Secondly, anyone who claims Ephraim or Manasseh as an ancestor also must acknowledge themselves to be the product of an interracial union since Joseph's wife was an Egyptian. Genesis 46:20. Moses also married not just one but two gentile women, one of them being Ethiopian, or Cushite. Numbers 12:1-10 Jesus Christ's own family tree specifically lists two women who were gentiles, Rehab who was a Canaanite, and Ruth, a Moabite. Matthew 1:5. Had interracial unions not occurred in these cases, King David would not have been born, and the genealogy of Jesus Christ would have been messed up as well. Perhaps it might be wise to do a little more research before "enforcing" some "policy" so we don't cause undue hurt or damage, or even undermine the purpose of God. God looks at the hearts of human beings, not their pedigree or skin tone. Those who smugly boast in their "superiority" in such matters may have a rude awakening. Matthew 3:8-10
Thirdly, the parable of the talents has absolutely nothing to do with race, but is talking about each individual using the gifts or talents God has given them to the best of their ability, and not wasting or hiding that talent but multiplying it to bring glory to God. To read any sort of racial connotation into this parable is a perversion of the scripture. Concerned Sister
Anonymous (9:31)
What you posit is a typical Armstrongist view. It is interesting that you divide people into two groups: Whites and Gentiles. Anglo-Saxons have sinned largely against many colonized peoples, including nearly exterminating some peoples. This might have a little to do with why some peoples do not find their presence desirable. Anglo-Saxons even treated the Celtic peoples of the British Isles with great brutality and these Celtic people are not genetically different from them. You need to read some history other than the Compendium.
God did create different races through they are not genetically as divergent as you might think - kind of like dogs - different appearances but they all came from the wolf. And he created races for a good purpose. Unfortunately, there are people like you who want to subvert these good purposes and use race to assign values to human beings.
If you want to probe your own heart, envision this: Asians who are in general more intelligent and industrious and cleaner than Anglo-Saxons will be the leading people in The World Tomorrow. And Anglo-Saxons will be subservient to them. How does that sound to your racist ears?
I think the Kingdom will do quite well without your ungodly mercilessness.
and of course th matriarch of the jews: tamar, th canaanite woman who played th whore...
c f ben yochanan
NEO said:
If you want to probe your own heart, envision this: Asians who are in general more intelligent and industrious and cleaner than Anglo-Saxons will be the leading people in The World Tomorrow.
What a load of racist crap! The truth is that, if current racial characteristics persist into the Millennium, then if the population sizes are equal there will be more leading Asians than leading Caucasians.
However, if you read your Bible you'll notice that the second-rate Caucasians will be bit-players in the final world conflagrations before Christ's return. It's very likely that many more Asians than Caucasians will die. Until we know the death count, your statement is simply speculation.
But why are you leaving the Negroes out? In the Millennium, when all peoples will have full access to the best of everything the Earth can provide, it is reasonable to suspect that the intelligence and creativity of Negroes will skyrocket to equal that of Caucasians and Asians. Why do you shy away from the prospect that in the Millennium there will be plenty of Negro world leaders who put the average Caucasian or Asian worker to shame?
I was going to say what you said but you beat me to it. Right on, Concerned Sister. I agree with you wholeheartedly.
FFS
Anonymous (8:57)
Sorry, I was not clear in what I intended. This statement was not a serious proposal of what God is going to do with races in the future. I don't know that. If anything, in the Renewal of all things, all races will come to their full potential whatever that may be.
This was a thought experiment for our racist Armstrongist contributor so he could examine his heart on the issue - something I am sure he is not inclined to do.
Byer Bob wrote: "This allowed members to actually be racists without seeing themselves as racists."
This is a deeply searching statement. It raises a chilling question. Does Armstrongism seek to consecrate sin? I know there are Armstrongists who believe that the words of Noah concerning Canaan justifies slavery and the maltreatment of Blacks. Hence, slavery becomes a righteous act. And the South was godly after all.
Because an amoral act is "consecrated" by Armstrongists, it permits people who need repentance to come into the ranks of Armstrongism and yet conserve their sin. See Anonymous (9:31).
The parable of the talents has nothing to do with race? Really. Jews make up 2% of the worlds population but have won 22% of the Nobel prizes. Blacks make up 13% of the U.S. population but are about 70% of the players on the National Football League and over 80% of the players on the National basketball Association.
Asians will be the leading people in the world tomorrow? Ha, ha, ha, ha.
