The Blessing of Waters

Lord Jesus Christ, only-begotten Son, who are in the bosom of the Father, true God, source of life and immortality, Light from Light, who came into the world to enlighten it, flood our mind with light by your Holy Spirit and accept us as we bring you praise and thanksgiving for your wondrous mighty works from every age, and for your saving dispensation in these last times. By it you clothe yourself in our weak and beggared matter and coming down to the measure of our servitude, King of all, you accepted also to be baptized in the Jordan by the hand of a servant, so that, having sanctified the nature of the waters, you, the sinless one, might make a way for our rebirth through water and Spirit and re-establish us in our original freedom. As we celebrate the memory of this divine Mystery, we entreat you, Master, lover of mankind: Sprinkle on us, your unworthy servants, cleansing water, in accordance with your divine promise, the gift of your compassion, that the request of us sinners over this water may become acceptable by your goodness and that through it your blessing to be granted to us and to all your faithful people, to the glory of your holy, venerated Name. For to you belong all glory, honor and worship, with your Father who is without beginning, with you all-holy, good and life-giving Spirit, now and forever, and to the ages of ages. Amen. (from the liturgy for the Blessing of Waters)

Jesus Christ, our God, transformed the water when He entered the Jordan at His Baptism.  This is recognized and ritualized when the Orthodox worldwide go to the waters on the feast of Theophany.  The photos show two such ceremonies.

The photo at shows a Russian Orthodox blessing the waters at Bering Island 2009.

The photo  at right was taken at the blessing of the waters at the Kennebec River in Maine on Theophany 2010.








As in the beginning, when God subdued the watery chaos in the creation of the world, so Christ our God restores them to perfect health for the sake of the world.


Related reading: The Blessing of Waters; Epiphany Joy

Conversation About Igbo Origins

Alice C. Linsley

Are the Igbo related to the Israelites? This is the question Salamatou Naino Idi has asked and I will do my best to answer her question.

The earliest named of Abraham's ancestors lived in the region of Nigeria, Niger, and Chad. This area of Africa was much wetter, with the major waters systems of the Benue Trough and lakes connecting to a wider Nile. These are generally called his "Proto-Saharan" ancestors. Later, the Nile became the focus of river trade and was ruled by the Kushites. Abraham was a descendant of the Kushite ruler Nimrod whose territory was in the Tigris-Euphrates Valley. That is why we first meet Abraham in Mesopotamia, although his people came out of Africa.

The Kushites included many different clans and peoples such as the Nilotic Ainu, the Ijebu, red and black Nubians, etc.

The Igbo are probably descendants of the Proto-Saharans and Bantu, with some mix of Nilotic among the rulers. I doubt that they are direct descendants of Jacob, the Israelite. If they share religious features with Jews it is because the Igbo and Hebrews have common African roots. The Igbo retain many features of their ancient Ha-Biru (Hebrew) ruler-priest ancestors.

The Igbo may be related to the Nok civilization. The Yoruba word "anochi" (Nok/ha-Nock/Enoch) refers to the succession of rulers. In the Hebrew Bible, Enoch is a royal title designating the one who is to ascend or rule. Jacob's firstborn son was Reuben, and Reuben's firstborn son was Ha-Nock/ Hanoch.

According to Yoruba oral tradition, Esu/Esau the Edomite/Idu was the third king of Ketu. The kingdom of Ketu is in the Republic of Benin. Abraham's cousin wife was Ketu-ra. The Jebusites (Ijebu), who controlled Jerusalem in Abraham's time, were divided into two groups and one is called Ketu. Edomite is a variant of Edo/Idu. Obodas, the first ruler of Petra, has a name related to the Edo word for ruler which is Oba.

Linguist Helene Longpre recognizes that Demotic Egyptian (7th-5th c. B.C.) and Nabatean Aramaic most closely correspond to Meroitic or Old Nubian. (Longpre, "Investigation of the Ancient Meroitic Writing System", Rhode Island College, 1999.) Demotic is the script of the Rosetta stone in the Ptolemaic period (332-30 B.C.).

Cain and Seth: ancient Proto-Saharan rulers

Cain and his brother Seth married royal daughters of the chief of Nok. These daughters named their first-born sons Nok, after their father. These sons would have been regarded as the sons of the Chief. The line of royal descent was traced through the royal brides. However, only one could rule after the king’s death. Apparently Cain’s son was preferred to rule because settlements were built in his name Kano.

Nok figurine

Likely Seth, Cain’s brother, moved to the east to establish his own territory closer to Lake Chad, in Borno (where we later find his descendant Noah). The types of musical instruments and the tradition of horsemanship suggest that the people of Kano, Borno and Nok are related culturally. There is a striking similarity between the hairstyle of the Igbo woman shown above and that on the Nok sculpture below.  Analysis of the Genesis king lists makes it possible to trace Abraham's ancestors to these regions.

The ancestors of the Igbo who settled in the Jos Plateau came from the east according to mitochondrial studies. It appears that the Igbo of Nigeria belong to MtDNA haplogroup L1, believed to have first appeared approximately 150,000 to 170,000 years ago in East Africa. (Not all have been tested, so this is not definite, but given the practice of clan endogamy, most Igbo are likely in the L1 or L1b group.)

Apparently the Igbo ancestors intermarried with the people of Nok to whom they were probably related by blood (as many of the peoples of this region of Africa are of the L1 haplotype). This was before the time when we can speak of Arabs and Jews. Nok dominance existed for at least 1,000 years before the establishment of the royal city of Daura. (Read more here.)


Related reading:  Symbols of Authority Linked to Cain and Seth; Extant Biblical Tribes; Conversation About Hausa Origins

Plato's Debt to Ancient Egypt

Alice C. Linsley


Judaism and Christianity draw from ancient Egyptian-Sudanese belief, religious practice, and cosmology. [1] The ancient Greeks were also influenced by Egyptian-Sudanese ideas, especially their observation of sidereal astronomy.

The Egyptians regarded the Sun as the symbol of the Creator because it was the source of light and life. [2] They observed that whereas the Sun is the source of light, the Moon merely reflects light. This is why the Bible criticizes Mesopotamian moon worship and why Abraham's father was regarded as an idol-worshipper (Joshua 24:2) since he maintained households in Ur and Haran, cities dedicated to the moon god Sin.

Note the binary distinction between the source of light (Sun) and the reflection of light (Moon). This observation is the basis for Plato's famous Allegory of the Cave. Those in the cave are able to see only passing shadows, not the true objects that cast those shadows. Yet they believe that the shadows are the real objects. They continue to do so until they turn toward the cave's opening and walk out of the cave.

