First Verifiably Historical Persons in Genesis

Alice C. Linsley


Just Genesis addresses a wide range of topics related to the first book of the Bible. You will find all the articles here listed alphabetically by topic in the INDEX.

To get us started, we'll consider some common questions. 
Where do readers of Genesis first encounter historical persons in Genesis?

The first cerifiably historical persons in Genesis are the men and women listed in the Genesis 4 and 5 king lsists.  These are the lines of Cain and Seth which intermarried. Cain and Seth married cousins who were the royal daughters of Enoch I.

Adam and Eve are likely ahistorical represenstations of the first human couple created by God. As such, they would have lived at least 3 million years ago and were fully human and in the divine image. In the Kushite context of Abraham's ancesotrs they are archetypal first ancestors of the Nilotic peoples. It is common among Nilotic tribes to have names for the founders of their tribe. The Gikuyu, for example, call their ancestral heads Gikuyu and Mumbi. 

The first historical persons in the Bible are ruler-priests of the lines of Cain (Gen. 4) and his brother Seth (Gen. 5)  Cain and Seth are the progenitors of the people who God would later call into covenant with Him. Their lines intermarried. Only first-born sons are listed and one daughter, Naamah (Gen.4:22), suggesting that she is important. Indeed, she is key to understanding the kinship pattern of Abraham's ancestors.

Naamah married her patrilineal cousin, Methuselah (Gen. 5:26), and named their first-born son Lamech after her father.  This is but one of many examples in the Bible of what I have termed "the cousin bride's naming prerogative."  The naming of the first-born son of a ruler by his cousin or niece bride reflects an ancient Nilotic custom of giving a throne name.  The cousin bride's son does not ascend to the throne of his biological father.  He is the heir to the throne of his maternal grandfather.


What is the nature of the information found in Chapters 4 and 5?

The “begets” of Genesis 4 and 5 present a very old kinship pattern which I have diagrammed and analyzed using E.L. Schusky’s Manual for Kinship Analysis, probably one of the most important books of the 20th century. Kinship patterns are like cultural signatures. Once a pattern is identified, it can often be used to trace the original homeland of a people or peoples. This means that analysis of the kinship pattern presented in Genesis 4 and 5 can direct us to the probable homeland of Abraham’s ancestors. Since the pattern is distinctly Nilotic, we can safely consider that Abraham's ancestors came out of the Nile region.  Genesis tells us that this is so.  Abraham is a descendant of Kush and Kush designates a vast territory that ran the length of the Upper Nile and extended during the Late Holocene Wet Period into what is today the Sahara of west central Africa.

Abraham never lived in west central Africa because he was a descendant of Nimrod who had left Kush to establish a territory in the Tigris-Euphrates River Valley between Haran and Ur.  That is where we first meet Abraham in Genesis 12.


What does analysis of the genealogical information reveal about Abraham’s ancestors?

Analysis of the kinship pattern of Abraham and his ancestors reveals that these rulers maintained two wives in separate households on a north-south axis. Before a man could ascend to his father's throne, he had to take his second wife. The first wife was a half-sister, as was Sarah to Abraham.  The second wife was a patrilineal cousin or niece, as was Keturah to Abraham.  The wives' separate households marked the northern and southern boundaries of the chief’s territory. By his two wives, the ruler had two first-born sons whose lines intermarried. By this means the ruler-priests maintained purity of their lines. The pattern continues throughout the Bible and appears to end with Joseph, of the ruler-priest line of Mattai, and his cousin bride Mary, daughter of the shepherd priest Joachim.


Related reading:  Nimrod: Afro-Asiatic Kingdom Builder; Who Were the Kushites?; The Migration of Abraham's Kushite Ancestors; The Cousin Bride's Naming Prerogative

Why a Blog About Genesis?

Alice C. Linsley


Does the world really need another blog?  Probably not.  However, a blog dedicated to the study of the first book of the Bible might be useful.  Genesis is the seed-plot of the entire Bible, containing in seedling form all the major doctrines in the Bible and the Proto-Gospel of Jesus, the Son of God.  Detailed anthropological, linguistic, and archaeological study of the book reveals the origins of Messianic expectation among Abraham's Kushite ancestors. 

Pastors, priests, seminary students, and interested lay people would find the material here helpful in making sense of the most controversial book of the Bible.  Anthropologists, linguists and archaeologists might also find the data interesting and informative.

I've been writing for publication for 20 years. I share that flaw common to all writers: we believe that we actually have something important to say. This writer has had over 428 publications, including fiction, poetry, essays and scholarly articles. Very few of those publications have meant as much to me as what I will publish at this blog in the years ahead.

As I approach my 58th year, my thoughts have clarified. My mind no longer runs after white rabbits. My interests have distilled to this pot liquor. Some will not like the taste, but that’s okay. Thankfully, I’ve passed that time in life when pleasing people matters. What matters is sharing what I’ve learned about Abraham and his ancestors who believed in the resurrection of the body and lived in expectation of the fulfillment of a promise made to them (Gen. 3:15) that a woman of their ruler-priest lines would miraculously conceive the Son of God, and that her Seed would crush the serpent's head and restore perfect communion with God.

I was first asked to teach Genesis to a group of women in my church in 1983. I dutifully read, researched, produced a study guide and lead the class in a 15-week study. I tried to answer questions that the women asked, but found that many of the answers I offer from commentaries didn’t satisfy. They were the answers of men who didn’t know about the Horite beliefs of Abraham and his people.

As an anthropologist, I know how important it is to understand the culture. I’ve lived in the South Pacific, Spain, Greece, and Iran. The people I befriended would not have become my friends if I hadn’t attempted to understand their cultures. Likewise, the figures of Genesis have become flesh and bone as I’ve attempted to understand features of their culture, cosmology and religion.

When teaching Genesis that first time, my mind was teased by the unanswered questions:

“If Adam and Eve were the only people on earth, where did their sons find wives?”

“If the flood covered the entire surface of the earth, where did all that water go, seeing there is a fixed amount of water in the biosphere?”

"Did God wipe out Cain's line?"

Through hours of reading and re-reading, through reflection, research and a good number of serendipitous discoveries, I came to know enough about Genesis that I felt I could start this blog.  It is dedicated to continued exploration of Genesis, a single book of the Bible. Such a narrow focus does not invite a wide readership, but I’m not concerned. Let there be even one inquisitive mind to mull over a single provocative fact, and I’ll be content.  I hope to make friends with others who share my obsession with Genesis, a profoundly meaningful book with remarkable implications for the modern world.


Related reading: My Method; Genesis Has Strengthened My Faith; Alice C. Linsley's Research on Genesis