Biblical Swirling Part I: THOU SHALT NOT MIX THE TRIBES!

The non mixing of people as you said was more a matter of faith. It had nothing to do with race. Song of Solomon is love story from Solomon(who was biracial...jewish and black), to his wife who was of darker skin and hair. According to the book, she actually was criticized for her skin tone being darker(she was a shephard girl so she got tanned, it showed that she worked). But she was secure in the love of her husband...the King lol. Yes Song of Solomon is one of my favorite bible books. 

Actually in my time of prayer and hearing from my friends(black women), we actually sense that God is bringing different races together in marriage. All my black female friends are open to and willing to marry outside of our race. We prayerfully realize that God is bridging gaps to illustrate that the Kingdom of God, as Paul said in the new testament, inclusive of jew and gentile. It don't matter.

Rahab the harlot, was a canaanite woman, but she helped the israelites and took on the Jewish God as her own. She too was in Christs lineage. Queen of Sheba, a black woman, is mentioned in Revelations that she will judge the nations for not listening in the end. Woman of color are all up and through the bible. And so is interracial marriage...both the good and uplifting..and the bad and detrimental...it's all in there. *shrug* Yep, nothing to do with skin tone. 

I am 100% agree with you.

Um...about Mose & Zipporah.....It had NOTHING to do with her being a black woman...why Aaron and Miriam didn't approve of Mose marrying Zipporah was because either her tribe OR religion. RACE was NEVER an issuse back then because that BS didn't exist until the 16 or 1800's. There was no racism back then. People were judged by their religion or a different tribe they came from. How could racism exist when the majority of them had the same color?  Whether people believe this or not, Mose, Miriam, and Aaron were BLACK AFRICANS.  Remember when God told Moses ( can't remember what chapter or verse, but I don't even think THIS is in the KING JAMES BIBLE) to put his hand in his  side or bosom?...When he did, Moses hand turn WHITE. Then God told him to put it back in, and it turned BACK to his ORIGINAL color which was BLACK. Miriam and Aaron were stricken with Leprosy because of Moses marrying Zipporah. Moses begged God the turn them BACK. Now how can you turn a white person white if they're already white?  The majority of the people back then didn't care about color. Just religion and their tribe of people they came from. God did not and still don't care what color of people you marry. I believe mixing is exactly what he wanted to create is rainbow. What God doesn't like is for the JUST to mix and mingle with the UNJUST. Correct me if I'm wrong, but what this means is people in christ and those who don't believe in christ.

Its ALOT of things that were/are taken out of the bible.

I'm always astonished at how people use and misuse the Bible to grind penknives and advance their own causes.

I like what Rabbi Akivah said, asked what the Jewish faith was all about. He answered, "What is hateful to yourself, do not do to another. The rest is commentary. Now go and study."

Just treat people decently...how hard is that? I've been reading history all my life. Every bloody day, I read about either some old horror or some new horror or some old horror freshly repeated.

Maybe it is in our nature to destroy ourselves.

And Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married: for he had married an Ethiopian woman.

2 And they said, Hath the LORD indeed spoken only by Moses? hath he not spoken also by us? And the LORD heard it.

3 (Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth.)

4 And the LORD spake suddenly unto Moses, and unto Aaron, and unto Miriam, Come out ye three unto the tabernacle of the congregation. And they three came out.

5 And the LORD came down in the pillar of the cloud, and stood in the door of the tabernacle, and called Aaron and Miriam: and they both came forth.

6 And he said, Hear now my words: If there be a prophet among you, I the LORD will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream.

7 My servant Moses is not so, who is faithful in all mine house.

8 With him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches; and the similitude of the LORD shall he behold: wherefore then were ye not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?

9 And the anger of the LORD was kindled against them; and he departed.

10 And the cloud departed from off the tabernacle; and, behold, Miriam became leprous, white as snow: and Aaron looked upon Miriam, and, behold, she was leprous.

11 And Aaron said unto Moses, Alas, my lord, I beseech thee, lay not the sin upon us, wherein we have done foolishly, and wherein we have sinned.

