Herbert Armstrong's Tangled Web of Corrupt Leaders

Tuesday, July 23, 2019

Genetics, Racial Intermarriage and Armstrongism





Genetics, Racial Intermarriage and Armstrongism 

Back in the Seventies, an Ambassador College Pasadena graduate showed me some notes he made in one of his classes. The topic was preparation for marriage and the notes he showed me dealt with racial intermarriage in particular. The policy as he wrote it was that anyone who was one-eighth Hamitic or more could not marry into the White (Shemite) race. And anyone who was one-quarter Japhetic or more could not marry into the White race. It now strikes me as remarkable that such imprecise terms as “Hamitic” and “Japhetic”, when applied to modern racial categories, would be used in the formulation of policy that would affect people’s lives. It was also revealing that the policy was formulated to protect the White race from “contamination” by gene flow from other racial branches. 

The Biblical Condemnation of Intermarriage 

The Bible does condemn a certain type of intermarriage. When Israel invaded Palestine, they were told not to marry into the tribes that occupied the land before them (Deut. 7:3). In Ezra 9 and 10, we find a condemnation of the Jews for intermarrying with these same Canaanite tribes. The book of Nehemiah recounts that Nehemiah confronted Jews with rants and violence for having intermarried with these people. According to the Biblical account, the issue for Ezra and Nehemiah was the detestable practices of these people foreign to Israel. Did this instruction also entail race? This will be examined in the next section. 

The Pivotal Role of Canaan for Armstrongism 

Dr. Charles V. Dorothy gave a sermon in the Field House on the Big Sandy campus back in the Seventies that spoke to this topic. He went over the account of Rahab the Harlot and as a sidebar identified Rahab as a Canaanite. He further described Rahab as a “beautiful Mulatto.” Herman Hoeh had already established for the Worldwide Church of God (WCG) that the Blacks of West Africa were the descendants of Canaan. The electrifying problem for the WCG was that Dorothy’s statement meant that a Black woman was in the genealogy of Jesus Christ. This was not something left to deduction. Dorothy emphasized this conclusion in his sermon and castigated the White people in the audience for being so shocked by this fact. Several years later, in a WCG publication entitled Tomorrow’s World, Kenneth Herrmann returned Rahab to an acceptable racial status and rescued the heredity of Christ. Herrmann in an article about Rahab described her, without citing historical support, as a Moabite – no doubt to a palpable sense of relief for some in the WCG. 

The Biblical accounts of Ezra and Nehemiah do not call out race as a concern. Herman Hoeh imposed race on these post-exilic Biblical events by proclaiming the Canaanites of Palestine to be Black Africans. From this seed flowered the broad racial policies of the WCG. Hoeh’s catalog of racial identifications and affinities served as the foundation within the WCG for the administration of racial policy pertaining to marriage. In the case of Canaan, this supposition also conveniently dispelled, as a bonus effect, the guilt that the United States, particularly the southern States, should rightly have for the heinous sin of state condoned, commercial slavery. This was because a curse of servitude was placed on Canaan in Genesis. I have never seen Hoeh’s detailed work for supporting his various racial identifications. His articles on this topic are more like declarations rather than carefully vetted analyses. It is a mystery whether Hoeh documented the further and necessary details to support his views for WCG internal use. 

The tragic error in this odd chain of events is that the ancient Canaanites were not Black Africans. Dr. Spencer Wells (geneticist, anthropologist) in a National Geographic television documentary explained that his research indicated that there is genetic continuity between the ancient Canaanites, the Phoenicians and the modern Lebanese people (see PBS video The Quest for the Phoenicians). Brody and King pointed out that studies support the idea that the “genetic affinities of the Jewish populations with Druze and Lebanese may reflect a common Canaanite substrate (Aron Brody and Roy King, Genetics and the Archaeology of Ancient Israel). We also have: “Levantine Semites — Lebanese, Jews, Palestinians, and Syrians — are thought to be the closest surviving relatives of the ancient Phoenicians, with as much as 90% genetic similarity between modern Lebanese and Bronze Age Sidonians” (see Wikipedia article on “Phoenicians” for cited sources.) Finally, Jews and Lebanese are both Y-haplogroup J with some inclusions in their modern populations. 

