Christianity & Culture | The Bisrat Podcast w/ Dr. Vince Bantu

and so this visual reminder and all of this textual evidence shows us that again that the bis rot of jesus christ is and always has been for all people and it's especially important to emphasize the ways in which that the bis rock was spreading in other parts of the world that have been historically oppressed and whose christian history has been denied and suppressed and neglected and and perhaps one of the best examples of that is the rich history of christianity on the african continent [Music] all right well hello everybody and welcome to the ju3 project

uh my name is vince bontu and i am the host of the bisrot podcast uh so welcome to the bisrod podcast this is a specialized ministry of the jude 3 project whose mission is to equip the body of christ and especially the black church and black community with knowing what we believe and why and as uh part of that mission uh as many of us know for those of us who are believers especially uh in the black community who engage in apologetics and sharing our faith in jesus in our community some of the biggest questions

that we encounter have to do with ancient african identity uh and the origins of black people and african ancient history and also the relationship of that with christianity and and how those things interacted in antiquity and in the medieval period and so in the bisrot podcast we are actually focusing in on questions relative to early african christianity and the history of the growth of the bis rot or the gospel which is an ancient ethiopic word for the gospel on the african continent and we do a mixture of conversations between myself and leading scholars on early

and medieval african christianity uh but also we do episodes like this one where it's more of kind of a mini lecture where the goal is to help to provide a general survey of early african christianity to to our community and into the church and in this particular episode uh we are actually going to be focusing on the spread of christianity across the african continent further away from some of the areas of the continent that are more well documented and more well-known we know as you'll see in other episodes on this podcast that christianity was not

only present but it was the predominant religion along the whole north african coast in late antiquity in modern day morocco tunisia algeria libya egypt also along the nile valley in egypt as well as nubia and ethiopia and modern-day eritrea so along the north and eastern part portions of the continent christianity was not only present but it was the dominant religion across late antiquity and even going into the medieval period in the nile valley but i'm really excited about this episode because today we're going to delve into something that has really not been studied it's a

new area for me because even most of my academic background in writing and research has to do more with again the north and the eastern communities the coptic the newbie and the ethiopian churches that we that you will actually be able to see about in other episodes on this podcast and again those are more well documented and more well known but an area of study that really has not been done um very much in christian uh scholarship or even in just broader uh historiography is exploring the connections that were made between the christians of ancient

egypt north africa nubia ethiopia and the churches that they built and the theology they developed and how did those how did those um christians connect with africans in other parts of the continent further to the west and also further to the south so in this episode we're going to be exploring and looking at exciting evidence that has really been uh really neglected and brushed under the rug we're going to be elevating some historical evidence that shows that the bis rot the gospel message of jesus christ did indeed spread not only in the north and the

east african coast but all across the southern western and uh and central parts of the african continent and so as we get started i want to i want to look at a text that actually came from egypt and that was developed over many centuries but it was finished in the 10th and 11th centuries called the history of the patriarchs of alexandria and this text is a is a is an egyptian christian text that was written in coptic the egyptian language and in arabic and it tells the history of the popes or the leaders of egypt

but in this excerpt it actually talks it's it's in the midst of talking about a patriarch of egypt named joseph who would have been from the 8th and early 9th century the the leader of egypt and it talks about the spread of the coptic or the egyptian church in that time period and it says that because of the abundance with which this good shepherd abba joseph cared for his flock and sacrificed himself for his lambs he ordained many bishops and dispatched them to every location under the throne of lord mark the evangelist so you know

they say the throne of mark refers to the patriarchate or the papal seat of alexandria which would have been historically attributed to the apostle mark who the egyptian church and many other believers across the world and for centuries have believed that the was the first evangelist into egypt in the first century after the time of the acts of the apostles and and so in but but but notice how this text says that basically alexandria or the the sea of mark was not only the kind of the center of the egyptian church but is actually the

center for the african church uh across the continent especially as it was known in the eighth and ninth century so he named some regions here and says that that includes africa and the five cities and cariwan so the uh so the five cities in carawan would have been regions along the north african coast and the region known as africa would have been just basically what we now call tunisia and so when he's when this text says africa it's just talking about modern tunisia not the whole continent because then it goes on to say tripoli as

