# The coming of whites seen as a fulfillment of prophecy



## Pergamum (Sep 8, 2011)

How are we to theologically explain this:

In many ancient cultures, there is good evidence of pre-contact prophecies concerning the coming of whites who would bring them a secret to life or be part in the ending of their culture or the ushering in of the apocalypse or some new age or new way of life.

This occurred in South America before the Spanish conquistadors came (eg., the Quetzalcoatl prophecy prior to Cortes among the Aztec, and also similar things among the Inca), and also in places in Irian Jaya. In both cases this caused locals to receive the conquistadors/missionaries.

Is this a. evidence of prophecy, b. early missionaries to these tribes telling them the message, c. ancient traditions passes on from ages back when prophecy existed, or d. fabrication by conquistadors and missionaries? Or maybe e. coincidence or providential dreams.


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## Rufus (Sep 8, 2011)

I believe I read about Adoniram Judson going to a tribe in Burma (it may have been the Karen if I remember correctly) who had a similar belief.

Wikipedia on Judson and the Karen:


> In 1828, the former Karen bandit, "whose rough, undisciplined genius, energy and zeal for Christ"[citation needed] had caught the notice of the missionaries, was sent south with a new missionary couple, the Boardmans, into the territory of the strongly animistic, non-Buddhist Karen. Ko Tha Byu was no sooner baptized,[16] when he set off into the jungle alone to preach to his fellow tribe members. Astonishingly, he found them prepared for his preaching. Their ancient oracle traditions, handed down for centuries, contained some startling echoes of the Old Testament that some scholars conjecture a linkage with Jewish communities (or possibly even Nestorians), before their migrations from western China into Burma perhaps as early as the 12th century.[17]
> 
> The core of what they called their "Tradition of the Elders" was a belief in an unchangeable, eternal, all-powerful God, creator of heaven and earth, of man, and of woman formed from a rib taken from the man.[citation needed] They believed in humanity's temptation by a devil, and its fall, and that some day a messiah would come to its rescue. They lived in expectation of a prophecy that white foreigners would bring them a sacred parchment roll.[18]


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## Pilgrim (Sep 8, 2011)

Perg,

This reminds me of something I read recently about Adoniram Judson and the Karen tribe. I think you may be familiar with it: 



> While the nation was Burmese, a lost province of Great Britain, and the missionaries were American, the apostle of that first numerically significant evangelistic breakthrough was neither Burman, British, nor American. He was a Karen, Ko Tha Byu.[SUP][13][/SUP] Credit is due also to the three missionary pioneers to the Karen people, George Boardman and his wife, Sarah; and Adoniram Judson.The Karen people were a primitive, hunted minority group of ancient Tibeto-Burman ancestry scattered in the forests and jungles of the Salween River and in the hills along the southeast coast.[SUP][14][/SUP] Judson was the first missionary to make contact with them in 1827, when he ransomed and freed a debt-slave from one of his early converts. The freed slave, Ko Tha Byu, was an illiterate, surly man who spoke almost no Burmese and was reputed to be not only a thief, but also a murderer who admitted killing at least 30 men, but could not remember exactly how many more.[SUP][15]
> [/SUP]
> In 1828, the former Karen bandit, "whose rough, undisciplined genius, energy and zeal for Christ"[SUP][_citation needed_][/SUP] had caught the notice of the missionaries, was sent south with a new missionary couple, the Boardmans, into the territory of the strongly animistic, non-Buddhist Karen. Ko Tha Byu was no sooner baptized,[SUP][16][/SUP] when he set off into the jungle alone to preach to his fellow tribe members. *Astonishingly, he found them prepared for his preaching. Their ancient oracle traditions, handed down for centuries, contained some startling echoes of the Old Testament that some scholars conjecture a linkage with Jewish communities (or possibly even Nestorians), before their migrations from western China into Burma perhaps as early as the 12th century.[SUP][17]
> [/SUP]
> The core of what they called their "Tradition of the Elders" was a belief in an unchangeable, eternal, all-powerful God, creator of heaven and earth, of man, and of woman formed from a rib taken from the man.[SUP][citation needed][/SUP] They believed in humanity's temptation by a devil, and its fall, and that some day a messiah would come to its rescue. They lived in expectation of a prophecy that white foreigners would bring them a sacred parchment roll.*[SUP][18][/SUP]



This is from the Adoniram Judson wiki page. Francis Wayland's bio of Judson is cited for this account, but no page numbers were given.


