Technically, in the Old Testament, Cush is identified as Cush. In the New Testament, Ethiopia is identified as Ethiopia, and unless you have some way to correct me, there is no reason to believe these two references are referring to the same nation historically much less where they would have been located.
And yet the
Septuagint uniformly translates Cush as
Αἰθιοπία "
Aithiopia."
According to scripture in the original language, Ethiopia could have been north and Cush could have been south for all we know. Therefore, what we call Ethiopia today is a combined assumption that these refer to the same nation for one, and that this nation is recognizable in the area that we have been told. However, I have never heard anyone explain why this area should be defined as Cush.
There are not significant markers in scripture that would allow someone to identify this location on a map. If there are, I have missed them because we don't often go over things like this in Bible studies, unfortunately. It is entirely possible that language barriers would have presented a challenge for explorers of the region. Names and slang terms are the hardest parts of a language to correctly pronounce, spell, or translate; and the identification of Cush in the area around where we consider Ethiopia to be located could have been made very innocently at the time. However, in the modern world, it is clear to see that these assumptions were wrong and at the present time, there is no real way to identify where Cush was located historically no matter how much we would like for these things to all fit together as though they were all figured out.
The name Ham is Hebrew and means "burnt, black". Ham had four sons: Cush, and Mizraim, and Phut, and Canaan.
There is no question that Mizraim is Egypt. We're told in the Book of Ezekiel, in Chapter 29, that Father (God) will lay waste to Egypt, from the tower of Syene unto the border of Cush (
Ezek. 29:10).
So where is/was Syene? It was in the south of Egypt facing south of Egypt.
Aswan is the ancient city of Swenett, later known as Syene, which in antiquity was the frontier town of Ancient Egypt facing the south. Swenett is supposed to have derived its name from an Egyptian goddess with the same name."
en.wikipedia.org
Continuing on a southerly route on a current-day map what do we find? Sudan and
Ethiopia.
The rhetorical question "Can the Cushite change his skin?" in
Jeremiah 13:23 implies brown skin color; also, the
Septuagint uniformly translates Cush as
Αἰθιοπία "
Aithiopia."
The historian
Josephus gives an account of the nation of Cush, son of Ham and grandson of
Noah: "For of the four sons of Ham, time has not at all hurt the name of Cush; for the
Ethiopians, over whom he reigned, are even at this day, both by themselves and by all men in Asia, called Cushites" (
Antiquities of the Jews 1.6).
en.wikipedia.org
See also:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Kush
So it is logical to me that names of people and places could be inaccurately understood in the Bible because I have also never considered the Bible to be some magical infallible book.
And yet it is
THE historical reference book used in Egyptology, which is the source of most of our secular knowledge about that period of history, c. 2500-1500 B.C. And it's interesting to note that every time the Egyptologists mistakenly think the Bible account is in error, they are eventually proven to be in error themselves. Case-in-point: the must see 2014 documentary film "Patterns of Evidence" by American filmmaker Tim Mahoney, featuring the amazing work done by Egyptologist David Rohl.
I have believed that the Bible was more like a garden that had had some of the weeds pulled so that it was metaphorically more pleasing to look at. And, it was this objectivity towards this process of creating a canon that was more or less scientific and would not create a contradiction between believing that being part of humanity born in sin is somehow still capable of creating a perfected book and subsequent perfected translations.
Within the past generation, we have mapped out the human genome, and in doing so have discovered that DNA is a programming language (based on quaternary code rather than binary). We've also learned that DNA has built-in redundancies and error-correction capabilities to ensure that it can deliver its programming instructions despite significant outside influences.
The Bible is written in the same exact way, with built-in redundancies and error-correction capabilities. That's how it's possible to know when something has been added or taken away from it, because the ignorant people who make such attempts, who have no idea of how the program was designed or written, leave very obvious clues of their crimes behind. And of course our All-Powerful Extra-Terrestrial Creator would never allow puny humans to corrupt His Message to mankind.
Saying people are born in sin, but capable of this is already a contradiction.
Your basic assumption though is flawed. Humans didn't create the Bible.
However, people are capable of testing things to see what works best, so I believed the Bible to be thoroughly tested, but not something that would need to be proven to be perfectly translated.
Unfortunately, the Bible hasn't been thoroughly tested, or we wouldn't be in the mess we find ourselves in today. Within the Bible we have been given the
PERFECT Law of Liberty, which contains the perfect system of governance, the perfect system of justice, the perfect agricultural policy, the perfect economic policy and the perfect healthy diet.
Instead of putting that perfect Law into practice, we've tried every other way possible, because we think we are so smart and have all the answers, and as a result we have always had crime, poverty, war and death. This proves not only how insane we really are, but that we don't have the answers which is why we are incapable of running this one, tiny planet, much less the entire universe.
Because that is what I am still working with, using the original place names to look at the possibility that things happened in different locations does not create a crisis of faith for me especially since the original languages do not make the same claims that the translations do anyway.
The more logical approach would be to take the Bible account as accurate, study it in depth and outside the veil of organized religion, and then look for the evidence to either corroborate it or disprove it.
An understanding of African history is so undeveloped, there is no real way to say that it doesn't match anything regarding what the scripture says about Israel at the present time.
Yes there is; you just don't "see" it. There are at least 95 different and very detailed Scriptural marks of Israel during
the latter-days which are given to us in Scripture. Additionally, there are hundreds of different secular historical texts that span the globe confirming the Biblical descriptions given of the true people Israel during the latter-days. We are literally surrounded by evidence.