Conclusions 

These conclusions were developed using an exegetical model augmented by genetic findings. 

1. The ancient Canaanites, and their modern-day descendants the Lebanese, are very closely related to the Jews. (Note that the Lebanese may not look like American Jews who are typically Ashkenazi in origin. The Ashkenazi Jews are 30% to 60% European. A better visual comparison would be the Mizrahi Jews of Palestine.). 

2. If you want to view a Canaanite or Phoenician, have a look at photos of the Lebanese people. You will see they are not Black Africans. Then compare photos of the Lebanese to representations of ancient Canaanites from archaeological research. These people, ancient and modern, are incontrovertibly Middle Eastern. 

 Y-haplogroup E

3. Black Africans are generally Y-haplogroup E and Lebanese are Y-haplogroup J. As a sidebar to the main topic, the case of Canaan demonstrates that the descendants of Ham were not Blacks. Canaan is a descendant of Ham and his descendants are not Blacks. Blacks have a genetic origin separate from the Y-haplogroup J people of Palestine. Y-haplogroup E has been in existence for about 70,000 years based on mutational rates of change, long before the putative era of Adam, Noah and Canaan. 

For those who subscribe to the idea popularized by Hoeh that Ham married a Black woman (this is why Dorothy referred to Rahab as a Mulatto), the mtDNA of the Lebanese, inherited in the female line, has European affinities and not Black African affinities. (See Dannielle Badro, et al., Y-Chromosome and mtDNA Genetics Reveal Significant Contrasts in Affinities of Modern Middle Eastern Populations with European and African Populations). Also, autosomal genetic studies would reveal any Black African connections in the Lebanese. 

4. WCG’s racial intermarriage policy based on Hoeh’s interpretation of the Bible collapses under the weight of the science of genetics. The policy was underpinned by the idea that Deuteronomy, Ezra and Nehemiah made not just religious and cultural statements but also racial statements concerning the Canaanites who were erroneously thought to be Black Africans. However, the accounts in the Bible that proscribe intermarriage with Canaanites do not cite racial concerns. The racial spin was added by Herman Hoeh based on his personal research which seems never to have been published. 


Note: As it turns out, Kenneth Herrmann did not have to write an article correcting Dr. Charles V. Dorothy and sanitizing the genealogy of Jesus of Canaanite blood. The Canaanites are the same race as the Jews and this is borne out by the science of Genetics. 

 Y-haplogroup J

submitted by Neo

37 comments:

  1. I will take the teaching of Herbert Armstrong any day over the blasphemies of worldly educated people. Interracial marriage is a sin. The world tomorrow will have the races separated, and hopefully, on their own world so that we have little interaction with one another.

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  2. 7:36

    Thankfully, the teachings of Herbert Armstrong have been proven as conclusively flawed, including his British Israelism theories. Fortunately, most of the world does not judge people based on their melanin but on their heart and mind. The picture you paint is of a cold and calloused, and very racist "World Tomorrow", one I am glad is in the very unreal imagination of Herbert Armstrong and his followers. And will stay there.

    Thank God that that world is fantasy, and does not reflect any version of reality, either then, now, or evermore. You can have your "world tomorrow". Trust me, it's all yours.

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  3. Blasphemy of Herbert Armstrong - seems like a non sequitur to me.
    The Bible teaches that we are all of one blood.
    Acts 17:26-28 New King James Version (NKJV)
    26 And He has made from one [a]blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, 27 so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; 28 for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’

    You are focusing on boundaries instead of us being of one blood - because you are following HWA who only followed the Bible scriptures that fit his belief set.
    And why do you think color is a racial difference? The white races fought each other in 2 terrible world wars - partly race based on the differences between the various white races.

