Question: Recently I have learned that some fellow Christians believe that the Apostle Paul was black. The basis of this account was found in Judges 21. Initially, I was taken back because so many of my friends have taken liberty on what the Bible is telling us. Furthermore, I trust your findings much more than I do others.

Thanks for your continued efforts to help clarify our questions.

Dan

Answer: Dear Dan,

The assertion that Paul was black is new for me. I have never heard of it. That doesn’t mean, of course, that it is a new claim – it may be centuries old. However, the assumption that Judges 21 forever changed the skin color of the tribe of Benjamin is very weak indeed. High school studies in genetics and inherited traits show that one generation does not forever alter a species/race. Further, studies in Paul’s background in Tarsus would have to be examined – the position he attained through rabbinical studies as a rabbi – the acceptance as a "teacher of the law" that he was given in Judaism, attested to by the New Testament as well as extra-biblical records. To my knowledge, all of this information testifies that Paul was not black.

It is true that there are those who are trying to make the past politically correct – and while it is also true that biblical characters, like Jesus, have been depicted in past centuries as Scandinavian, blue eyes and blonde hair – that does not mean that we should attempt to swing to an opposite extreme today. A Catholic publication is proposing that Jesus himself was black – but that is not the record of history. The record is that he certainly did not have blonde hair and blue eyes, but that he most probably had darker, olive colored skin with darker features – as one would have found in Jews of that day.

History is history – and where valid documentation exists we should be cautious when others try to "rewrite/revise the record" to make it fit their present reality, no matter what their motives may be (they are called revisionists). For example, there are those who propose that the Holocaust of only 60 years ago never happened, that it was simply Zionist propaganda to help the Jews secure the Jewish state in modern day Israel and win the sympathy of the world. Such attempts dangerously impact what really happened in our world.

In Christ,

Greg Albrecht