Abraham's Ancestors Came Out of Africa

Alice C. Linsley


To construct an accurate picture of the ancient world of Genesis we must examine the assumption that Abraham’s people originated in the Tigris-Euphrates area. The Genesis genealogies presents a different picture: that Abraham’s ancestors migrated out of Africa, and the evidence of anthropology, genetics, archaeology, DNA studies and linguistics supports this view.

Abraham's father was Terah the Ainu.  The Nilotic Ainu had a red skin tone and their rulers were bearded.  From the Nile they spread to Japan and to southern Siberia.  They traveled as far as Ireland and Finland and from there they moved into Greenland, Labrador and eastern Canada.  These first people are found at the center of Cavalli-Sforza's genetic distance chart, as would be expected of the First People.

These ancestors were great kingdom builders and their dominion extended from Africa to India. As evidence, consider the correspondence between the Hindu heroes Adimo, Heva, Sherma, Hama and Jiapheta and their Genesis counterparts Adam, Eve, Shem Ham, and Japheth. It is argued that this correspondence is due to a westward migration of Asiatics. However, this does not align with the evidence for the northeast migrations of peoples from Africa. Add the fact that Abraham’s kingdom-building ancestors were constantly searching for new territories, and a cogent picture of the people referenced in Genesis begins to emerge.

If the migration of Abraham’s ancestors was east and north and the stories reach as far as the Indus River Valley (even Nepal), these stories must be viewed as a seedbed of a widespread Afro-Asiatic worldview. In fact, they must be the stories told from Africa to India. This may explain the duplication of creation accounts, with the Adam and Eve story being older than Genesis 1. Its closest parallels are found in Africa, not Mespotamia. Consider, for example, the account of the first parents Gikuyu and Mumbi and the presence of a tree of life.

Long before the emergence of a people called Israel, ruler-priests controlled vast areas of the ancient world. They built kingdoms and at the center of their kingdoms they built temples and shrines where they worshiped the Maker of all things in heaven and on earth. They practiced animal sacrifice and offered prayers with incense. They regarded water as the element of purification. They observed sacred laws and spread across the earth. The biblical injunction to multiply and spread across the earth was apparently taken seriously by Abraham's ruler-priest ancestors.

These were ruler-priests who married the daughters of other ruler-priests and thereby preserved their priestly bloodlines through intermarriage (endogamy). The endogamous marriage pattern is consistent throughout the Bible and can be traced from Genesis 4 to Jesus, the Son of God. The pattern ends with Jesus’ appearance, having fulfilled its purpose and the purpose of the Bible.

There is a time in Israel’s history when this information was greatly valued: the reign of David, whose ancestry is goes back to Eden. This is why some scholars propose that Genesis was compiled during the time of the Davidic Monarchy. This makes sense when we consider that commerce and cultural exchange during David’s reign was directed toward both Africa and Mesopotamia. There was a good deal of interest in pedigree at that time to validate David’s claim to the throne, since he was the youngest son of Jesse of Bethlehem and “from the least of the clans of Judah”. The same prophet adds: “whose origins go back to the distant past, to the days of old.” (Micah 5:1)

To verify the truth of the biblical account we must look for clues to help us understand the relationship between the Mesopotamian and the African contexts of Abraham’s ancestors. Making those connections will enable us to understand the Bible better and to recognize how the Edenic Promise (Gen. 3:15) binds all 66 books into a single truly Great Story.
 
The prophets speak of the rulers who go back to Eden. Amos speaks of “him who holds the scepter from the house of Eden” (Amos 1:5). Ezekiel 28:11 says: “Son of Man, raise a lament over the king of Tyre and say to him: Thus says the Lord God: You were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and flawless beauty. You were in Eden, in the Garden of God…” The king of Tyre was allied by kinship with David, which is why it was necessary for Jesus to be revealed in Tyre.  This explains why Hiram of Tyre sent skilled artisans to help David build a palace in Jerusalem. Hiram is also known as "Huram" and "Horam", which are versions of the shorter names Hur or Hor. According to Midrashic tradition, Hur was Moses’ brother-in-law, the husband of Miriam. Hur’s grandson was one of the builders of the Tabernacle. I Chronicles 4:4 lists Hur as the "father of Bethlehem", that is the patriarch of the place known as the "city of David". In other words, the king of Tyre and David were related. Their common ancestors were Horites, and as the Genesis genealogies indicate, the Horite lineage can be traced back to Eden.
 
The symbols of the ruler-priest’s authority were the shepherd’s crook and the flail. These were the symbols of the authority of the Pharaohs, but predate the Egyptian Dynasties. The crook and flail have been found on rock paintings dating to long before the Pharaohs. Hierakonpolis is the site of the most ancient temple in Egypt. It was dedicated to Horus. Of particular interest is the 4000 B.C. tomb painting of two men painted with red ochre. They carry crooked staffs with objects that look like flails, suggesting that they are ruler-priests.


Related reading:  Abraham's Kushite Ancestors; Who Were the Horites?; The Migration of Abraham's Ancestors; The Christ in Nilotic Mythology

Mohammed and the Descendents of Kain

Mohammed left Mecca in 622 A.D. after the Meccan chiefs of his own tribe had attempted to kill him. He went to Medina which was then called Yathrib. Compared with arid Mecca, Yathrib was a paradise with lush gardens, date-palm groves, and productive farms. It was originally a Horite settlement.  Yathrib (yt-rb) means "that which belongs to the son."


Medina is situated on the western edge of the central Arabian plateau in the heart of the region of Dedan. The Dedanites descended from Kush and from Abraham by his couisn wife, Keturah. Dedan the Younger was the son of Abraham's son Joktan.  Most Arabs are descended from Abraham through Joktan, his first-born son.  He is remembered by Arabs as Yaqtan. Josephus knew him as Joctan and his name is preserved in the ancient town of Jectan near Mecca.


Medina had a population of roughly 10,000 people when Mohammed arrived. Word of his prophetic utterances had gone before him and he was greeted by the common folk as a prophet, many urging him to stay in their homes which they believed would bring a blessing upon their households. In Medina there were three clans of Kenites, descendents of Kain, the earliest ruler named in the Bible.[1] The Kenites had communities throughout the territories of Ham, Shem, Midian, Dedan, Raamah, Sheba and Joktan.

In Medina, Mohammed built an open-air mosque with a shaded area to the south called the suffah and he aligned the prayer space facing north towards Jerusalem. The qibla (prayer direction) was later changed to face Mecca, to the south. Adjoining this mosque were homes for Mohammed’s two wives Sauda and Aisha. Aisha lived long after Mohammed died and was regarded as a prophet in her own right. Later Mohammed added other apartments for his many concubines. One of these was a Jewish girl named Safiya, who had been betrothed to the chief Kinana, who was slain when Mohammed’s raiders attacked the Khaibar Jews in their settlement six days journey northeast of Yathrib.

Among the people in Medina, there was a small community of Jews, a three-clan confederation who had resided in this area from before recorded history. These Jews agreed to protect Yathrib alongside Mohammed were the Meccans to attack. The agreement, called the Constitution of Medina, stated that “The Jews shall be responsible for their expenses and the Believers for theirs. Each, if attacked, shall come to the assistance of the other.” It also stated that “The Jews shall maintain their own religion and the Muslims theirs.” The nature of this treaty is the subject of dispute among historians. Many maintain that it is a cobbling together of oral and written agreements, and likely reflects different periods.[2]

The Banu Kainuka (بنو قينقاع‎) was one of the Jewish clans living in Medina. In 624, they threatened Mohammed's political authority by rejecting his claim to be The Prophet of Allah. Around this time, a Moslem girl visited a goldsmith shop owned by one of the Kainuka Jews. As she sat in the shop a mischievous Kainuka pinned her skirt behind her to her upper dress. When she arose she cried out in shame at her exposure. A Moslem then slew the offending Jew, whose brothers retaliated by killing the Moslem. For fifteen days, Mohammed blockaded the Kainuka Jews in their quarter until they surrendered. He then ordered them to leave Medina without their possessions.

