Black Bible Manuscripts: Why the Bible Isn't the White Man's Book

Firpo Carr is an internationally known author, historian, scholar, Bible translator, lecturer, former radio show producer, former radio show host, university instructor, documentary producer/screenwriter/director, and newspaper columnist. He has appeared as an eminent scholar on such nationally televised documentaries as "Encounters with the Unexplained: Secrets of the Bible--What Do the Dead Sea Scrolls Tell Us?" and the prime-time specials "Ancient Secrets of the Bible I," and "Ancient Secrets of the Bible II." He was also the only Black scholar to study the secret Dead Sea Scrolls, Bible documents written on African papyrus and other material. Numerous media outlets like the Los Angeles Times, and the prestigious international journal Biblical Archaeology Review, said he was also the first person to take color photographs of the oldest complete manuscript of the Hebrew Bible: the Codex Leningrad B19a. It happened in January 1989 when the Soviet government, knowing he had studied Bible languages, invited him to photograph pages from the sacred text. Aside from co-authoring an article in the scholarly peer-reviewed two-volume encyclopedia set, African American Religious Cultures (2009), Firpo has examined ancient Biblical documents in his multiple trips to several countries, and has conducted comprehensive research at the National Library of Russia, the Israel Museum (Shrine of the Book wing), the Egyptian Museum, the British Museum, and the National Museum of Ethiopia. Furthermore, he has engaged in extensive field research, having explored artifacts and ruins in various places. And as a Bible translator, he has studied little-known fragments of the book of Matthew, reportedly the oldest New Testament fragments in existence.