Chapter 20

Thirty Reasons

New Testament page 159 and the notes that led to it

The photograph above is a page of notes from the New Testament section of the Dake Annotated Reference Bible. The running head reads “NOTES ON ACTS OF THE APOSTLES CONTINUED,” and the page number is 159. No Bible text is printed on it. It holds Dake’s longer notes on the Book of Acts, carried over from the pages where the text of Acts is printed. The first item, at the top of the left column, has an underlined title with a verse reference on the line below it.

30 reasons for segregation of races:
(Acts 17:26) Dake’s Annotated Reference Bible, 1979 Large Note Edition, N.T. p. 159²

Under that heading come thirty numbered statements, each with its Scripture references, explaining why God wants the races kept apart. They say that mixing the races violates God’s purpose and that separation is an “eternal law” which equal rights in the gospel do not touch. They even say that in heaven “certain groups will not be allowed to worship together.” The list is filed under Acts 17:26, the verse in which Paul tells the Athenians that God made every nation of men “from one blood.”

My verdict is that this is racism printed as Bible teaching. It is false teaching, and it is sin, and it should be called both. The note was also part of a system. A pointer beside the verse sends the reader to it, the book’s own index gathers the teaching under its own headword, and notes from Genesis to Nehemiah repeat it and point back to page 159. Below are the page, the thirty reasons in their own order, the notes around them, and the dates. Chapter 21 answers the note from Scripture, and Chapter 22 tells what happened to the page after Dake died.

I got my first Dake Bible in 1987, the year I became a Christian, and over the years I have collected about a dozen printings, from the first full edition onward. The photograph above comes from my 1979 Large Note Edition. My 1965 printing carries the note in identical wording. Appendix B transcribes the whole note, so you can check every quotation here against it.³

Where the note sits

A reference Bible ties its notes to verses. In this one, the verse comes first, on the Bible-text page, and a small letter beside it points to a note in the margin. When a note grew too long for the margin, it was set on a notes page at the end of the book’s section, with the verse reference in parentheses under its title.⁴ The parenthesis on page 159 is that anchor, and it tells the reader which verse the list explains.

Acts 17:26 itself is printed on New Testament page 144. In the NKJV the verse reads this way.

And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, . . . Acts 17:26 (NKJV)⁵

Beside the verse on page 144 stands note c. It is the whole of the note.

See 30 reasons for segregation of races, p. 159 Dake’s Annotated Reference Bible, 1979 Large Note Edition, N.T. p. 144, note c (Acts 17:26)⁶

So a reader studying Paul’s sermon in Athens meets the words “one blood,” sees the letter c, turns to page 159, and finds thirty reasons for keeping the races apart. The pointer presents the list as the meaning of the verse.

The same pages hold two other notes on the same sermon, and they are worth setting beside the list. On page 144, Dake’s own summary of the doctrines of God in Acts 17 includes the line “Made all men of one kind (v 26).” On page 159, in the right-hand column, his note on the word “offspring” in verse 29 closes with these two sentences.

All descended from Adam who was created by God to reproduce his kind (Gen. 1:26-28). In this sense only are we the offspring of God Dake’s Annotated Reference Bible, 1979 Large Note Edition, N.T. p. 159, note “Offspring (Acts 17:29)”⁷

The page that teaches separation as an eternal law also teaches that every human being descends from Adam. Dake set both on one page and did not explain how they fit together.

A Bible written for teachers

A note in a study Bible carries weight that a note in a pamphlet does not. It is bound into the same book as the Scripture, printed in the same type, and carried to church under the same cover. Most readers know in principle that the notes are one man’s comments. In practice the note under a verse often becomes what the verse means to them. Dake’s Preface said plainly whom the book was for.

Sunday school teachers and scholars will find much herein to help them with the weekly lesson. Dake’s Annotated Reference Bible, 1979 Large Note Edition, Preface (unnumbered front matter), first page⁸

Picture a Sunday school teacher in the 1960s preparing next week’s lesson on Acts 17. Someone in the class is likely to ask about the question many American churches were facing, who may sit together and who may marry whom. The teacher has no Greek and no seminary training. He reads the verse, follows the letter c to page 159, and finds a numbered answer with Scripture after every point. Nothing on the page tells him he has left the Bible and entered one man’s opinion.

The form of the list matters too. Dake stated his method in the same Preface, in capital letters.