well which would have also been in the libyan area but then it also says the region of egypt and then it says ethiopia and nubia or habesha and nubat or nubia and so that would have been the modern nubia refers to the modern sudan and habesha refers to modern ethiopia and so basically as i mentioned already these regions that this text is naming are the more well-known regions along the north african coast and the nile valley and christianity was already the dominant religion along all along the nile valley it was before along the north african

coast uh and according to the sects there were still some christians there we don't have a whole lot of evidence for christianity after the rise of islam in the north african coast and what was roman north africa but according to this text there were still some christians there and it's claiming they would have been under the egyptian church but we know definitely that nubia and ethiopia which were independent sub-saharan african christian nations that they accepted christianity that they were christian nations and they were under the church of egypt so uh so so in a way

this text is showing how the egyptian church in many ways was kind of over almost all of africa during the late antique and the medieval periods now if we continue to um to go we also see that the the kings of nubia and ethiopia which were independent nations also had a complicated relationship where they were independent but also they were under the ecclesiastical leadership of alexandria in egypt even though the egyptian church was actually under the political and military leadership of the islamic caliphates that ruled in egypt so there was a complicated relationship where the

egyptian church was kind of over most of the african church but they were politically subservient whereas the nubian and ethiopian kingdoms were actually politically independent but were ecclesiastically or theologically under the church of egypt and so we see that also from the arabic history of the patriarchs of alexandria the same text where it actually talks about the one of the kings of nubia named kiriakis and it says that those who were under the authority of kiriakis the king of the nubians uh 13 dominated kings uh the kingdom and the country so this text is saying

that basically the king the king of nubia or in the medieval period also ruled over 13 other kingdoms that were around nubia and and that that king who ruled all those other surrounding kings was a christian uh it says he was he was the orthodox ethiopian king of makuria now we've talked about this in other episodes but when they say ethiopia a lot of times sometimes that will actually refer to actual axum or ethiopia as we know today but sometimes it'll just be a larger kind of phrase refer to black people uh sometimes nubians get

called ethiopians and we see that in the bible actually in acts chapter 8. but it says that he was the orthodox ethiopian king of makuria which was the central nubian kingdom and he is the great king upon whom the crown has come down from heaven he ruled all the way to the furthest southern parts of the earth for he is the greek king the fourth of the kings of the earth and that's kind of just an interesting little like play on uh daniel chapter two and chapter seven where you get the visions of the four

kings and there this is just kind of a name that the egyptian chronicler is giving uh but that's not a title that nubians would have given themselves the other kingdoms continuing are not able to challenge him and the king show him hospitality when he is in their country so these are the other african kingdoms that are other that are largely unknown but this text is claiming that the nubian christian king ruled other african kingdoms around the the area of modern sudan um and that they show him hospitality when he travels so already we're getting into

how christianity spread from north and east africa into other regions uh and that was mainly through trade and and also military conquest uh but it says he is under the dominion of mark the evangelist again the apostle mark uh that the throne of alexandria is the recipient of for the patriarch of the jacobites in egypt tells him what to do along with the kings of ethiopia and nubia and he has in his country an orthodox bishop who the patriarch ordains as metropolitan then he ordains bishops and priests for the leader of that district and when

the metropolitan dies the patriarch of alexandria ordains a different one for them that he has chosen and ordained for them so again we're seeing from this the picture of what was going on here again what we were talking about how the nubian ethiopian kingdoms were theologically under the egyptian church even though they were politically independent um but also i want to call attention to the fact that this text shows that the king of nubia ruled what this from an egyptian perspective in the medieval period would have been the ends of the earth and that the

nubian um the nubian uh leadership spread and and the nubian kingdom and territory spread all across into other 13 different regions in africa so this shows that there indeed would have been a great deal of of commerce and trade and contact between christian nubia as well as christian ethiopia and other other kingdoms of africa as they were continuing uh to develop and uh and as i mentioned sometimes this was through conquest so i want to make a couple of comments about how christianity uh how the bis rot spread into the southern part of of the

african continent uh before we get into the west because i'll start off to say that as as far as i'm aware there's not a whole lot of evidence of christianity really being on the ground in the southern uh portion of the continent of africa before the arrival of europeans whereas there is very clear evidence of it in the west but before we get to that even in the south there is definitely evidence that there was contact and that there was trade going on in fact uh there was a sixth century christian egyptian world traveler named

