bOb MaRlEy diiEd A cHRiStiAN

A few months before his death from Cancer,

Bob Marley was baptized in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.

 

He took the name Berhane Selassie which means,

“The Light of the Holy Trinity” in Amharic.

 

His Christian mother, Cedella,

said that his final words were:

“Jesus, take me.” 

Bob Marley’s Song “One Love”

“Give thanks and praise to the Lord and I will feel all right;
Let’s get together and feel all right.
Give thanks and praise to the Lord and I will feel all right;
Let’s get together and feel all right.”

                       -Some of the Lyrics of the Song, “One Love”                                                        (From his Album: “Exodus”)                                    ____________________

 

Greatest Album of the 20th Century / Song of the Millennium

Time magazine chose Bob Marley & The Wailers’ “Exodus” as the greatest album of the 20th century.

“One Love” was named song of the millennium by The BBC.    ____________________

 

Enormously Popular All Over the World 

Bob Marley’s music has continuously grown in popularity in the years since his death…affording him a mythical status in music history.   His posthumous album “Legend” (1984) became the best-selling Reggae album ever, with sales of more than 12 million copies.  

 

He remains enormously popular and well-known all around the world.  Marley was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.

 

Bob Marley was noted for being a member of the Rastafarian religion, which he joined around age 14.  Rastafari wear their hair in dreadlocks, worship the late Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie as God (now deceased — when Haile Selassie was still living, he himself deplored and denied this) and use marijuana as their “communion sacrament.”

____________________

 

As a Rastafarian He Refused Amputation

In July 1977, Bob Marley was found to have malignant melanoma in a Football (Soccer) wound on his right big toe.  Marley refused amputation, citing worries that the operation would affect his dancing, as well as the Rastafarian belief that the body must be “whole”:

 

“Rasta no abide amputation.  It don’t allow a man to be dismantled.”

-From the Biography: “Catch A Fire”

 

The cancer eventually spread to Marley’s brain, lungs, liver, and stomach.  After playing two shows at Madison Square Garden as part of his Fall 1980 Uprising Tour, he collapsed while jogging in New York’s Central Park. The remainder of the tour was subsequently cancelled.

 

Bob Marley played his final concert at the Stanley Theater in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on September 23rd, 1980. The live version of “Redemption Song” on “Songs of Freedom” was recorded at this show.  

 

    He afterwards sought medical help from Munich, Germany specialist Josef Issels, but his cancer had already progressed to the terminal stage.

____________________

 

Bob Marley Died a Christian: Converted to Christ and Baptized Before His Death

 

“But I’ll never forget, no way: they crucified Jesus Christ;”

        -From his Song: “So Much Things to Say”        

 

A few months before his death from Cancer, Bob Marley was baptized in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, and took the name Berhane Selassie (which means: “The Light of the Holy Trinity” in Amharic).

 

According to his Christian mother, Cedella, his final words were, “Jesus, take me.” 

_____________________________________________________

 

Bob’s Wife, Rita Marley, Converts to Christ

Rita Marley, Bob Marley’s wife, was also baptized in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and is currently a Deaconess in that Church, helping to start new Ethiopian Orthodox Churches in Africa.

 

(Historical Note: the Ethiopian Orthodox Church is one of the Coptic Orthodox Churches that rejected the decision of the Council of Chalcedon in 451 A.D., and is therefore not in communion with the Orthodox Christian Church Communions of Greece, and throughout the world. 

_____________________________________________________

 

Bob’s Backup Singer, Judy Mowatt, Receives Christ 

In a Thomasos interview on Cross Rhythms radio given by Judy Mowatt, a longtime backup singer for Marley in the “I Threes” with Rita Marley:

 

“Mowatt spoke with her former bandmate and Marley’s wife, Rita, about the late musician calling out to Jesus Christ on his death bed.” 

“Rita called me on the phone and said to me that Bob was in such excruciating pain and he stretched out his hand and said, ‘Jesus take me.’  I was wondering to myself, ‘Why is it that Bob said Jesus and not Selassie?’”

 

Mowatt became what she calls a “fulfilled Rasta,” according to Lion of Zion,

 

“…by becoming a born-again Christian.  She believes that Selassie was a very godly man, but was not God.  This belief was backed by two recordings that she possessed that were interviews with Selassie in which he discussed the fact that Rastafarians revered him as God, yet he clearly denied being God.

 

Those recordings are featured on Christian reggae singer Christafari’s “Why You Ago Look.”

____________________

 

Bob Marley’s Funeral

Marley received a State Funeral in Jamaica.  Prime Minister Edward Seaga delivered the eulogy, declaring:

 

“His voice was an omnipresent cry in our electronic world.  His sharp features, majestic looks, and prancing style a vivid etching on the landscape of our minds.  

