Who Was Jesus Cont.

Here in the United States, well over 95% of the 27 to 30 million people of African descent are Christians and they joined most of the rest of the Christian world in observing the birth of Jesus on December 25, Christmas Day. No other historical figure has received the recognition, veneration and unquestioned loyalty of Black people in the Western world that Jesus has. Yet, despite their widespread respect for and worship of Jesus, few Black people in the Americas or elsewhere ever have raised the question of whether He was Black and whether the doctrine He espoused was of African origin. Trained by white theologians or taught in White owned, controlled or financed seminaries, the average Black minister will not only deny that Jesus was a black man and are conditioned to claim that it is sinful to raise the question of His color, but also will insist that Jesus was colorless and declare that the blue- eyed blond painting of him hovering over the minister's pulpit is just a White reflection of Christ's universality. It is quite understandable, then, that the masses of Black Christians, who generaLly hold their ministers in high esteem, blithely continue to bow before, pray to and worship a blue-eyed blond stranger whom they have come to know as Jesus without ever questioning this image and its impact on them, their families and the Black race as a whole.

So ... Who was Jesus?

Geoghagen: That is a very difficult question to answer, for Jesus was and still is many things to many people. To Christians he is a part of the Godhead, the Son of God, the Son of Man, the Prince of Peace, the Word made flesh, the messiah of Jewish expectations. Hence, through his trials, sufferings, temptations, death and resurrection, He provides for the remission of sins, redemption and life eternal for those who follow his teachings and accept him as their personal savior. To me, he is one of the world's 16 crucified saviors -- the last of them, I might add - whose lives fit an almost identical pattern from the time of Horus in 4100 B.C. (according to the most ancient beliefs, he was the first crucified savior) to the time of Judas Christas (Christ the anointed) in the pre-Christian era. In essence, the life that Jesus purportedly led, the activities in which he engaged, his teachings, his trials and sufferings and eventual death and resurrection, are identical to those of Horus and Osiris (two ancient Egyptian gods) and the other 14 crucified saviors. This point of view or revelation, though potentially shocking to the mass of believers, is nevertheless common knowledge to scholars. So Jesus and the belief system that he represents are thus a reappearance of one of the most beautiful ideas of the ancient black Africans of Ta-Merry - now called Egypt - which represented the eternal Father by the ever- coming Son, as in the Child Horus. This was the child of a mother who was the eternal virgin. The doctrines of the Incarnation, i.e., the word made flesh: the virgin birth, the resurrection, the Father-God who is identical to his own son and other doctrines (believed to be specifically Christian) were Egyptian long before there was even the concept of Adam and Eve, Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Did Christianity as a religion had its origins in ancient Egypt?

Geoghagen: Yes. In addition to what I have just stated, in the Eschatology of the Egyptians is found a trinity and a unity, and the Egyptians believed in punishment as well as everlasting happiness. Not surprisingly, then, the doctrine of everlasting life and the belief in the resurrection of the "Spiritual Body" are, according to Dr. Albert Churchward(author of Signs and Symbols of Primordial Man, Origins of Freemasonry, The Origin And Evolution of Religion, The Origin And Evolution of The Human Race, etc.) "the brightest and most prominent features of the Egyptian religion, and this we find was their belief before the time of the first king of the first dynasty." The general teachings and cosmological world view of the Egyptians eventually filtered down and provided the foundation for later so-called 'Western Religions,' i.e., Judaism, Christianity and Islam. This point is thoroughly documented by the brilliant and prolific African scholar, Dr. Josef ben-Jochannan, in an epic work, African Origins of the Major Western Religions. These teachings were handed down to the Essenes (a mythical Jewish sect in pre-Christian times) who were responsible for the development of many of the teachings and concepts attributed to Jesus.

Professor Locksley D.M. Geoghagen