Plato’s Application of Egyptian Cosmology

Here is but one example of how Plato's thinking was informed by Egyptian cosmology. Another example involves the development of the Greek alphabet from the Pro-Canaanite alphabet which was based on Egyptian hieroglyphics. To understand how the alphabet expresses ancient Egyptian-Sudanese cosmology, consider the Teth (or Tau) below.

Read it all here.

Tracing Origins Using Comparative Cosmologies

Alice C. Linsley


I've been attempting to understand the cultural context of Genesis for over 30 years. It is important to understand what the material meant to the people who are named in Genesis so that we do not misinterpret and misrepresent their worldview.  Their worldview was passed to the Jews and then to Christians. Before we can identify a people called "Jews" Abraham's Kushite ancestors were sharing your worldview with peoples from the Sahara to Cambodia, and even Japan.

What are the distinctive characteristics of the worldview of Abraham's ancestors? It is a question that deserves closer investigation.

Using the genealogical data, I have idenitified Abraham's ancestors as originating in Africa.  Genesis tells us that they were Kushites. But Genesis 4 and 5 suggest that earlier ancestors came from the region of Northern Nigeria and Lake Chad.  Nok, Kano and Bor-No (land of Noah) are in Nigeria and Nubia and Kush were Nilotic civilizations that included Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia. There is also the genetic marker of the Nubians of the Nile which indicates that they migrated from further south in Africa. This supported a long-standing suspicion on mine and stirred me to investigate cosmologies that might link rulers of west central, eastern and sub-equatorial Africa.

The spread of ideas required contact between peoples. The widespread nature of the cosmology of Abraham's ancestors from Africa to southern India can be explained only by the movement of people. The Genesis genealogical data indicates that Abraham's ancestors were rulers of terriories in Nigeria and Sudan. These rulers and their priestly lines intermarried in a unique pattern.  Genetic research that shows that the ancient Nubians migrated to Sudan from southern Africa. They continued their migration all the way to southern India where they are called the "Sudra." [2] They spread the cosmological ideas that we term "biblical." In a sense, they were the first missionaries.

What are the most fundamental elements of their cosmology?  The evidence suggest 2 things:  crosses and blood [3]. Let us look are 3 specimens that would support this view.

Specimen 1:  80,000 year old iron ore ochre plague from the Blombos Cave (southern Africa) carved with geometric patterns. [4] This is the oldest known symbolic artifact and around the rim of the plaque are crosses. The red ochre came from mines that were in operation between 80,000 to 100,000 years ago in the Lebombo Mountains. We are not speaking here of small hallows in the earth, but of major mining operations.

“One of the largest sites evidenced the removal of a million kilos of ore. At another site half a million stone-digging tools were found, all showing considerable wear. All of the sites in fact produced thousands of tools and involved the removal of large quantities of ore; and while some were open quarries, others had true mining tunnels.” (From here.)

What was the significance of this red ore that was ground to powder and used to paint ritual objects and to bury dead rulers? It is generally agreed that the red ochre was a symbol of blood, the liquid of life. Stan Gooch explains:

Everyone, both heretic and orthodox, and including the present-day users of ochre themselves, agree that it represents blood. A very common interpretation, and one that we can readily accept here, is that just as a new baby comes into the world covered with blood, so the corpse must also be covered with blood to facilitate, or perhaps cause, the re-birth of the deceased in the spirit world beyond. Birth blood is therefore one very probable meaning.

A further significance (borne out also by much other evidence) is given by the Unthippa aboriginal women. They say that their own female ancestors once caused large quantities of blood to flow from their vulvas, which then formed the deposits of red ochre found throughout the world. So we can say that red ochre also represents menstrual blood: in both cases therefore female blood connected with the birth process. (We shall later be able to be even more precise and say that ochre is the menstrual blood of the Moon Mother; or more properly, the placental blood which covered the Earth when She gave birth to it.)"

The priesthood emerges out of this primeval perception of blood as the substance of life and a substance which can both pollute and purify. The Hebrew root "thr" = to be pure, corresponds to the Hausa/Hahm "toro" = clean, and to the Tamil "tiru" = holy. All are related to the proto-Dravidian "tor" = blood. These are cognate languages in the Afro-Asiatic language group and it is from these peoples that we receive the institution of the priesthood.

It appears that the cosmological concern with crosses and blood was carried into the Nile region by people migrating from southern Africa. DNA analysis in ancient Nubians supports the existence of gene flow between sub-Sahara and North Africa in the Nile valley. [5]


Specimen 2:  The Phoenician Alphabet.  Note that the Tau is a cross within a sphere. The Tau often serves as a symbol of the Cross in Christianity.

The sphere with the cross could represent the precession of the equinoxes. This would have been observed by primitive peoples who studied the heavens carefully. For Plato, the "perfect year" is marked by the return of the planets and the fixed stars to their original positions.
He wrote: "And so people are all but ignorant of the fact that time really is the wanderings of these bodies, bewilderingly numerous as they are and astonishingly variegated. It is none the less possible, however, to discern that the perfect number of time brings to completion the perfect year at that moment when the relative speeds of all eight periods have been completed together and, measured by the circle of the Same that moves uniformly, have achieved their consummation."

The cycle takes between 25,000-28,000 years to complete and is called a "Great Year." According to Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend there are over 200 myths from ancient cultures that refer to a Great Year.

Specimen 3:  Note the precessional movement of the vernal points, called the "precession of the equinoxes."

The changing relationship between the moving vernal axis and the fixed galactic axis creates the cycle of earth's precessional cross. When the vernal point (VP) resides at the 3/4 point (270°) in its cycle, the vernal axis is exactly perpendicular to the galactic axis (GEN), creating a perfect cross in the ecliptic. The last time this occurred was July1998 (and since that time, earth's weather patterns have been changing).

The precession of the equinox is observed as the stars moving across the sky at the rate of about 50 arc seconds per year, relative to the equinox. Conventional theory holds that this phenomenon is due to the gravity of the sun and moon acting upon the oblate spheroid of the earth causing the axis to wobble (the lunisolar theory). The alternative binary model holds that most of the observable is due to solar system motion, causing a reorientation of the earth relative to the fixed stars as the solar system gradually curves through space. (Read here about the binary model and here about the lunisolar model.)

As we consider these 3 specimens we can't help but be struck by the vast time periods.  It is apparently true that "In the beginning God..." and in every age God has communicated concerning His plan of salvation. That's something to ponder.