 

Bob Marley was never seen.  He was an experience which left an indelible imprint with each encounter.  Such a man cannot be erased from the mind.  He is part of the collective consciousness of the nation.”

 

According to the London Guardian Newspaper:

 

“The day of the funeral began with an hour-long service for family and close friends at the Ethiopian Orthodox Church of the Holy Trinity on Maxfield Avenue, presided over by His Eminence Abuna Yesehaq, the Church’s Archbishop in the western hemisphere, who had baptized Marley in New York the previous November, just after his last triumphal concerts at Madison Square Garden.

 

At the end of the short service the coffin was transported to the National Arena, where the 6,000-strong congregation was assembling under the eyes of cameras and reporters from around the world.”        

 

Archbishop Yesehaq addressed claims that Marley’s terminal cancer was the motivation behind his conversion:

 

“When he toured Los Angeles and New York and England, he preached the Orthodox faith, and many members in those cities came to the church because of Bob,” Yesehaq said.

 

“Many people think he was baptized because he knew he was dying, but that is not so.  He did it when there was no longer any pressure on him, and when he was baptized, he hugged his family and wept, they all wept together for about half an hour.”

_____________________________________________________

 

Main Source: Beliefnet.com

Enter the words: Bob Marley Died a Christian in a Search Engine to find listings of Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, and Fan Sites containing additional confirmation and information.  

 

Enter the words: Gospel Reggae or Christian Reggae to find Christian Reggae Singers and Music.

The 11 Ethiopian Orthodox Churches Carved from Rock in Lalibela, Ethiopia, Date from the 7th-13th Centuries.
(Ethiopian Orthodox Church Art) "Arrival of the Magi"
"The Last Supper"
"Christ's Baptism in the Jordan River"

Click on Painting (Above) to go to our webpage: “How to Receive Christ”

"African Apostles"
"Christianity in Early Africa"
Click (Above) to go to: "Monks' Favorite Foods"
Click on Photo (Above) to go to: "Lay Monk Danny: God's Musician"

 

        “The Bible teaches that there is only one race on earth: the human race.  We are all equally descendants of

the First Man and the First Woman.”

 

-Lay Monk S.G. Preston

_____________________

                                     

                                  “And has made of one blood all nations of men                                     to dwell upon all the face of the earth…”

 

-Acts 17:26

 

youR cOmmEntS: (cAdEt MAtt K., u.S. AiR fORcE)

 

I hope to God “Bob Marley Died a Christian”, ’cause I ain’t goin’ to war unless I know that when I get killed I have someone to sing with when I get up there.

 

Anything I can pray about 4 y’all?

 

Very Respectfully, 

Matt (Cadet 4th Class Matthew K., United States Air Force

Arrival of the Magi to Worship Christ: the King of the Jews, the Son of God, the Creator, the King of the Universe

the bOOk Of HEbREWS: cHAptER 1

(With Old Testament Chapter and verse References Included)

 

“God, who at various times and in different ways spoke in times past to the Fathers by the Prophets,

 

has in these last days spoken to us by his Son, who He has appointed Heir of all things:

through Him God also made the worlds.

 

Who being the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power,

 

when he had by Himself made purification of our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high:

 

being made so much better than the angels; as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent Name than they.

 

(Continued Below)

And of the angels He says: ‘Who makes His angels spirits, and His ministers a flame of fire.’  (Psalm 104:4)

 

But to the Son He says, ‘Your throne, O God, is forever and ever: a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your kingdom.  

 

You have loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, even Your God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness above Your fellows.’  (Psalm 45:6-7)

And, You, Lord, in the beginning have laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of Your hands.  They shall perish, but You shall remain.  

 

They shall grow old like a garment; and like clothing, You shall fold them up, and they shall be changed.  But You are the same, and Your years shall not end.’              

(Psalm 102:25-27)

 

(Continued Below)

"Prayer: Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep (Versions)"

 

For to which of the angels did He at any time say, ‘You are my Son, this day I have begotten You?  (Psalm 2:7)

 

 

And again: ‘I will be to Him a Father, and He shall be to me a Son?’  (2 Samuel 7:14; 1 Chronicles 17:13)

 

And again: When He brings the Firstbegotten into the world, He says, ‘And let all the angels of God worship Him.’  (Deuteronomy 32:43, in the Septuagint, and in the Dead Sea Scrolls

 

"Christ's Judgment of Believers Is Only for Reward"

 

But to which of the angels said He at any time: ‘Sit at my right hand, until I make Your enemies Your footstool?’  (Psalm 110:1).  

 

Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for those who shall be heirs of salvation?'”     

 -Hebrews: Chapter 1

 

 

“But to you that reverence My name, the Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings;  and you shall go free, leaping about like calves let out to pasture.”

 

-Malachi 4:2

 

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