cosmos indices that said that christian ethiopia was actually trading with a region that was known in his time as barbaria which would have been modern-day somalia and the horn of africa and so ethiopia was trading with other african nations to the south and it was a christian nation so obviously these other kingdoms would have heard of christianity through christian ethiopia but not only that but there was conquest that happened now this is jumping into uh more into the 13th and 14th centuries but there was a very prominent king of ethiopia in the 13th century named

amda sayon and amda conquered he was a christian king that conquered many other ethnic and cultural groups around ethiopia in that time and that would have also been a way that christianity would have spread uh in fact there were there was even religious change that was going on because that one of the one this next excerpt from the text that talks about his victories uh actually mentions that there were some uh ethnic groups that were conquered by amnesty on that used to be christian and had converted to judaism uh it says that he sent other

battalions who were known as demote sikalt guander and hedya men on horses and foot powerful and expertly trained in combat champions who have no equal in killing with their commander begaye meder sega christos who sent them to attack the land of the rebels who resemble the crucifying jews which are simine wagera selemt and segede long ago they were christians but now they have denied christ like the jew the crucifying jews so this text is basically saying that these other regions of wagera selemt and segede were originally christian at a time and then by the time

of this text and 36 had converted to judaism but one of the things i want to draw our attention to is a couple of the regions that are mentioned specifically hedya and demote which uh as this modern map shows you that these are regions that were further to the east to the west and to the south of the christian region of ethiopia hedya in particular is still even today in that region of ethiopia is in the far south part of ethiopia that borders kenya and so in the 13th century long before colonialism you had a

southern ethiopian ethnic group that had made contact with christianity and even many of them became christians and that's a culture that was bordering right on modern kenya so it's likely that some of those people could have even migrated into kenya long again long before the arrival of the of of europeans but also de mutt is another culture that was next to ethiopia further to the west that was conquered by ethiopia and actually was the site of one of the earliest ethiopian missionaries um and one of the most famous missionaries in ethiopian history name was tecla

hymanote tecla hymenode also lived in the 14th century and he uh as many of the ethiopian christian kings were conquering surrounding african people de mont being one of the most famous teklahamado capitalized on that and went in and evangelized and even uh converted many people even the ruler of damut to christianity uh and his god love which is an ethiopian style of literature that's unique to that culture and it's a it's a spiritual biography uh the godless of taklohima note uh gives the story about how he went into demo and actually was originally persecuted but

made many converts it says that having arrived at the country of damut our father tecla hymano found a magistrate of the city and his name was kephera weddim and he spoke with him concerning matters of faith or hymenote the sweetness of his words entered into his heart and he taught him the faith the hymnote of the trinity and he caused him to abandon idol worship and he baptized him in the name of christ and he gave him the name gebra wahid furthermore he taught many and inclined their hearts towards the faith in our lord jesus

christ so right here again we have some of the spread of the bis rot from christian ethiopia into demut and into hedya and other places on the african continent another thing i want to mention is that there was a uh like probably one of the furthest south that we have evidence for up to this point of there being christians on the ground in africa was an island named socotra sokotra still today is an island that's just off the the tip of the horn of africa uh right away uh just a few miles off off the

coast of somalia and multiple sources indicate that this island right off the coast of somalia was full of christians uh from a very early uh time period and this is actually a much later 12th century uh uh historian a muslim historian named al-adrisi uh in his kitab aoriyar that mentions socotra being full of christians al-adrishi says that about the island of socotra it is big well-known and covered with trees its best-known vegetable project is the tree that produces aloes and nowhere else exists nor in the hadrama nor in the yemen nor in the sahar and

nowhere else aloes that comes in beauty close to that of socotra this island is as we have said from the north and west side close to the province of yemen from which it is a dependency and a resemblance confronting it on the on the bilal azad side are towns of malindi and mombasa most of the people on the island of sakota are christians now one thing to point out a couple of things to point out first of all is the is the mention there uh that aledrice said that the inhabitants of socotra were christians and