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  4. Unfortunately, all the true followers of Herbert Armstrong look forward to their Millennium as a time when all people of color will bow to them and say “Yassuh Massah Manasseh!”

    7:36’s comment is the best testimony I’ve ever seen as to why this blog is so necessary! Some people still persist and just love to wallow in their dumb sheep slop!

    BB

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  5. 7:36 is not a fan of Star Wars the Republic nor does he represent the armstrong ideology. I'll be on Tattooine anyway. US 1915 race laws provided quota for southern europeans and unamerican religions like irish / sicilian catholicism. The movie birth of a nation inspired many of that.

    I like NEO's article.
    As a 13 year old kid I studied "the races" and concluded there was no such thing as Hoeh's Universe and that HWA adhered to 19th century ideas on the matter of breeding.

    Distinctions between man can be made on many levels and the next door white postman can be vastly different from you on molecular level than a local sub sahara african, regardless of "race".

    I would agree though on many possible social and cultural problems regarding intermarriage. But hwa was distinctly 19th century on "the depreciation of the genepool" in the earliest 7 laws of success. Therefore I disagreed with wcg teaching on at least one major point at age 13 already. I also did not enjoy the ban on comic books during services.

    The only race in africa that sadly is no more is "Paris - Dakar". And in USA the one race is Nascar.

    Nck

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  6. This is a really fine paper by NEO exposing HWA's racism where, like in Hitler's Germany, other leaders amplified the madman's hateful theories.

    Another Nazi policy WCG developed was running discreet dossiers on members' lives/"failings": I was a victim of this, but have to say that it backfired badly on key enemies who perpetrated this!

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  7. It is my understanding that intermarriage was forbidden not for racial reasons (we all share over 99% genes) but to prevent religious "contamination". That is why the Israelites only ate certain foods, it would limit social interaction with those who worshipped a different God. It was to protect monotheism, not racial purity.

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  8. Who cares what race Jesus was!

    Wouldn't it be nice if one day it was proven that Jesus was black? It would put those damn white supremacists in their place.

    The problem is, there are black supremacists too, and with human nature the way it is....

    Thank God no one really knows, and it doesn't matter anyway!

    (I know, I know, to all you arrogant jerks who KNOW exactly what race Jesus was, DREAM ON!!!!!)

    Kevin

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  9. Nck said, "I also did not enjoy the ban on comic books during services."


    Thank God for tablets and cell phones! Now when the sermons are inevitably boring, one can sit in the back row and play sudoku, solitaire or whatever the heart desires.

    Kevin

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  10. @7:36 PM will be very surprised when he discovers that the World Tomorrow segregates not the races, but rather the bigots, idolaters, and a$$ho!es.

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  11. Kevin.

    What are you saying that a solution has been provided by a genetic Arab. (Or perhaps Phoenician if his lineage stemmed from coastal Syria?)

    What a stupid question about Jesus being black. Of course he was a black man. He went around calling everyone "brother", moreover he couldn't get a fair trial.

    What does that tell you?

    On a serious note "song of solomon" probably was a love poem about Solomon's black wife. Might she have been Jesus'great great grandmother.

    nck

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  12. Different races have different characteristics, just as individuals do. Marrying outside your race introduces friction and barriers. This is discernable when people immigrate. For instance, immigrants from a certain Italian city will cluster together, and live separate from immigrants from a different Italian city.
    National differences are good, and need to be preserved by segregation. Herb had it right about the separation of races in the millennium. Herb wasn't wrong about everything.

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    Replies
    1. True 6:13

      There should total segregation between the people of "little bavaria michigan and fredericksburg texas, lest they mingle.

      Nck

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  13. On the other hand. Jesus might have been Jewish still.....

    1) He lived at home until he was in his 30’s. 2) He worked in the family business. 3) His mother thought he was God.

    nck

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  14. Anyone a haplogroup 90210 blasphemite??

    nck

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  15. "Wouldn't it be nice if one day it was proven that Jesus was black? It would put those damn white supremacists in their place."

