Roots Archives Forum

Can anyone explain to me in laymans terms, exactly what 'Christafarians' are?

Not the band - rather the 'Jesus dread' guys.

I can't wait for this topic to unfold. I heard many reggae artist preaching about jesus, but more about rastafari. I think its either or.

Of course man and man have always had nuff strange beliefs, but this idea of "Christafarianism" is IMHO just about ignorant ego business. Nevertheless I think the people promoting it are probably still, overall, perhaps a-bit-more-decent folk than your average next man.

But there are just no excuses for "skimming off the gravey". Man and man don't sight Ras TafarI, yet they still like the image of a "rastafarian", so they conveniently rule out the ras and leave all the "cool" things, eg. dreadlocks, ganja etc.

I would like to give a reminder, that although the Nazirite trod and Ras TafarI trod often go hand in hand, they are most definitely not the same thing. One can easily trod just one of these paths, without ever setting his foot on the other.

Ras TafarI trod is about recognising His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie as the Head Creator. This doesn't require one to any further action other than following the guidance of Ras Tafari, eg. putting His words into action. And mind you, His words didn't include the necessity of growing dreadlocks or smoking ganja.

The Nazirite trod is outlined in the the 4th book of Moses (Numbers 6), so I will not need to go there here. Ones and ones may read this for themselves.

Nuff respect for the man Yabby You, for letting himself be dubbed "Jesus Dread" instead of starting to go by the name of "Christafari" or some such.



btw. Alonso Reggae, if you truly follow H.I.M., you have no choice but to truly follow the Christ as well, as they are One. If one reads and believes any words of H.I.M, it would be just plain illiterate not to give Ises to the son of man. Another matter is, then again, if it is a tad out of date praising Jesus; many Ras sight that the time of the lamb has passed, and this is the time of the Lion.



Guidance & Love.

A Youthman Deh wrote: btw. Alonso Reggae, if you truly follow H.I.M., you have no choice but to truly follow the Christ as well, as they are One. If one reads and believes any words of H.I.M, it would be just plain illiterate not to give Ises to the son of man.

I wouldn't go as far as to compare Haile Selassie with Jesus.
Does this mean that if I follow 'The Christ', I have no choice but to follow Selassie as well?

This was always a dilemma within my circle of friends and my bandmates. My lead singer used to believe in rastafari but now he's a devoted christian. As far as I understand, Ras Tafari Makonen is the second coming of Jesus according to rastafarians, right? You also say he is the 'head creator', I don't understand that.

Nobody _needs_ to go as far as to compare the two. However, for many people in this world, the scriptures (in particular Kebra Nagast and Book of Revelations) show, how the lineage of King David and the Ark of the Covenant came to Ethiopia, and how the blood of king David came to flow in Selassie I veins, and how the prophecies of the second coming of the Christ are fulfilled. Certainly I have no more authority to say these people are right than our estimated moderator has to say they're wrong.

And anyway, "Roots Archives", it doesn't work the way you described. If you believe in Jesus, you are by no means _obligated_ to believe in H.I.M although it is possible. But, if you _do_ sight H.I.M. as the almighty Head Creator, you have to sight Christ as well, as H.I.M is also the head of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, and characterized by outsiders as a "devout christian". I'm not sure if Christ himself can be dubbed that - but if not He, who then? Obviously, the latter part of this reasoning stands only provided that you intuitively and honestly sight H.I.M. as the living JAH, YHWH incarnate. Otherwise, don't bother your mind too much

And for the ones that don't sight H.I.M as anything more than a "deceased" ex-emperor of Ethiopia, don't you worry nor don't you fret. If you have clean hands, a pure heart, and nuff love for your fellow man and every living thing, your soul is most definitely safe regardless of your beliefs. "No man can question the faith of others, as no man can fathom the mysteries of the realm of God."

Alonsoreggae: I think there are Ras TafarI bredren still, who don't sight Jesus (and hence don't think that H.I.M is a second coming of anyone), but to I this is just plain illogical and illiterate, when H.I.M speaks _nuff_ about Jesus as the son of the most High. And then again, if ones believe that H.I.M is the living and dreadful JAH, how come ones fail even to read his words, or to put them to action?

Head Creator as an expression means simply the Creator (of all things alive or dead, born or unborn etc.), but is emphasizing that the bearer of the title is the First and the principal creator. However, this expression is also a (rather fitting) translation from the Amharic language, as "ras" stands for "head" (or a prince) and "tafari" for "creator" (or "one to be feared").

Further reasoning begs (at least) one question: how can _a man_ be likened unto this Almighty, All-powerful force that gave birth to all, _is_ all, and will come to end all? InI answer: because H.I.M is _one_. One with the Almighty. For a metaphysical study of this one-ness, I recommend the bible as a good starting point. Check, for instance, John 14, 15 and 17.

Guidance and love.

I would like to add some meditation about the Bible still, for to explain how Ras TafarI sons and daughters can read and recommend the Bible while burning down Vatican at the same time.

For one, the scriptures are ancient and there are many copies from divers times that survived still, so apart from little mishaps transformation-wise, it is rather impossible to distort the message without anyone noticing; nuff impartial scientists/theologists are working even as I'm writing this, with solely the interest of uncovering the ancient wordsound, without promoting any set religion or doctrine.

So why we have to be careful with the scriptures? Because of canonization. This was the true Roman trick: that the time of miracles is over, go and check what God said unto Moses from the Bible, read how Jesus did this and that, but don't you go expecting any supernaturalities in this time, just come into our house and check us if you want to pay your respects to the guy upstairs.

If one believes truly in the Supreme, what reason would one have to believe that He disappeared or otherwise got bored to meddle with puny humans? What reason has man to believe that the time of the prophets is over? For one, we live; JAH is in us and all around us, He speaks thru all ages, thru _us_. So how can a man or a group of men tell us that Bible is "done"? And moreover, why are we buying it?

Other trick that the Romans pulled was to rule out some scriptures. Some are considered apocrypha (actually this word means literally "not written by the stated author" instead of the commonly used, "not part of the canon"), and appear as such in some collections of the church, but even from the official apocrypha are missing plain _crucial_ texts like Kebra Nagast (which is part of the Ethiopian Bible). Many consider Kebra Nagast to be nothing more than a fairy tale of a nation, but check who are the Ethiopian Falasha jews, and you have physical proof that these things took place. Not to mention the ark...

Some apocrypha are to confuse us: consider the books of Maccabees. Catholics regard these books as part of the apocrypha and the last books somehow belonging to the old testament legacy, but in Ethiopia there exist the books of Meqabyan, that are completely different text, although the general belief seems to hold that these are the one and the same books. In truth, the principal figures of the book of Maccabees appear in roughly one chapter of the books of Meqabyan. There is a pretty recent English translation of the Ethiopian books of Meqabyan for sale as a .pdf document, google it up if interested.

I would really love to have an English translation of the Ethiopian Bible. Does one exist, anyone?

Anyway, about the Bible and its relation to the Ethiopian Bible, do check Selassie I words about the Bible - just google up "Selassie I bible speech". There is deep-going revelation in those words - the more you start to do research about it, the more you see how H.I.M words ring true.

I apologize for the off topic meditation. Guidance and love still, especially for the moderators