Dr. Yosef Ben-Jochannan ‎– Christianity's Afrikan Roots (1979)

Reverend dr. Frederick G Sampson and the Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church family friends fellow Africans I know that the term fellow Africans may stun some of you today particularly now that you are celebrating the 32nd Founders Day luncheon but I said African very wisely because one time this institution and all of the other black institution and I hope that you forgive me for the term black because many of us have passed that stage but nevertheless I said black because I think that if Jesus was here celebrating you would actually have to say the same thing unless we do not know where Jesus came from I was reading a book and I wanted to know what should I tell these people when I come and I noticed that the vast majority of the people here are women and I noticed that the pastor must be very busy because everybody here is misses somebody I was trying to figure which one I'm going to take home but I can't take home any but then that says don't mess with the Sheep until you check with the Shepherd [Applause] I came to celebrate with you your second 32nd celebration I came to celebrate with you even the first celebration the first celebration of a person who later at Calvary became the deity of your religion I came to celebrate because when I was looking in the book today there was a song that came by my mind and it shocked me it says make me whiter than snow Lord I wonder how could that be looking as I do and then I look in the picture I said I want some pictures to show to people what I mean and so I got all the picture Bibles and I couldn't find one looking at me not even an angel and I said well wait no I better speak to my people about a little few things it seems it says somewhere in the book he had here like lamb's wool and I know you don't know what I'm talking about that's why you're here and then I read the book again and it said his mother brought him into Africa because your book don't say Africa it says Egypt but the last time I saw Egypt it was still in Africa because Herod was about to kill him then I said let me go back further and deal with this thing that you are here to celebrate then I came to the point where it says the tenth commandment by an African name Moses his religion being Jewish and somebody said to me what do you mean an African name Moses there was only one Moses the black Moses Isaac Hayes and I said uh-uh I am speaking about the only kind of Moses mentioned in the book of Exodus in African born in the city of Goshen where on the Nile and so I said it's easy for me I'm coming actually to a homecoming celebration where no I'm not gonna mess with theology I'm not gonna mess with that gonna man he does that very well and like they said when you go to cope the daughter don't mess with the mama and then looking in this what I'm going to celebrate I think of some names Absalon Jones as he bolted the white church and went in and discovered and founded his own black church the black Episcopal Church I thought of Richard Allen as he bowed to the white church and found his own African Methodist Episcopal Church and then I started to think well where does the Baptist come in and I remember the name parama when Palmer said yes they are black churches but they do not speak to the little fellow no more than the white church so I will start the black Baptist Church so I can speak to everyone this was the time when the black church with a revolutionary church with a church that housed such names as Henry Highland garnet Nocturna Denmark Vesey Sojourner Truth and others even David Walker who had made the mast appeal along with fidgets Douglass and so many others the names of these men and women stunned significantly and my mouth as I speak to you this afternoon because they to remember that it was not slavery that brought Christianity to you you brought Christianity to Europe Paul did not create Christianity Paul was trying to explain an African ancient religion to the Romans and he could only explain it in terms which the Romans knew slavery was nothing that brought Christianity you the church started in Egypt with 20s and 40s if the OPA had a Christian religion and a Christian Church 150 years before Rome knew what Christianity was those are your people I'm talking about yes I am speaking about a religion that came out of the bowels of Central Africa because when we look at the Book of the Dead the Pyramid Texts and the coffin texts and the Assyrian drama the hundred and fifty seven negative confessions that set the foundation for the Ten Commandments when I look at after Nathan otherwise called I mean who tipped the fourth then his teaching of monotheism before another African named Moses was born I could only rejoice in your second 32nd birthday today to think of the fact that you the people where the Bible says and declared River this is Genesis mind you much and the third river flows to the land of its European and that river is Halima and then you say when you look in the mirror you don't like what you see this is a history your homecoming today your celebration today reaches out much farther than what it may seem certainly when we speak of the Nile Valley we must think and remember that it was there that the infant Jesus was held was given him just think back for one moment that Jimmy Carter that's the present president I understood sent the United States Army the F was in the Navy to look for a little blond blue-eyed boy among you and a search every family every little boy and didn't find that blonde blue-eyed boy it must mean one thing that boy was not blond and blue in the first place oh he was a champion and turn I'm talking about Jesus probably you may never have heard of him mention in this way because it would seem to me that you have not heard of the Aquarian gospel or you might not have heard of those books that will remove at the Nicene conference the Nicean conference