These Jews, who numbered about 700, were descendents of Kain who had intermarried with their Arab brothers for many millennia. Their principal occupation was metal work. The Bible calls them “Kenites”. They resided in two fortresses in the south-western part of the city and they had Arabic names. Old Arabic was in use in this region since the 8th century B.C.[3] 

Mohammed considered himself at war with the rulers of Mecca and felt justified in removing any hostile elements living in Medina. He attacked the Banu-Nadhir Jews, another of the 3-clan confederation, charging them with helping his enemies and plotting against his life. After a three-week siege, these Jews were forced to leave Yathrib, only this time each family was allowed to take as much as a camel could carry.[4] Mohammed appropriated their date orchards to support his household, and distributed other lands among the leaders of his supporters.

Arab historians identify twenty Jewish clans living among the Arabs, including two priestly lines. These priestly lines are traced back to Abraham and his ancestors. The priestly lines intermarried exclusively, with priests marrying the daughters of priests in a parallel patrilineal line. This intermarriage began long before Jews can be identified as a separate group. The ruling ancestors of Jews and Arabs intermarried so that the two groups are blood kin.


NOTES
 
1. Kain is associated with metal smiths and one of his descendents – Tubal-Kain – is said to be the “father” of smiths. Smiths held a high social status in the ancient world. Early in the Upper Nile, Badari smiths smelted copper. These are the same people who used ritual flint knives for circumcision, such at that used by Zipporah.

2. Ibn Ishak, an 8th century A.D.,  historian wrote a history for Muslims which includes genealogies representing the Islamic tradition. He appears to be the principal source of information about the Constitution of Medina.
 
3. The highest concentration of Old Arabic texts has been found in the region of Dedan. Genesis 10:7 tell us that Dedan the Elder was a grandson of the Nubian Kush by his son Raamah.
 
4. A large bull camel can carry up to 1323 pounds (600 kg) and smaller camels up to 882 pounds (400 kg). To read about Abraham's camels, go here.

Some "Cousin" Brides Were Nieces

Alice C. Linsley


The rulers among Abraham's people married cousins, nieces and half-sisters. The patrilineal parallel cousins are of special interest because they named their first-born sons after their fathers, thus enabling us to trace descent through many generations.

A patrilineal parallel cousin bride is a first cousin who is in the same descent group as her husband. In other words, she and her cousin husband have a common male ancestor.  This appears to have been the preferred marriage arrangement for rulers among Abraham's Horite people whose religion was Egyptian/Nubian. These rulers had two wives living in separate households on a north-south axis. One wife was a cousin and the other was a half sister.  In Abraham's case, Keturah was his cousin bride and Sarah was his sister bride.

This arrangement doesn't seem to have been the practice among common people, as evidenced from excavations such as Deir El Medina where the average housing indicates monogamous marriages. Yet multiple wives was common among kings and ruler-priests in ancient Nubia and Egypt.  Also, the tradition of brother/sister marriages was confined to the royalty until the Greek period.

Brother/sister marriage was a common feature of the deities in Egyptian mythology, although these siblings often have different mothers. It may be that Egyptian kings, who were regarded as deities, married according to the mythogical deities.

Brother/sister, uncle/niece, and patrilineal cousin marriages also strengthened the king's control over his territory.  It is also possible that the rulers believed that the Son of God, who they called Horus, would be born of their royal priestly lines and therefore they married only the daughters of royal priests.

Cousin marriage and uncle/niece marriage was common among ancient Egyptian rulers and priests, although it appears that nieces were considered cousins. Half-sister marriage was also common and there is some evidence that the first wife was a sister bride.  This was the case with Abraham who married Sarah before he married Keturah.  It appears to have been the case with Isaac also (see diagram below). This explains the youthful sexual forlicking described in the Song of Songs where the groom addresses his bride as "my sister" (see 4:9-12). The sister wife is the bride of the man's youth. She is described as having been "made white" (8:5) while her beloved has skin as dark "as the tents of Kedar" because he was made to work in in the Sun by his older brothers (like David).  Gen 25:13 tells us that Kedar was a son of Ishmael and his Egyptian wife.

The second wife, a cousin or niece, would be taken at the age that the man was to take over the rule of his father's territory.  This explains Abraham's urgency to fetch a cousin bride for Isaac before his death (Gen. 24).

It was through the cousin/niece brides that throne names were passed to first-born sons. I call this the cousin-bride's naming prerogative, although it sometimes pertains to nieces as in the case of Isaac's first wife, a daughter of his brother Yisbak.  See below.

Related reading:  The Genesis King Lists; The Cousin Bride's Naming Prerogative; Half Sister Wives and Cousin Wives; Lamech Segment Analysis; Two Named Esau

The Jewish Myth of Racial Purity

Alice C. Linsley


Who are the Jews? By definition a Jew is someone whose mother is Jewish or someone who properly converts to the religion of Judaism. But who are the Jews racial? They are a mixed people like the Arabs. The Semitic word for Arab is ereb meaning "mixed peoples." By this definition, Jews are also ereb.

A distinction should be made between Arabs and Islamic non-Arabs. Not all people who speak Arabic are Arabs. Many are non-Semitic peoples who came to adhere to Islam. True Arabs, like true Jews, are descendents of Abraham with the mixture of other peoples, both Semitic and non-Semitic. The only people who might rightfully claim to be "pure blood" descendents of Abraham are those who stand in the royal priestly lines. These lines are found among both Jews and Arabs, as the priests of Shem and Ham intermarried. Abraham's people were Horites, a caste of ruler-priests, which is why to this day Jews call their parents "horim."

The idea that all Arabs are the descendents of Abraham by Hagar, Sarah’s Egyptian handmaid, is not supported by the genealogical data in the Bible. The majority of Arabs are descendents of Abraham by his wife Keturah who bore him six sons. These are the heads of the Joktanite tribes of southern Arabia. The Bible tells us that these people intermarried with the offspring of Abraham’s other sons, Ishmael and Isaac. One of Abraham's sons by Keturah was Yisbak and Yisbak's daughter married Isaac.  She was Isaac's first wife and a half-sister, just as Sarah was Abraham's first wife and his half-sister.

Arabic, like the languages of Hebrew and Aramaic, is classified in the Afro-Asiatic family. Old Arabian script appears as early as the eighth century BC, with regional dialects across the Arabian Peninsula and the Levant. The greatest concentration of Old Arabic texts are found at Dedan. According to Genesis 10:7 and Genesis 25:3, Dedan descended from Kush and from Abraham by Keturah. Dedan's father was Abraham's first-born son Joktan. Dedan's brother was Sheba the Younger. So the Old Arabic script called Dedanite is the language of Abraham's descendents and Dedan was their ancestral homeland. Dedan extended the length of the Red Sea to the northern boundary of Ophir. It corresponds to the territory of the ancient Horites, devotees of Horus who was called "Son of God."[1]

Isaiah 21:13 alludes to the "caravans of Dedanites" in Arabia, and Ezekiel 27:20 speaks of Dedan as supplying Tyre with precious things.[2]  Dedan is associated with Uz in the hill country of Edom. Uz was the homeland of Job. Uz was Nahor's son by Milcah (Gen. 22:20). This is Uz the Elder whose grandson was Uz the son of Dishan (I Chron. 1:42). Dishan was a son of Seir the Horite and the brother-in-law of Esau the Younger. Here is Seir's Horite family:

 
In other words, long before we can speak of Jews as a separate people, Abraham’s people were Horites whose territory extended west-east from the Nile to Jordan and north-south from the Mediterranean to the Negev. This was the ancestral home of both Jews and Arabs, whose ancestors intermarried. It is ironic that both Judaism and Islam reject the faith of their Horite fathers! Perhaps that is why they fight brother against brother. Until both bow the knee to the Son of God, they will never enjoy peace in the land of their Fathers.