Who invented the car, the plane, the steam engine, the atomic bomb, the microprocessor, the internet, Facebook, Ebay etc. Asian science and technology is imported or stolen from the west. Yes, Asians are more industrious than westerners, but today's generation is more prosperous and works less than previous generations because wealth is primarily the product of the human mind, ie, science and technology. The Asians with their supremacy of the group, stomp on creativity. So Asians will continue freeloading on the white mans coat tales. Even in the world tomorrow. Not forgetting, try mentioning notable self help books written by Asians.
I hate to say it, NEO, but there are probably some jingoist Armstrongites who believe that the minority people whom they consider to be lower in Waterhouse's racial hierarchy will be "healed" and made white in the Kindom. As abhorrent as that attitude would be, it certainly beats the scenario under which all other races would be subservient to the Anglos and Jews for all eternity.
I personally believe that given a favorable environment, education, and social conditions, a high percentage of any given race will excell. I've witnessed this actually happening throughout my lifetime. The progress already made by some is nothing short of amazing. That is why I become righteously pissed off when people express redneck and Hitlerian attitudes.
BB
Concerned Sister November 30, 2019 at 12:19 AM said...
Moses also married not just one but two gentile women, one of them being Ethiopian, or Cushite. Numbers 12:1-10
Studying this issue of late it's my current understanding Moses actually married just the one woman, Zipporah.
Josephus is commonly cited as a source for the view that when Moses lived in Egypt he commanded the Egyptian army in a war against Ethiopia and married an Ethiopian princess. Although it's difficult to believe he'd fabricate the account some scholars believe this narrative is fictitious. Further, the source for his information is unknown.
In his study Dr Claude Mariottini provides support that Miriam's disparaging remark was in reference to Moses' wife, Zipporah, not a second unidentified wife. He states:
"Zipporah, Moses’ wife, was a Midianite woman. The Midianites were descendants of Abraham through his wife Keturah (Genesis 25:1-4). The Midianites lived in the Sinai region and in northern Arabia. Since the word “Cushites” or “Ethiopians” refers to black-skinned people, it is possible that the word was also applied to the Midianites to describe them as nomads with dark skin. Some scholars have identified Midian with Cushan. The synonymous parallelism between Cushan and Midian in Habakkuk 3:7 suggests that the words Cushite and Midianite are identical...The text in Exodus 4:20 says that “Moses took his wife and his sons, put them on a donkey and went back to the land of Egypt.” Then in Exodus 4:25 Moses’ wife is identified as Zipporah. At a later time Moses sent Zipporah back to the house of her father, but when Jethro came to visit Moses in the wilderness, Jethro brought Zipporah back with him: “I, your father-in-law Jethro, am coming to you, with your wife and her two sons” (Exodus 18:6). In Habakkuk 3:7, Cushan is identified with a tribe in Midian: “I saw the tents of Cushan in distress, the dwellings of Midian in anguish.” In 2 Chronicles 14:12, Asa, king of Judah fought against his enemies at Gerar and “the LORD routed the Cushites before Asa and Judah, and the Cushites fled” (2 Chronicles 14:11). Gerar is a town in the Negeb (Genesis 10:19), not in Ethiopia. 2 Chronicles 21:16 mentions that the Arabs were neighbors of the Cushites. These texts indicate that these Cushites did not live in Ethiopia, but in an area that was near to the land of Israel. From the texts above it is clear that the word “Cushite” does not mean Ethiopia. Rather, the word Cushite is applied to the Midianites or to the tribe from which Jethro and Zipporah belonged. Therefore, I believe that the Cushite wife mentioned in Numbers 12:1 was Zipporah, the daughter of Jethro, and Moses’ wife."
The Wikipedia article "Zipporah" further supports that it was Moses' wife, Zipporah, who was racially slured by Miriam: "The Midianites themselves were later on depicted at times in non-Biblical sources as dark-skinned and called Kushim, a Hebrew word used for dark-skinned Africans. One interpretation is that the wife is Zipporah and that she was referred to as a Cushite though she was a Midianite, because of her beauty."
Furthermore, it can be argued that the prohibitions against intermarriage with such peoples as Ammonites, Edomites, Egyptians or Moabites (Deuteronomy 23:4; 8-9) relates to male Ammonites, male Edomites, etc. not females. Thus, as you noted Joseph's wife was Egyptian, and Rahab the Canaanite and Ruth the Moabitess were permitted to marry Israelite men and did and are in the lineage of Christ. Even Israelite men who engaged in warfare with other nations were permitted to return with foreign women as booty (Deuteronomy 20:14).
