ONLINE ACADEMY
COMING FALL 2024
This curriculum contains 8 On-demand courses. Upon completion, continuing education college credits will be offered by Virginia Union University, and certification as a Bible is Black History Instructor from TBIBH Institute.
Each module is 9 sessions, including:
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7 sessions of instruction,
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1 session for the final examination review, and
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1 session for the final.
6 - 8 hours of self-paced learning per session, entirely online
ABOUT THE CURRICULUM
The notion that the biblical Israelites were comprised of an African-based ethnically mixed community—one that would have been classified as Black by modern racial standards—has been a quiet narrative in Black Christian spaces since the Europeans forced Christianity upon West Africans in North America. The nineteenth-century former slave Bishop Henry McNeal Turner offered the first notable theological vocalization of biblical blackness. He said, "We had rather believe in no God, or … believe that all nature is God than to believe in the personality of a God, and not to believe that He is a Negro." Albert Cleage's 1968 public proclamation cited that Jesus and the entire Israelite family were Black. To be sure, this view has always been a part of the conversation in Black Christianity. The works of respected scholars such as Cain Hope Felder’s Troubling Biblical Waters, Walter McCray’s Black Presence In the Bible, Thomas Oden’s How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind, and others have lent their genius to legitimize the emergent Black biblical Presence proposition. These (and others) have incorporated this notion into the mainstream Christian conversation, and it can no longer be ignored.
Therefore, the contention that biblical Israelites were a Black community is not going away. Still, the demands for its legitimacy and mainstreaming into the Christian narrative, particularly by the Black church, have reached critical mass. The “Bible is Black History Institute” created its online academy to address this matter. The curriculum's development includes contributions from Black scholars, pastors, and vocational ministry practitioners from various walks of life. It is designed to address biblical topics that may have been unintentionally ignored or intentionally censored over the centuries. It provides a powerful counter-narrative to oppressive white evangelicalism, along with its white biblical iconography, which for the past five hundred years has been the accepted mainstream theological position for Western Christianity.
Presently, this curriculum is not offered in colleges, universities, or theological seminaries worldwide; only here at the Bible is Black History Online Academy.
WHAT THE PROGRAM COVERS
This program offers four nine-week quarters of college-level courses—two classes per quarter. Each of these on-demand classes comprises a reading assignment, a lecture, a YouTube video contributing to the session's theme, a class discussion with your virtual cohorts, and a test. The tests are primarily multiple-choice, multiple-select, and true-false, with a few short answers and essays.
The scholarly content covers the biblical origins of modern humans using biblical, DNA, archeological, and historical evidence to advance our claim that the mother and father of biblical history (namely, Adam and Eve) were people who would have been considered Black by modern racial standards. We will also consider the origins of European and African Jewries, the Hebrew migration to interior Africa, Black biblical presence's impact on Black theology, the African influence upon the birth of the New Testament church in Acts 2, and more!
A POWERFUL COLLABORATION
The Bible is Black History Online Academy has partnered with the School of Theology at Virginia Union University's Evan Smith Continuing Education Program. By so doing, we will offer certificates of completion and continuing education units to successful participants.
WHAT YOU WILL LEARN
WHO YOU'LL LEARN FROM
YOUR ONLINE ACADEMY FACULTY PRESENTERS
WHO SHOULD ENROLL IN THE ACADEMY
This online academy is designed to provide an educational experience that reimagines the biblical story as told by the ancient Black Hebrews. The story is about how Black people understood Yahweh’s being at work in their communities as they strove for liberation and independence, and how that reality empowers Black Bible readers today.
Through this initiative, our goal is to serve the needs of people seeking a deeper understanding and greater appreciation of Blacks’ role in salvation history. It will also equip those seeking to supplement their knowledge base so that they will feel competent enough to teach it.
Eventually, our hope is that this study can serve as the standard Christian education curriculum for the church, or be augmented for special educational occasions such as Vacation Bible School, Black History Month, the Juneteenth celebration, or whatever the church desires.
HOW YOU'LL LEARN
Every course is broken down into manageable on-demand modules to accelerate your learning process through diverse learning activities:
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Work through your downloadable books written by Dr. Williams and articles provided by the Institute and the assigned books you'll be responsible for securing.
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Interact with your peers and cohort leaders through weekly class-wide forums and review small group discussions.
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Enjoy a wide range of interactive content, including video lectures, YouTube content, peer reviews, and more.
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Apply what you learn to quizzes, building instructional platforms, culminating in establishing your own The Bible is Black History study curriculum that could be share in schools, community organizations, churches, and other sectarian and non-sectarian spaces.
TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS
BASIC REQUIREMENTS
In order to complete this program, you'll need a current email account and access to a computer and the internet, as well as a PDF Reader. You may need to view Microsoft PowerPoint presentations, and read and create documents in Microsoft Word or Excel. You will also need an e-book reader. All of Dr. Williams' books that are required in this course will be included in the tuition and will be delivered electronically to your e-book reader.
BROWSER REQUIREMENTS
We recommend that you use Google Chrome as your internet browser when accessing the Online Campus. Although this is not a requirement, we have found that this browser performs best for ease of access to course material. This browser can be downloaded here.
ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS
Certain courses may require additional software and resources. These additional software and resource requirements will be reiterated to aspirants upon registration and/or at the beginning of the program. Please note that Google, Vimeo, and YouTube may be used in our course delivery. If these cyber-services are blocked in your jurisdiction, you may have difficulty accessing the course content. Please check with an enrollment adviser before registering for this program if you have any concerns about this affecting your experience with the Online Campus.
PUBLICATIONS
Research provides evidence that Adam was a Black man and that Eden was in East Africa.
DNA evidence confirms that the world's first man, who the Bible identifies as Adam, was a Black man from Africa.
Young people are becoming increasingly curious as to what role, if any, people of African descent played in biblical history... or if the Bible is devoid of Black presence and is merely a book by Europeans, about Europeans, and for Europeans to the exclusion of other races and ethnicities.
Dr. Theron D. Williams makes a significant contribution to this conversation by answering the difficult questions this generation fearlessly poses. He also shares historical images from the ancient catacombs that vividly depict the true likeness of the biblical Israelites. This book does not change the biblical text, but it will change how you understand it.
MEDIA
THE BIBLE IS THE SACRED HISTORY OF THE HEBREW PEOPLE.
THIS HOLY COMMUNITY WAS COMPRISED OF BLACK PEOPLE.
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