NOTES

1.The Horites believed that the Son of God would be born of their blood. They expected Him to come to visit them. This was fulfilled when Jesus Christ, the Son of God, visited Tyre (Matt. 15:21-28; Mark 7: 24). Here the Markan mystery is revealed, for we are told that in Tyre Jesus "could not pass unrecognized."

2. The king of Tyre was allied by kinship with David and sent skilled artisans to help David build a palace in Jerusalem. Hiram is also known as "Huram" and "Horam", which are versions of the shorter names Hur or Hor. According to Midrashic tradition, Hur was Moses’ brother-in-law, the husband of Miriam. Hur’s grandson was one of the builders of the Tabernacle. I Chronicles 4:4 lists Hur as the "father of Bethlehem", that is the patriarch of the place known as the "city of David". In other words, the king of Tyre and David were related. Their common ancestors were Horites, and as the Genesis geneologies indicate, the Horite lineage can be traced back to Eden.

Biblical Anthropology is Scientific Study of the Bible

Alice C. Linsley


“There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, [and] science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works.” --Stephen Hawking

Hawking's statement has been criticized as an absurd opposition between religion based solely on authority and science based solely on observation. However, Hawking is correct in asserting this distinction. All religions claim textual authorities or, in the case of pre-literate societies, oral tradition. Science does well to the degree that empirical approaches are necessary to verify laws, patterns and substances of the material world.  However, true religion and true science are not so different in their method.  Both make assertions based on observation.  They simply observe things differently.  The scientist must work with the material world, so I work with the biblical text.  Religion observes the material world and its metaphysical extension.

As a biblical anthropologist, I apply science to the study of the Bible.  I'm seeking data on the pages of the biblical text that either confirm or disprove my hypothesis. When it comes to analysis of the kinship patterns of Abraham's Horite people the results are replicable by anyone and the results would be the same regardless of who, where and when the analysis was done. When something is both replicable and universal it is authoritative.

The ancient Afro-Asiatics layed the foundation for many branches of science.  They made discoveries in animal husbandry, plant cultivation, the discovery of antibiotics, metal work, astronomy, geometry and algebra. For the ancient Afro-Asiatics, who were both scientists and deeply religious, there was never a conflict. They observed patterns in the heavens and on earth and what they observed spoke to them about the Creator. St Paul says that this is how God designed things.  He wrote that God's eternal power and divine nature are clearly perceived by means of what God created. In other words, the order of creation reveals the invisible qualities of the Godhead (Romans 1:20).  Hawking is a very bright man, but he doesn't hold a candle to the Apostle Paul when it comes to understanding of the natural world and antecedents.

Even Jacques Derrida, an Arabic-speaking Jew from Algeria, identified a constant metaphysical presence which has been called by different names. Derrida wrote, “It would be possible to show that all the terms related to fundamentals, to principles, or to the center have always designated the constant of a presence, ... essence, existence, substance, subject, ... transcendentality, consciousness or conscience, god, man, and so forth.”

False science will never succeed in being authoritative because it ignores "the constant of a presence" or makes Man that constant. We might argue with Hawking over the significance of human existence, but his assertion that religion is based on authority and science on observation is mostly true. Ultimately, both true religion and true science seek to encounter and describe what is real and true.  Both bow to "the constant of a presence" at the center.  Unlike religion, however, western science grows frustrated by the necessity of negative definition.  It is an approach more comfortable to the eastern mind. Saying "something isn't" is also a statement about presence, and this is how God's divine nature is most often described in the Semitic world.

Related reading:  Biblical Anthropologists Discuss Darwin; What Does a Biblical Anthropologist Do?;  Is Biblical Anthropology an Oxymoron?; Genesis and Jacques Derrida; Biblical Anthropology and Antecedents

Cain and Seth: Sons of Nok

Analysis of the marriage pattern of Abraham's ancestors indicates that Cain and Seth married the daugthers of a chief named Nok (Enoch or Enosh). Their brides named their first-born sons after their father, which is why both Cain and Seth have first-born sons name Enoch or Nok. This indicates that Cain and Seth married patrilineal cousins. The exclusive naming prerogative of royal cousin brides permitted them to name their first-born sons after their fathers. This prerogative did not pertain to half-sister brides such as Sarah. 

If we read the story of Adam and Eve literally, we must conclude that they are the parents of Cain and Seth. However, the Genesis 4 and 5 material is about the cousin brides of Cain and Seth, whose father was Enoch or Nok. If we insist on a literal reading of Adam and Eve, we must conclude that Enoch was a contemporary of Adam and Eve.  However, this is contrary to the biblical significance of Adam and Eve as "first parents" and therefore suggests the mythological nature of the Adam and Eve story. On the other hand, the persons named in Genesis 4 and 5 are historical persons.  The ancients understood the difference between historical and mythological and regarded these as equally capable of conveying truth. So it is that both Adam and Enosh would be viewed as founding fathers. This is why the names Adam and Enosh are paralleled in Psalm 8, which in Hebrew reads: 

                                        What is Man (Enosh) that you are mindful of him,
                                        the son of Man (ben Adam) that you care for him?

So who fathered Cain and Seth, if not Adam? Their father, Nok, would have been the half-brother of Cain's mother. Nok would have been the patrilineal cousin of a daughter of Set the Nubian.This means that Nok and Set were brothers and it suggests the 8th century B.C. Napatan rulers of Nubia who conquered Egypt. Set was a royal name among the Napatan Nubians.

Shown right: Bronze of a Napatan ruler

Since both Cain and Seth are listed as rulers they were first-born sons. This means that their father had two wives, as did Abraham and all Abraham's ruler-priest ancestors. One of those wives would have been a cousin bride who named her first-born son after her father. Would that be the mother of Seth or the mother of Cain? I'd be willing to wager that the cousin bride was Seth's mother. Why? Because Cain came to the region of Nok in northern Nigeria from the east (Gen. 4:16). There is no traceable ancient name in eastern Nigeria like Cain (Kain, Kayan, or Qayan). On the other hand, the name Set is found among peoples living to the east of Nok in the Upper Nile or Nubia.

There is evidence for this in 1 Chronicles 1:50 which mentions an important Horite bride - Matred - which is equivalent to Menmaatre, the throne name of Seti I.  Seti is a name associated with Piye which 1 Chronicles identifies with the "city of Pai" (1:50). Piye's son was called Hor. King Piye of Egypt installed a black granite falcon head image of Horus at his capital in Napata.

Neanderthal Humans

The oldest human fossils are millions of years old so the idea that Neanderthal fossils represent a recent stage of evolution from ape-like hominids to modern humans doesn't make sense.  The sequencing of the Neanderthal genome is almost complete and not surprisingly it reveal that Neanderthals and modern humans are virutally identical.  Here's the report:

After years of anticipation, the Neanderthal genome has been sequenced. It’s not quite complete, but there’s enough for scientists to start comparing it with our own.

