Reply #2: I've actually wondered about the blue eyes. It's amazing that a relatively few

[No Elephants]

people with a recessive gene could be altering the appearance of a people almost 2000 years later.

I know a Syrian family which is Christian, a very small minority in Syria, even though Syria was one of St. Paul's first conversion stops.

Very light skin, freckles and red hair pops up again and again. And the woman of that family whom I met has three kids, all with blue eyes. (True, her husband, who is part Sicilian and part Northern Italian, has light eyes, but 3 out of three kids breaks the odds, unless she, too, has the recessive gene for blue eyes.)

The last name of her family of origin is Gorab, which means "strangers." (Similar to Abu Ghraib.)

I asked her aunt if they knew how they got the name "strangers." They say the family story is that Crusaders were among their ancestors.