By Rev. Barbara Reynolds | SACOBSERVER.COM WIRE SERVICES

(NNPA) - Imagine cruising along the centuries old Nile river shaded by lush date palm trees, stopping to check out a Nubian elementary school, then later trotting along on camels among the Giza pyramids and stopping to gaze at the memorial to Hatshepsut, the first and only female Pharoah. Along the way, travelers from many parts of the world hailed our all African-American touring group with the greeting, “Obama.”

Then after leaving Egypt, our tour group headed to the Holy Land. First stop was with the Black Hebrews, African-Americans who have built an oasis in the Negev Desert. We were baptized in the River Jordan, the site where John the Baptist baptized Jesus, prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, visited Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus.

Ironically it is under Arab control and we were ordered not to bring Bibles nor Christian symbols inside. Then we walked along the Via Dolorosa, which winds along narrow streets of Jerusalem’s Old City to the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre, the site of Jesus’ burial and Resurrection.

That is what I did this summer.

My experience, along with hundreds of others over a span of two decades, came about through the heroic efforts of Dr.Cain Hope Felder, professor of New Testament and Literature and editor of the Journal of Religious Thought at the Howard University School of Divinity in Washington DC.

Here is a man who has distinguished himself as a stellar scholar. Among his extensive post graduate degrees is a PH.D. and a Master of Philosophy degree in Biblical languages from Columbia University in New York.

His books are many. Troubling Biblical Waters has been translated into more than 20 different languages and his True to Our Native Land is the first African-American commentary on the New Testament.

My favorite is his scholarly contributions compiled in the Original African Heritage Bible. That was earth-shaking. With scholarship and depth, Felder helped shatter the myths and destroy the lies that White missionaries saved the heathen Blacks. Until I studied under Felder, I had mistakenly thought the Bible was all about Whites, an impression that soon dramatically changed.

Felder’s work showed how the Bible is a drama of the history of salvation where the Black presence is monumental: the creation of the first Adam from the dirt of the ground in the Garden of Eden, located in Africa, to the resettling of the world after the flood through Noah’s three Black sons, to the incarnation of Jesus of Nazareth, who by any stretch of the imagination was not blond-haired nor blue-eyed.

His work opened our eyes to how Blacks contributed greatly to the spread of Christianity. Blacks were prominent in the Upper Room in Jerusalem where Christianity was inaugurated through the Holy Spirit; one of the first Christian converts was a Black man from Ethiopia. Blacks were early martyrs during the Roman Empire and Black men like St. Augustine, the Father of Theology, wrote foundational works upon which Christianity was built.

It was Felder’s research that helped stop the nonsense that the Roman Catholic Church would name the first Black church after the death of Pope John Paul II, when in fact there had been three Black popes before the fifth century.

Felder could have stopped at being a scholar, but he went so much further. He has organized scores of tours to Africa where in places like Egypt, we saw how many of the facial features of the Pharaohs have been defaced to obscure the fact that their broad noses and lips show without a doubt they were Black and so much unlike the portrait Hollywood has presented. This was among the many incidents that underscored the depth that Europeans have stooped to obscure the rich cultural history of Blacks.

Many people like myself are no longer as culturally blinded by European propaganda because of the efforts of Felder, who leads an international movement of discovery through the Biblical Institute of Social Change (BISC).

With the sudden passing of Bernie Mac and Issac Hayes, I thought maybe time should not go by without calling attention to how much the 65-year-old pastoral professor gives of himself. He has been battling prostate cancer. On this tour, he was not feeling well and soon after we returned to Washington he was back in Howard University Hospital, where he is reportedly recuperating nicely.

During his hospitalization, he worried about mounting bills that threaten his beloved institution.

Felder has inaugurated a national treasure that has re-written history, connected Blacks to their culture and spiritual past. He should not have to worry.

Send him flowers while he can still smell them. Funds for his institution would be better, however. Donations to keep BISC going can go to Howard University School of Divinity, 1400 Shepherd Street, NE., Suite 264, Washington DC, 20017.

Rev. Barbara Reynolds is an NNPA religion columnist.