The general principle adhered to throughout is that of literalizing instead of spiritualizing. Statements of fact and historical accounts are accepted as such. THE RULE OBSERVED IS: Take the Bible literally wherein it is at all possible; if symbolic, figurative or typical language is used, then look for the literal truth it intends to convey. Dake’s Annotated Reference Bible, 1979 Large Note Edition, Preface (unnumbered front matter), second page⁹

A little further down the same page he says what he meant to do with that rule.

In the preparation of this work, therefore, the aim has been to prove the teachings of the side-columns with plain Bible references; and now, the reader is invited to see for himself what these related passages actually say on any given subject of the notes. Dake’s Annotated Reference Bible, 1979 Large Note Edition, Preface (unnumbered front matter), second page¹⁰

The thirty reasons follow that plan exactly. They make no appeal to custom or social order. Each claim stands on its references, in the form Dake used for doctrine on every other page of the book. The list is offered as doctrine proved from the Bible by the method the Preface promised, and that is what makes it serious. Chapter 4 examines that method, and the Preface’s invitation to check the references is one I accept in Chapter 21.

The thirty reasons in their own order

Here is the note itself, quoted in the order it is printed and divided into five groups so that the argument can be followed. Nothing is reordered or left out. The note uses the racial vocabulary of its day, and I reproduce those words only inside quotation marks.

Reasons 1–4: creation and “kind”

1 God wills all races to be as He made them. Any violation of God's original purpose manifests insubordination to Him (17:26; Rom. 9:19-24)
2 God made everything to reproduce "after his own kind" (Gen. 1:11-12, 21-25; 6:20; 7:14). Kind means type and color or He would have kept them all alike to begin with
3 God originally determined the bounds of the habitations of nations (17:26; Gen. 10:5, 32; 11:8; Dt. 32:8)
4 Miscegenation means the mixture of races, especially the black and white races, or those of outstanding type or color. The Bible even goes farther than opposing this. It is against different branches of the same stock intermarrying such as Jews marrying other descendants of Abraham (Ezra 9-10; Neh. 9-13; Jer. 50:37; Ezek. 30:5) Dake’s Annotated Reference Bible, 1979 Large Note Edition, N.T. p. 159, reasons 1–4¹¹

The note opens at creation. The races, it says, are as God made them, and to mix them is to rebel against Him. Reason 2 carries the weight of the whole list. Genesis 1 uses the word “kind” for plants and animals, and the note makes it mean “type and color” among people. Genesis never uses the word of human beings. When the chapter reaches mankind, it says that God made man in His own image, male and female.¹² Reason 4 goes further still and says the Bible opposes marriage even between branches of Abraham’s own family, although its references from Ezra and Nehemiah concern Israel marrying the pagan nations around it.¹³

Reasons 5–13: the patriarchs and the law

5 Abraham forbad Eliezer to take a wife for Isaac of Canaanites (Gen. 24:1-4). God was so pleased with this that He directed whom to get (Gen. 24:7, 12-67)
6 Isaac forbad Jacob to take a wife of the Canaanites (Gen. 27:46-28:7)
7 Abraham sent all his sons of the concubines, and even of his second wife, far away from Isaac so their descendants would not mix (Gen. 25:1-6)
8 Esau disobeying this law brought the final break between him and his father after lifelong companionship with him (Gen. 25:28; 26:34-35; 27:46; 28:8-9)
9 The two branches of Isaac remained segregated forever (Gen. 36; 46:8-26)
10 Ishmael and Isaac's descendants remained segregated forever (Gen. 25:12-23; 1 Chr. 1:29)
11 Jacob's sons destroyed a whole city to maintain segregation (Gen. 34).
12 God forbad intermarriage between Israel and all other nations (Ex. 34:12-16; Dt. 7:3-6)
13 Joshua forbad the same thing on sentence of death (Josh. 23:12-13) Dake’s Annotated Reference Bible, 1979 Large Note Edition, N.T. p. 159, reasons 5–13

This group reads the family stories of Genesis as a standing law of racial separation. Abraham sends his servant to find Isaac a wife, Esau marries women who grieve his parents, and each story becomes a rule for every race in every age. Reasons 9 and 10 report no command at all. They report that two family lines stayed apart, and the outcome is taken as proof of God’s will.