    Or perhaps just a legend cobbled together from OT scriptures and brought down to earth by the anonymous author of "Mark" who was then copied bigly by Matthew and Luke? :) The color of Jesus skin would be mootish with a tinge anything else you'd like.

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  16. Anonymous 7:36

    I don't know if you are using the term "sin" in its rigorous theological sense or in a loose colloquial sense. But if it is the former, my article goes directly to this issue. There is no Biblical support for the idea that racial intermarriage is a sin. It may be ill-advised, it may go against extra-Biblical norms or it may be perfectly fine. The Bible cannot be recruited to either accept or repudiate racial intermarriage. This is why Herman Hoeh wrote his own standard and the WCG promulgated and practiced it. A denomination may have a policy of denying sanctioned marriage to inter-racial couples but this is not be based on Biblical theology but other considerations.

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  17. Dennis
    You hide it, but you must be mentally disturbed to be constantly trashing the bible. Perhaps it was projection on your part when you recently posted that Paul was mentally sick.

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  18. Marrying ANYONE introduces friction and barriers. Thinking more positively, differences often become strengths, complementing one other. As continuing societal evolution gradually eliminates racism, people will be more and more free to marry the people whom they love and choose regardless of a little thing like skin pigmentation.

    I once got close to a school teacher who taught me many things. At one point, she had me observe her preschool class during one of their play periods. She said, "Notice how all of the kids (black, white, Latino, and Asian) all get along, Bob? That's the way they are born, the way we all are in our natural state. Unfortunately, their families and the people in their communities teach them racism, making them feel different from one another later on in their lives, and sometimes hostile to one another. Isn't that a shame?" I had to admit, that it was indeed a shame! Kind of like when Satan made Adam and Eve naked shamers.

    BB

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  19. One has to ask...

    All God had to do was make the "so called" races to be unable to breed with one another to reproduce.

    But he did and does allow it to happen, and does not stop interracial reproduction.

    I think Armstrong viewed the different races as "different species" and that interracial relations was akin to some kind of bestiality.

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  20. "Marrying ANYONE introduces friction and barriers."

    Thanks for putting a smile on my face BB.


    I once asked a male GAY couple how they resolved differences regarding the upbringing of the kids.

    They said: First the one person gets to express their opinion, then the other person their opinion, then we resolve the question by talking about it in civil manner and come to a workable conclusion.

    I responded: "That is UNNATURAL!"

    nck

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  21. Anonymous said...
    Dennis
    You hide it, but you must be mentally disturbed to be constantly trashing the bible. Perhaps it was projection on your part when you recently posted that Paul was mentally sick.

    Perhaps not. It is not trashing the Bible to notice and understand what many theologians and academics understand about the actual origins, intent, politic and problems with the texts as presented. It is not a mental problem to consider what we have learned from paleontologists, cosmologists, biblical historians and even apologists. My comment on Paul may have been more harsh than intended. "Conflicted" may have been a better word. This is a man who did not marry, beat himself to keep himself in subjection and was tormented that he could not stop doing what he found himself doing. That, while pretty human, is a conflicted human being and religion is often the cure sought and can modify the effects with a faith practice.

    At any rate, noticing the problems with the text as people who have made whole careers of it is not trashing the Bible anymore than noticing that Jesus has not returned in 2000 years makes one a scoffer. Just a noticer and willing to point out that whatever soon and shortly mean in scripture, the time is far over.

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  22. PS I recognize the need sometimes for others to find "reasons" why someone annoys them on any particular topic or approach that they hold dear. I'm sure you'd feel better if you could label me in some way mentally disturbed or whatever rather than just informed and willing to share it even it goes against the pious convictions of others. I can assure you I am quite "normal", whatever that means, generally easy going and simply interested in what is so rather than what either you or I want to be so when it is not so. Others seem content to not search out matters. I am not one of those and never have been. That is my mental instability I suppose.