that was held in 325 AD when wrong changed Christianity to Christendom quite a difference one has to remember as I look around and see these beautiful women I remember dream basically precious black women like yourselves those who were the first to die in the name of Jesus tree African woman from the paste called Carthage no called Morocco Felicita named fennel and Perpetua the first to die in the name of Jesus of the Christ look what I said of the Christ the Romans have not yet stopped saying the anointed we used to say Jesus the Christ just wah Christos the Romans changed that they couldn't understand what we were doing they couldn't understand anymore so that they told us that they give us philosophy that the Greeks give us philosophy when in fact there wasn't a single Greek in history until 833 when Homer wrote under Odyssey and Homer said that even the god Apollo and the god Zeus came from Ethiopia all right in other words the Europeans were saying that those of us who now are like the Invisible Man were the ones who even brought them the concept of a God they say that African people that we do not have philosophy all we have is the blues new beat the Blues now it's very good sing it sometimes but they forgot that from the first so-called Greek philosopher Tallis to the last of the Greek philosophers Socrates and the center one the most noted of them separatists came to Africa - your ancestors and mine to learn philosophy only to go back to become the father of it it's no different than Benny Goodman goes to Duke Ellington to learn to play jazz and become the king of jazz let us not forget it was your ancestors when there were seven bit bishops of North Africa and seven Patriots there wasn't one in Rome yet the other day you read that the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church from Poland was born from Rome to Poland to look at the picture of the black madonna and child or here she is the black madonna and he over there here she is over there the Pope was going to look at the statue of the black madonna and child he was going to look at a black Mary and a black child named Jesus isn't it strange that when you sing in church you don't lay back and sing close your eyes and see yourself read a strange isn't it well but then to speak like this you say what we don't want to hear then I can't say it because we are in a church setting but you know that's a [ __ ] ain't I let's leave it like that and why would we say that we see it because this part of our history we do not know but the people who gave to the world Christianity is now being told that is only slavery where they got Christianity the Bible did not say and rooms shalt stretch forth her hand to God it said an Ethiopia where shall set forth her hand unto God huh we are celebrating the 32nd birthday let's celebrate it all the way let's go to the brandade of Luxor where your ancestors and mine started the concept of religion of the deity when they started to conceive that man not be here solely by himself automatically just topple the space that man must have had some sort of a physical as well as a spiritual beginning in his along the Nile that your ancestors decided and from there at the Grand Lodge of Luxor in what was then called a mystery system they developed in the priesthood the seven liberal arts it was in religion that man developed science not in science men develop religion thus there should be no conflict between religion and evolution if one knows what one is speaking about there is no conflict when I say there's an evolutionary process that goes on when the mother received the little seedling from the father there's a tremendous amount of evolutionary processes go on in that stage before the channel comes out but that doesn't mean that the child doesn't come out with a spirit all right the soul that's in a self that we call that I couldn't point your to soul no more and you can but you can feel it you can understand it thus it is that when we talk about I love you with all my heart we as African people know that the heart cannot love it is only a piece of muscle that pump the blood but we are saying it symbolically because in the book of the dead and the Pyramid Texts and the coffin texts we show a picture of the heart being weighed against the pillar of truth with the United States government the Supreme Court symbol adopted but still told us we got no history all right all right not only did they adopt from us but on the dollar bill right in the green side of your dollar bill there is your history alakay is roots it's another thing everybody has got my roots in slavery I'm talking way before anybody know me well much less to enslave me on that dollar bill you the symbol of the God concept symbolized by the sun and the pyramid the house of fire and they ever seen i alright and in other places that symbol which you use for Jesus in memory of Calvary originally started out at the Inc a nkh the key of life isn't it strange or is it strange that at Calvary Jesus would be placed on the same symbol but you seem only to think of the deaths but Jesus didn't preach the death jesus said after this death there is a life a resurrection and a life which the African people had brought up traditionally the scholarship of Jesus was not to be questioned or his years at the Grand Lodge of Luxor from age 12 to age 13 was not to be questioned because it was a scholarship undeniable or as his ancient teachers also called priests for it was and the boy went into this to the synagogue or to the worst center of worship the Grand Lodge of Lhasa at age seven and he did not leave until 47 then he was considered a priest he had gotten the concept of the sanam Bonham the law of the greatest good so that when the Greeks are talking anyone in your University and I lost when I hear my professor speaking about the Greeks given us the concept of the law of the greatest good and we don't have the Greeks in history until 833 this was