NOTES

1. There can be no doubt that Abraham's African ancestors understood themselves to be receiving the Word of God. The concept is found outside the Bible. While the creation stories of Genesis are often likened to the Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic, they have much closer affinity to the creation stories of Africa. This is evident in motif and in theological detail. Consider the motif of the generative Word of God whereby all things came into being. The bards of the Bambara Komo Society of Uganda recite this:

The word is total:
it cuts, excoriates
forms, modulates
perturbs, maddens
cures or directly kills
amplifies or reduces.
According to intention
it excites or calms souls.

The phrase "In the beginning was God" is not found in Babylonian prose, but it is found in Africa. The following is a song of the BaMbuti Pygmies:

In the beginning was God
Today is God,
Tomorrow will be God.
Who can make an image of God?
He has no body.
He is as a word which comes out from your mouth,
That word! It is no more,
It is past and still it lives!
So is God.

2. B. Pfaffenberger, Caste in Tamil Culture: the religious foundations of Sudra domination in Tamil Sri Lanka, reviewed in JSTOR, Dec. 1983, pp. 805-806.

3. Humans yearned for the death-defeating benefits of the Pleromic Blood as early as 80,000 years ago. Sophisticated mining operations in the Lebombo Mountains of southern Africa reveal that thousands of workers were extracting red ochre which was ground into powder and used in the burial of nobles in places as distant as Europe. Anthropologists agree that this red powder symbolized blood, and its use in burial represented hope for the renewal of life.

4. Blombos Cave is near the southern Cape shore of the Indian Ocean, about 200 miles of Cape Town, South Africa. Researchers have concluded that the artifacts date to more than 70,000 years, at least 35,000 years older than any other paleolithic art.

5. To read the Abstract of Lucotte's study of the Y chromosome haplotypes in Egypt go here. There has been no immigration into the lower Nubia area from Asia according to Lycotte's Y chromosome study. The singular Nubian haplotype would be the expected result of the unique marriage pattern revealed by the Genesis genealogical data.


Related reading: Tracing Ancestry Using Totems

Blood and Crosses

Alice C. Linsley


The association of blood and crosses can be traced to prehistoric times. The first man was formed from the red earth (Gen. 3). This is the etiology of the word Adam, or ha-dam, meaning the blood. The Hebrew word for red/ruddy is edom. The word edom and the Hausa odum and the Hebrew adam originally referenced the red clay that washed down from the Ethiopian highlands. These soils have a cambic B horizon. Chromic cambisols have a strong red brown color.

Red and black Nubians
Detail from a Champollion drawing

The blood-colored substance that is found naturally around the globe is red ochre or hematite (from the Greek word for blood, haema). When hematite powder is mixed with water is looks like blood.

The oldest site of red ochre mining is in the Lebombo Mountains of southern Africa. This ore was ground to powder and used to paint sacred objects and to bury dead rulers. The red ochre represented blood and the power of blood as a symbol of life and/or resurrection.

In the cosmology of the Nubian's southern ancestors blood was associated with crosses. This is evidenced on the Blombos Cave artifact found in southern Africa. It is a red stone etched with X around the edges (see right).

This is the oldest known symbolic artifact and the plaque was likely taken from mines that were in operation about 80,000 years ago in the Lebombo Mountains. This was the site of major mining operations, as Stan Gooch explains:

One of the largest sites evidenced the removal of a million kilos of ore. At another site half a million stone-digging tools were found, all showing considerable wear. All of the sites in fact produced thousands of tools and involved the removal of large quantities of ore; and while some were open quarries, others had true mining tunnels.

The Lebombo Mountains is also where H.B.S. Cooke and his associates discovered the oldest known human burial, between 46,000 and 80,000 years old. The site is that of a small boy buried with a seashell pendant and covered in red ochre.

The use of red ochre in burial was widespread in prehistoric times. A man buried 45,000 years ago at La Chapelle-aux-Saints in southern France, was packed in red ochre. “The Red Lady of Paviland” in Wales was buried in red ochre about 20,000 years ago. Her skeletal remains and burial artifacts are encrusted with the red ore.

Two flexed burials were found in Mehrgarh, Pakistan with a covering of red ochre on the bodies. These date from about 5000 BC. The ‘Fox Lady’ of Doini Vestonice, Czechoslovakia, who was buried 23,000 years ago, was covered in red ochre.

A 20,000 year old burial site in Bavaria reveals a thirty-year-old man entirely surrounded by a pile of mammoth tusks and submerged in red ochre powder.

The idea that blood is the substance of life seems obvious to us moderns who have learned some human anatomy and physiology. What is less obvious is the basis of blood for rebirth or life after death, a concept assigned to the realm of theology and therefore dismissed by most people.

From earliest times man observed that death occurred when an animal or human bled out. Blood was recognized as the substance of life.

Among Abraham's ancestors the resurrection of the ruler meant the salvation of the people. He was expected to lead them from life to the greater life, passing decisively through death. In pre-dynastic times and in the earliest dynasties people were believed to follow their deified ruler from this world to the next. Their immortality depended on the bodily resurrection of their king.

Proto-Saharan nobles were buried with red ochre at Nekhen in Sudan (3500 BC). Nekhen was a Horite shrine city dedicated to Horus whose totem was the falcon or hawk. Early dynastic Egypt adopted the Horite religion and never practiced cremation, as in the religions that seek to escape physical existence (samsara). Abraham and his Horite ancestors believed in the resurrection of the body and awaited a deified king who would rise from the grave and deliver his people from death.

Abraham's ancestors

Cultural anthropology and genetic studies shed light on the etiology of the association of blood and rebirth or resurrection. The anthropological, linguistic and genetic evidence indicates that Abraham's ancestors were Proto-Saharan and Nilotic peoples, probably Nubians. The Nubians have their own genetic marker which indicates migration from the sub-Sahara to the Nile and there has been virtually no immigration into the lower Nubia area from Asia according to the Y chromosome study done by Lucotte.

Among the Nubians the sun was a central symbol of life and was often shown as a red orb. This lent the additional association with the red eye of Horus. In this ancient Nubian relief we see baboons facing the sun. Baboons chatter at the rising sun. (In other versions two lions or two leopards face away from the sun. They are sentinels or guards.) The ankh or cross symbol is found over the heads of the baboons.

Between the baboons is the dung beetle or scarab. Among Abraham's Horite caste the heart was the single organ that was not extracted from the mummified body. All the other organs were removed and stored in canopic jars. The heart was the essential organ when it came to resurrection of the body, as it would be weighed in the afterlife. The body of the pure-heart would rise from the dead, as the sun rises in the morning. This is the significance of the dung beetle scarab placed over the mummy's heart.

Some claim that this image represents Duat which they interpret as the cycle of reincarnation or the transmigration of souls. However, the Duat of ancient Egypt is not the same as Samsara. It is about the mirror image of the cosmos patterned on the Sun's rising and setting. The long expected ruler rises from death with the sun on the third day.