al-adrisi wrote this centuries after cosmos indices the egyptian traveler we mentioned earlier also had went by socotra and also noted that it was full of christians and the the the type of christianity that was thriving in the culture was actually connected theologically to the persian church of the east which would have been doing liturgy in syria so it wasn't a western or a greek form of christianity but also there were many ethiopian refugees and travelers in socotra and so it's also likely that ethiopian christianity would have thrived there as well but also notice how the

al-adrisi defines the geography of socotra as being just on the other side of the what he called the the bilal azzaj and zanj was an arabic word for black people and the zond region was often used by muslim historians to refer to the southeastern african coast of modern day kenya tanzania and mozambique and and that that then the people the inhabitants were often referred to as zanj and so he says that sakotra is right across from the towns of malindi and mombasa and we know that malindi and mumbasa were early cities and and regions in

the so-called zaan region that were heavily involved in the indian ocean trade with india china the arabian peninsula and uh and as well as egypt and the roman empire but also socotra was right in the middle of all of that traffic and so again while we don't have evidence of christians being on the ground in places like mombasa and malindi uh and and and zanzibar we do know for sure that they were in socotra christians were it was a predominantly christian island and that those people would have had regular contact and trade with southeastern africans

in malindi mombasa zanzibar and other places and uh and and this this next uh excerpt from aledrici also talks a little bit about again not only the continued trade but also aledrici mentions that this area that was called barbaria again the somali horn of africa uh he says was actually under ethiopian rule and and remember kings like amda sayon and dawit the first and zarya kobe did indeed conquer parts of somalia and that also would indicate the continued spread of the bis rot further south into africa the text from aledrici says this section talking about

barbaria consists of the description of a part of the indian sea and all the islands that are in it in which people of different races live in the south of the countries in this section is the rest of the countries of the black kaffirs and several countries close to the sea our intention is to describe all those things with clarity so we say that the sea is the indian sea and on its shore is situated the town of baduna at the extremity of the country of the kafirs unbelievers who have no revealed religion this would

have been the way to refer to people who practice traditional african religion and we're not muslims or christians or jews but they take standing stones aladrisi says which they anoint with fish oil and to which they prostrate themselves in worship that high is the stupidity in which these people live and the absurdity of their beliefs so you see and this is actually just the tip of the iceberg when you get into medieval uh you know his like islamic you know historians and travelers in africa and some of the grotesquely racist things that they say about

sub-saharan africans uh this is this is you know it gets way worse uh but but here's the here's the crucial part is for our purposes part of this country obeys the berber king and the rest the ethiopian one so again notice how al-adrisi is saying that sokotra is an island full of christians with regular contact to the swahili coast of southeast africa but also that barbaria modern day somalia was also under ethiopian rule which we also know from many other sources so all of this evidence shows us that again while we don't have any concrete

evidence of christians on the ground in in the southern region of of the african continent we know that the people and the urbanized civilizations that initially developed along the southeast african coast which is often called the swahili coast or kilwa um that they had regular trade with christian regions like ethiopia and socotra and they in turn continue to trade with more inland kingdoms like the great zimbabwe kingdom and also mapun gumbwe which were some of the earliest inland kingdoms that developed through the gold trade that developed along the swahili coast so again christians were definitely

in contact uh and they were at least in the horn of africa and socotra and also in regular contact with the southeastern african coast now let's talk uh in our final portion let's talk about the spread of the bis rock going further west from places like nubia and egypt and ethiopia and into central and west africa when we talk about central africa first of all one of the kingdoms that comes up is the kingdom of the daju the kingdom of the da'ju or the tajuu as it comes up in this quote was a central african

kingdom in the area of modern-day western sudan and also parts of chad and it was neighboring with nubia and it was mainly thriving in the 8th and 9th and 10th centuries and it comes up in a lot of the early islamic histories of the continent of africa but this quote from al-adrisi also mentions that there was actually military conflict between nubia which was christian and the daju which had practiced primarily traditional african religion so let's read about from al-adrisi about the conflict that occurred between nubia and the taju it says from the city of manan

