The ''Holy Piby'', also known as the Black Man's Bible, is a text written by an

Anguilla Anguilla ( ) is a British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean. It is one of the most northerly of the Leeward Islands in the Lesser Antilles, lying east of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands and directly north of Saint Martin. The territo ...

Robert Athlyi Rogers Robert Athlyi Rogers (6 May 1891 – 24 August 1931), born in Anguilla, was the author of the '' Holy Piby'', and founder of the "Afro-Athlican Constructive Church". Biography He was born on the island of Anguilla on 6 May 1891, and immigrated ...

(d. 1931), for the use of an Afrocentric

religion Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...

in the

West Indies The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greater A ...

founded by Rogers in the 1920s, known as the Afro-Athlican Constructive Gaathly. The

theology Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...

outlined in this work saw

Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...

ns (in the classical sense of all Africans) as the chosen people of God. The church preached self-reliance and self-determination for Africans, using the Piby as its guiding document.

Content

The ''Holy Piby'' is made up of four books. The first, entitled "The First Book of Athlyi Called Athlyi", has only two chapters. The next, "The Second Book of Athlyi Called Aggregation", is the largest, with fifteen chapters, the seventh of which identifies Marcus Garvey as one of three apostles of God. The "Third Book of Athlyi Named The Facts of the Apostles" presents two prominent members of the

UNIA-ACL The Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL) is a black nationalist fraternal organization founded by Marcus Garvey, a Jamaican immigrant to the United States, and Amy Ashwood Garvey. The Pan-African o ...

Robert Lincoln Poston Robert T. Lincoln Poston (February 25, 1891 – March 16, 1924) was an African-American newspaper editor and journalist, who was an activist in Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). He died at sea as he returned from a UNI ...

and

Henrietta Vinton Davis Henrietta Vinton Davis (August 25, 1860 – November 23, 1941) was an African-American elocutionist, dramatist, and impersonator. In addition to being "the premier actor of all nineteenth-century black performers on the dramatic stage", Davis ...

,God spoke to his Apostles

Internet Sacred Text Archive The Internet Sacred Text Archive (ISTA) is a Santa Cruz, California-based website dedicated to the preservation of electronic public domain religious texts. History The website was first opened to the public on March 9, 1999 by John Bruno Hare ...

, Last Accessed May 24, 2007. as the other apostles in the

Holy Trinity The Christian doctrine of the Trinity (, from 'threefold') is the central dogma concerning the nature of God in most Christian churches, which defines one God existing in three coequal, coeternal, consubstantial divine persons: God the F ...

. The title of the last book is "The Fourth Book of Athlyi Called Precaution". That book is followed by a series of

catechism A catechism (; from grc, κατηχέω, "to teach orally") is a summary or exposition of doctrine and serves as a learning introduction to the Sacraments traditionally used in catechesis, or Christian religious teaching of children and adult c ...

-style questions and answers wherein Garvey, Davis and Poston are proclaimed to be the saviors of the "down trodden children of

History

Rastafari movement

Together with the '' Royal Parchment Scroll of Black Supremacy'' by Fitz Balintine Pettersburg and Leonard P. Howell's '' The Promise Key'', the ''Holy Piby'' is today recognized as a root document of Rastafari thought. While not strictly speaking a "Rastafari text", it was certainly a primary source of influence to many in the Rastafari movement, who see

Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia Haile Selassie I ( gez, ቀዳማዊ ኀይለ ሥላሴ, Qädamawi Häylä Səllasé, ; born Tafari Makonnen; 23 July 189227 August 1975) was Emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974. He rose to power as Regent Plenipotentiary of Ethiopia (' ...

, as the

second coming The Second Coming (sometimes called the Second Advent or the Parousia) is a Christian (as well as Islamic and Baha'i) belief that Jesus will return again after his ascension to heaven about two thousand years ago. The idea is based on messi ...

Christ Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, names and titles), was ...

. Some Rastafari see Emperor Haile Selassie I as Christ in His Kingly Character as written in the

Book of Revelation The Book of Revelation is the final book of the New Testament (and consequently the final book of the Christian Bible). Its title is derived from the first word of the Koine Greek text: , meaning "unveiling" or "revelation". The Book of R ...

, Chapter 5 and regard Marcus Mosia Garvey as a

prophet In religion, a prophet or prophetess is an individual who is regarded as being in contact with a divine being and is said to speak on behalf of that being, serving as an intermediary with humanity by delivering messages or teachings from the s ...

References

External links

Electronic text of the ''Holy Piby'' at sacred-texts.com
{{Authority control Rastafarian texts Anguillan culture 1924 non-fiction books