Obama Is Like Biblical Joshua, Boxing Promoter Don King Says
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
By Josiah Ryan, Staff Writer
President Barack Obama (CNSNews.com/Josiah Ryan)(CNSNews.com) - President Barack Obama is similar to the Biblical character of Joshua and Martin Luther King Jr. was like Moses, boxing promoter Don King told CNSNews.com on Tuesday.
Celebrities, including Jay-Z, Smokey Robinson, Don King, Denzel Washington, and Oprah Winfrey, spoke with CNSNews.com in the hours before the inauguration just a few feet from the rostrum where Obama was sworn-in as the nation’s 44th president. They spoke about how Obama had changed their lives and which Biblical character they think he most resembles.
Actor Denzel Washington“I would say that he would be Joshua going across to the Promised Land,” King told CNSNews.com. “Martin Luther King Jr. went to the mountaintop like Moses, and he said, ‘I might not get there with you, but I can see the Promised Land.’ But we gonna’ get to the Promised Land. So Joshua carried them across. Martin Luther King, Jr. was prevented from going into the Promised Land.”
“There are so many Biblical figures who had the same task,” popular R&B singer and songwriter Smokey Robinson told CNSNews.com. “I really don’t know. I just think he is himself and he will go down in world history – not Biblical history – as a world leader who brought people together. Look around you. The world is here.”
“I would say any one of the Biblical leaders,” said Denzel Washington’s mother, Lennis Washington, who was attending the inauguration with her son on Tuesday. “The apostle Paul, Moses, John the Baptist – any one of them. Seriously, he is like one of those apostles for our day. He came to lead us to the original design of what we are supposed to do on this earth.”
Entertainment mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs, singer Solange Knowles, and hip-hop artist Jay-Z (CNSNews.com/Josiah Ryan)Denzel Washington, however, was reluctant to draw a parallel between Obama and a Biblical character.
“What Biblical character?” Washington said. “As Mr. Obama has said, it’s not about him. It’s about us. It’s about what we do collectively.”
Other celebrities present at the ceremony shared thoughts with CNSNews.com on how Obama had specifically changed their lives.
“Obama changed my life in the same way he has changed your life,” hip-hop artist Jay-Z told CNSNews.com.
“He has changed my life just like he has changed your life,” agreed Robinson. “If you are an American citizen, he has changed all of our lives. America has changed our lives.
Media mogul Oprah Winfrey and editor-at-large for O Magazine, Gayle King (l-r)“We are at last showing the world that we are who we say we are,” said Robinson, when asked to be more specific. “It’s truly a wonderful day for the world.”
“He makes me want to be a better human being,” said media mogul and talk show host Oprah Winfrey.
Only King told CNSNews.com that Obama had not changed his life.
“No,” said King. “America changed my life. Barack Obama is just a part of the American scene, and what this means to me is that America is looking colorblind. They are no longer suffering from myopia. What we are talking about here is much more profound than just a guy who happens to be American and happens to be black.”
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