# inter-racial stuff in the Bible **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 7, 2002, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inter-racial-stuff-in-the-bible/117727 "2002-07-07T03:10:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![SlickRoenick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e68b1a/32.png) [@SlickRoenick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlickRoenick)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2002, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inter-racial-stuff-in-the-bible/117727/1 "2002-07-07T03:10:55Z")
Basically my dad (a devout Catholic) won’t allow my sister to date a black boy. What does the Bible say, if anything, about inter racial relationships? I’m just looking for something to shove in his face to show he’s more disciminatory than he thinks. ---
**Author:** ![Menocchio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de053/32.png) [@Menocchio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Menocchio)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2002, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inter-racial-stuff-in-the-bible/117727/2 "2002-07-07T03:21:17Z")
The question is flawed. In Biblical times, the concept of race as we know it was not in place. There were “tribes” and “peoples”, but not a few races incorporating a broad set of people based on common physical characteristics. You just won’t find racial issues (as a 21st century westerner understands them) addressed in a direct manner. You may find something on whether a Jew should marry a gentile, but nothing directly addressing relations between a Caucasian and Black Christian. Anyway, I believe the epistles and Acts may have something to say about this situation, regarding the equality of Jews and Gentiles in the early church. Also the parable of the Good Samaritan, remembering that Samaritans were a religious (and ethnic?) subgroup in Jesus’ Judea. ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2002, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inter-racial-stuff-in-the-bible/117727/3 "2002-07-07T03:22:32Z")
The Bible says absolutely nothing about whether people of different skin colors should or should not date, or kiss, or sleep together, or make babies together, or get married. [Is the bible against interacial marriage?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=115437) Be cautious how you “shove it in his face”, 'cause he is, after all, your dad (I’m being serious here), and he’s only doing what he, in his admittedly prejudicial way, thinks is best for his daughter. A good starting point for a discussion with him might be to ask him to consider, “Hypothetically speaking, what if the black boy were Catholic?” ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2002, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inter-racial-stuff-in-the-bible/117727/4 "2002-07-07T03:50:34Z")
Well, Solomon took the Queen of Sheba (now Ethiopa) as a wife. While it’s generally agreed that Solomon was a righteous dude, and pretty smart besides, miscegenation has long been a touchy subject, and old Sol caught hell for his broad-mindedness posthumously-- the Pharisees figured that all those exotic women opened his mind a little _too_ much: > [@](#): > > But king Solomon loved many strange women, together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites: > Of the nations concerning which the LORD said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall not go in to them, neither shall they come in unto you: for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods: Solomon clave unto these in love. > And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines: and his wives turned away his heart. > For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods: and his heart was not perfect with the LORD his God, as was the heart of David his father. > For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. > And Solomon did evil in the sight of the LORD, and went not fully after the LORD, as did David his father. > Then did Solomon build an high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, in the hill that is before Jerusalem, and for Molech, the abomination of the children of Ammon. > And likewise did he for all his strange wives, which burnt incense and sacrificed unto their gods. > And the LORD was angry with Solomon, because his heart was turned from the LORD God of Israel, which had appeared unto him twice, > And had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods: but he kept not that which the LORD commanded. > Wherefore the LORD said unto Solomon, Forasmuch as this is done of thee, and thou hast not kept my covenant and my statutes, which I have commanded thee, I will surely rend the kingdom from thee, and will give it to thy servant. _-1 Kings 11:1-11_ Sorry if that doesn’t _quite_ give you the ammunition you need. In a nutshell, Solomon (by all accounts a Wise Man,) was down with inter-racial relationships, but the fundies held it against him and undid all his good works soon after he left the scene. (The bastids knocked down the high places and burned down the sacred groves of Ashtoreth. Why oh why does organized religion attract the Fred Phelps’ of the ages?) ---
**Author:** ![JohnClay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c37758/32.png) [@JohnClay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnClay)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2002, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inter-racial-stuff-in-the-bible/117727/5 "2002-07-07T04:13:10Z")
Well your father probably doesn’t even obey the Ten Commandments. (Exodus 20:2-17, Deut 5:6-21) In particular, the ones about not doing _any work_ on the [Sabbath](http://www.religioustolerance.org/sabbath.htm) (sundown Friday to sundown Saturday) - e.g. in Numbers 15:32-36, God even considered gathering wood to be “work”. (And so the offender was put to death) He might have also repeatedly broken the commandment about not bowing down to anything created in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or the waters below. (Ex 20:4-5, Deut 5:8-9) And maybe saying Jesus is God is having another god besides the Israelite one. (The Jews don’t recognize the Jesus god) So anyway, Christians don’t follow much of the O.T. laws, including some of the Ten Commandments. In the O.T, people from other cultures had to be circumcized to be accepted by the Jews, but in the N.T. Paul says that circumcision doesn’t matter. And believers can also marry unbelievers (I think). I doubt race came into it. ---