BB
You seem to not fully grasp your own statements. That minorities can make progress in Anglo Saxon nations that is 'nothing short of amazing' is:
1 another example of free loading off another nations superior culture.
2 an example the of the destructiveness of the oppressive, lording culture from which
these minorities came.
Good luck trying to educate these negative traits out of these cultures. Today's churches give an peep hole of how much people can change in Christ's millennium. As a matter of observation, people do not change very much. So I doubt that Asians and other minorities will be freedom loving, rights respecting during the millennium.
OK, 10:52, you just defined and exemplified "white paternalism"
Might as well face it, you're a racist. Thing is, unlike those whom you cited, you probably won't be allowed to carry that negative trait forward into the Kingdom. Better get educated out of that mindset, or you won't be ruling Jack crap.
BB
Anon 2:39 PM wrote:
Asians will continue freeloading on the white mans coat tales.
The tale of Joseph's coat of many colors notwithstanding, the above is good evidence that many White mans [sic] grossly overestimate their own capacity in comparison to Asians.
Hey 10:52, one of the ways to recognize if you have a brain tumor is that you will always be smelling burning rubber. In other words you are smelling your own brain. I'd imagine you probably frequently smell crap. Think about that.
Just imagine what a disaster it would be, even in the Armstrong blueprint for the Kingdom or Millennium, if someone like 10:52 were given a position of leadership, or rulership. God would not be able to trust him to be fair and impartial in developing His precious children as human resources. He'd be teaching his white subjects to be proud, entitled, and arrogant, and people of color not only to feel less than, but also to think of themselves as having an eternal glass ceiling, on which their attitudes, hard work, and pursuit of further education would have no effect. This is why racist attitudes are so anathema to God's purposes.
BB
Byer Bob wrote: "This allowed members to actually be racists without seeing themselves as racists."
BB: Anonymous (10:52) is the reason why your earlier statement cited above carries so much weight. Here is a guy (10:52) who very likely has been a racist all of his life. He encounters Armstrongism and joins up. And because Armstrongism has consecrated the sin of racism, essentially calling it a virtue, he is worse off than he started out. Now he believes that his personal racism is God's Master Plan for Eternity.
He cited the fact that White people have made many advances and discoveries and that is true. But it is not all White people who have done this. Anonymous (10:52) is just as much a freeloader as anyone else even though his skin may be White. Why should he be accorded some special status in the Kingdom of God because he is White. One of the tenets of the NT is that one, anyone, is rewarded according to ones works. I think Anonymous (10:52) would make a great waiter in a Chinese run restaurant as his rehabilitative job in the Millennium.
And the idea that one can look at how people of color respond to church attendance now as a gauge of their future success in the Kingdom of God is ludicrous. It is sophomoric racist rationalization. Going to church does not instantaneously offset years of living in this world under the wrong influences. For instance, consider the case of Anonymous (10:52) himself.
BB
You seem to ignore the significance of sin. God says that He visits the sins of the fathers to the third and fourth generation. These sins put a glass ceiling of sorts on these generations. This goes hand in hand with the 'crabs in a bucket syndrome' whereby the more successful are pulled down by the surrounding envious. This is in plain view in HWAs splinters and HWAs original church. It's simp!e cause and effect.
What you propose doesn't naturally occur in nature, but must be earned by that culture.
And, yet you admit that these folk are somehow able to miraculously break the generational curses by emigrating to the nearest white, English - speaking nation and ride the coat tails! Incredible!
By the way, who created the bucket for all the crabs? Slaves were held in a state of ignorance by Massah, not permitted to read or write. Massah also didn't respect the marriages or integrity of the families of slaves. Up to the '60s, Young Chicanos in East L.A. were presumed to be only suited for manual labor, even those who possessed accute academic skills and could have gone to college, and the guidance counsellors were compelled to guide them to trade school. Young Native Americans were taken from their families and sent to reeducation boarding schools, where they were stripped of their languages and customs and made over in the white man's image.
People died during the 1960s in the struggles for voting rights for people of color. Clearly, it was not only the fellow crabs who pulled their own down! Even someone of the ilk of a Rush Limbaugh has admitted that the original, once thriving black middle class and family was destroyed by pandering politicians offering welfare. You need to read up on W.E.B. DuBois, and also on Harlem of the 1920s and '30s. Rise above your Armstrongism and quit being blinded by it! Get out more, learn more, and make friends of color. Your life and outlook really do not need to suck for all eternity. There's something better just waiting out there for you, so get out and find it! Why continue to deprive yourself?