to the city of the of tajiwa that's the daju is 13 phases and it is the capital of the tajua land they are pagans and they do not believe in anything again that's that's a way of saying they're not muslim or christian or jewish their land neighbors the land of nubia and in their land is the city of samna this is a small city a pilgrim to the city of of qawar reported that the magistrate of billock overtook samna he was the commander under the king of nubia and he burned it and he decimated it

and he dispersed their citizens to the furthest regions it is still in ruins samna is six phases from the city of tajiwa and from the city of tajiwa to the city of nuba nubia are 18 phases it is from it the the city of nubia probably tamar dangola that the nubians originate and by it that they are known so right here we see that there was already conflict and contact between christian nubia and surrounding nations we read from the egyptian christian sources in this time period that nubia had kingdoms around it that were subservient to

it and so this doju kingdom may very well have been one of them but also it's important to note that the dajju kingdom was very active in the originating of the trans-saharan trade we talked about the indian ocean trade but also the trans-saharan trade was was uh just starting to develop at this time and the daju were somewhat was one of the first kingdoms next to nubia that had began to develop and so because they had been conquered by nubia it's reasonable to understand and and believe that christianity which was the dominant religion of nubia

would have also made contact with and spread into the daju and uh to get a bit of a a better understanding of the trans-saharan slave trade uh and just trade in general a great example of this would be benjamin of tutala and to also understand how interconnected the northern half of the continent really was uh through this particular trade uh benjamin of tutela was a spanish jewish traveler who traveled all through africa and wrote his uh wrote his observations in a travel log and he and he defined and talked about the connections that were being

made between nubia across the saharan trade as well as going into the north african coast see because when you look up the trans-saharan trade even as you'll see in this image that i put there a lot of the commerce and travel were happening in areas where islam was the dominant religion in egypt along the north african coast and then from northwestern africa down into western africa into the developing kingdoms like songhai mali and ghana but the what's often left out is the commerce and travel that happened below the sahara or below the sahel further south

and straight east west between nubia christian nubia and going west into central and west africa and so benjamin of tula gives us a sense of how nubia was a part of this trade as well um which would again been a which would have been an increase of christian presence across this predominantly islamic trade across the north uh north african continent uh he says from aswan to alwa which would have been the southern part of nubian the nubian region is 12 days and in it are 300 jews from there caravans travel a distance of 50 days

through the desert called the sahara to the city of zavila which is havilah in the land of ghana now it's interesting that he calls habila in the land of ghana because habila as benjamin of tula understood it was actually on the mediterranean coast in north africa so it's interesting that he's referring to that as the land of ghana but he's probably thinking of the just the entire region south of the north african coast or south of the sahara which uh islamic and and jewish travelers across africa would often call the collectively would call ghana uh

so not the modern nation or even the later empire of ghana but oftentimes just you know west africa and even central africa are called ghana another name that comes up even more often though is sudan all of these things by islamic travels are often called sudan but he but again he's so we can understand then that he's talking about travel that happened between christian nubia all the way going northwest throughout the sahara and going up to the north african coast so it says the desert is characterized by mountains of sand and when the wind rises

it covers the caravans with sand and the entire caravan dies under the sand the survivors carry with them iron copper all sorts of fruits and all sorts of plants and salt and they bring from their gold and precious stones and this land is on the western border of cush which is known as ethiopia come back to this caravans uh with uh they come back to this with caravans of gold so notice how benjamin of tootle is saying that the land of ghana which he just kind of collectively is clearly referring to as all of western

and central africa is bordering on the west of the land of cush and then also ethiopia so according to benjamin you have a christian sub-saharan african nation of nubia and also ethiopia that are right next to according to him the land of ghana and that they are they are engaging in extensive trade with one another with different metals and salt and foods and so you would know that in the midst of this all of this trade that these nubian ethiopian folks especially are also telling people about christianity and africans are learning about christianity uh primarily

from other africans in nubia and in ethiopia uh as and and now uh as we kind of bring it to a close i wanna show the uh actual evidence that displays how christian christianity uh was not only in conversation or in contact between uh the east eastern africa and central and western africa but that there were already christians on the ground in both central and in western africa evan haukau was also a medieval arab arab historian and traveler in africa and he actually mentions christians who were in other regions outside of nubia boarding right next