According to these first comparisons, humans and Neanderthals are practically identical at the protein level. Whatever our differences, they’re not in the composition of our building blocks.

However, even if the Neanderthal genome won’t show scientists what makes humans so special, there’s a consolation prize for the rest of us. Most people can likely trace some of their DNA to Neanderthals.


“The Neanderthals are not totally extinct. In some of us they live on a little bit,” said Max Planck Institute evolutionary geneticist Svante Pääbo.

It took four years for Pääbo’s team to assemble a working sequence from DNA in the bones of three 38,000-year-old Neanderthal women, found in Croatia’s Vindija Cave. The sequence, published May 6 in Science, covers about 60 percent of the entire genome.

Read it all here.

The Horite Confederation of Uz, Buz and Huz

Alice C. Linsley

Dedan: Horite Territory at the heart of Eden

According to Genesis 10:7 and Genesis 25:3, Dedan was descended from Kush and from Abraham by his cousin wife, Keturah. Dedan's father was Abraham's first-born son Joktan.  Dedan's brother was Sheba the Younger. Diagrammed, Dedan's immediate family looks like this:


                                                              Abraham ∆ = O Keturah
                                                                             Joktan
                                                                         O = ∆ = O
                                                                 Dedan ∆     ∆ Sheba the Younger


Isaiah 21:13 alludes to the "caravans of Dedanites" in Arabia, and Ezekiel 27:20 speaks of Dedan as supplying Tyre with precious things. Dedan is associated with Uz in the hill country of Edom. Uz was the homeland of Job. One of Job's inquisitors, Elihu, was a descendent of Nahor by Buz.  Buz and Uz were Nahor's sons by Milcah (Gen. 22:20). This is Uz the Elder whose grandson (by his daughter) was Uz the son of Dishan (I Chron. 1:42). Dishan was a son of Seir the Horite and the brother-in-law of Esau the Younger. Uz the Younger was Seir's grandson. Here is Seir's Horite family:

When there are two names that are very close, there is usually a third,  That third is Huz, so that Uz, Buz and Huz represent another 3-part confederation based on kinship.  I Chronicles 5:14 mentions that the son of Buz was Jahdo and Jahdo's son was Yeshishai, the Aramaic form of Yeshua/Jesus.  This connects the name of Jesus with the devotees of Horus, who was called "Son of God".

Buz is related to Uz and is grouped with the peoples of Dedan and Tema in Jeremiah 25. This is probably why this Horite confederation is not identified as Uz, Huz and Buz, but rather as Dedan, Tema and Buz. The oldest Arabic script emanated from the Afro-Arabian oases of Tema and Dedan in the Hijaz. Tema is known by Arabs as Taima and lies about 70 miles north-east of Dedan. Tema, Dedan and Dumah were caravan stops along the trade route from Babylon to Sheba.

These peoples shared appearance and life style. They dwelt in hills and built shrines in caves (such as seen at Petra) and the men shaved their heads (Jeremiah 25:23), as did Horite priests. This suggests that this was a confederation of Horite priestly families.  Genesis 36 confirms this, listing Uz's grandson Dedan as a Horite ruler.  Here we also find reference to Huz or Husham of the land of Tema (Gen. 36:34).

Other 3-part familial confederations are suggested by the names Sab-tah (Gen. 10:6) and Sab-teca (Gen. 10:7), and Le-hab (Gen. 10:13), Le-sha (Gen. 10:19) and Le-tu (Gen. 25:3). Letu was an eighth generation descendent of Noah through his sons Shem and Ham whose lines intermarried.

The prominence of the Horites is attested by the detail of the geneological information provided in Genesis 36 and I Chronicles 1. Here we discover that a people that have been regarded as tangentially related to Abraham were in fact Abraham's people. Isaac married Horite brides. Rebekah (his cousin bride) was a descedent of Na'Hor and Terah, and his half-sister bride (living in Beersheba) was a descendant of Sheba. Jacob also married Horite brides in Rachel and Leah, both descendants of Na'Hor and Terah. Genesis 36 tells us that Esau the Younger married a Oholibamah.


Related reading:  Abraham and Job: Horite Rulers; Abraham's Nephews and Niece; Who Were the Horites?

Russians Urged to Set Aside "monopoly of Darwinism"

MOSCOW (Reuters) – The Russian Orthodox Church called Wednesday for an end to the "monopoly of Darwinism" in Russian schools, saying religious explanations of creation should be taught alongside evolution.

Liberals said they would fight efforts to include religious teaching in schools. Russia's dominant church has experienced a revival in recent years, worrying rights groups who say its power is undermining the country's secular constitution.

"The time has come for the monopoly of Darwinism and the deceptive idea that science in general contradicts religion. These ideas should be left in the past," senior Russian Orthodox Archbishop Hilarion said at a lecture in Moscow.

"Darwin's theory remains a theory. This means it should be taught to children as one of several theories, but children should know of other theories too."

Read it all here.
(Hat Tip to Ad Orientem)

Genghis Khan: The Last Afro-Asiatic Kingdom Builder?

Alice C. Linsley


Genghis Khan may have been the last Afro-Asiatic kingdom builder, following the pattern of Nimrod.  He was a descendant of Noah through Japheth according to the Hungarian origin stories, and he was allied with the Keraits, the only Christians known to have inhabited Central Asia.

The Keraits converted to Christianity in the 11th century. One of their leaders, Toghrul, gained fame as far west as France and Spain for his battles with Muslims. Several Kerait women became influential in the Mongol court. Sorghaghtani Beki married a son of Genghis Khan, and they had four sons. Two sons, Kublai Khan and Mongke Khan, were prominent leaders of the Mongolian Empire.

Genghis Khan means King Genghis. Khan is related to the biblical words Kain and Kandake (Candace in English), meaning ruler. He was like his namesake in many ways. On a hunting expedition he killed his half-brother Bekhter, during a fight over hunting spoils. This incident cemented his position as head of the household. Like Kain, Genghis Khan built an empire with settlements at sacred locations. He named his first-born son Jochi which is the equivalent of Joktan, the name of Abraham’s first-born son.

At age 16, he married a Hun woman. It was an arranged marriage intended to consolidate an alliance between Genghis’ people and the Huns of Central Asia. Genghis’ mother encouraged him to form many alliances through marriage.

It appears that the ancestors of the Hungarians were Afro-Asiatic peoples who moved north from the Upper Nile/Sudan along the Ural Mountains. If Japheth is an ancestor of some peoples in the Uralic language family, we have an explanation for the linguistic similarity between Afro-Asiatic names and names common among the Uralic, Turkish, Pashtun and Mongolian peoples. Those names include Jochi, Beri, Malik and Khan. Khan was originally a title meaning king. Today it is a common surname in Turkey, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Mongolia. It is equivalent to the Afro-Asiatic Kain, Kayan or Qayan. Genghis Khan’s name is more accurately spelled Činggis Qaγan.

Some of the Pashtun tribes adopted Malik as the ruler's title instead of Khan. Malik is equivalent to the Afro-Asiatic Melek, meaning king or ruler. 