Reason 11 is the hardest to read. In Genesis 34, Simeon and Levi kill the men of Shechem after their sister is violated. Their father rebukes them for it, and on his deathbed he curses their anger.¹⁴ The note offers the massacre as an example of maintaining segregation. Another list in the same Bible says it more bluntly: “A whole nation was destroyed because they sought to integrate (Gen.34).”¹⁵

Reasons 14–18: curse and command

14 God cursed angels for leaving their own "first estate" and "their own habitation" to marry the daughters of men (Gen. 6:1-4; 2 Pet. 2:4; Jude 6-7)
15 Miscegenation caused Israel to be cursed (Judg. 3:6-7; Num. 25:1-8)
16 This was Solomon's sin (1 Ki. 11)
17 This was the sin of Jews returning from Babylon (Ezra 9:1-10:2, 10-18, 44; 13:1-30)
18 God commanded Israel to be segregated (Lev. 20:24; Num. 23:9; 1 Ki. 8:53) Dake’s Annotated Reference Bible, 1979 Large Note Edition, N.T. p. 159, reasons 14–18¹⁶

Here mixing brings a curse, and separation is a divine command. Reason 14 reaches back to the angels of Genesis 6, whom Dake reads as spirit beings who took human wives, and presents their judgment as a warning against marriage across racial lines.¹⁷ The passages in reasons 15 through 17 tell of Israel turning to the gods of the nations it married into, and the note keeps the marriages while leaving out the gods.

Reasons 19–23: separation forever

At this point the list turns from history to eternity.

Reason 19 answers the objection before anyone raises it. A Christian reader will say that the gospel makes believers equal. The note grants the point and then sets it aside: “Equal rights in the gospel gives no right to break this eternal law.” The phrase “eternal law” is the note’s own name for its doctrine, and no verse uses it.¹⁸ Reasons 20, 21 and 23 then carry the separation past death and into the new creation. It holds “in all eternity,” the nations stay apart “forever,” and in heaven itself “certain groups will not be allowed to worship together.”

Reasons 24–30: animals, seed, cloth, and the church

24 Segregation was so strong in the O. T. that an ox and an ass could not be worked together (Dt. 22:10)
25 Miscegenation caused disunity among God's people (Num. 12)
26 Stock was forbidden to be bred with other kinds (Lev. 19:19)
27 Sowing mixed seed in the same field was unlawful (Lev. 19:19)
28 Different seeds were forbidden to be planted in vineyards (Dt. 22:9)
29 Wearing garments of mixed fabrics forbidden (Dt. 22:11; Lev. 19:19)
30 Christians and certain other people of a like race are to be segregated (Mt. 18:15-17; 1 Cor. 5:9-13; 6:15; 2 Cor. 6:14-18; Eph. 5:11; 2 Th. 3:6-16; 1 Tim. 6:5; 2 Tim. 3:5) Dake’s Annotated Reference Bible, 1979 Large Note Edition, N.T. p. 159, reasons 24–30

The laws of Israel about yoking animals, breeding stock, sowing fields and weaving cloth are read here as rules about people. Reason 25 cites Numbers 12, where Miriam and Aaron speak against Moses because of his Cushite wife. There is disunity in that chapter, and it comes from the two who object to the marriage. God rebukes Miriam and Aaron.¹⁹ Reason 30 brings the list into the church. Its references deal with church discipline, with false teachers, and with believers yoked to unbelievers. They concern a person’s faith and conduct, and none of them mentions anyone’s descent.²⁰

Taken as a whole, the list moves through the Bible in order. It starts at creation, passes through the patriarchs and the law of Moses, rises to the age to come and to heaven, comes back down to farming and weaving, and ends in the church. A reader who follows it from top to bottom has been told that racial separation runs from Genesis to Revelation and binds the Christian today.

The note did not stand alone

The note on page 159 belongs to a larger system. The back of the book holds a Concordance and Cyclopedic Index, and the index has a headword for the subject.

Segregation. S. in Eastern cities, e 16-1
Fear of integration, j 20-4
Abraham's command about, o 21-4
Charge to keep s., g 26-4; r 33-1; b 33-4; k 100-1
S. in Egypt, d 47-1
S. defied by man, 60, col. 2, pt. 7
12 reasons God segregated Israel, 108
Laws of s., 114; h 140-4; f 221-1
31 facts on s. by Moses, 148
S. even among tribes of Israel, f 155-4
Israel a people of s., c 183-1
4 reasons for total s., a 207-1
God's will in s., g-h 232-1
10 acts regarding s., a 513-4
30 reasons for s., 159* Dake’s Annotated Reference Bible, 1979 Large Note Edition, Concordance and Cyclopedic Index, p. 100²¹

This is the book’s own map of the teaching. Someone gathered the notes that taught the separation of peoples and filed them under one word so that a reader could find them all. The entry has fifteen sub-entries. Its Old Testament pages run from Genesis to Nehemiah, and its last line, marked with a star for the New Testament, points to page 159. A second headword, for the opposite idea, points back to the same place.

