Queries & Comments

Yurco’s Article Should Suffice (But It Doesn’t)

Thank you for the insightful article on the racial makeup of the ancient Egyptians (Frank J. Yurco, “Were the Ancient Egyptians Black or White?” BAR 15:05). Those with their own bones (no pun intended) to pick will hardly be satisfied, but Frank J. Yurco’s scholarship should suffice for the reasonable and the prudent.

While writing on race, how about something on Moses’ Cushite (Ethiopian) wife (Numbers 12:1). Was she black or Semitic? At least the commentators give a positive value to blackness here. According to Rashi (1040–1105 C.E.), Moses’ wife was called Ethiopian because of her beauty. Similarly, Philo (first century C.E.) declared, “the Ethiopian woman stands for resolve unalterable, intense, and fixed. … For, even as in the eye the part that sees is black, so the soul’s power of vision has the title of woman of Ethiopia” (“Allegorical Interpretations of Genesis,” Philo, vol. 1, p. 267, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard Univ. Press).