When we think of Persians, we often think of what present day Persians look like when we considered how they looked in the past (similar to Elamites). Here’s what they look like today:
Much like history, the entire area known as the “Middle East” has been whitewashed and appropriated. Persia is no exception. In the Bible, Darius I aka Darius The Great is mentioned in the following books:
- Ezra
- Nehemiah
- Daniel
- Haggai
- Zechariah
When Darius is depicted in scholarly text or on television, he’s often shown not as he is, but as he was imagined by a Greek painter in 1888:
What Darius The Great Actually Looked Like
It has become the norm that the further back we dig into the past, the darker the people become, especially in the Middle East. Darius the Great is no exception.
Image #1 – Relief of Darius in Persepolis
Noteworthy Things
Image #2 – Winged Sphinx From Darius’ Palace At Susa
Noteworthy Things
The Breakdown
The Middle East was not filled with “dark skin Caucasians”. The people in the Bible were black, dark brown, bronze, and copper colored. The closer we look, the more we find deception about the ethnicity of non Hebrew people as well. All evidence points to Africa, The Middle East, and parts of Asia being full of brown to very dark people before they began mixing with Europeans.
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The Bible is a Black history book! Israelite, to be exact.