written on the grandmas of Luxor 50 100 BC no less so then when we talk about dates we could not come here this afternoon you wouldn't know what to come were it not for a calendar the calendar that your ancestors gave to the world 10,000 BC which he didn't call his Stella calendar that calendar not being accurate enough your ancestors then revised it and created what was called the solar calendar were 265 and a quarter day corrected each seventh year and it was another African from Ethiopia who found it necessary to change the calendar for Justinian from two hundred and sixty five and a quarter day to 365 days corrected his fourth year yet these are the people we are told for those of us who have studied medicine know very well that in the university you are told that Hippocrates was the father of medicine yes your prophetess wasn't born until 333 BC and when we see her purposes for the first time he is in Africa in Egypt and Nubia study in medicine which is the father of learning the weights of inverted the first known multi genius in human history thousands of years before Michelangelo inverted who was the Grand Vizier the prime minister the physician the main who designed the first of Plymouth the man who give us the term eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die this was the man the Greeks knew the greatness of this position that they call him the God is kalapas and no we the descendants of this African we are called ignorant Shockley said that we are a little brighter than an ape poor Shockley but then as we observe in the records much farther and we start to think of the Christianity that you're here celebratin modern Christianity came from 3 Africans the first one was Tertullian the second one was supreme the Bishop of Carthage and the third and most noted was a goostin otherwise called st. Augustine it is a boostin book on Christian doctrines upon which modern Christianity rests the moral concept of Christianity was laid down by a Gustin into us from Christian doctrine and the holy city of god after Augustine had already written his book the confession all right he's here right here if I'm going wrong he can tell you yes my brothers and my sisters you are not here as Christians looking in people looking in on Christianity trying to be Christians you have no apology to pay to anyone you really do not know what you talk about you will have to go and remember that the first even the first monastery on the and in a village on an eye all right for by Africans let me talk to you my sisters because I remember the time when we worship our sisters our mothers our women and now I understood women don't want to be women the more their persons I always talk to a person but these days the way things are going but it was remember this words Holy Mary Mother of God blessed are the fruit of thy womb it was Mary's womb all right where the infant Jesus came from and Jesus couldn't come from an unholy plane where it had to be very holy I don't want to preach because rabbi don't you know me yeah let us let us let us understand what we read in let us read it a little bit slower let us keep that Bible and read it word for word let us read Genesis and see where it's talking about Genesis is nothing Europe Exodus is who taken place in Europe it is taking place between Asia and Africa or last week you were there singing and Good Friday remembering what you had sung and Holy Saturday and then Sunday you rejoice he has arisen but they they just mere words if you don't have the meaning behind it is it when what you said Jesus died at Calvary is what a lot of people died at Calvary two other fellows were hang up right there you they rejoice them how come it must be something about Jesus that he were rejoicing that you didn't rejoice with the other two is it because he was a bad man is it because you just feel like rejoicing or you like blood you shed some blood so you enjoy sin uh-huh and somebody beat you up and they died you don't rejoice that mean in the affirmative you're glad the dead but the reason you're rejoicing is because of the light Jesus had lived all right didn't I run around beating up people you want to be rejoice you want to be here today on listen after this but it is the fundamental laws the way establish a set of values which we pay no attention today it was very old that when I've got up if we were in the old country before I open my mouth to say one word I would have said who is the oldest person in here and that person would have stood up then I would have asked who are the youngest and someone would have hold up a little baby but I didn't ask it today because the oldest wasn't going to stand up because nobody's old anymore the anomalies in ancient culture that your ancestors brought about there's no more age because now we're hearing about 17 you're bored written 82 year old mother yes and you asked the question it is because you no longer feel you no longer wants to sing the spiritual you said it I see but you could sing better than Bach Clinton all of them alright you can strain yourself trying to sing them but you can't sing when I'm dead one dance all over God's heaven yeah dancing it cause for them with them hoes ain't messin them thing like that at all but those were the old things that kept us together there were all things that came down from a tradition a tradition which gave Europe the same Europe that captured us the same Europe that forced us into slavery let us not forget that it was the Roman Catholic bishop but tell him oh I mean Martin the fifth in 1500 and six who commissioned Bishop Makarios las Casas on the island of Hispaniola now called Haiti and sent to the Mingo to place us in slavery not because we were not intelligent places in slavery after we had gone into Spain Iberia we had placed into Spain in the bath the common bath you know bailius in and then we introduced underwear but more than that we had given to Europe Europe's first University the