Integration, a curse to Israel, s 262-4. See Segregation Dake’s Annotated Reference Bible, 1979 Large Note Edition, Concordance and Cyclopedic Index, p. 60²²

Abraham’s command, made a rule for all races

The third line of the entry sends the reader to Genesis 24, where Abraham tells his servant not to take a Canaanite wife for Isaac. Reason 5 rests on that story. The note on the story itself says this.

Here we have Abraham's definite command regarding the segregation of his race. Such has been and always will be the will of God for all distinct races. See Segregation in Index Dake’s Annotated Reference Bible, 1979 Large Note Edition, O.T. p. 21, note o (Genesis 24)²³

The second sentence turns one father’s instruction to one servant into the will of God “for all distinct races,” past, present and future. A page earlier, note j says the patriarchs “had a horror of inter-marriage with Canaanites” and sends the reader to “30 reasons for segregation of races, p. 158 of N.T.”²⁴

The principle behind the list

The eighth line of the entry sends the reader to Leviticus 19:19, the verse about breeding cattle, sowing mixed seed and wearing mixed cloth. Reasons 26, 27 and 29 all cite it. The note on that verse explains why, in Dake’s view, the law was given.

God wanted to show men in all ages how important it was from His standpoint, to maintain strict segregation of everything, from the minutest seeds to the greatest of His creations - man. He wished everything preserved after his kind, so that the distinct colors, types, sizes, and kinds could continue according to His plan, forever. He thus discouraged cross-breeding of animals, mixing of seeds, and integration of different peoples by commandment in accordance with His fixed and eternal law (Gen. 1:11-12, 21, 24, 26-28; 6:14, 19-20; 8:19; Dt. 32:8; Acts 17:26, note) Dake’s Annotated Reference Bible, 1979 Large Note Edition, O.T. p. 140, note h (Leviticus 19:19)²⁵

Here the thirty reasons are stated as one principle. Seeds, animals and human beings are set on one scale. The colors are to be kept distinct forever, and the law behind it all is “fixed and eternal.” The last reference in the note is “Acts 17:26, note,” so the Leviticus note sends the reader to page 159, and page 159 sends him back to Leviticus. A second note on the same page adds another pointer: “See 31 facts: segregation, p.148.”²⁶

Thirty-one facts

The list on page 148, titled “31 facts: segregation in Moses’ writings,” is longer than the one on page 159. Its first nine items come straight from Genesis 1, where grass, herbs, fish, birds, cattle, creeping things and beasts are each made after their kind. Then comes item 10.

10 Man after his kind (Gen. 1:26-28; 5:1-3; 9:6; Jas. 3:9) Dake’s Annotated Reference Bible, 1979 Large Note Edition, O.T. p. 148, “31 facts: segregation in Moses’ writings (19:19),” item 10²⁷

Genesis 1:26–28 does not say that. Those verses are where the chapter stops speaking of kinds and God says, “Let Us make man in Our image.” The list goes on to Babel, glossing Genesis 11:4 with the words “integrate and be one people contrary to God’s plan of segregation.” Dake’s note on the ages of history says the same of Babel: men “wanted to integrate and be one people to defy God.”²⁸

Four reasons, and what they are about

Line twelve of the index sends the reader to Deuteronomy 7, where Israel is told not to intermarry with the nations of Canaan. Dake’s note on the passage gives four reasons for the command.

4 reasons for total segregation:
1 They will turn away your children from following Me (v 4)
2 They will cause them to become idol worshippers, so that I will have to destroy them
3 You are a holy people unto Me (v 6)
4 I have chosen you to be a special people unto Me above all others on the face of the earth Dake’s Annotated Reference Bible, 1979 Large Note Edition, O.T. p. 207, note a (Deuteronomy 7)²⁹

Every one of the four reasons concerns idolatry, holiness or God’s choice of Israel, and none of them concerns race. Dake printed them himself, under a heading about segregation. Chapter 21 takes up what that means for the thirty reasons.

The same teaching on other pages

The pattern continues across the Old Testament notes. The note on Deuteronomy 22 says God wanted “each species of man, animals, and even seeds to be kept as segregated from each other as possible.” The note on Exodus 34:16 lists “12 reasons God segregated Israel,” and the first is “This was God’s plan for all nations.” The note on Numbers 23 says the Jews “have never intermarried with other races, except for a very few,” and “will continue to do so.” A note on the sons of Noah says the table of nations “shows clearly that God’s original plan was to have separate races of various colors and distinct types after the flood.” A note on Job says God “plans their eternal segregation within the boundaries assigned them,” and that this “will be literally enforced when the Messiah comes to reign.”³⁰

Two notes in the same Bible point the other way. On the mark of Cain, Dake wrote that “It was not a physical mark or a change of color from white to black” and that “The black race did not begin with Cain.” On Rebekah, he wrote that she cannot be a type of the church, “for she was exclusively of one race and the church includes all races.”³¹ He also used the word “segregated” in its ordinary sense in the notes on leprosy, where a leper was kept apart from healthy people.³² The index files those notes elsewhere. Under “Segregation” it gathers the notes about peoples and races.