Oh Horus, this hour of the morning, of this third day is come, when thou surely passeth on to heaven, together with the stars, the imperishable stars. (Pyramid Texts Utterance 667.1941b)

The body of the dead ruler was carried in procession to the tomb or pyramid, his retinue following behind. The procession to the tomb was the earthly journey that would be continued beyond the grave at the deified ruler's resurrection. This stands behind Paul’s description of Jesus Christ leading captives from the grave to the throne of heaven. This is why it says: When he ascended on high, he led captives in his train and gave gifts to men. (Ephesians 4:8)

In the image above, the eyes of Horus are seen to the right and left of the rising sun. This establishes the theological context as Horite. Abraham's ancestors were devotees of Horus, the seed or son of Ra. He was born of Hathor-Meri, a virgin queen who conceived by the overshadowing of the sun. Her totem was a cow and she is shown at Nile shrines holding her infant in a manger. Here we have elements of the Proto-Gospel and evidence that Messianic expectation is based on the Edenic Promise (Gen. 3:15) made to Abraham's Proto-Saharan and Nilotic ancestors.


Related reading: Of Dung Beetles and Red Herrings; Three Specimens to Ponder, Water and Blood; Resurrection as Mirrored Reality; The Scarlet Cord Woven Through the Bible; The Horite Ancestry of Jesus Christ; The Solar Imagery of the Proto-Gospel; Sheol and the Second Death; Christianity Lacks Originality

Just Genesis and Healthy Debate

I recently had a debate with a young man who holds negative assumptions about the Bible and those who think it may be valid for anthropological study. He dislikes religious fundamentalists, yet he is every bit as intolerant of ideas that work against his assumptions.

The same intolerance is found among many Bible-believers who are exposed for the first time to the research I've done.  However, I don't want to discourage people from pondering beyond the established and customary thinking.  So, if you read something at Just Genesis that troubles you or offends you, please comment or email me so we can have a conversation.

The Documentary Hypothesis

I was going to write something about the Documentary Hypothesis, but someone beat me to it at Stand Firm.  A priest made this this facile comment:

But the overwhelming consensus of modern scholars is that the Pentateuch is indeed a composite of multiple traditions, coming from a wide variety of times and places and reflecting a considerable variety of theological viewpoints and group interests.

To which a a layman, Michael A responded:

The more I thought about this, the more irritated I became, because it is such typical liberal humbug: “This is what everyone is thinking don’t question it”. Yet it is quite untrue - *numerous* scholars reject the documentary hypothesis. I assembled a quick list, broken down into (a) liberals or other; (b) jewish (a huge field of scholars that the liberals always ignore); and (c) conservative christian:

(a) liberal or other

*Rolf Rendtdorff “problems of process of transmission in the Pentateuch”, trans English 1977

*R.N. Whybray, Introduction to the Pentateuch 1995.

*Whybray acidly comments: “There is at the present moment no consensus whatever about when, why, how, and through whom the Pentateuch reached its present form, and opinions about the dates of composition of its various parts differ by more than five hundred years.”

*Kikawada, Isaac M. and A. Quinn. Before Abraham Was: The Unity of Genesis 1-11. Nashville: Abingdon, 1985.

*Richard S. Hess, Israelite Religions, 2008 [This is a huge and detailed study on the subject]

*Literally from left field are scholars like Gmirkin in “Berossus and Genesis” 2006 who argues that the entire Pentateuch was written in the 3rd century BC! Obviously his position is radically different to mine (I believe it was written/edited by Moses, as Jesus said). Yet the end result is the same: Gmirkin rejects the documentary hypothesis.

(b) Jewish

*Umberto Cassuto completely debunked the DH. His “The Documentary Hypothesis and the Composition of the Pentateuch” is still highly recommended reading (1966 in english)

*Yehezkel Kaufmann (1950s)

*Cyrus H. Gordon (1960s)

There are plenty of recent Jewish scholars who reject the Documentary Hypothesis:

*Dr. Yohanan Aharoni

*Amos Hakham

*Rabbi Dr Joshua Berman

*Rabbi Yosef Reinman

(c) Conservative christian

*John Bimson

*Bryant Wood

*Colin Smith

*R.K. Harrison, An Introduction To The Old Testament 1970

*K.A. Kitchen, Ancient Orient And The Old Testament 1966

*Gleason Archer (d. 2004) of Fuller and Trinity.

*Walter Kaiser of Gordon-Conwell

*Ronald F. Youngblood

*James Orr, The Problems of the Old Testament

*R.W.L. Moberly, The Old Testament of the Old Testament

*J Gordon McConville

*T Desmond Alexander

*Edwin Yamauchi

*Prof. Joseph Free, Archaeology and Bible History 1969

*Prof. Randall W. Younker, 1999

*Duane A. Garrett 1991.

*Derek Kidner, Commentary on Genesis

*J Harold Greenlee

*Prof. Claude Mariottini

*Joseph Blenkinsopp 1995.

*McCarter, P. Kyle, Jr. 1988

Liberal scholars are of course unaware of any of these, in their intellectual ghetto. Go figure.

[93] Posted by MichaelA on 01-11-2010 at 04:21 AM here.

I would have enjoyed joining the discussion but it appears that I no longer have posting privileges at Stand Firm. Since my work is being discussed at this thread (and misrepresented by some), it would be a courtesy to have allowed me to comment in my defense.  I have responded at Virtueonline here.

For my thoughts on the Documentary Hypothesis, go here.

Conversation About Hausa Origins

Conversation with Fula (Puel) on the origin of the Hausa

Main linguistic groups of Nigeria

Alice C. Linsley


I've been having an interesting online conversation with a Nigerian named Digare Ahmed at my Biblical Anthropology group. Ahmed lives in northern Nigeria and is Fula (Peul), not Hausa, but he has raised the question about Hausa origins. I thought it might be helpful to present this in a Question and Answer format for others to read.

Ahmed asked:  "How many languages are said to be Semitic? If the Hausa language is one, then are the Hausa people Semitic?"


A: The Semitic languages are Arabic, Aramaic, Amharic, Hebrew and Hausa.  Hausa is linguistically close to Arabic, which is much older than Hebrew. The oldest Arabic documents were found in the region of Dedan in Arabia. The Hausa aren't Semitic. Hausa-speakers are a mixture of peoples, but their language is essentially Kushitic.  Here's why:

Beginning in Nubia about 10,000 years ago, the Kushites spread into the interior of Africa along the Shari and the Benue rivers, establishing kingdoms and chieftains as far at Lagos in Nigeria and into the southern Kordafan. They also went west. The Ashante of Ghana were Kushites. Nte means "people of" and Asha is a proper name. The Ashante are the people of Asha, a Kushite ruler who established a kingdom in West Africa.