University of Salamanca in Spain we have been in iberia for 774 years from 70 level to 1485 even the name Admiral had come from us from the ward at my rented because when we went in those who are carried our brothers of course the water his name was at mirror or and thus the Spaniard in memory of him used the word at miranti from which the English word admiral that is our origin but when we read and we read and talk about the three musketeers we forget that Alexander Dumas all right his grandson was the one wrote the three months the tears we forget that as much as we forget within our own environment those many of us have never remember the name for Robeson Marcus Garvey Malcolm X and some of us if you forget Martin Luther King already because we don't need them anymore they've done their purpose it would seem and that's why we constantly go back over the same mistake because we don't remember not only that we don't utter them when they're alive and then we cry when they're gone you should know look how much you cry for Jesus but if Jesus should come back how much would you cry yeah somebody says a deal with me alright it's gonna be a problem cause they said many who say yes father may say when is guy going but then we have to understand it it's part of it is the dictum in which we deal with it part of it is in the grammar in which it is in the book let us deal for example with the proverb and let us deal with the book of Solomon the songs of Solomon chapter 1 verse 1 to 8 Makeda had always called the Queen of Sheba is in Palestine she said to be the most beautiful woman in the world but let us look at the book let us look at the translation that is used and see how they even inserted their racism in their it she says ye daughters of kada look not upon me because I'm black no there's no way in the world that it most beautiful woman in the world well her bodyguard is bigger than Solomon's army dad sister look at these two stay here bad bad is she going up there with a bad self oh you have professors you know I'm still one of the brothers you know I'm PhD don't stop me from me brother now in mania you forget that you know when you get them PhD anything move from the neighborhood and all that kind of stuff don't well come back and see us and so forth you telling mama you split in your infinity yeah mama [ __ ] oh no no no no I I see I kind of look at it we have to look at it when we come here today we've got to look at it in the context of the great people that we are yes we are great we are the chosen people you doubt me say I am the chosen people just say you're chosen just say I'm 15 it and mean it and you chose me what we have not yet learned is that the positive image of one self becomes oneself yes and we did not know the positive image because we did not know these facts these are the things that we must know we do not have to feel sorry we don't have to be afraid to walk to the altar we don't have to be afraid to call the name Jesus because as I said there's one thing Jesus can say they hit me when Herod was trying to find if there is nothing else besides saying soul brother and soul sister but then you see probably just a different Jesus I'm talking about I'm talking about the Jesus whose mother knew what your mother know and I'm always thinking on that black woman who we seem to ignore in these days I can think of a black what mother in a specific case with his black mother had an altercation with her son it seems as this the young man had seen a very beautiful sister and you know these sisters get oh but anyhow and this is the said look man if you want me you you better come across big cause I got about two thousand guy hitting on my dog it do it much and why should I leave those fellows a mess with you and he says what I want you they just fooling around but I deeply need you I think I can't live without you and she said well I tell you what it's like this you gotta change providing that you cut your mother's heart out and bring it to me the fellows sermon I can't do that I can't that's asking me to kill my mother she says well you walk me don't you the system was looking real mean real good you know I mean look like me Geraldine you go the brother says I just got to have that girl and he says well I guess it's my if I shot in the night real shot mama wouldn't feel it too bad and mamas don't live a long life already I entitled to live anyhow so she went up to the girl and the girl said well look I'm making a little easier for you if you go down to the precinct can imagine some black brothers go down for the white priesthood and you go down to the prison and beat up the sergeant of police probably I'll marry you and so the brother went down beat up the sergeant police beat up the lieutenant of the police in the next day you saw him he was banded everywhere but he couldn't get to see the girl and the girls forgot about it ten weeks later his back their bellies of all of he said to her I walk to school love her and she said what happened to you he says look I went to beat up the police I did she said but I want you looking like this you still gotta cut your mother's heart out so the brother went got the knives said got to have the girl I'm sorry so he went into the house tiptoeing with a nice knife shopping everywhere and his mother said Johnny that's you and he said how she knows that's me how do you know it's me she said I could feel your toe boy I know you I had you before everybody else had you I know you I know you in the dark I know you any place I know your footstep yes I know your voice I know you when you even skin and I'm not near you I know you when you're don't cry and I was in the next oh I know you when you wet your pants and you didn't cry well cuz I changed it the boy says she just jiving you so the young men's creeped in when his mother lies down our back and he plunged the knife in her chest and cut out the heart it was late at night he ran out the door and when he