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## TimV (Sep 9, 2011)

I have a simpler explanation. None of them had writing, and they can't keep a story straight for 10 minutes. So, some lightish Spaniards some of whom had fair hair and more of whom had blue eyes showed up and started kicking butt with their armor, horses, crossbows and war hounds and within a few months rumors started to spread about so and so in such and such a village who had a dream about some blue eyed dude on a big animal.

In those areas myths and legends and even their history change not only from tribe to tribe, but they change in the same household within days. A certain lizard will cause your mom to die it sees your teeth, and in the hut next door, no, that lizard will cause lightning to strike your house if you laugh. And in the next village if you smear that lizard's blood on your Kraal then wild cattle will be drawn in and you get free money.

So I never by those stories of ancient prophecies. If they're written that's one thing, but they never are in those cases. They're after the fact stories spread by people who haven't ever had a tradition of getting stories straight, then written down by naive Whites and it just gets reinforced.


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## elnwood (Sep 9, 2011)

TimV said:


> In those areas myths and legends and even their history change not only from tribe to tribe, but they change in the same household within days. A certain lizard will cause your mom to die it sees your teeth, and in the hut next door, no, that lizard will cause lightning to strike your house if you laugh. And in the next village if you smear that lizard's blood on your Kraal then wild cattle will be drawn in and you get free money.
> 
> So I never by those stories of ancient prophecies. If they're written that's one thing, but they never are in those cases. They're after the fact stories spread by people who haven't ever had a tradition of getting stories straight, then written down by naive Whites and it just gets reinforced.



Tim, where do you get your understanding of oral history changing so rapidly? That doesn't mesh with what I know of oral cultures, both today and in biblical times. Oral Bible storytelling has proven to be very effective in many tribes.


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## TimV (Sep 9, 2011)

elnwood said:


> Tim, where do you get your understanding of oral history changing so rapidly?



Ten years of practical experience in Papua New Guinea and Southern Africa as well as decades of reading. Most tribal legend songs aren't even intelligible to those singing them since the languages change almost totally within a few centuries. I just heard a Polynesian tribal chant that reminded me of what I saw in PNG. The translation meant almost nothing even to the singers.

I once found a carved stone bowl in a village I was staying in, and the people told me God made it. They'd lost the technology to make stone bowls and they said they found them all the time but the couldn't even remember that their ancestors made them.

In Biblical times, you had age continuity. Just check out the dates when those people lived. Noah's son Shem was, what, dead only 20 years when Abraham was born? And who's to say they didn't have writing anyway?

I'm open to examples from your reading, though.


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## Pergamum (Sep 9, 2011)

Oral recitation of geneologies in groups like the Maori can go back hundreds of years with great consistency between reciters. I can find the citations to prove the relative accuracy of such oral tradition if needed. 

Although, yes, you are quite correct that languages which are unwritten do change quite fast (another proof of an early earth and a quick branching of languages since Babel).

-
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So, Tim, you believe that these were not predictions, but "after-the-fact-rejiggerings" of traditions to account for the arrrival of the outsiders?


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## TimV (Sep 9, 2011)

Yes, I'm certain of it. You can tell those people anything and they believe it. That's one reason convicting someone of a crime is often difficult, since eye witness accounts of people who saw the same thing are so radically different after a few hours.

Plus, as I said, there's no uniformity in their legends. As for a people's creation myth, and I'm certain anyone anyone who's been in your area of the world will tell you it differs from village to village even in the same language group. So, you have many things at play, e.g. a zillion different "prophecies" and each one of those changing rapidly until they get written down.


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## Pergamum (Sep 9, 2011)

How about the hundreds of great flood myths throughout the world? Are these memories of an ancient event or similar "back-reading" and incorporation of missionary teaching into tribal customs?