The name Asha is a priestly name in the Bible. One of Jesse's grandsons was named Asahel, which means "made by God." The priest Elkanah had a son named Am-asi (I Chron. 2:25, 35) and a Jerusalem priest was named Am-ashai (Neh. 11:13). This suggests that the origins of the priesthood of Israel are to be traced to the older Kushite civilization.

The word Akan is likely related to the biblical figure Kain, who was a Kushite. He is associated with the beginnings of metal work in Africa.

Kush is both a vast region and an ethnicity in the Bible. The various regions of ancient Kush later came to be called by different names. Nubia, the land of gold (nu (means gold) was later called Aithiopia by the Greeks. Aithiopia means black. When the Arabs arrived, they translated aithiopia into the Arabic equivalent soudan (Sudan) which means black.

Before the naming of modern nations, the Kushite territories were ruled by tribal chiefs and overlords of larger territories. Biblical Kush included southern Sudan, the Lake Chad region of Nigeria, Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya and Tanzania. The culture was essentially Nilotic.

Linguistic and archaeological evidence supports the biblical picture of Abraham's ancestors coming from the Upper Nile region that was part of Kush and spreading their culture and religious beliefs by the great water systems across what I've termed the ancient "Afro-Asiatic Domnion." During this period the Sahara was a much wetter region. Genesis tells us that Abraham was a descendant of Kush and of the great Kushite kingdom-builder, Nimrod.

Hausa’s close relationship to Arabic is due to the common roots that the Kushite languages share with old Arabic. Before Judaism became a distinct world religion, these Afro-Asiatic peoples shared a common worldview and religious practices which the Bible calls Kushite.  The Kushite civilization spread from the Nile Valley into southern Africa and into West Africa.

Kushite religion was characterized by the following features:

1. A deity associated with the number 3, a triune God. The number 3 is repeatedly found in connection to the most astonishing acts of God. Jonah was 3 days in the belly of the whale. Moses was hidden for 3 months (Ex. 2:2). Job's 3 friends struggled with the mystery of why the righteous suffer. Moses asked permission to go 3 days journey into the wilderness to worship. Abraham traveled 3 days to a mountain only God could reveal and upon which God provided His own sacrifice. The Covenant God made with Abraham involved cutting up 3 animals that were 3 years old. God in 3 Persons visited Abraham (Gen. 18). The 3 measures of flour made into cakes for those Visitors. The 3 gifts offered them: curds, milk and a calf. Abraham prayed 3 times for the citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah. Joseph had a dream of a vine with 3 branches (Gen 40:10-12). Saul was told "you will come as far as the oak of Tabor, and 3 men going up to God at Bethel will meet you, one carrying 3 young goats, another carrying 3 loaves of bread..." (I Sam.10:3) The “Son of Man” appeared with 3 men in the fiery furnace (Daniel 3). Jesus rose on the third day, “according to the Scriptures.” The Afro-Asiatic Canaanites had a name for the 3 God: "Baal Shalisha".

2. Veneration of the Sun as the Deity's emblem/chariot (against Babylonian worship of the Moon which merely reflects light). Abraham’s father, Terah, was criticized for being an idol worshiper because he left the land of this fathers (Canaan) and compromised with the religion of the land to which he moved (Ur and Haran, both known for the worship of the moon god Sin).

3. A fixed binary order in creation which speaks of God's nature, and helps seekers of God to know how they should order their lives. As the Sun was regarded as the emblem of the Creator, people faced the rising Sun to pray. This is what it means to be rightly “oriented.” Male-female, heaven-earth, night-day, dry land-seas, east-west, north-south, left-right, raw-cooked, hot-cold, life-death, good-evil, God-man: these distinctions order our world and our thinking. They prevent us from becoming lost, confused or disoriented. It is necessary to pay attention to these binary distinctions to understand holy Tradition. For example, Abraham was visited “in the heat of the day” by God in 3 Persons (Gen. 18:1). Compare this to the binary opposite of “in the cool of the day”, the time of God’s visitation to Adam and Eve in Paradise (Gen. 3:8). Why are the two accounts posed as hot and cool encounters with God? Because in the first God has come to punish the cities, and in the second God has come to enjoy being with the Man and the Woman He made in His image.

4. At least among the Horites of the Nile there was an expectation of Messiah/Anointed One, who like David (only greater), would be "Son of God". Muslims believe this is the Prophet Mohammed. Christians believe this is Jesus, Son of the Virgin Mary. Jews are still waiting for the Messiah’s appearing.

5. A hereditary office of priest and the intermarrying of priestly lines. I’m interested in your suggestion that Hausa might be hawassa, which might be derived from the Egyptian word for priest - harwa. This would fit the general picture of the Hausa’s origins being to the east of Nigeria, possibly in ancient Nubia (Sudan) which in the time of the black Pharaohs controlled Egypt.  the word sarki which is translate emir in Hausa has an earlier meaning or ruler-priest. The priests of the ancient Afro-Asiatic dominion were called sarki and they spread all the way to Nepal and Cambodia.

6. Animal sacrifice at altars, many of which were associated with Horus, called “son of God.” This is why many of the oldest altars were shaped like falcons, the totem of the followers of Horus who are called Horites. Moses and his family were Horites.

7. Similar number symbolism, the number 7 having special significance, especially as related to the first-born son’s marriage and his reception of a kingdom.

8. Prophets and a tradition whereby true and false prophets were discerned. I recently read an article on prophets in ancient Nubia/Meroe which indicated that this phenomenon is very old.


Ahmed asked: Where did the Hausa come from?

A: This is an excellent question. I believe the oral tradition of the Hausa is reliable in the fine details. According to Hausa oral tradition, Bayajida (or Bayajidda) is the founder of the seven Hausa city states. He is said to have come to Bor’No (Land of Noah) from the east. He was a stranger to the area because his name is "Ba ya ji da", which means "he who didn't understand the language before, he was a stranger here." He likely came to Nigeria from Arabia. The name resembles the Arabic name 'Ub ay diyya.  Al-'Ubaydiyya (Arabic: العبيدية‎) was an Arab village before it was depopulated on March 3, 1948. It was located in Galilee about 6 miles south of Tiberias, close to the Jordan River. The Canaanites referred to al-'Ubaydiyya as Bayt Shamash which means "House of God." Shamash was another name for the Creator Re, whose emblem was the Sun. He was worshiped by different names across the vast Afro-Asiatic Dominion.
In Bor’nu, Bayajida married the daughter of a local chief, but later fled after having a dispute with the ruler. This fits the biblical person of Cain (Kano) who married a daughter of the chief Nok. He is said to have fled after killing his brother.