ran out the door he stumbled being the evening he couldn't see too well he was feeling for the heart and he couldn't find it and suddenly squish he from the heart and squeezed it and the heart cried out son did you hurt yourself all right and I think about when I know that these sisters here mothers remind me of Mary when she went to the innkeeper there wasn't a room when she boarded some food there was no food and then I think of when mother Day is coming and we black brothers gonna wear all kinds of roses white red Technicolor in how many mothers really see us even know where we are but that day we gonna show all kinds a different thing and then you have to understand the culture from whence we came that it is that culture where are we talking about the University of Jena from the ancient empire of Ghana or what are we talking about the University of Sun Caray in the ancient empire marriage both founded by us as we performed the first successful surgery to remove the cataract and the human eyes no today I come to you suppose I was not a Christian suppose I was not a Jew suppose I was not Muslim and I came into you today and say my brothers and my sisters I am without food would you have said to me have a plate Jesus would have yeah because they told me some woman went up at the well he says he was bad news she's been you know distributing a few little things around the place and somebody came up and say hey JC and I say what I wasn't doing well of course you want to hear rather bow line that Shakespeare that Shakespeare wasn't wrong women when Jesus was wrong so we're talking in language we understand this JC man know this woman you know sending a few little things down the street that's where you fellas stoning her the one are you that ain't got no bad character no children it's dog that's what they told me and this is why you again the basic philosophy of your ancestors coming in the teachings of Jesus Jesus is speaking to a people from a culture which he knew which he grew up in which he was born in an African Asian culture it is among Sinai in Africa otherwise monk Herod and the Sinai Peninsula that the God found it necessary in 1190 6pc to call Michelle are always called Moses after having his fight with Rama sister second the son of said I won and there he said here Moses these ten it isn't 10 commandments in your Bible their residence 47 region those are the 10 most important ones go read it 147 but the 10 most important ones coming out of that depth of the negative confession you know enclosing down and I look at you next year I don't have to be the speaker but if you don't invite me I'm gonna be very mad with you I heard a lot of you do some mean singing and you know have been wanting sisters to do and they can see if I irritate here today and then some other thing here but I've been slipping in one day and here's understood I gotta come real early but since forever night good friends now you know I'm coming back room Deborah that we could come out together you know hey you save a space for me you know take care of me you know how it is now my brother has been doing pretty good too it's been real pleasure to talk to you but it's been a greater pleasure to have fellowship with you all right to come from Ethiopia East Africa to meet with my brothers and sisters to understand that no more came to tell you or me that we have nothing in common no more can they tell you and me we don't have a relationship we've been here too long and I've been there too long no more can they tell us the Tarzan and Jane story and a little black [ __ ] story no more can they tell us they have to send missionaries to the savages in Africa all right because you see we've peaked their whole car now we've got deuces my my [Applause] I am very honored to have had the privilege this afternoon to say these few words to you my brothers sisters my family of tabernacle Baptist Church thank you we can do better [Applause] that we as a body and part of Christ we never leave any building where we have gathered together in like mine and one awareness with Christ without having a benediction we know that we stay here and to the word from heaven comes the dismisses so we would ask the messenger from heaven to have reflections and offer the message of come from God our own pastor dr.

Frederick Josef [Applause] did you have just heard more history then you ever read a lot of people are not aware that I I was appointed on the executive committee of the International Year of the child and also chair of the Education Department and I made a compilation as I take a chance I can't bet because I'm a preacher but I bound you if you find anywhere in America 25 pages devoted to positive reporting of black people anyway I will give you a year cell but you have more history if you have a PhD you haven't been taught 1/3 of the history that you've got here today discipline has disturbed me about blacks especially young black that college young blacks they don't read their own history if you don't know who you are you won't act the way your heart and if you can't appreciate who you are you won't love yourself and God and everybody else might have trouble out of you and this is what's going on in our country today nothing good now you've had a lot of people but who gave themselves this day I'm going to ask the members of any committee that serve anywhere to stand up wherever you are if you did if you have movers boom standing everybody everybody did it they have put this together [Applause] you have just heard a profound lecture delivered by dr. Joseph bin yakin to the cirrhosis Gill of the Tabernacle Baptist Church in celebration of their 32nd annual Founders Day luncheon these women have set themselves apart to help create economic stability academic stability and spiritual stability for young people throughout the country their thrust is to involve themselves in elevating their minds their souls and the hearts of all young people mrs.