Genghis Khan married a woman of the Olkut’Hun, meaning the Hun tribe. Possibly Ogur Hun means the Hun clan or the Hun community of Og. The word ogur  means clan, community or tribe and appears to be equivalent to the Pashto, orkut, meaning community. So, the words ogur, orkut and olkut seem to be linguistically related. They are not derived from the Nubian word for tribe which is ab which indicates that these words have a different source, probably Indo-Pakistani.  I believe they are related to the Kandahar dialect, which has as Tir-hari as a principal dialect. Tir is a form of the name Tiras, mentioned in Genesis 10 and hari is a form of the word for Horite.  So Genghis Khan married into a community which has connections to Abraham's Horite people.

Though the Huns and Hungarians are descendants of Noah through Japheth, their language is classified in the Uralic group, not the Afro-Asiatic group. The Uralic family includes the languages of western Mongolia, Finnish and Hungarian.

Drawing found in Hungary showing the symbols of the Sun, Cattle and the Tree of Life

In the Hungarian origin stories, Nimrod had two sons: Magor and Hunor. Magor is the equivalent of the Afro-Asiatic name Magog. The word Magyar is linguistically related to Magog and is the name for the Hungarian people. Some Magyar still live in the Upper Nile area where they are called the Magyar-ab, the tribe of Magyar.  Typical of Nilotic people, important symbols among the Magyar are the Sun, cattle and the Tree of Life.

Though Hungarian is a Uralic language, it has connections to the Afro-Asiatic language family, suggesting that Japheth’s descendants moved north toward the Ural Mountains. Here they developed a different religious practice – shamanism, which preserves some elements of the older Afro-Asiatic priest-religion, but which is significantly different. Priests and shamans serve similar functions in their communities but have different worldviews. (For the difference between priests and shamans, go here.)

While there is evidence of syncretism between the shamanic and priestly worldviews, the element of the Sun as an emblem of the Creator appears in both. Solar discs or solar boats are found on many artifacts from ancient Egypt, Nubia and Kush. It appears on artifacts across the ancient Afro-Asiatic Dominion.  It also appears on the deer stones of western Mongolia (see images below).


Deer stones mark burial ground at Ulan Tolgoi Mongolia



Deer stone with Sun found in western Mongolia

Related reading:  Noah's Sons and Their Descendants

Afro-Asiatic vs Aryan Religion: The Horse as Example

Horses paraded at the Hindu Machad Mamagam Festival held in February.

India was at the crossroads of the ancient world, connected to the Middle East and Africa by ancient water systems controlled by Afro-Asiatic rulers during the Halocene Wet period (c. 12,000 years ago). The oldest layer of civilization in India is that of the Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro (2500-2000 B.C.) which show Sudanese (Sudra-Dravidian) influence. So it appears that the oldest layer of Hindu belief and practice is Afro-Asiatic. This is why the oldest Vedic texts reveal many points of contact with the Afro-Asiatic binary distinctions, belief in a fixed order in creation, a reverence for the divinely-established boundaries between heaven and earth, between male and female, and between humans and other animals.

In the earliest Vedic texts we find warnings about transgressing these boundaries. These warn against actions and words that insult the gods, against homosexuality, and against sexual relations with animals.

Later Hinduism reflects the different worldview of the Indo-European invaders who entered from the north and subdued the Sudroid (Afro-Asiatic) peoples who lived there.  Today the Sudroid peoples are regarded as an inferior class/caste in India.

How different are the Afro-Asiatic and Aryan worldviews? Very different, as illustrated by the example of the horse.

The Horse in Afro-Asiatic Religion
The earliest breeding of horses appears to have taken place in the area that is today eastern Sudan along the Upper Nile. The horse was bred and trained as a royal mount well before 800 B.C. Robert Merkot reports that the people of Sheba were famous for the horses they breed and that those horses were exported widely throughout the ancient Afro-Asiatic Dominion.[1]  The world's oldest saddles are from Nubia and the Upper Nile region.

When the Kushite (Sudanese) ruler, Piye, conquered the palace city of King Nimlot, he discovered that the royal horses had been neglected and he was extremely angry about it. It is recorded that “His majesty went to the stable of the horses, and the quarter of the foals. When he saw that they had been left to hunger he said: As Re loves me … that my horses were made to hunger pains me more than any other crime you committed in your recklessness...” Piye reigned over eastern Sudan and Egypt from 752-721 B.C.

The horse while regarded as noble, was never deified in Afro-Asiatic religion. Sexual relations with a horse (or any animal) was an unthinkable violation of the boundaries set by God in creation. Not so in Hinduism after the Aryan invasion.

The Horse in Aryan Hinduism
In ancient times Hindu priests sacrificed horses. The Ashvamedha was offered only by kings seeking to gain strength or to expand their territories. The basis for selection of the horse that was to be sacrificed was the Krittika, the Pleiades, on his forehead. After the horse was sacrificed, the carcass was cut into sections and the priests burned the sections on outdoor altars.

There was a fertility ceremony attached to horse sacrifice. If the King also wasn’t to insure that his wives gave him many sons, he paid the priests to perform an elaborate year-long ritual. A fine horse was selected at the beginning of the year and allowed to wander freely while guarded by royal soldiers. Everywhere the horse wandered was claimed to be under the King’s jurisdiction. If the horse entered the territory of another ruler, that ruler had to submit or engage in combat. During the year the horse was not allowed to mate and at the end of the year it was returned to the city where it was sacrificed in a 3-day ceremony.

The royal fertility ritual called Asvamedha yajna involved the king’s principal wife in a nightlong copulation with the dead horse. The priests and all royal wives and their four hundred attendants spent the night insulting each other. The insults go something like these:

To the wives the insulter says: “Lift up her thighs… she is like…” (insulting remark)

The attendants shout back to the insulter: “Your penis is like a…” (insulting remark)

The story is told that Rama’s mother and co-mothers performed the ceremony to guarantee the birth of sons to King Dasaratha. All three of the king’s wives were united with the carcass, but his principal wife, Kausalya, spent the entire night with the dead horse regarding this as her sacred duty. The account speaks of 300 beasts being sacrificed, including snakes and birds, in addition of Dasaratha’s “jewel of a horse” which was cut by his principal wife with 3 knives. The ceremony was costly as it involved paying a year’s salary to priests (Brahmans), the invoker (hotr), the chief priest (adhvarya) and the singer/cantor (udgatr).[2] There is a similar ritual known among the ancient Celts, only in reverse. In the ceremony of enthronement, the king ritually coupled with a mare that was then sacrificed and cooked, being then eaten in a communal meal. The horse fertility ritual comes from the Indo-European-Aryan worldview and is contrary to the older Afro-Asiatic layer which maintains strict distinction between human and animal.

It appear that there was a parting of ways theologically and it may be represented by different names of God.


Az or Yahweh

The Asvamedha yajna gives the name As (or Az) for God. The name appears in ancient Akkadian texts. A 7th-century text says that Sargon city on the bank of the Euphrates was called Azu-piranu, meaning temple or house of Az. O-piru means house of the Sun. Azu is also a variant of the African name for God - Asa. Azu-piranu is equivalent of the Hebrew word Beth-el, but there appears to have been distinct conceptions of God.

Variants of this name for God include: Azu in Akkadian, Asa in Chadic, Asha in Kushitic, and Ashai in Hebrew.  A Jerusalem priest named Am-ashai is mentioned in Neh. 11:13.


The Sakās (Sarki) of the Behistun inscription [3] of Darius I (521-486 B.C.) were made up of four tribes, the foremost of which were the Asii.[4]

Related reading:  7000 BC Horse Burial Linked to Sheba


NOTES

1. See Morkot’s book The Black Pharaohs. Sheba was an ancestor of Abraham, according to Genesis 10:28.

2. Goldman, Robert P. The Ramayana of Valmiki: An Epic of Ancient India. Balakanda (vol.1). Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-06561-6, pp. 151-152.

