Dr. Ben Carson received a lot of unfavorable publicity early in his campaign to become President of the United States because of his stated belief that the Biblical story of Joseph son of Jacob was true, that there was indeed a 7-year famine in Egypt in the days of Joseph, and that one or several pyramids was connected in some way with the storage of grain supervised by Joseph.

     Genesis  37:12 "And his brethren went to feed their father's flock in Shechem."

   13 "And Israel said unto Joseph, Do not thy brethren feed the flock in Shechem?  come, and I will send thee unto them.  And he said unto him, Here am I."

    14 "And he said unto him, Go, I pray thee, see whether it be well with the flocks; and bring me word again.  So he sent him out of the vale of Hebron, and he came to Shechem.": and the man asked him, saying, What seekest thou?"

   16 "And he said, I seek my brethren: tell me, I pray thee, where they feed their flocks."

    17 "And the man said, They are departed hence; for I heard them say, Let us go to Dothan.  And Joseph went after his brethren, and found them in Dothan." 

   18 "And when they saw him afar off, even before he came near unto them, they conspired against him to slay him."

   19 "And they said one to another, behold, this dreamer cometh."

    20 "Come now therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into some pit, and we will say, Some evil beast hath devoured him: and we shall see what will become of his dreams."

    21 "And Reuben heard it, and he delivered him out oif their hands; and said, Let us not kill him."

    22 "And Reuben said unto them, Shed no blood, but cast him into this pit that is in the wilderness, and lay no hand upon him; that he might rid him out of their hands, to deliver him to his father again."

    23 "And it came to pass when Joseph was come unto his brethren, that they stript Joseph out of his coat, his coat of many colours that was on him."

    24 "And they took him, and cast him into a pit: and the pit was empty, there was no water in it."

    25 "And they sat down to eat bread; and they lifted up their eyes and looked, and, behold, a company of Ishmaelites came from Gilead with their camels bearing spicery and balm and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt."

    26 "And Judah said unto his brethren, What profit is it if we slay our brother, and conceal his blood?'

    27 "Come, and let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not our hand be upon him; for he is our brother and our flesh.  And his brethren were content."

    28 "Then there passed by Midianites merchantmen; and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver; and they brought Joseph into Egypt."

    29 "And Reuben returned unto the pit; and behold, Joseph was not in the pit; and he rent his clothes."

    30 "And he returned to his brethren, and said, The child is not; and I, whither shall I go?"

    31 "And they took Joseph's coat, and killed a kid of the goats, and dipped the the coat in the blood;"

    32 "And they sent the coat of many colours, and they brought it to their father; and said, This have we found: know now whether it be thy son's coat or no.""

    33 "And he knew it, and said, It is my son's coat; an evil beast hath devoured him; Joseph is without doubt rent in pieces."

    34 "And Jacob rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his loins, and mourned for his son many days."

    35 "And all his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted; and he said, For I will go down into the grave unto my son mourning.  Thus his father wept for him."

    The certain correspondence continues here between this second part of the "Joseph" story and what has happened in history to  Dr. Ben Carson's ancestors and distant relatives in Africa.  These Africans by and large were not captured by white men from England and Europe, but were instead sold by their own families as unwanted children or people out of favor with whoever was running the villages at the time, or with the political leaders of their country.  This was not localized to Africa, but was a common practice in the British Isles and Europe also. Indeed in a lot of "Third World" countries as I write this, people are still selling their children as slaves. Some of these children made the clothing some of us are wearing, and oriental rugs are often made by slave children, chosen for this job because their fingers are small and dexterous and they can be forced to do more work before they are too tired to continue.

     When I visited Egypt in 1989-1991 besides seeing the Pyramids, I was also shown some of these indentured children at work making rugs for the tourists.  Such a child was Joseph son of Israel almost 4000 years ago, and such a child were many of Dr. Ben Carson's ancestors and distant relatives a lot more recently.  Indeed his own mother's plight was not much better, as he has described in some of his books.  These memories are sometimes scoffed at and even called "lies" by some of his current political opponents.

      Some Democrat cartoonist made and circulated this cartoon late in 2015.

Another cartoon of Dr. Carson circulated by Democrat Opponents in late 2015

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