**Author:** ![zev\_steinhardt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/97f17d/32.png) [@zev\_steinhardt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zev_steinhardt)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2002, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inter-racial-stuff-in-the-bible/117727/6 "2002-07-07T04:20:51Z")
There is nothing in the Jewish bible about inter-racial marriages. Zev Steinhardt ---
**Author:** ![John\_Zahn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e0b2c6/32.png) [@John\_Zahn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Zahn)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2002, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inter-racial-stuff-in-the-bible/117727/7 "2002-07-07T13:29:59Z")
Do people in this day and age, really look to the Bible for their moral guide and compass? As John Clay pointed out, one couldn’t even do any work on the Sabbath. It was a capital offense, and this included even gathering up wood to make a fire, and many other trivial offenses. To the original OP, if God allows Lot to sleep with his own daughters and even get them both pregnant; then, I’m sure there is room for inter-racial marriages. The NT refers to him as righteous Lot. John Zahn ---
**Author:** ![jimmmy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/73ab20/32.png) [@jimmmy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jimmmy)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2002, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inter-racial-stuff-in-the-bible/117727/8 "2002-07-07T15:02:42Z")
I have heard a small section of fundamentalists say that racial separation was made at the Tower of Babel and that by intermarriage the races are creating one race and 1 world government. This they back up with the Tower of Babel story which says **NOTHING** about racial intermarriage. So this is their extra-biblical interpretation & besides flying in the face of scientific, (& linguistic, anthropological, and genetic) evidence, it flies in the face of what the Bible says as well\*, but it serves their purposes to find this in the Bible. (\*all that Loving your neighbor stuff and the somewhat about the debates about bringing the WORD to the gentiles – they decide its OK. But that is MY interpretation). To be fair this was a small Fundie chorus. Lately I’ve heard more mainstream fundamentalists use Genesis to attack evolution as racist: As Genesis says we are all from Adam, while evolution implies, so the fundies interpret, that man became man at different paces & that some “races” may have more genes from people closer to the “apes”. This is how THEY interpret it, not me. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2002, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inter-racial-stuff-in-the-bible/117727/9 "2002-07-07T19:31:32Z")
There are a few stories of “interracial” marriages in the Bible. Another example not yet mentioned is the story of Ruth, a woman of the nation of Moab, who ended up marrying a Jew. And certainly if the Song of Solomon is to be believed, Solomon (or whoever it was who wrote that book) considered interracial relationships to be very fine, indeed. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2002, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inter-racial-stuff-in-the-bible/117727/10 "2002-07-07T19:32:03Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Duck Duck Goose \* > \*\*A good starting point for a discussion with him might be to ask him to consider, “Hypothetically speaking, what if the black boy were Catholic?” \*\* Along this line, you could point out to him this view of the universality of the Church: > [@](#): > > **Galatians 3** > 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2002, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inter-racial-stuff-in-the-bible/117727/11 "2002-07-07T19:59:07Z")
From a specifically Roman Catholic view, you could point out the following comments from the _Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace_. On their website they have their submission to last year’s anti-racism conference at Durban: [Contribution to World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance](http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/justpeace/documents/rc_pc_justpeace_doc_20010829_comunicato-razzismo_en.html). Some excerpts: > [@](#): > > 1. **The Christian should never make racist claims or indulge in racist or discriminatory behaviour,** but sadly that has not always been the case in practice nor has it been so in history. In this regard, Pope John Paul II wanted to mark the Jubilee of the Year 2000 by requests for pardon made in the name of the Church, so that the Church’s memory might be purified from all “forms of counter-witness and scandal.” > > 2. In this context, during the Jubilee Year, a Solemn Mass was celebrated in Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome on 12 March 2000, in the course of which special prayers confessing faults and requesting pardon were offered. Among the particular intentions, there were confessions for faults committed in relations with the people of Israel, as well as for actions contrary to love, peace, the rights of peoples, cultures and religions. After the confession of sins against the dignity of women and the unity of the human race, **the Holy Father himself prayed in the following words:** “Lord God, our Father, you created the human being, man and woman, in your image and likeness, and **you willed the diversity of peoples within the unity of the human family.** At times, however, **the equality of your sons and daughters has not been acknowledged,** and \*\*Christians have been guilty of attitudes of rejection and exclusion, consenting to acts of discrimination on the basis of racial and ethnic difference. Forgive us and grant us the grace to heal the wounds still present in your community on account of sin, so that we will all feel ourselves to be your sons and daughters.” \*\* > > 3. \ > In its conclusions, [the Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination] remarks: “The Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination notes with satisfaction that **the laws and teachings of the Catholic Church promote tolerance, friendly co-existence and _multiracial integration_** and that Pope John Paul II has, in a number of speeches, openly condemned all forms of racism, racial discrimination and xenophobia manifested through racial tensions and conflicts around the world” ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2002, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inter-racial-stuff-in-the-bible/117727/12 "2002-07-07T20:15:42Z")