The teaching lives in the Bible’s notes, where readers met it. Dake’s course, God’s Plan for Man, does not teach racial segregation, and his book Bible Truths Unmasked does not use the note’s word for mixing the races.³³

When it was printed

The New Testament portion of the Dake Bible, with Daniel, Psalms and Proverbs, is copyrighted 1961, and the complete Bible with notes, concordance and index is copyrighted 1963.³⁵ Those were the years of the civil rights movement. The Supreme Court ruled against segregated public schools in 1954. The Montgomery bus boycott ran from December 1955 to December 1956, and federal troops escorted Black students into Central High School in Little Rock in September 1957. The lunch-counter sit-ins began in Greensboro in February 1960. The Birmingham campaign and the March on Washington came in 1963, the Civil Rights Act in July 1964, and the Voting Rights Act in August 1965.³⁶

The note stayed in print. In August 1979, fifteen years after the Civil Rights Act, the publisher issued the first printing of the Large Note Edition. Its page 159, photographed at the head of this chapter, still printed the thirty reasons. Its index still carried the headword, and its page 144 still sent readers from Acts 17:26 to the list.³⁷

No change was made while Dake lived. He died in July 1987, and the changes began with the 1988 printing. The photographs I have show the stages that followed. The 1990 printing changed the heading to “30 reasons nations separated” and pasted softer words over the old ones, keeping all thirty reasons. The 1992 printing reset the note and rewrote it, still as thirty reasons under the same heading. The newer typeset edition replaced it with a note called “Separation in Scripture,” which restates about twenty of the old reasons in new words. The Bible itself never told its readers that the note had existed or why it changed. Chapter 22 tells that story.

Racism printed as Bible teaching

Set out plainly, here is what the original note teaches. God made the races distinct by color and type and wants them kept apart. Marriage between them is rebellion against God and brings His curse. Equal rights in the gospel do not touch this “eternal law.” The nations will stay separated forever, and in heaven some groups will not be allowed to worship together. The Christian is to keep this separation today. Each claim is printed with Scripture references, in a Bible meant for Sunday school teachers, under the verse that says God made every nation from one blood.

That is racism, the belief that God ranks and divides the human family by race, and here it is taught as the meaning of God’s Word. It is false teaching, because Scripture teaches one human race made in God’s image and one people in Christ. It is also sin, because it sets the church against its own members and calls the division holy. The care Dake took with the references does not soften it. In a study Bible, a carefully referenced error does more harm than a careless one, because readers trust it.

Questions a reader will ask

Don’t critics exaggerate what the note says?

Some critics do. The note is often described from memory, and some descriptions claim more than it says. A Dake reader who has seen a wild summary has good reason to distrust it. The answer is the page itself. It is photographed above, every reason is quoted here in its printed order and words, and Appendix B transcribes the whole note from two printings. If any sentence here goes past what the page says, the reader can see it at once. Read without any summary at all, the note still calls separation an eternal law, sets it above equal rights in the gospel, and carries it into heaven.

Didn’t everyone think that way then?

Many did not, and the ones who disagreed were reading the same Bible, as Chapter 21 shows.

One blood

The heading on page 159 names a verse, and the verse belongs to a sentence Paul did not finish at the boundaries clause.

And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; . . . Acts 17:26–27 (NKJV)³⁸

Paul was speaking to pagans in Athens. He told them that every nation came from one blood, and that God set their times and places for one purpose, so that they would seek Him and find Him. The original Dake Bible printed thirty reasons for keeping the nations apart under that sentence, and it built an index and a web of Old Testament notes to lead readers back to them. That was racism printed as Bible teaching, and it was false teaching and sin.

If you find this page in a Bible you have loved, or one handed down to you, it does not mean your faith was false or that the people who taught you were hateful. It means the notes were wrong where the verse was right. The God of Acts 17 made one human family, set each nation in its time and place so that all of them would seek Him, and is not far from any one of us. Chapter 21 opens the Scriptures behind every one of the thirty reasons and shows what that verse says back.