3. I have visited the site of this inscription. It appears in these images and scripts that the binary worldview of the Horites had morphed into the dualism that would characterize Zorastrianism. Ahura Mazda is likely a variant of Hor-Az or Hormazd. Ahura Mazda's dualistic counterpart is Angra Mainyu, the creator of evil.

4. Hans Loescher provides an excellent presentation of the Asii-led confederation that penetrated China.

Connecting Magog, Gog and Og to Abraham

End times writers Hal Lindsay and Timothy LaHaye have made much of Gog and Magog as the archetypal enemies of God in Reveltaion 20:8. End times publications profit at the expense of good biblical exegesis, so in this essay we look into the identity of Gog and Magog.[1]

The first thing to note is that Gog and Magog are joined by a third - Og - mentioned in Numbers 21. Og, Gog and Magog comprise a tribal unity, as do each of the three-son confederations listed in Genesis.  Magog is the best known, being claimed as the ancestor of the Kushitic (Kushan) Scythians. Magog is named in the Table of Nations (Gen. 10) as a descendent or son of Japheth.

Legends surrounding Magog are found in countries as distant as Russia and Denmark, and are associated with Marco Polo, Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, and even King Arthur. The most credible claim involves Magog as the ancestor of the Hungarians through the Afro-Asiatic kingdom builder Nimrod.  Genghis Khan married into the Olkut Hun (Hun Tribe) so the connection to that historical figure can be verified.[2]

The following biblical references identify Magog with the people of Japheth, Kush and Shem, whose lines intermarried.

Genesis 10:2-4 tells us that "The sons of Japeth: Gomer, and Magog, and Madai, and Javan, and Tubal, and Meshech, and Tiras. And the sons of Gomer: Ashkenaz, and Riphath, and Togarmah. And the sons of Javan: Elishah, and Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim."

Here we note the blood relationship of Magog with two names that help us to make connections to Kush and Shem.  The name Tubal is a Hamitic or Kushitic name and Meshech is a Semitic name.  The names Meshech and Tubal appear in Assyrian inscriptions as Muschu and Tabal.

Here is how the relationship of the peoples is explained in the Hungarian Legend of the White Stag:

The Legend of the White Stag ascribes the origin of the Hungarians to the merging of three peoples: Huns, Magyars and Alans. Since the Alans, together with the Yazyg and Roxlans are classified as Massagetas in early records and as Sarmatians in later ones, henceforth the terms "Alan", "Yazyg", "Roxlan" and "Massageta" will be mentioned as "Sarmatian" in order to make this essay more intelligible, avoiding synonymous or quasi-synonymous terms (unless specification is required). They are identified with the Moshkhi of the Assyrian chronicles and Meshekh of the Bible. (From here.)

The connection of the three strands descending from Noah are also mentioned in Ezekiel 38:1-4: The word of the LORD came to me: Son of man, set your face toward Gog, of the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him and say, Thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I am against you, O Gog, chief prince of Meshech and Tubal; and I will turn you about, and put hooks into your jaws, and I will bring you forth, and all your army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed in full armor, a great company, all of them with buckler and shield, wielding swords . . .

Ezekiel 39:1  "And you, son of man, prophesy against Gog, and say, Thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I am against you, O Gog, chief prince of Meshech and Tubal . . ."

By the time of the prophet Ezekiel, Gog appears to have gained prominence over and is regarded as chief of the sons of Japeth. Notice that the name Gog doesn’t actually appear in Genesis 10:2-4. Yet the Prophet recognized that Gog and Magog are associated.

When encountering two names that are related it is necessary to look for a third related name because Genesis presents familial units in groups of three. We find the third name, Og, in Numbers 21:33, so that we are able to speak of the familial confederation of Magog, Gog and Og, with Gog having prominence by the time of Ezekiel (593-571 B.C.).

Because Ezekiel specifically prophesies against this confederation, the names Gog and Magog came to represent forces that oppose God and God’s people. Consider this reference from the book of Revelation.

Rev. 20:6-10 “Blessed and holy is he who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and they shall reign with him a thousand years. And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be loosed from his prison, and will come out to deceive the nations which are at the four corners of the earth, that is, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle; their number is like the sand of the sea. And they marched up over the broad earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city; but fire came down from heaven and consumed them, and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulphur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.”

Before 500 AD, references to Gog and Magog occur in the preserved sermons and letters of St. Jerome and other early Christians. These references indicated that the names had become associated with threats to Christendom. In other words, the names were used allegorically to represent invasion of Christian lands and/or oppression of Christians. Gog and Magog are used, as Rome and Babylon are used in the book of Revelation, as archetypes of worldly rebellion against God and God’s kingdom. This is the time when the Roman Empire was seriously weakened by invaders from the north.  However, to equate the Huns and Magyar (Magog) with anti-Christ goes too far since there were Christians among these northern peoples. The Keraits, allies of Genghis Khan, converted to Christianity in the 11th century. One of their leaders, Toghrul, gained fame as far west as France and Spain for his victories over the Muslims.

The name Og is mentioned in Numbers 21:33. According to the Bedouins, Og is the town of Koraki, about 2 days journey from the Jordan River. According to the Archimandrite Joachim Spetsieris, Og (Koraki or Horaki) had about 400 families of both Muslim and Orthodox Arabs in 1890. In the late 1800s, an ascetical monk, Fr. Kallistratos, lived for 3 years in a cave across the Jordan near Koraki and the people of the village lowered food to him using ropes from above the cave.

An ancient legendary hero, Csaba, (from whom the Hungarian Scholar Hagrita Csaba is descended) is said to trace ancestry back to the Horites. Csaba was a shepherd priest who was a guardian of the people. He married a Khwarezmian woman, and Khwarezm was founded by the Horites. This is evident in the Old Persian word Huwarazmish which is related to the Ancient Horite word for ruler-priests (Harwa) who controlled the major waters systems in the Afro-Asiatic Dominion.  Various versions of khwar/khar/khor/hor are used around the Persian Gulf for tidal flats, marshlands, or tidal bays (e.g., Khor Musa, Khor Abdallah, Hor al-Azim, Hor al-Himar, etc.). There are also Indian Scythians of the Csaba tribe from Khwarezm who migrated eastward and settled in India.

The Magyar-ab, or Tribe of Magyar (Magog), still live along the Nile River in Egypt and Sudan. Their ancestors moved east and north during the time of the Afro-Asiatic expansion under Nimrod the Kushite and the Sudra (Sudanese) and Dravidians.

Magog, Gog and Og are Afro-Asiatic peoples who settled along the Ural and Atlas Mountains.  This explains why Hungarian is not an Indo-European language.  It is in the same language family as Finnish, Samoyed, and languages of western Mongolia.

Magog, Gog and Og are one of many 3-part confederations based on kinship. Consider this list:

Cain Abel Seth (Gen. 4-5)
Ham Japeth Shem (Gen. 5-9)
Og Gog Magog (Gen. 10 and Nu. 21:33)
Haran Nahor Abraham (Gen. 11-12)
Ishmael Jokshan Isaac (Gen. 16, 21, and 25)
Jeush Jalam Korah (Gen. 36: 4-18)
Korah Moses Aaron  (Ex. and Nu.)
Dedan Tema Buz (Jeremiah 25)

Conclusion
The biblical material we have examined has a specific cultural context and is very old. Although allegory and legends have developed around Gog and Magog, there is no reason to doubt the historicity of these peoples or of any of the peoples mentioned in the Table of Nations (Gen. 10). However, the textual evidence does not support the notion that all the peoples of the earth come from Noah since all the peoples listed in Genesis 10 are in only two of the 17 languages families: Afro-Asiatic and a few in the Altaic-Uralic group. Nor should Gog and Magog be regarded as anti-Christ forces destined to play a role at the end of time. Instead these represent a 3-clan confederation of peoples whose worldview is essentially Afro-Asiatic and who have blood connections to Abraham and his Horite people.