The Hausa claim that their founder, Bayajida, came from the east in an effort to escape his father. It is possible that his father was a ruler in Egypt or ancient Nubia. The story goes on to say that Bayajida eventually came to Gaya where he employed blacksmiths to fashion a knife for him. This fits the picture as the region of Gaya, Nok and Kano is famous for blacksmiths, such as the Inadan. Gaya is said to be the origin of a man named Kano who first settled in the present Kano State in search of ironstone.

With his knife Bayajida proceeded to Daura where he delivered the people from oppression by a powerful serpent who guarded their well and prevented them from getting water six days out of the week. The serpent could not keep them from taking water on the holy day. In appreciation, the queen of Daura married Bayajida and she gave birth to seven sons. Each became a ruler and ruled the seven city states that make up Hausaland.

A problem arises when we attempt to put dates to these events. The Hausa states are recognized as entities only as early as 500 A.D., and they did not control the region until 1200 A.D. Their history is tied to Islam and the Fulani who wrested power from them in the early 1800s through a series of holy wars. It appears that the original Hausa story has taken on layers of interpretation since the influx of different peoples to the area.

Nevertheless, there are striking parallels between Bayajida’s story and the stories of Abraham’s ancestors who lived in west central Africa. For example, Bayajidda, the son of a ruler, met his wife at a sacred well where he delivered her people from a great serpent. Most of the heroes of Genesis met their wives at sacred wells or springs. Abraham married Keturah at the Well of Sheba (Beersheva). Issac (Yitzak) found a wife at a well in Aram. Moses encountered his wife at a well sacred to the Midianites and won her had after he delivered the women and flocks from Egyptian raiders.

Bayajida was associated with metal workers, as was Cain. The metalworkers of the ancient Kushite civilization were also rulers which is what the word Cain means. (The Eastern Afro-Asiatic equivalent is Khan, meaning king or ruler.) The Kushite maintained two wives in separate households.  This is still done today among the metalworkers of the region.  The metal working chiefs of the Inadan who live in the Air Desert surrounding Agadez, maintain two wives in separate households on a north-south axis (National Geographic, Aug. 1979, p. 389). There appears to be a connection between the Kushite priesthood and metalwork.  This suggested by the story of Aaron (Ex. 32) who made a statute of a calf (the symbol of Hat-Hor, the virgin mother of Horus who was said to the "son of God.").

I believe that the root of Bayajidda's name is BJA, the ancient Egyptian word for meteroric iron. Bja meant "metal from heaven." The Beja of Sudan, Egypt and the Horn of Africa are metalworkers.(The Beja's  metalworking kin in Niger and northern Nigeria are the Inadan.) Bja corresponds to the Sanskrit word bija, meaning semen or seed. Meteoritic iron was used in the fabrication of iron beads in Nubia about 6000 years ago. These beads may have been perceived as seeds from heaven which brought divine power to the wearer. Meteoritic iron was used in the fabrication of crooks and flails, the symbols of the Egyptian and Kushite pharaohs. These symbols were believed to give the ruler powers from heaven.

That the earlier layer of the Hausa origins account is very old is attested by the role which water plays in the story. In the ancient Afro-Asiatic Dominion shrines were built along rivers and at wells and springs from west central Africa to the Indus River Valley. Serpents inhabited these places and were both venerated and feared. In Sanskrit serpent is “naaga”, in Hebrew “nahash”, and in Hausa the serpent is “naja.”

Such shrines exist today in Africa and Asia. It is not uncommon for the serpent to speak through a woman who goes into a trace. This is regarded as prophecy. However, in the Hausa, Jewish and Christian tradition the serpent is regarded as an enemy whose head is to be crushed once and for all by the Anointed One. This is the meaning of Jesus’ saying: “And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons, they will speak with new tongues, they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly they will recover; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.” (Injil, Mark 16:17-18) 

Christians believe that Jesus is the fulfillment of the first promise in the Bible, Genesis 3:15. This is called the "Edenic Promise" because it was made to Abraham's Kushite ancestors in Eden.  Here God declared that "the Woman" (not Eve since she isn't named until verse 20) would bring for "the Seed" who would crush the serpent's head and restore paradise.

I hope that this will stimulate further discussion of the fascinating topic of Hausa origins. Please email me if you'd like to contribute to this information. I can be reached at aproeditor-at-gmail-dot-com.

Best wishes to you Digare Ahmed!


Related reading:  Conversation about Igbo Origins; African Naming Practices; An African Reflects on Biblical Names; Who Were the Kushites?; Who Were the Horites?

Prophecy: An Historical Perspective

Alice C. Linsley


The phenomenon of prophets is very ancient. Prophecy and prophets were a feature of ancient Afro-Asiatic religion. Afro-Asiatic prophets resided near bodies of water or sacred springs. Prophecy is attested at shrines along the Nile, at Hama on the Orontes (8th century B.C.), and at Mari on the Euphrates (18th century B.C.) There were prophets in the flourishing Nubian (Sudanese) civilization before the time of the Pharaohs.

The rulers of Egypt had their prophets. Joseph was elevated in Egypt because of his prophetic interpretation of Pharaoh’s dreams. Dream interpretation was one of the prophet’s tasks. In Deuteronomy, the prophet is called "a dreamer of dreams" (Dt. 13:2).

Rulers relied on prophets for counsel, but often encountered them as adversaries. Abraham was recognized by Pharaoh as a prophet (Gen. 20:7) and despite of his attempt to deceive, was sent away richer. Queen Jezebel and her prophets were opposed by Elijah (1 Kings 18:19-40), the same prophet who had advised her husband, Ahab. King Zedekiah consulted the prophet Jeremiah (Jer. 37) and also allowed his chiefs to put Jeremiah in a storage cistern where he sank into the mud (Jer. 38).

Prophets were connected to the Temple. Jeremiah tells us that a man of God, Ben-Johanan, resided in a room in the Temple. Anna [1], who prophesied concerning Jesus at his presentation in the Temple, lived in the Temple (Luke 2:36-38).

Before the Temple, it was customary for prophets to dwell at sacred places such as great trees, springs or wells. Deborah, “the wife of Lappidoth, was a prophet” associated with a tamar (date nut palm) midway between two important shrines: “Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim, and the Israelites would go to her for judgment” (Judges 4:4-6). Likewise Abraham consulted a prophet (moreh) when he arrived in Canaan. This prophet was associated with a sacred oak between Ai and Bethel (Gen. 13). It was here that God appeared to Abraham in three Persons "in the heat of the day" [2] (Gen. 18).

