The Bible writers identify many different groups living in and near the Middle East from very roughly 2,000 BC (BCE) to about 100 AD (CE). One noteworthy listing is found early in the text, in Genesis 10. It lists 70 “nations” or people groups. Part of the list reads this way:
Canaan was the father of Sidon his firstborn, and of the Hittites, the Jebusites, Amorites, Girgashites, Hivites, Arkites, Sinites, Arvadites, Zemarites and Hamathites. Later the Canaanite clans scattered and the borders of Canaan reached from Sidon toward Gerar as far as Gaza, and then toward Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboyim, as far as Lasha.
A number of these groups, such as the Hittites, are also known from non-biblical sources, and some of the locations named exist up to our own time.
Some commentators refer to this list as “mythological”. Often, they do this without defining “myth”. They don’t show the differences between biblical “myth”, Greek myth, far Eastern sacred stories, or stories from Canada’s First Nations.
Much further along in the Bible, in Acts chapter 2, another list appears. This list reveals where many Jewish communities had been established and where faith in the Jewish Jesus Christ was taking root.
…Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs…
Here we find a strong suggestion of Black people in the biblical record. Libya is named, which brings us to North Africa, and presumably to people who were darker skinned than the Israelite-Jewish authors of these texts.
The presence of Black people in the Bible doesn’t end in Acts 2. It doesn’t even begin there. It is possible that the wife of the famous Moses in the Bible was Black since she is identified as a Cushite, and scholars note that Cush is an ancient name for a region of Africa, likely Ethiopia or Sudan. Some other possible Black figures include the Queen of Sheba (1 Kings 10:1), Simon of Cyrene (Matthew 27:32), and “Simeon called Niger” (Acts 13:1; “niger” or “nigreos” is Latin for black). Sheba is possibly another name for Ethiopia.
In Acts chapter 8, an Ethiopian “court official” appears and joins the Christian movement. He was a “eunuch” which means that he had been castrated so he could be left in charge of women in the royal court. He served “Candace, queen of the Ethiopians”, which brings us directly into the royal house of his people.
So, absolutely, among the many people groups in the Bible, Black people seem to appear prominently. Some of them are royalty.
While Black converts to the Jewish and Christian faith appear in the Bible, there is no mention of people from Asia, or the Americas. Greeks and Romans are mentioned in the parts of the Bible written post-Jesus. But White Central and Northern Europeans are completely absent.
In modern times, biblical faith includes people from virtually every nation and race. But looking beyond the Middle East, you could say that after the Jews, Black people were the first in.