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## TimV (Sep 9, 2011)

Yes, if they can't even remember where they came from before the second biggest island on earth, it's beyond illogical to assume they collectively remember flood stories. It's wishful thinking by missionaries combined with other things, like (as you well know) their proclivity to tell you what you want to hear.

Expecting them to remember a flood story is like asking an American Indian you meet at college the details of crossing the Bearing Straight except it's even more extreme. Or asking a Basque which direction the ark pointed when it came to rest. It's just beyond reasonable, and there are easier explanations. Gilgamesh you can give credence to, because of the distance between the event and when it was written down, but I've never met a Zulu I'd ask what color the wine was Noah got toasted on.

---------- Post added at 12:55 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:54 AM ----------

PS It's not that I don't want to believe! It would be cool. But we're talking racial memory plus noble savage stuff and neither exist.


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## Pergamum (Sep 9, 2011)

Tim, thanks for your thoughts.


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## TimV (Sep 9, 2011)

I hope I didn't seem more sarcastic than normal! As you probably know a centuries old custom of Bible translators is to practice translating by writing down preliterate people's legends before doing the Bible. There are some great example from Catholics in South America from many years ago and lots and lots from that big island we're always talking about. That's when things get fixed. Arthur was "perhaps" from Artos, a big bear of a chieftain who's story morphed every couple months until someone wrote down the Arthur legend. Roland in France's equivalent was a person but even with just a relative few years between the reality and the Matter Of France was written, Roland went from being killed in an ambush by Christian Basques (in real life) to kicking it in battle against a horde of Muslims. And those were literate societies. How much more radical changes in just a few years do you seen in people without writing?


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## Pergamum (Sep 9, 2011)

Tim, yes, I concede that most of what you say is true.


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## Semper Fidelis (Sep 9, 2011)

Great contributions Tim. One of the things that is interesting to study is how often you see the OT talking about how important it was that God's revelation was written down. The idea of the importance of oral tradition as a reliable guide does not jive with the Scriptures that prize the value that the things God wants us to remember are written down. My wife and I can't even agree on the details of the memory of some important events even in our own lives.


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## SolaScriptura (Sep 9, 2011)

Or maybe the Mormons are right and Jesus got here first. Or maybe whites really are the zenith of humanity and as such the cosmos heralded our arrival in advance.


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## py3ak (Sep 9, 2011)

Pergamum said:


> Tim, thanks for your thoughts.



Yes - oddly, this was exactly what I needed to hear today for a situation that came up.


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## AThornquist (Sep 9, 2011)

SolaScriptura said:


> Or maybe whites really are the zenith of humanity and as such the cosmos heralded our arrival in advance.



Consider me guilty. Of course, I can only speak for myself; I'm fairly sure that zenithitude like mine is a rarity, even among the mayonnaise-colored. 

View attachment 2302


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## SolaScriptura (Sep 9, 2011)

AThornquist said:


> SolaScriptura said:
> 
> 
> > Or maybe whites really are the zenith of humanity and as such the cosmos heralded our arrival in advance.
> ...





Now THAT is a great pic!


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## elnwood (Sep 10, 2011)

I'm not convinced that the "after the fact" paradigm works for all of the cases. The most recent one I heard from a missionary was that the tribe that they worked with had a legend that white people were going to come and bring them a message, and to listen to them. This was why they were so receptive to the gospel such that almost the entire people group turned to Christ.

Maybe fresh Christian converts ran around telling people about this made-up "old prophecy" about white people bringing a message of life, and maybe the entire tribe believed this made-up story such that they came to Christ based on this made-up prophecy. That doesn't make sense to me though.

I wonder if there are any tribes waiting for a message of life from non-white missionaries. I'm feeling left out!


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## Pergamum (Sep 10, 2011)

Don, I guess you'll have to search one out and find out!


I was rereading about the Aztecs and the Incas and their folklore about a coming white god (the return of Quetzalcoatl) seemed to be attested in multiple sources as occurring prior to the Spanish arrivals. Also, while the Melanesians are, indeed, poor historians and lots of them are liars, many flood tales exist in non-melanesian contexts.

One author I read believes that medieval missionaries (from northern europe perhaps) might have made it to the shores of America.


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