NOTES

1. Two trends among American Evanglicals undermine good Biblical interpretation:  Dispensational End Times theology and Young Earth Creationism.

2. There appears to be a linguistic connection between the words olkut, ogor and orkut, words meaning tribe, clan or community. These are not close to the Nubian word for tribe which is ab, so I suspect they are related to the Kandahar dialect, which is related to Tir-hari.  Tir is a form of the name Tiras, mentioned in Genesis 10 and hari is a form of the word for Horite.

Jesus Christ of Two Crowns

Alice C. Linsley

Shown above: The Double Crown worn by Horus. The red crown represents Lower Nile (Egypt) and the white crown respresents Upper Nile (ancient Kush, modern Sudan). After the unification of the Upper and Lower Nile regions the two were put together to represent a unified Egypt. Narmer (Menes) was the first recorded to wear the Double Crown. He was the founder of the First Dynasty around 3100 B.C.

The Double Crown was associated with Horus, the "Son of God",who is said to unify the two lands. One of his symbols is the falcon or hawk. Horus was said to be the parthenogenetic child of the Virgin Mother, Isis. I've written here about how Horus was a pattern for Christ and Christ unites two peoples into one Kingdom. The two peoples are those who lived in expectation of the appearing of the Seed promised in Genesis 3:15 and those who believe the testimony of the Apostles who saw His appearing. Just as the Patriarchs came to rule after taking their second wifes, so Christ will ascend the throne of the Father after He takes the Church as his bride.

Exacators at Hierakonpolis report found "a series of New Kingdom inscriptions incised into the rock high up on the rise. These record the names of several priests with prayers and dedications to Horus of Nekhen depicted as a crouching falcon with the White or Double Crown on his head. The location of the inscriptions suggests that this spot had been chosen not only for the commanding view it provided, but because it marked the southeasternmost border of Hierakonpolis and would be the first place illuminated by the rays of the rising sun each morning."

Susan Burns, an avid follower of Biblical Anthropology, has written: "The double axe symbol has been found at the Egyptian City of the Hawk signifying two lands. In this ancient city it is the Desheret symbol of sedge and bee. Desheret has been shown to have a root connection to Deborah, the Hebrew word for bee. Bee symbols are at the very heart of the afro-semitic language. Mn was the Egyptian god of the hive. The miraculous appearance of honey was attributed to him. Mn (with added Hebrew Heh) could be the Mannah (honeycomb) of Moses' Exodus sustaining the Israelites in the wilderness. I think it is interesting that the earliest Aramaic churches were hexagram shaped - a replica of a honeycomb cell."

Abraham's people were Horites, a tribe of priests whose God - Horus - was regarded as the "Son of God". Horus was said to be the parthenogenetic child of the Virgin Mother, Isis. Though he was the "Son of God", he was born in humble circumstances in a cave. He was killed by his brother and rose again.

There are two ways to consider the parallel between Jesus and Horus: either Christianity absorbed ancient Egyptian mythology to explain Jesus or Jesus was recognized as Messiah by those who expected Him to fit the belief pattern of Abraham and his people. The second makes sense and fits the evidence of continuity from Abrahamic faith to Christian faith.  It would be difficult to explain why Christians would adopt an ancient Egyptian myth centuries after the fact.

Looking at the Horus-Jesus parallels through the lens of anthropology one finds an unchanging tradition that was already well developed among Abraham's ancestors, evidence that God has had witnesses in every generation since Eden. It also indicates that this Holy Tradition is received, not invented, and that it has specific features that the followers of Jesus Christ would immediately recognize. These features include expectation of the appearing of the Son of God by a miraculous birth under humble circumstances, His death and resurrection, and His oneness with the Father.


Related reading:  Horus, King of the Universe; Who Were the Horites?; The Christ in Nilotic Mythology 

Abraham's Saharan Ancestors

Alice C. Linsley


Twentieth century scholarship has failed to account for the purpose of the Bible. We might say that it serves as a sacred text and leave it at that. But why should this text be so influential for both good and bad? Why have few cultural anthropologists taken the text as seriously as biblical archaeologists? What do many dismiss the biblical record as baseless when there is so much material evidence to support what Genesis tells us about Abraham's people?

Part of the answer is that European scholars have turned a blind eye to the African origins of Abraham's ancestors. A few have explored the connections between Abraham’s people and Egypt, but none have traced Abraham’s ancestors back to pre-dynastic times to the Upper Nile, to the Sudan and to the Neolithic river systems of Nigeria. None have connected the Afro-Asiatic kingdom-builders as the descendents of the prehistoric Africans who were world explorers. Archaeologist Thomas Strasser of Providence College (Rhode Island) reports that humans left Africa hundreds of thousands of years ago and traveled north and east by boat. Stone hand axes unearthed on Crete indicate that ancient Africans used rafts or other seagoing vessels to cross from northern Africa to Europe and the Near East via larger islands in the Mediterranean.


Ignoring the African antecendents of Abraham's people has enabled white supremacists to claim that the curse of Ham is a curse on all black people. It has led young Earth creationists to conclude that the various people groups (with their various languages, cultures, and distinctive physical characteristics, including skin color) arose as a result of God's supernatural judgment at the Tower of Babel..."

It isn’t difficult for someone with some anthropological training to expose the fallacy of these views using the biblical text. For example, white supremacists should be told that analysis of the kinship pattern of Abraham's ancestors reveals that the lines of Ham and Shem intermarried. That being the case, which descendents would be cursed?

Young-Earth Creationists should be told that there are 17 language families in the world. Each breaks down into hundreds of languages, dialects and sub-dialects. All the peoples mentioned in Genesis 10 belong to only one language family: the Afro-Asiatic. The Bible is their story because the promise of the Son was made to their ancestors in Eden (Gen. 3:15). Most of these people are of African origin and dark skin color so it is ignorant to say that skin color variation is the result of God's judgment.

Today it is virtually impossible to ignore the African origins of Abraham’s people since every field employed in the study of Genesis points us that direction. Long before the emergence of a people called Israel, ruler-priests controlled vast areas of the ancient world. They built kingdoms with cities, temples and water shrines. They practiced animal sacrifice at fire altars and offered prayers with incense. They regarded water as the element of purification and a symbol of life. They observed sacred laws and spread across the earth. Afro-Asiatic rulers apparently felt enjoined by divine authority “to multiply and spread” across the Earth.

These ruler-priests married the daughters of other ruler-priests and thereby preserved their priestly bloodlines through endogamy. The endogamous marriage pattern of two priestly lines intermarrying can be traced from Genesis 4 to Jesus, son of Mary, daughter of the shepherd-priest Joachim.

Some argue that this is the purpose of the Bible. Whether one agrees or not, this view of the Bible raises interesting etiological questions. Why did the rulers of Genesis marry as they did? Why did they maintain two wives in separate households on a north-south axis? Why were the wives a half-sister and a patrilineal parallel cousin? What is the origin of this marriage pattern?

