A little over a half century ago Kersey Graves created quite a furor in the orthodox religious circles by writing a book in which he discusses the racial identity of YAHUSHUA (Jesus) and offers evidence that the Christian Savior was a black man. The passage referred to reads as follows:

There is as much evidence that the Christian Savior was a black man, or at least a dark man, as there is of his being the son of the Virgin Mary, or that he once lived and moved upon the earth. And that evidence is the testimony of his disciples, who had nearly as good an opportunity of knowing what his complexion was as the evangelists who omit to say anything about it.

In pictures and portraits of Christ by the early Christians he is uniformly represented as being black. To make this more certain a red tinge is given to the lips; and the tests in the Christian bible quoted by orthodox Christians as describing his complexion, represents it as being black.

Solomon’s declaration, I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem’ (Sol. I:5), is often cited as referring to Christ. According to the bible itself, then, Yahushua HaMoshiach (Jesus Christ) was a black man. Let us suppose that at some future time he makes his second advent to the earth, as some Christians anticipate he will do, and that he comes in the character of a sable Messiah, how would he be received by our Negro hating Christians of sensitive olfactory nerves. Would they worship a Negro God?

The question might arise in the mind of the reader: “Well, the argument of Kersey Graves sounds plausible enough, but really we need a great deal more corroborative evidence before we can give his conclusions more than palling notice?” This question, the writer believes, is justified. In questions of historical controversy only the most careful consideration of evidence should satisfy us.

To say that the early pictures and images of the Virgin Mary and the infant Jesus represent them with black complexions is not enough. Our statement must be backed up by archaeological evidence. This evidence, fortunately, was collected by the Great British Orientalist, Sir Godfrey Higgins, and has been preserved for posterity in his monumental work, "The Anacalypsis", or "An Inquiry into the Origin of Languages, Nations and Religions".