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August 30, 2017 |
| Race / Skin Color | ||
It is human nature to categorize things and for a long time anthropologists tried to classify people into groups by physical characteristics. At first this was primarily done based in skin color and resulted in three groups Caucasian, Mongoloid, and Negro.
These proved insufficient because of exceptions that didn't fit and anthropologists were faced with adding a large number of groups. Some tried this but the definitions of the groups became difficult and even arbitrary. In The Descent of Man, Darwin noted the great difficulty naturalists had in trying to decide how many "races" there actually were1. Also, these groupings were largely cosmetic and not very useful.
In the early 1900s anthropologists broke away from taxonomical (physical characteristic) classifications of race and began to think in terms of culture. Even so, classification by race, where race is mainly measured by skin color, continues in our societies.
In this study we'll look at skin color and whether it tells us anything useful about a person.
The primary factor in race divisions is skin color. It is easily observable and it is a genetic trait and therefore very measurable.
Skin color comes from a chemical in the skin called Melanin. Certain cells in the body produce Melanin. What we call black skin is the same as white skin except it has some special cells that produce lots of a dark brown Melanin. So black people are actually dark brown people. White people have little or no Melanin. In between dark brown and white there are many shades of brown, all based on the amount of Melanin their cells are producing.
The fundamental color of each person's skin comes directly from their parents. Each person has 4 genes that control skin color; 2 come from the mother and 2 from the father. These two genes are commonly called Aa and Bb. So each person has two Aa genes and two Bb genes.
The Aa gene can be either 'A' or 'a'; The Bb gene can be either 'B' or 'b'. If an Aa gene is 'A' instead of 'a' more Melanin will be produced. If a Bb is 'B' instead of 'b', more Melanin will be produced. Therefore people whose 4 genes are AABB will produce lots of Melanin and their skin color will be a very dark brown. People whose 4 genes are aabb will produce very little Melanin and their skin color will be very white.
In fact people who are aabb get a slight reddish hue because uncolored skin is somewhat transparent and some of the color of blood can be seen through the skin.
Each parent will pass two of these genes, an Aa and a Bb to their children, but it could be any combination of the parent's own genes. This table shows how the different combinations can result in different skin colors.
It's very important to understand that not all colors can result from every combination of the parent's genes. If a parent is very dark brown (AABB) the 4 combinations of genes are AB, AB, AB, and AB, i.e. there is only one possibility. If both parents are AABB, they can only have an AABB child. There is no other possibility. All of their children will have the same skin color as the parents.
The same is true for white people who are aabb. If two aabb parents have a child it can only be aabb. All of their children will have the same skin color as the parents.
Also when there is a population that are primarily AABB or aabb if a person joins them who is different, his or her genes will eventually be overwhelmed and the population will continue as it was, AABB or aabb.
The color of all the people between these two extremes is commonly called 'middle brown.' Their experience of skin color for their children is completely different. If both parents are AaBb, they could pass AB, Ab, aB, or ab to their children. Therefore their children could be anywhere from dark brown to very white. Statistically the majority will be middle brown.
Genetics sets the body's plan for skin color but there are other factors that can change the color a little. Some of these are diet, age, gender, and certain diseases.
There also factors that can change the color of the skin in a particular area or result in patchy coloration. Some of these are certain diseases, skin injuries, sunlight exposure (tanning), or uneven distribution of the cells that produce melanin (freckles).
There is another kind of Melanin that can be produced in the skin. It is not as obvious as the dark brown color. It results in a skin color range from a light yellow to a light red.
This kind of melanin has a genetic control system of its own and therefore can be mixed with the dark brown melanin. So a person could be middle brown with a tint of red. The Mayan people are noted among other South American peoples for this skin color, which is referred to as copper.
God created us with a genetic system that is capable of many skin colors.
What we've learned so far tells us something interesting about Adam and Eve. They couldn't have had dark brown or very white skin. If they had, then all people on the earth would be that same color. Adam and Eve had to be middle brown.
God can do whatever he wants of course, but Eve was created from Adam's rib so it makes sense that she was genetically identical to him and most likely AaBb as shown in this illustration.
The same thing can be said for Noah's sons and their wives. Each couple had to have a good mix of the genes between them because they were the parents of middle brown peoples, not very white or dark brown peoples.
This brings up another interesting question though. Were there white and black populations before the flood? The answer is certainly that we can't know. But the next section applies a little reason to the question and gives a very likely answer.
Adam and Eve would have produced a world of people with mostly middle brown skins with a very few white and very few dark brown. We've already seen that middle brown produces middle brown, so how exactly do you get an all-white population or all dark brown, or, for that matter, all yellow tinted or red tinted?
One group from the population must be separated in some way so they no longer interbreed with the other population. This can be done with a geographical separation. The group can move away from the main population.
Separation can also be achieved with a skin color preference, but it must be maintained for a few generations. For example, all the dark brown people could decide not to breed with anyone except other dark brown people and this continues through their children.
There is an event in the Bible that produced a geographic separation with the result being populations with a single skin color. It occurred at the Tower of Babel.