We find evidence that there were confraternities such as the one that was in touch with Elijah (2 Kings 2:3-18; 4:38ff; 6:1ff and 9:1) and alluded to in Amos 7:14. These companies of prophets appear to have had a good following. They performed symbolic mimes under the influence of music (1 Sam. 10:5). It is significant that the prophetic messages recorded in the Bible are NOT associated with groups of prophets, but with individual prophets whose lives exemplified holiness. The prophet is someone to whom God’s holiness and desires are an immediate experience through which the present and the future come into clear focus.


The Prophet as Message
By definition, the Hebrew word nabi means one who is called or one who proclaims.[3] Often the prophets tell of a decisive moment in which they received a divine call. Amos gives this explanation: “The Lord took me as I followed the flock, and the Lord said to me, ‘Go and prophecy to my people Israel.” (Amos 7:15)

Jeremiah’s call is described by God: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you came to birth I consecrated you; I appointed you as prophet to the nations” (Jer. 1:4-5). God sent him “to uproot and to knock down, to build up and to plant” (Jer. 1:10). Jeremiah obeyed the Lord and at great personal cost. He was tossed into a cistern and left to die, but God rescued him through the Cushite Ebed-Melech [4] and he took refuge in Egypt. Here we uncover the theme of God’s chosen taking refuge in Egypt, as did Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and the Infant Son of God.

Jonah was called to proclaim repentance to the people of Nineveh and resisted, paying a price for attempting to elude his vocation. Jonah’s reluctance is part of the message. He is a kind of anti-prophet and yet he succeeds in bringing an entire city to repentance.

Hosea married a harlot to symbolize Israel’s infidelity to the Lord. Hosea’s entire life tells the story of God’s steadfast love to a faithless people.

The prophet's life is itself a symbol and a sign. Jeremiah was told not to marry or have children.  He was not to enter a house where there was mourning or feasting.  And when the people asked him about this, he was to tell them that Yahweh decreed total disaster upon them because in their stubbornness and wickedness they were worse than their ancestors who had followed other gods (Jer. 16).


The Prophet as Messenger
The work of the prophet entails communicating a message from God. The message comes through different means such as dreams, visions, hearing, and by internalization, which is likely the meaning of the phrase “The word of the Lord came to me.” The divine message sometimes comes unexpectedly and sometimes through experience of something as commonplace as the sight of two baskets of figs (Jer. 24).

The methods of conveying God’s message also vary greatly. These include telling stories and proverbs, exhortation, preaching, singing songs, walking long distances, sitting alone for long periods, smashing jugs (Jer. 13:14) and pottery (Jer. 19:10), satire, funeral lament and poetry. It has been observed that “most of the prophets were poets and their oracles were delivered and have been preserved in poetic form.” [5]


Conclusion
Afro-Asiatic rulers, priests and prophets are responsible for diffusion of the Afro-Asiatic religious life that took root around the water systems from west central Africa to the Indus River Valley. It is a religious life that shares eight distinctive features [6], all aspects of the biblical worldview. These features point to a God who desires communion with us through the blood of His Son and eternal Priest, Jesus Christ. All true prophets point to this Communion.


NOTES

1. Anna was the daughter of Phanu’el, of the tribe of Asher (known for prophets). She was a widow who remained in the temple, serving God night and day with fasting and prayers. Among the ancient Afro-Asiatics, widows attached themselves to shrines or temples once their husbands died. This still happens in Africa and in India (the eastern end of the ancient Afro-Asiatic Dominion). The Hindu scholar, Dr. Shubhash C. Sharma, explains: "Note that even though the widows living in such places (temples etc.) might number in several thousand they still represent an extremely small minority relative to millions of Indian widows..." Anna is the only widow known to have lived in the temple. Most chose to live with their families (as did Naomi and Oprah), but Anna (like Ruth) chose a different path.

2. Abraham was visited “in the heat of the day” by God in 3 Persons (Gen. 18:1). Compare this to the binary opposite of “in the cool of the day”, the time of God’s visitation to Adam and Eve in Paradise (Gen. 3:8).

3. Nabi is derived from the verb which sometimes means “to be beside oneself.” This stresses a secondary aspect of the prophet’s experience – ecstasy. I Samuel 19:24 is an example. Here we are told that Saul “stripped off his clothes also, and prophesied before Samuel in like manner, and lay down naked all that day and all that night. Wherefore they say, Is Saul also among the prophets?” Ezekiel 3:12-15 is another example. Here we are told that the prophet Ezekiel was “taken away” by the Spirit to the river of Chebar, where he sat in an astonished state for seven days.

4. Jer. 38. The name Ebed-Melech is a title meaning the King’s slave. In Jer. 39, the Lord declares to Ebed-Melech through Jeremiah that his life will be spared “because you have put your trust in me.”

5. David Noel Freedman, Pottery, Poetry, and Prophecy (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1980), p. 18.

6. The eight features are:

• A Deity associated with the number 3, a triune God. The number 3 is repeatedly found in connection to the most astonishing acts of God. Jonah was 3 days in the belly of the whale. Moses was hidden for 3 months (Ex. 2:2). Job's 3 friends struggled with the mystery of why the righteous suffer. Moses asked permission to go 3 days journey into the wilderness to worship. Abraham traveled 3 days to a mountain only God could reveal and upon which God provided His own sacrifice. The Covenant God made with Abraham involved cutting up 3 animals that were 3 years old. God in 3 Persons visited Abraham (Gen. 18). The 3 measures of flour made into cakes for those Visitors. The 3 gifts offered them: curds, milk and a calf. Abraham prayed 3 times for Sodom. Joseph had a dream of a vine with 3 branches (Gen 40:10-12). The “Son of Man” appeared with 3 men in the fiery furnace. Jesus rose on the third day. The Afro-Asiatics' name for the 3 God was "Baal Shalisha".
• Veneration of the Sun as the Deity's emblem/chariot (against worship of the Moon which merely reflects light)
• Expectation of Messiah/Anointed One, who like David (only greater), would be "Son of God"
• A fixed binary order in creation which speaks of God's nature and helps seekers of God to know how they should order their lives. The binary distinctions help us to avoid heresy.
• A hereditary office of priest and intermarrying priestly lines
• Animal sacrifice at altars, many of which were associated with Horus, called "son of God"
• Similar number symbolism
• Prophets and a tradition whereby true and false prophets were discerned

Spanish 'Revista' Publishes Just Genesis

Alice C. Linsley


An essay I wrote on Lilith for Just Genesis has been republished in the December issue of Yareah Magazine. The magazine, which specializes in myth and literature, is based in Spain and publishes articles in Spanish and English.