12 Let her not be as one dead, of whom the flesh is half consumed when he cometh out of his mother's womb.

13 And Moses cried unto the LORD, saying, Heal her now, O God, I beseech thee.

14 And the LORD said unto Moses, If her father had but spit in her face, should she not be ashamed seven days? let her be shut out from the camp seven days, and after that let her be received in again.

15 And Miriam was shut out from the camp seven days: and the people journeyed not till Miriam was brought in again.

16 And afterward the people removed from Hazeroth, and pitched in the wilderness of Paran.

This tells me that if black pastors feel they have to preach against IR dating and marriage in church, IR dating must really be catching on.  And of course there's an old adage that says that you can prove or disprove just about anything by using a passage from the Bible.  The Puritan fathers in America, for instance,  believed they should "charitably" interbreed with native American indians to remove their savage nature.  There was something to this effect somewhere in the Bible.  When I took a course in Early American Literature in college, I asked the professor if the "Puritan fathers" simply had the hots for the young indian maidens and maybe had a few impure thoughts about them.  He smiled and said that probably was one reason for their "charity."  Even very religious men are still men and a swelling of the buxom or a roundness of the bottom may have "convinced" them that "charity" was the best excuse of all.  However, they did mention marriage, so at least they were going to make it legal.  The Jews do indeed prefer their children to marry other Jews, but there's an exception.   The jewish line is matrilineal so if a non-jewish man marries a jewish girl, all the children are considered fully jewish.  That's why jewish mothers are so concerned about the girls their sons' marry. It doesn't work the other way. 

Time to leave for dinner.

Ah, for the Good-Ol'-Days, living according to the Bible, when I could:

Keep slaves;

Have a wife and concubines;

Kill my offspring simply because I'd made an oath to kill the next person who showed up at my door, and that turned out to be my daughter;

Slaughter whole villages and towns, simply because they didn't act, talk or believe like me;

Tear down other people's temples and places of worship, just because I was strong enough to do it;

Demand that one son, who saw me naked and drunk, be forced to serve my other sons, unto eternity.

Forbid anyone whose lineage included a out-of-wedlock birth, unto the 10th generation, from worshiping at my temple or place of worship.

Darn it, things were so much better in the Good-Ol'-Days, when there were only God's Laws, and not that pesky piece of paper called the Constitution, Bill of Rights & Amendments.

I am not currenly practicing any religion, but I still found the approach of this article very interesting. Interfaith dating/marrying is different from interracial marriage. I see this issue played out in many ways. I see interfaith marriages (where both parents are practiting) that work. For example a dear friend was raised catholic and Jewish. She is now a practiting catholic her older sister eventually chose Judaism and got bat mitzvah-ed (spelling?) and everything. Each of the girls choices were acceptable to their parents and the family celebrates the holy days of both religions. On the other hand see this play out as a generational conflict. A lot times I hear parents say they have no problem if their son or daughter marries outside of their faith, but they are very concerned about what faith their future grandchildren will be raised in. I think that is a reasonable concern for families. It's about collective family culture, religion, values and morals. And seeking to retain a particular set of values in the hopes that one's family will holdfast to the same values is a perfectly reasonable feeling. I think only an ignorant person would say to someone you have to be open to marrying outside your faith. Faith gets to be a dealbreaker. But that is also not to say that a n interfaith marriage is impossible. What is especially interesting is the historical context. A very longtime ago faith/race could not truly be separated - I mean a very very very long time ago. Back then to marry outside your religion also meant to marry outside race. That is clearly no longer true. In my opinion only a "bad pastor/reverend/priest/rabbi" would use passages about interfaith mixing to support an anti- miscegenation position.

 LorMarie  great post. I am a woman of faith, but have long abandoned "Religious" christianity. In dealing with white racists in church ( I mean those non-denominational groups) I searched the scriptures on this matter because they have screamed the loudest in my ear about "Race-mixing". What I found in the scriptures that this mandate was directed at the people of God, the hebrews so that they would not participate in the Idolatry of other nations because of the influence of their spouses. As far as Ruth goes she was accepted because she chose to leave her people and serve the God of the hebrews,

Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. 17 Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.”  (Ruth 1:16-17 NIV)

Ruth completely  immersed herself in the hebrew culture and in reading through the scriptures that is what the bible required if a foreginer wanted to marry among the tribes, they had to obey and commit to their laws and ordinances. Kind of like when a person becomes a citizen of  the United States  they rennounce their citizneship from their birth country and make an oath to uphold the laws of the United States  So if we are takling marriage BIBLICALLY   If you BW  are a chiristian, and he  be he white, black, asian, etc and he too is a christian then you can marry. all this colorism is man made not God made. for those who read the bible, in Genesis 11 at the tower of  BABEL, God separated people by LANGUAGE not COLOR. meaning that when the people were scattered to the ends of the earth, they identified each other by their language, not skin type.