There is further material in the _Catechism of the Catholic Church_. See for example, Part Three (Life in Christ); Section One (Man’s Vocation: Life in the Spirit); Chapter Two (The Human Community), [Article 3: Social Justice](http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/p3s1c2a3.htm). ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2002, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inter-racial-stuff-in-the-bible/117727/13 "2002-07-07T20:23:05Z")
From the [Catechism of the Catholic Church](http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s1c2a3.htm): > [@](#): > > 1934 Created in the image of the one God and equally endowed with rational souls, all men have the same nature and the same origin. Redeemed by the sacrifice of Christ, all are called to participate in the same divine beatitude: all therefore enjoy an equal dignity. > > 1935 The equality of men rests essentially on their dignity as persons and the rights that flow from it: > > Every form of social or cultural discrimination in fundamental personal rights on the grounds of sex, race, color, social conditions, language, or religion must be curbed and eradicated as incompatible with God’s design.[sup]40[/sup] [sup]40[/sup][PASTORAL CONSTITUTION ON THE CHURCH IN THE MODERN WORLD _GAUDIUM ET SPES_](http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_cons_19651207_gaudium-et-spes_en.html) Section 29, Paragraph 2 The references used to support “racial” notions taken from the bible are generally taken out of context and do not mean what the people who quote them (in English translation) believe that they mean. OTOH, I would support **Duck Duck Goose** in noting that whatever particular prejudices or beliefs your father holds probably did not arise from religious belief and will probably not be put aside because of religious teachings. Unless your sister has already fallen in love with a black guy and needs to be defended, this is an issue that should be handled rather more delicately than more bluntly. ---
**Author:** ![SlickRoenick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e68b1a/32.png) [@SlickRoenick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlickRoenick)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2002, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inter-racial-stuff-in-the-bible/117727/14 "2002-07-07T20:40:11Z")
Thanks for the help. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2002, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inter-racial-stuff-in-the-bible/117727/15 "2002-07-07T21:00:31Z")
piffle! I was trying to link to the same provisions of the Catechism as **tomndebb** , but now it says it’s moved. It was there an hour ago? ---
**Author:** ![domina](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/96bed5/32.png) [@domina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/domina)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2002, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inter-racial-stuff-in-the-bible/117727/16 "2002-07-08T02:22:48Z")
\*Originally posted by Larry Mudd \* > [@](#): > > Well, Solomon took the Queen of Sheba (now Ethiopa) as a wife. Slight hijack here, but I’ve been wondering for a while where the Solomon-Sheba love story comes from. All I found about her in my Bible was in I Kings 10, which says she visited Solomon, asked him questions, was very impressed, gave him presents and then “she turned and went to her own country.” Does she come back at some point? ---
**Author:** ![Brutus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Brutus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brutus)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2002, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inter-racial-stuff-in-the-bible/117727/17 "2002-07-08T02:52:31Z")
Hrmmm…Hot Philistine-on-Samaritan action in the Bible? I am no Biblical scholar, but [these people seem to be.](http://www.bibleinfo.com/Asp/DisplayFullFAQ.asp?FAQid=42) Check it out. ---
**Author:** ![Rat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ea666f/32.png) [@Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rat)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2002, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inter-racial-stuff-in-the-bible/117727/18 "2002-07-08T11:21:15Z")
Ages ago, in Catechism class, a Franciscan monk told the class I was in that the commandment: “Though shall not commit adultery” meant you were not to marry outside your race. Never heard it from anyone else since. Have no idea where he came up with it either. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2002, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inter-racial-stuff-in-the-bible/117727/19 "2002-07-08T15:02:09Z")
domina: No, you are correct - there is no indication of Solomon-Queen of Sheba romance in the Bible. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2002, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inter-racial-stuff-in-the-bible/117727/20 "2002-07-08T15:06:05Z")
> [@](#): > > Have no idea where he came up with it either. From the racist neighborhood where he grew up. It is not in any religious teachings that I am aware, although it could be in the interpretations of some fringe groups. (To cut him a _little_ slack–though not very much–if he grew up up in a state where inter-racial marraige was forbidden, then a marriage outside one’s race would be _illegal_ and, if he deemed that no marriage, it would be adultery. The church would not agree with that logic, but individuals with the proper bias could work it out form themselves.) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inter-racial-stuff-in-the-bible/117727.md?page=2)