to it the region that would later be known as daju and then which also boarded on connem so eben haukau says that to the west of the white nile there is a people known under the name of the mountaineers or ibn haukau calls them the uh al-jabil yoon they are subjects to the king of dangola which would have been the capital of nubia so he's saying that these uh jabila yoon are under the king of nubia as we've already seen he rules over makura which again makura was the central region of nubia where dangola was

the capital and maris and morris lies from the border of aswan to the extremity of the region of makura so i wonder if maybe he's thinking about mauritania or something i'm it's not really clear what he means by maurice there but with makuri and angola and nubia we we're on firmer ground but between aoa and the nation known as the mountaineers the jabaliyun is a sandy desert as far as the country of the amkha it is a large region with countless communities and diverse people groups that speak many different languages that cannot be counted and

their wealth cannot be exhausted they are known as ahadi they practice christianity and are subjects of the king of awa between them and the king of allah is five days journey three of which are desert so even how call is telling us that over a five-day desert-filled journey to the west of nubia was another christian people group that he calls the jabaliyun that themselves were subject to nubia so we see that christianity was spreading in some cases through trade and in some cases through conquest and right there on the right there's actually uh an example

of a pot shirt that was actually found in the far western sudan region uh in in the area that would have been known as dajju in that time period which would have been again in modern chad or western sudan and you see that it has a christian cross with a fish on it and a potsherd that was found in this region that shows visually as well as textually how christianity was spreading from the west uh further west from nubia and then finally um probably one of the strongest pieces of evidence and also going further west

is coming in the early 14th century from another egyptian muslim historian named ibn al-dawadari writes a chronicle of the that focuses on again the trans-saharan trade and he talks in a particular portion talks about the famous king mansa musa mansa musa was one of the probably the most well-known kings of the mali empire or the empire of ghana that developed all across the western uh region of africa that spread all along the gold coast and this was at a time when he was known as the wealthiest person in the world because he still controlled the

gold trade that we've seen mentioned here and mansa musa made a famous pilgrimage because he was a muslim and mali was a predominantly muslim empire at this time it wasn't originally but the amaravats came in in the 10th century and enforced islam into west africa through the sword and so it was a predominantly islamic empire and so the uh mansa musa made a pilgrimage as a muslim king going all the way to mecca and went up north and then along the north african coast and then went through egypt and in egypt he some of his

company talked with ibn abu dhari the historian and actually shared about the nature of of the mali empire in west africa and talked a little bit about it and one of the fascinating things that even al davidari a muslim egyptian historian noted was that mansa musa and his crew that went with him on this hajj reported that there were actually christians in west africa christians in modern day ghana togo benin senegal nigeria the this mali empire would have been expansive all across the western uh region of the african continent and he mentions that there were

christians present not only that but he mentions that the christians actually lived in the area that had the most gold producing and that he actually allowed the christians to retain control of the gold rich land in west africa in the mali empire look look what ibn al-dawadari says he says i heard the magistrate faker aldine inspector of the victorious army say i asked the king of the top crewer and takur was a was a common uh arab muslim name to refer to the the kind of the region of ghana uh and the mali empire in

this time period and so he says i asked the king of the takura who is matsumusa what is the source like where the gold grows among them then he said it is not in our land which is the property of the muslims rather it is in the land that is the property of the christians of tahrur we send to take from them a collection that is due to us and is required of them these are special lands that produce gold in this way they are small pieces of various textures some are like small rings some

are like carob seeds and so on the magistrate fakher aldeem replied saying why don't you conquer the land by force he said if we conquer them and take it it does not produce anything we have done this in various ways but we have not seen anything in it but when it returns to them them being the christians when it returns to them it produces according to its average this is a fascinating dynamic and this is perhaps an increase in the dominance of the christians and so again this is indicating that not only were there christians

in west africa all the way to the atlantic coast but not only that but in the mali empire of matsumusa who was one of the wealthiest people in the world who controlled the gold trade and was bringing gold and spread it all throughout egypt and the middle east but that that gold and the source where it grows in west africa was actually in the christian region and according to this muslim 14th century source that whenever the muslim leadership of the mali empire tried to take the gold rich land from the christians that the gold would