A long time ago during my pentecostal skirt girl days, a lady preacher came to our church. She said, "I aint got nothing against these mixed marriages but you black women need to stay out of these white men's faces." I knew then that it was an ignorant statement. My former pastor used to talk about fake black men that married white women whenever they became famous.

Some of you may get into a relationship with a white man whose family or Church may teach such nonsense (I think the Southern Baptists had that as an official doctrine until recently). It's best to be informed and understand these passages so that you can put down foolish arguments...that is, if you are a Christian. If you're an atheist, these passages wouldn't phase you anyway, LOL.

This is an, er, interesting article. I am the daughter of a pastor, grew up in church, am still a Christian and have done all of the traditional Christian stuff - Christian camp, Christian private school, Christian conferences, etc and have lots of friends across denominations and church sizes who have a variety of Christian viewpoints. I have never, ever heard the verses in question being used by Blacks against interracial marriage, in fact I have not heard Blacks preaching against interracial marriage as a sin (though this was a common viewpoint of racist Whites for centuries, along with the whole curse of Ham thing). Obviously there are lots of Black people who don't want Black women to date out and this mindset may creep into church on an individual level but I have not heard this kind of cultural mindset given biblical support and made out to be a sin. 

If anyone has been to a Black church where it was preached dating out was a sin, I'm very interested in the denomination, location, and year this all occurred. There's definitely a Christian viewpoint not to be unequally yoked with nonbelievers and a variety of biblical support from the old and new testaments is often provided, as other posters have pointed out. I've never heard that projected onto race though.

Religion and race are not interchangeable.  One can be Black and be a Jew.  Not all WP are Catholic.  You can be of the same faith, but not the same race.  Again, it comes to values.  People can have the same values and be different races.  What is the most important word when it comes down to it: VET!

As a 'born again' Christian, I absolutely agree with you. I will only marry from my tribe - my tribe is made up of those who share the same faith whatever color they may be.

I believe that God's intention was not per se to maintain ethnic purity, but to maintain religious purity. The old testament Jews were very easily influenced into worshiping idols. God says to them that if they intermarry with the heathen tribes that they will be led astray.

For ex. King Solomon's foreign wives caused him to worship foreign Gods.

There are many intermarriages that were sanctioned by God. Look up the geneology of Jesus in Matthew Chapter One.

You will find four women mentioned there, three of them gentiles. Rahab was a gentile who spied for the Jews prior to their takeover of Jericho. Tamar who had a child with Judah was a gentile. Ruth who married Boaz was a gentile. Finally I believe Bathsheba was likely a gentile too given that she was the wife of Uriah the Hittite.

I believe these marriages were sanctioned by God because the gentiles in question were not idol worshipers.

There is also Esther, who became queen to the king of Persia. Her uncle Mordecai says to her that it is God who made her queen so that she could save her people.

GREAT TOPIC! This is one major area where we need to utilize some "vetting questions" to discover where a potential partner stands. The important thing is to understand, and ACCEPT the answers so that our response lines up with our belief and value system. One has to be honest with themselves... KNOW what you require! Because it is extremely counterproductive to “take him/her” with plans to "convert"…I receive regular mail from those who act contrary to their beliefs, later on begging God to “Bless This Mess”. Placing denomination and who has potluck dinners every fourth Sunday aside, we need to ask ourselves a few things. What choice can YOU live with for eternity? That decision will affect us, our children, and generations to come. For myself, I can coexist with different sectors of faith; however certain foundation blocks MUST be in place. Muslims, Mormons, Buddhists, etc. would not be a good fit for me, so they would be eliminated as options.

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