Yareah will reprint another of my articles, this one deals with Cain's Murder of Abel.

You may read the Yareah publication of The Myth of Lilith here.

A Babylonian Ark

According to newly translated instructions inscribed in ancient Babylonian on a clay tablet telling the story of the ark, the vessel that saved one virtuous man, his family and the animals from god's watery wrath was not the pointy-prowed craft of popular imagination but rather a giant circular reed raft.

The now battered tablet, aged about 3,700 years, was found somewhere in the Middle East by Leonard Simmons, a largely self-educated Londoner who indulged his passion for history while serving in the RAF from 1945 to 1948.

The relic was passed to his son Douglas, who took it to one of the few people in the world who could read it as easily as the back of a cornflakes box; he gave it to Irving Finkel, a British Museum expert, who translated its 60 lines of neat cuneiform script.

There are dozens of ancient tablets that have been found which describe the flood story but Finkel says this one is the first to describe the vessel's shape.

Read it all here.
 
This is credible only for those who believe (against the evidence) that Noah lived in the region of Babylonia. Noah's flood took place in the area of Lake Chad in Africa. He was a ruler-priest at a time when the great rivers were much wider and floods were common.  There are common features to these flood stories since the peoples who lived from west central Africa to the Indus River Valley were all Afro-Asiatics. Flood stories were widely circulated among the ancient Afro-Asiatics whose chiefs controlled the major water systems. Therefore, we should not be surprised to find various stories of the time of flooding: some from the eastern Afro-Asiatics and others from the western Afro-Asiatics. The Western flood tradition is the one most consistently ignored.

Jesus in Genesis: God with Us!

Alice C. Linsley


The Incarnation of the Son of God is the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets, specifically Isaiah 7:14. He is called "Immanuel" - God with us. God is with us in Jesus Christ, the fulfullment of the the first promise and prophesy of the Bible: Genesis 3:15. This promise was made to the "Woman" concerning her Seed who would crush the serpent's head and restore Paradise. Note that the promise doesn't concern Eve as Eve is not named until 5 verses later. Jesus Christ fulfills the Edenic Promise. This promise was made to Abraham's Kushite ancestors in Eden.

Jesus is both foretold and symbolized throughout the book of Genesis.  He is evident in the study of trees, mountains, water, and in the unique kinship pattern of Abraham's Horite people by which the ruler-priest Son receives a kingdom from His Father.

Jesus' celestial pattern is evident in many figures of the Old Testament: Enoch, Abraham, Moses, David and in the women who prefigure the Virgin Mary, especially Oholibamah and Ruth. So why do many Jews reject Jesus as the Messiah?  The celestial pattern involves the coming down of God to earth and to human existence. The Creator condescends to grant to the lesser a greater role. So it is that a young maiden, from the least of the tribes of Israel, should become the unwedded Bride of God and the ever-virgin Mother of Christ our God.

Jews reject this belief because they elevate the the Law above the Prophets and the Talmud above the Pentateuch.

Judaism concludes that the Major and Minor Prophets are subordinate to the Law of Moses on the basis of Malachi 3:22, which reads: “Remember the Torah of Moses, my servant, which I commanded him at Horeb for all of Israel – its decrees and statutes.” Maimonides quoted this verse in the Mishneh Torah as a proof that prophets are not to be interpreted as bringing new teaching, but should be understood as warning people not to trespass Torah.

Many Jews insist on this, though critical biblical scholarship has demonstrated that the Torah and the Prophets "are separate corpora originating in the same time period" (Jewish Study Bible, p. 1144). Study of the biblical texts does not support the view of Torah as synonymous with the law codex associated with Moses. Instead it recognizes torah as the instruction of the prophet, which is the earlier meaning of Torah. "Torah" means that which is thrown by the hand of the moreh (oracle or prophet). Abraham received guidance when he pitched his tent at the Oak of Moreh. The word "torah" is usually rendered guidance or instruction, but it has an ancient association with a prophet sitting under a tree. Abraham consulted a moreh/prophet at the Oak in Mamre and  Deborah sat at a palm tree between Ramah and Bethel. (A study of trees in Genesis points us to Jesus Christ.)

If we are to understand Torah in this broader and more ancient context, we must conclude that God has not ceased to provide instruction and that the litmus test of true torah is whether it points to the fulfillment of the first prophecy in Genesis 3:15 concerning the Woman's Seed. Therefore, it is to be noted that Malachi 3:23 states:  "Behold! I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and awesome Day of the Lord's coming." Jesus' Apostles recognized that this was fulfilled in the person of John the Forerunner.

Personally, I'm glad that God sent us more than the Tablets of Law; that He sent His only begotten Son in fulfillment of the Prophets, the Law and the Bible's first promise.  One day I hope to bow before the Lord Christ Jesus and kiss His feet!  To kiss Him in the flesh is preferable to kissing tablets of stone. His adoration restores Paradise.


Related reading:  The Christ in Nilotic Mythology; Challenge to Shaye Cohen's Portrayal of Abraham; Sons and 'The Son'; Who was Oholibamah?; The Testimony of Blessed John, Forerunner; The Talmud vs the Doctrine of the Lord; Gender Reversal and Sacred Mystery

Genesis in the New Year

Readers are invited to recommend topics for discussion at Just Genesis. What would you like to explore in 2010?

Here are some suggestions that I've received:

• Genesis and the Documentary Hypothesis
• Rebekah's Mysterious Father
• The Significance of Twins
• Dreams and the Two Josephs
• Review of E.A. Speiser's Commentary on Genesis

Let me know what interests you.  Many topics have been discussed already and are listed in the INDEX.

I wish you all a blessed New Year!

Are Science and Scripture at Odds?

Evolution is almost alone among scientific ideas in the degree of controversy it generates. Part of the reason for this is, of course, that it can be more than a scientific theory, capable of expansion to include philosophical claims about the existence of God or human nature. Even if restricted to the material order, evolution inevitably has consequences for religion, as its claims must influence our understanding of the process of creation, and of human nature. The anthropological and theological implications of evolution are so profoundly felt by many that it is rare to find people who do not have an opinion on the subject.

Indeed, it is not uncommon to find people lacking a specialist background in biology willing to hold opinions that contradict those of the overwhelming majority of biologists. This is a remarkable fact. Few indeed are the well-established fields of scientific inquiry that experience such popular resistance. The resistance to evolution is, furthermore, not limited to a fringe of young earth creationists. There have also been objections to evolution put forward on sophisticated philosophical grounds.


Read it all here.