Genesis is the account of ancient Afro-Asiatic rulers, the first known kingdom builders whose dominion extended from Africa to India. There is scholarly debate over whether the Semites originated in Asia or in Africa. Noting the linguistic similarities between Semitic and Sanskrit words, many scholars have insisted that they moved westward from Asia into Africa. As evidence they offer the correspondence between the Hindu heroes Adimo, Heva, Sherma, Hama and Jiapheta and their Genesis counterparts Adam, Eve, Shem Ham, and Japheth. For these scholars, the Genesis prehistory reflects pre-Vedic legends of early humanity. But what if the reverse is true? What if the correspondence is due to the eastward movement of Abraham’s ancestors from Africa? This is the more likely scenario given the overwhelming evidence for the northeast migrations of peoples from Africa. Add to this the fact that the oldest artifacts to support the biblical worldview are found in Africa. Then there is the drive of kingdom-builders to search for and conquer new territories.

If the migration of Abraham’s ancestors was eastward and the stories reach as far as the Indus River Valley, these stories must be viewed as a seedbed of a widespread worldview. In fact, they must be the stories told from Africa to India. At the oldest level these stories share common motifs of Trees, Serpents, Water, and the Sun. All of these are found ar the Nile temples and shrines of Memphis, Heliopolis and Hierakonpolis, but they did not originate there. They came from deeper within Africa.

It seems to me that the purpose of the Bible must have something to do with what came from that deeper African religion and in my thinking this is the most important area yet to be explored by Biblical Anthropologists.


Related reading:  Saharan Antecedents of Pharaonic Egypt; The Christ in Nilotic Mythology; Biblical Anthropology and Antecedents

The Bull's Head in Antiquity

Alice C. Linsley


Among the Nilotic and Proto-Saharan cattle herders the cow and bull were sacred animals. As these peoples dispersed across the Levant and Asia Minor their religious symbols went with them. Bull heads have been found at the pan graves of the Beja. The Beja or Medjayu buried their dead in distinctive circular "pan graves" which they marked with the decorated skulls of bulls, gazelles and goats. These have been found in cemeteries of Upper Egypt and Lower Nubia beginning in the Second Intermediate Period. (Source: Sudan, 2000–1000 B.C., Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

The Beja brought gold to Egypt from mines deep in the heartland of Nubia and Kush. They were a caste of metal-working priests, such as Harun (Aaron), which is why they are assocaited with the Habiru (Hebrew priests) and the Brahmin (Vedic priests). Linguist Penelope Aubin notes, "In Demotic sources they are called Brhm while in classical sources they are the Blemmyes, ancestors of the modern Beja."

The bull's head is found also at Roman-period graves in Palestine, such as that found on this altar at Ashqelon.

On 17 May 2010, during excavation for a new hospital emergency room in the city of Ashqelon, a 24-inch-high granite structure was discovered. It dates to the time of Jesus and is adorned with carvings of three bull heads, ribbons, and laurel wreaths.

According to Yigal Israel, chief archaeologist at the Israel Antiquities Authority in Ashqelon, the structure is a pagan altar where there was once a pagan cemetery. The cemetery where the altar was found served Ashqelon's pagan population. Israel said that altars were "found everywhere, in cemeteries, in town squares, and also in temples."

Ashqelon is one of the oldest port cities in the Holy Land. It was inhabited as early as the Neolithic period, which began around 10,000 B.C. The structure dates to the time of the Roman occupation of the city and is believed to represent Pagan belief and funerary practices.  It is also possible that the bull's head image comes from before the Roman Period as Ashqelon was influenced from ancient times by Egyptian theology.

The curve of the Apis bull's horns form the lower rim of the Sun. This is why the Apis bull often appears with the Sun over its head.  At Ashqelon this idea was portrayed later by the sign of Tanit.  The sign shows the upraised arms with the Sun resting at the top of the cosmic pyramid.

The sign of Tanit, like the bull's head, is found on funerary monuments in Carthage, as show below.

The sign of Tanit is associated with goddess worship and the sacrifice of infants, both demonically inspired and condemned by the Prophets. Plutarch (ca. 46–120 AD) mentions the practice, as do Tertullian, Orosius and Diodorus Siculus. The Hebrew Bible indicates that some Canaanites sacrificed children at places called Tophet ("roasting place"). This was the meaning of the expression "to pass though the fire".  Abraham's binding of Isaac on the altar at Moriah doesn't fit this practice which suggests that it has a different context.

Bulls and Calves in Canaanite Religion
Golden calves and bull figurines have been found in different parts of the Holy Land. These date between 2000-1000 BC. One is on exhibit at the Museum of Israel in Jerusalem.  It was discovered near an ancient road with massive pavement running north-south between Dothan and Tizah. This area of the road near Dothan had many wells and cisterns to water the caravans that traveled to and from Egypt. Joseph was sold by his brothers to one of these caravans.

In 1990, Harvard University archeologists excavating Canaanite ruins surrounding the port of Ashkelon unearthed a golden calf dating from 2000 B.C.

The oldest know use of the bull's head in religious symbolism was found at the Egyptian shrines at Memphis  and Heliopolis.  There the bull's head represented Ptah, the creator of the world and all that is in it. He is not created, but simply is.

Horus, called the "son" of God, was often shown with upraised arms and this image of Ptah over his head.  Note also the Sun image.

This image later came to be associated with Zeus, the first of all the gods, which is why it appears on the cemetary altar found at Ashqelon.

Left:  Apis bull with Sun resting on its horns.  The sun was the emblem of the Creator among Abraham's Proto-Saharan ancestors. The Proto-Saharans venerated cattle and left behind engraving of bulls and oxen with solar disc between their horns. This image was associated with Hathor, the Virgin Queen whose son was Horus.

The bull's head also appears on ancient monuments and structures in India where the symbol was taken by the Sudra who went there from the Upper Nile region that is today called Sudan.

Right: Found at Mohenjo-daro. A deity seated with a stylized bull's head over him.

The bull's head is associated with Dravidian temples in Pakistan and southern India. The Dravidians and the Sudra are related, both classified as Sudoid.  These people likely carried their religious ideas from Africa to Pakistan, India, Nepal and the Maldives.  These were the founders of the temples of Mohenjo-daro and Harappa where many bulls have been found. The bull appears to have been the sacred totem of these ancient religious centers with their river shrines.

The spread of religious ideas and practices from Africa is due in part to the great Kushite kingdom builders like Nimrod, the son of Kush.  He is said to have had two sons: Hun and Magor.  Biblical Nimrod is said to have had twin sons or two first-born sons: Hunor and Magor. They were the patriarchs of the Hunogurs and Magyars (Hungarians). They are also said to be “sons” (descendents) of Japheth. So what would this look like when diagramed?


            ∆ Japheth                 ∆ Ham
            ∆ Magog                  ∆ Kush
                                         Nimrod
            O           =                ∆             =          O Nimrod's half-sister
                          ∆                               ∆
                     Magog                         Hunor


Here we again note the practice of Afro-Asiatic rulers having two wives.  One wife was Nimrod's half-sister (as was Sarah to Abraham) and the other was a patrilineal parallel cousin (as was Keturah to Abraham).  The cousin bride named her first-born son after her father, as has been seen in analysis of the cousin bride's naming prerogative.

Evidence in support of the Nimrod-Magyar connection is found in carvings, paintings and reliefs such as this found in Hungary. Note the characteristic symbols of the ancient Afro-Asiatics: a Tree of Life, the Sun, and cattle with horns.

Related reading:  Twin Pyramids in Zinder; Nilotic Cattle Herders; Evolutionists Reveal Ignorance of Culture; Afro-Asiatic Metal Workers; The Kushite-Kushan Connection