stop growing and that and and then when they would return it back to the christians it would grow again so they would just allow the christians to retain control of the gold-rich land of west africa and the muslims would retain the other parts of the land so the the significance of this cannot be overestimated that christians were in west africa already in the early 1300s this is over a century before europeans ever made it to the gold coast and before the slave castles were built that christianity had already made its way and had taken firm

root in west africa and not only in west africa but there was a trail of christianity leading all the way back where all the way back east to nubia which was a christian nation and so what that means is that not only were christians present in central and west africa long before colonialism but the source of their christianity was actually other african christians now we we don't have time to get into talking about congolese christianity which is another fascinating uh example of early african christianity but we know that even though the kingdom of the congo

in central africa was a christian nation and they were christian by their own free will nobody colonized them or forced them to be christian to be christians that they their first contact with christianity was europeans was the portuguese in the 1400s but unlike the example of the kingdom of the congo the christians of ghana or the mali empire and the christians of daju or the jabaliyun their christianity came through the trans-saharan trade and through contact with nubian christians which was a independent christian nation so the gospel the bishop spread all across and touched various parts

of southern and central and west africa to varying degrees long before colonialism took place and it would have likely taken on even deeper root if not for some of the issues with european christians suppressing the indigenous christianity of egypt and nubia and ethiopia that had took place but thanks be to god in his providence that the gospel the bishrod continued to spread all throughout the continent of africa and the evidence is right here and it's it's not often very much promoted uh or and it's often suppressed but it is right here for us to see

this um and it's clear as day and it's factual so as i end and close this particular episode i want to end with a an image that i love it's on the cover of my book multitude of all peoples um but also it comes from nubia and and i think it visually encapsulates uh the story and the narrative that we're telling here today which again on this episode is being told perhaps for one of the first time uh this is again an area of study that has really uh not been looked at before but in

uh nubia in the in the in the capital of the central region of nubia macuria the capital city of dangola there was a monastery that was built by the christians in the sixth century and in that monastery there was a painting that was in a particular room that seemed to be some kind of hospital room and there was a nativity painting on the wall of this room in the monastery that had mary and baby jesus and angels but next to mary and baby jesus there was another painting of a collection of people that are likely

not nubian these are people who are shouting celebrations some of them in the nubian language that are giving praise to god for the birth of jesus christ and worshiping jesus and then there are others that are shouting in an unidentified language and that that among other things indicates that this collection of african people who are worshiping jesus christ clearly are not nubian and they speak a different language and also they have a different style of clothing some of them are wearing loin cloths and using percussive instruments and some of them even have animal masks on

as you see on the figure on the right right there this is uh clothing and again language that nubians didn't understand and also um traditions and and uh and and things that people would put and wear that were not common to nubia and so this painting is clearly showing africans that were from further to the west of nubia perhaps from the daju kingdom perhaps from khan m perhaps the region that that ibn haokau refers to as the jabaliyun but what is clear is that these are africans who are not from nubia and that are wearing

traditional sub-saharan african garb and engaging in sub-saharan african traditions and doing it to the glory of jesus christ so this is a visual indication of how christian nubia continued to connect with africans further to the west and as they did some of them became christians and it was christian it was it was a christian evangelist evangelization happening from other africans and so this visual reminder and all of this textual evidence shows us that again that the bis rot of jesus christ is and always has been for all people and it's especially important to emphasize the

ways in which that the bishrod was spreading in other parts of the world that have been historically oppressed and whose christian history has been denied and suppressed and neglected and and perhaps one of the best examples of that is the rich history of christianity on the african continent but not only in the more well-known areas of north africa of augustine or egypt of the coptic church or the nubian christian kingdom or the rich ethiopian christianity that developed but that those same african christians were connecting with and spreading the gospel the bishrod message all across the

african continent so thank you so much for your time i know this was a lot information but as i said this is the main focus of my research right now so there are a couple of articles that i'll be putting this together with and will be available for reading uh and it'll be also definitely in future books and publications that come out but i hope that at least in video form that this will be helpful and that you can continue to share this information with people in your community in your church in your context and

not only in this episode but all the episodes of the bis rock podcast where we are here to help believers know what they believe and why so thank you very much for being with us on this episode of the bishop podcast and we look forward to seeing you on the next episode and uh and shout out to the jude 3 project uh thank you so much for being with us and god bless you all amen