In fact, this is a picture of a map of the potential location of the ancient nation of Punt. This land was filled with resources and this is known because ancient Egyptians records tell us that they were trading in this area. It was essentially a "land flowing with milk and honey" in the ancient world, although it almost seems like esoteric information to us because we only learn a small fraction of information about Africa from a historical perspective in the western world.
So this is where Punt is
And this is a map of what has been referred to as the Atlantis of the sands. There is a legendary story connected with these locations that say that long ago, the city was destroyed as a punishment by God. The possibility that this could be the true location of Sodom and Gomorrah has been entertained because of this. I should point out that there is no location near where we consider Israel that includes a legend like this even though Sodom and Gomorrah should also be discoverable within the region since it is where Lot and Abraham parted ways when they arrived in the land. This is just another example of why there is no real evidence to support Israel historically being where we are presently told.
Would you describe
ANY of the nations in Africa as being "the isles afar off"? And yet this is how Israel's new home is described in Scripture (
Isa. 42:4,
Isa. 42:10,
Isa. 66:19,
Jer. 31:10). Have
ANY of the African nations colonized the rest of the world? And yet this too is a description of what the people Israel would do (
Gen. 17:4-6,
16,
Gen. 35:10-11,
Gen. 48:19,
Gen. 49:22). Have
ANY of the African nations built a navy and become a naval sea power? And yet the true people Israel were to do exactly that (
Num. 24:24,
Deut. 33:19,
1 kings 9:26-27,
Ps. 89:25,
Isa. 24:14-16,
Isa. 43:16,
Isa. 60:5). And the list goes on and on and on, with hundreds of verses in Scripture describing the true people Israel in the latter days, right down to their name, location, and activities. All in amazing detail.
Similarly, if you read and studied the Biblical account of Sodom and Gomorrah, you would recognize the error in your approach. Today, humans have been
given the technology to build rockets and crude, nuclear weapons which can destroy on an unprecedented scale, but these things are still nothing more than children's toys relative to the technology that our Extra-terrestrial progenitors have.
The Extra-terrestrial guardians of this planet, aka "angels" destroyed the two cities with a terrible blast (“Fire”), which so
TOTALLY annihilated them, that, to this day, although it is known roughly where they were situated,
ABSOLUTELY no trace of them has ever been found (
Gen. 19:24-26,
Sura 15:73-77). The blast was far more efficient, than any crude nuclear-weapon, and destroyed not only the cities, and everything in them, but also the bodies and souls of the inhabitants. That is why no one knows exactly where those two cities were, because there isn't a trace of them left to find.
So consider the proximity of this location to the land of punt and consider the possibility of continental drift, which is difficult to measure to prove. However, we can prove that the tectonic plates shift and cause earthquakes. Therefore, it is possible to consider that these landmasses were possibly closer together at some point.
How does any of that speculation help determine exactly who
the true people Israel are today, or where they are located, so that the prophecies surrounding them during
the latter-days can be properly understood?
In conclusion, you are exaggerating more than a little when you say there is no way to make a connection between these areas and the locations in scripture especially when you are comparing them with modern assumptions. Superficially, I can make more connections than 200 years of archeological research within the areas of Egypt and Israel have been able to do.
Thus far you've provided nothing more than speculation and personal opinion, which is hardly evidence and proof of nothing, superficially or otherwise. And that includes your
false claim of anything that was personally shared being exaggerated.
The other thing that I have always realized about the Bible is that believing in the Bible is the same as believing that better things will come and all truth will come to light. So I do feel like an argument that solely depends on theology as a foundation for the study of cartography is going to fall short in many places.
Agreed, but that isn't what's being discussed here. There is literally a mountain of physical evidence in support of the Biblical prophecies concerning true Israel in the latter-days/end-times, many of which are still being fulfilled. We even have proof carved in stone of Jeremiah's journey to and burial in
Cairn T near Loughcrew, Co. Meath,
IRELAND, which is backed up not only by the hieroglyphics at the tomb, but by Irish historical accounts, including those found in the Yellow Book of Lecan, the Book of Conquests (Leabhar Gabhala), the Annals of Clonmacnoise, and the metrical Dindsenchas, and
the autobiography of Teia Tephi, along with the physical artifacts and other evidence. Too much to list here, but suffice to say, it is a mountain of evidence that simply cannot be ignored by anyone seeking the truth with an open-mind.
So while I respect that you might have a different opinion on this subject than I do, I have probably heard many of the arguments that you are going to make unless you have something to add about the origin of words like Cush or Ethiopia or some more developed understanding of the history of Africa that I am not aware of.
Quite frankly, after spending time on this forum with many Christians speaking from a fundamentalist perspective that often expresses this perspective in ways that I know I wouldn't hear at church, has caused me to do more reflection about my own faith than about anything else I may have studied while I have been here.
Understood. As above please. If people understood the Bible is replete with condemnations of the churches, etc. and the priests, pastors, rabbis, and imams, etc. that run them, perhaps they would be less willing to accept their spiritually blind interpretations of the Scriptures or of what's going on in the world today.
Clearly something is missing in the Bible or in our understanding of it and while I recognize that you are another member that follows Jahtruth if I'm not mistaken? Even still, much of your understanding doesn't deviate from the classical interpretation that I am more than a little familiar with and that I am convinced is not working. Something is wrong, something is missing, and something needs to come into the light, but unfortunately, too many people think they have it all figured out.
It is people's understanding of the Bible that is in error, not the Bible itself. If people wish to pretend that we have no evidence linking the name Cush to the Ethiopians, or that we don't know who the true people Israel are today by dozens and dozens and dozens of Scriptural marks describing them in the latter days, then it's possible to entertain any fantastical idea about who the people Israel may or may not be.