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  23. Connie warned us she would leave if Dennis kept trashing the Bible. Now she seems to be gone.

    I have no problem with people disputing the bible. What I do find objectionable is then they drive other people away, and then feel sorry for themselves and whine and threaten to go away because people are always telling them to go away.

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  24. Interracial marriage is not sin but it is unhealthy. It mixes different body chemistries into one. Bad chemistry.

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  25. Jesus was from Galilee. That means he was not a Jew. His native tongue was Aramic not Hebrew.

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  26. Byker,
    I appreciate your thoughts on most things, but I have to take exception to your take on the origins of racism. Most families do not teach racism and in fact teach quite the contrary. I was talking to a friend quite upset that her kids noted that the only people that get in trouble at her kids' school are black. This was their own observation and not taught. I know there are a lot of factors, but anyone looking at crime statistics can objectively reach the conclusion that there are more crimes among blacks. Kids start noticing this without prompting. What do you say to such kids? Not to stereotype, but we all do some of that. I think if one can just take each person for who the person is that is all that can be expected generally, but this may well include dismissing a knowledge based recognition each time. I think that is reality until there are not measurable disparities such as this.

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  27. I was wondering where Connie was, I've missed her.

    Kevin

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  28. If Connie was that shallow of a person then she had no business being here. I like what Dennis posts.

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  29. Got me a little theory. Connie was just one of a series of characters created by a halfway-in-halfway-out UCG guy. I’ll leave it up to someone else to guess the names of the earlier and present characters. You need to have high recognition skills for literary styles to guess the identity. Dude’s first name is probably Bill.

    BB

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  30. The Lemba tribe in South Africa claims to be descendants of the Levitical priests who were forced to leave Israel when Nehemiah and Ezra cracked down on intermarriage.
    Their DNA has been tested and backs up their claim genetically.
    Whether the origin story is correct are not, DNA does show there were blacks in area where Levites could have children with them.
    According to evolutionary theories, all of us humans came out of Africa originally.
    Who knows what skin color we started with - whether or not you believe in creation or evolution.
    The Bible is not hung up on skin color - it is a non topic.

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  31. similar args are used to explain contemporary egyptians and the people in the region once known as carthage...yet those peoples are arabs...

    but carthage was founded by migrants from phoenician tyre in lebanon...are the current occupants of libya therefore of "lebanese" decent, despite being deemed arabs? and why dont the statues and art of egyptian antiquity have arabic features???

    c f ben yochanan

    please stop censoring me...

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  32. Exactly Ben Yochanan.

    The current population of Tunesia are a mix of arab, Vandal tribes, Phoenicians Nubians etc.

    But especially Berber Tribes.

    The Tunesians however consider themselves Arab. Interesting how quickly people forget.

    I enjoy current DNA research very much And am looking forward to more and more knowledge on the "ancient bones" and the movements of peoples. Since I am very interested in ANY topic that is dated or moot.

    I will be visiting Carthage shortly and remember the famous scenes from the movie about that Pasadenean "Patton." Although those scenes among the Roman ruins are really shot at Volubilis Morocco which is another city to behold whenever you have a chance to visit.

    nck

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  33. ben yochanan:

    There is an article in Wikipedia entitled "Demographics of Libya". It contains a short section on genetics. The original base population in North Africa was haplogroup E. The Berbers are haplogroup E predominately. But there is a large presence of haplogroup J in Libya. The haplogroup J presence is attributed to the Phoenicians and the Islamic Invasion.

    I have a buddy who is Egyptian. He told me that the Egyptians do not view themselves as Arabs though they have adopted Islam and speak Arabic. They have adopted aspects of the Arabic culture. I believe this is true across the nations of North Africa.

    There may be studies that connect the ancient Phoenician subclades to the modern population in Libya. I haven't looked.

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  34. People.

    As this blogs self appointed cultleader in technology (as in 1939 World of Tomorrow NY technology fair) I hereby declare and decree that sex is a highly irresponsible way of reproducing, given the current state of available technology.

    nck

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