After the flood, God instructed Noah and his sons and their wives to spread out and repopulate the earth (Gen. 9:7). A few generations later, however, the people of the earth decided they weren't going to do that. Instead they would create a great city and a great tower and keep everyone together.
God decided to fix that by changing their one language to many languages so they couldn't work together. It appears that something like 70 languages were created that day. The people gave up their plans to build the city and tower. They spread across the earth as God had instructed.
The Bible doesn't say it but the Jews say that the languages were not assigned randomly but with a purpose. For example married couples were given the same language because God would want to preserve marriages.
It makes sense that languages were also assigned on the basis of skin color, or skin color preference. In that way people became separated by language initially and become even more separated by geography and skin color later. We know skin color can be effective for separating people.
So, going back to our original question, it is very unlikely that there were any single-color populations before the flood. There would have been nothing to separate the populations and motivate the change from middle brown.
An Albino has white skin when that wouldn't have been expected based on the parent's skin color. All vertebrates can produce Albinos, even alligators.
Some people have said that the original people were black and later white people resulted from Albinism. That isn't correct. Albinos result from a failure in an entirely different gene from the skin color genes. The failure of that gene makes it impossible for the body to produce melanin. So a child's skin color genes may be set for dark brown but his body can't produce the melanin to make that happen.
When an Albino reproduces he will pass on to his children his skin color genes. Therefore dark brown parents can give birth to an Albino child who can give birth to a dark brown child.
Contrary to what the Bible says about the origin of skin color, the world believes man evolved in Africa with dark brown skin color and then spread out of Africa. As they moved out of Africa there were mutations to the skin color genes that produced people with a middle brown skin color. As these people moved to more northern climates the darker skinned people died off because their skin blocked the weaker sun and they couldn't get enough vitamin D. Therefore natural selection resulted in some populations that were very white in the far northern climates and others that were middle brown in less northern climates.
This idea makes for a wonderful story but it's only a story and there are real problems with it. There doesn't appear to be a natural mechanism that is strong enough to achieve the change from dark brown to middle brown to a population with a single skin color.
A strong enough preference for a particular skin color cannot be maintained. The desire for sex tends to overwhelm any preference. That would be especially true if the population was middle brown and used to seeing and breeding with any color.
A strong enough advantage to having a particular skin color has not been demonstrated to exist. People of all skin colors now live successfully in every geographic region. None are dying off due to skin that cannot handle much or little sun.
The Bible makes almost no mention of skin color. The only references we have are things like young David being described as ruddy. That indicates a slight reddish color typical of youth, but the point of the verses is not skin color but to show that David was healthy.
This is very typical of Biblical descriptions of people. Things like hair color, skin color, height, or weight are not mentioned unless they are important to the story. For example, Zacchaeus is described as being short so you can understand that he needed to climb a tree to see Jesus and that it was important enough to him, a dignified tax-collector and man of wealth, that he would climb a tree.
This is completely different from story books where the characteristics of the characters are described in great detail.
The reason for the difference is clear. God doesn't care about these things. We shouldn't either. God knows you need your body to live, but that isn't what he wants. When your body is dead and rotting he wants the real you.
From one blood he made the whole world of humanity to be dwelling on the whole surface of the Earth and he marked out the times in his decrees and set the coasts of the dwelling places of humanity, 27 So that they would be seeking and inquiring after God; and they may find him by his creation, because also he is not far from everyone of us. (Acts 17:26-27)
Some people have tried to portray Jesus' skin color as dark brown. That is highly unlikely based on genetics. Jesus was a Jew and would have had the same skin color as the other Jews. Orthodox Jews, who have only bred within the tribes of Israel since the time of Jesus, are light skinned now.
If they were dark brown in Jesus' time and light skinned now there would have to be a very strong mechanism to cause that change in such a short time. That mechanism would have to have been working worldwide because the Jews have been dispersed around the world since Jesus' time. There is no such mechanism.
There is also strong Biblical evidence that the Jews were light skinned. In the Song of Solomon there is one of those rare places where skin color is mentioned. A Shulammite woman, a bride of Solomon, speaks to the "daughters of Jerusalem."
I am black but lovely, O daughters of Jerusalem (Song of Solomon 1:5)
She says she is black, but despite that, she is beautiful. There would be no point in saying those words if all the daughters of Jerusalem were black in Solomon's time.
Do not stare at me because I am swarthy (Song of Solomon 1:6)
The word "swarthy" means dark skinned. She is saying do not stare at me because I am dark skinned. The only reason they would stare at her would be that dark skin was uncommon.
Abraham came from a geographic area where skin color was lighter. He insisted on Issac having a wife from their. Therefore the tribes of Israel were light skinned. Therefore Jesus was light skinned ... but it shouldn't matter at all.
In the end there really is only one race - the human race.
1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_race_concepts
2 http://apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=9&article=990
3 https://answersingenesis.org/tower-of-babel/how-many-races-did-god-create
4 https://www.pinterest.com/NodivaEva/albino-human