BB
israel rose out of slavery, and subsequently dominated the world because God promised that they would to Abraham, not because of any inherent superiority...
God could have just as easily left them in the depths of hell, and there wouldve have been nothing they could have done to rise above servitude...
yet to this day they have shown themselves to be slaves to their own superiority complex, discounting the Favor that God showed them, which doesnt bode well for their prospects of entering into the Millenial Rest of Christ...
c f ben yochanan
please stop censoring me
BB
Dinesh D'Souza's 'The big lie - exposing the Nazi roots of the American left' does an excellent job of describing the mistreatment and re enslavement of African Americas and native indians via welfare handouts. He calls this the new plantations. So yes, minorities have been, and are presently exploited. In fairness, they collaborated in their own re enslavement by voting and continuing to vote for the Democratic party. They aren't snow white. Rather like Esau, they keep selling their potential for a bowl of soup.
From memory, just as many whites were enslaved as blacks during the nineteenth century. For example, the Barbary pirates captured over one million Europeans and sold them as slaves to North Africa and the Ottoman empire.
BTW, name another nation that fought a civil war to free its slaves.
Since the same topics pass by every now and then I like and tend to approach them every time from a different angle. (of couse trying to put hwa in there each and every time)
Some of you who may read newspapers may have heard about QE or the big bail out of banks.
The first government bail out almost as huge as the current bank bail out was the 19th century British compensation for slave holders. The records for compensation are put on maps and many red dots on those maps point out entire streets in London where one lady owns one slave on a Caribean island and gets compensated, another person owns 3 and others half a plantation.
Slavery, a terrible thing. I hate the Vikings guts for taking young lasses from Ireland and Russia on their trade missions.
I find people currently asking for compensation rather ridiculous unless they have somewhat of a record of campaigning against modern slavery like chocolate or coffee plantations. Otherwise I loath fat people eating chocolate produced by slaves while at the same time complaining about something that happened 150 years ago. I do like the transition of the former indentured servants of the Commonwealth of Virginia who all turned nobility within a couple of generations.
nck
Dr. Mariottini's post is interesting, but he does acknowledge that his theory is just that, as evidenced in a comment to a reader further down on the same post...
"As I mentioned in my post, it is difficult to know whether Moses’ Cushite wife was Zipporah or another woman. The text is not clear and we cannot make a definite decision on this issue because the Bible does not help us with the kind of information we need to make a definite decision."
Regardless of whether the Ethiopian or Cushite wife was Zipporah or not, God's anger at Aaron and Miriam still stands as a testament to the fact that He did not hold Moses' choice of wife against him, and it is interesting that Miriam's punishment was that her skin was turned "white as snow" with leprosy (Numbers 12:10),which indicates that her criticism of Moses stemmed from the fact that he had married a darker skinned woman, who was not directly descended from the tribes of Israel.
Also, the ban on marrying or making covenants with people the Israelites were conquering in the land of Canaan extended to both men and women, as evidenced in Deuteronomy 7:3..."Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons, or take their daughters for your sons." Verse 4 of the same chapter explains very clearly why..."because they will turn your sons away from following Me to serve their gods. Then the anger of the Lord will burn against you, and He will swiftly destroy you." This sentiment is repeated elsewhere such as Exodus 34:15-16;Joshua 23:11-13.
This does not mean however that others were not welcomed into Israel under any circumstance. From their exodus out of Egypt, there were people of other lands and ethnicities that mixed with them and became part of them. (Exodus 12:37-38) Verses 48-49 of this passage states... "If a foreigner resides with you and wants to celebrate the LORD’s Passover, all the males in the household must be circumcised; then he may come near to celebrate it, and he shall be like a native of the land. But no uncircumcised man may eat of it. The same law shall apply to both the native and the foreigner who resides among you.” In other words, God made a way for others to be welcomed into Israel and those who were willing to obey the laws of Israel were to be treated the same as those who were "native" to the land, with the same rights. Leviticus 19:33-34; Numbers 15:14-16; Ezekiel 47:21-23 I have not found any passage that indicates that "native born" status did not extend to marriage rights among the tribes, and in fact to make that differentiation would be to do away with the "native born" stipulation in my view. One example of this is Bathsheba's marriage to Uriah the Hittite,who was a loyal soldier of Israel's army, and one of David's "mighty men".(2Samuel 23:8,39; 2Samuel 11:11)
God was primarily concerned with Israel's religious purity, not Israel's "racial" purity, as indicated from the above passages.
Concerned Sister
1:50 I like the mise en abime in concerned sisters posting.
Nck
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