TEC's Theology of Creation

The Episcopal Church will entertain many resolutions at its General Convention July 8-17 in Anaheim, California. Resolution Do33 calls for a "Continuous Cycle of Strategic Planning - Total request for triennium: $219,000. The explanation states:

"We are at a watershed moment in The Episcopal Church and do not want to lose this moment. It is a time that we have the opportunity to become the truly multicultural church about which we dream and we seem poised as a denomination to effectively reach the 'spiritual but not religious' in new ways, but it will require nimbleness to adapt to our rapidly changing social context. We must be focused and intentional to do so."

Another resolution that caught my attention is Resolution A516, titled "Sacred Acts for Sacred Waters". Here is the explanation:

"Scripture teaches us that God made the waters as part of Creation. Throughout Scripture and in liturgical practice, water has had deeply understood sacramental roles culminating with the water of baptism. Science and everyday experience confirm the description in the Scriptures of water as life-giving for all Creation. Millennium Development Goal #7 seeks to provide adequate supplies of life-giving water for all people.

Within Creation water undergoes a cycle. Water flows from sources, is contained, distributed, sometimes purified, used and then collected and distributed for further purification before rejoining the flow. In our reality the water of Creation is the result of complicated combinations of the natural processes set in place by the evolution of Creation and by many human interventions.

As the World's population grows, global and regional climates change, and the world society's increase in technological complexities and dependencies accelerates, water availability is changing and more sources of pollution are making water unfit for sustaining Creation, for liturgical purposes or for human consumption.

Individuals, congregations, communities, regions and nations are being called upon to make difficult decisions related to interventions in the water cycle. Often the decisions are made without explicit reference to Creation or to theological or ethical considerations. This Resolution asks that The Episcopal Church share the theologically sound tools already developed in diocesan programs and develop and share new tools that individual Episcopalians and congregations can use to help evaluate proposed interventions."

The commitment is so great to this vision of "life-giving water" that the resolution requests funding for a half-time position. It isn't clear whether this person is to advocate for environmental stewardship of water or to perform sacred acts for sacred water. But the salary is $60,000. (about $20,000 a year for 3 years). I know a Tungus shaman (shown right with eyes veiled) who might appeal to "the spiritual, but not religious in new ways".

4000 Year Old Bethlehem Tomb Discovered

June 25, 2009- Biblical Archaeology Review reports:

An unscathed 4,000-year-old tomb was accidently discovered in the city of Bethlehem during renovation being carried out on a local house. Construction workers were led to the tomb, which dates between 1,900 B.C. and 2,200 B.C., through a hole found near the Church of the Nativity.

The workers contacted the appropriate antiquities authorities, who arrived to document the tomb and its contents, which were located about a meter below the surface.

Intact tombs from this period are rare. Burial items such as pottery, plates and beads were retrieved from the tomb, along with the remains of two individuals. The opportunity to properly excavate and record an intact tomb from the era is expected to allow scientists to gain greater insight into the burial practices of the people living during the Canaanite period.

Go here.

Todd Bolen, commenting on this find, has written:

The tomb dates to the Intermediate Bronze period, also confusingly known as Early Bronze IV or Middle Bronze I. Many tombs from this period, including intact ones, have been found throughout Israel. In fact, this period is primarily known from its cemeteries, with relatively few settlements discovered. (See this post for photos of a cemetery from this period found a couple of years ago in Jerusalem.)

More importantly, this tomb indicates an early presence in the city that later came to be known as Bethlehem, the city of David’s birth. I don’t see anything about material from this period in NEAEH, which may indicate the significance of this discovery.

Who was Eliezer? Was He from Damascus?

William Dyce's oil painting of Eliezer (1860) 
is on permanent exhibit at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

"O Lord God, what can You give me seeing that I shall die accursed, and the steward of my household is Dam-Mesek Eliezer?" Genesis 15:2

The Hebrew is challenging here as there is an attempt at play on the sound ben meshek (son of Masek)... with dam mesek. It appears that Abraham had two concubines, Hagar and Masek. This was not unusual among the Habiru rulers. Consider Jacob's 2 concubines. 

The reference to Masek as a "handmaid" is clearer in the Orthodox Study Bible, based on the Septuagint. Genesis 15:2 reads: "And Abraham said, 'Lord, what will You give me, seeing I go childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus, the son of Masek, my domestic maid servant." The "of Damascus" is probably a mistake, but the Orthodox Study Bible committee decided to leave the place name.
If we include Eliezer as a son (following the Septuagint), Abraham had nine sons by two wives and two concubines. The first of the sons born to Abraham was Joktan (Yaqtan), son of Keturah.

Eliezer was Abraham's son by his concubine Masek (Mesek). He was one of the nine sons named in Scripture who were born to Abraham. However, his relationship to Abraham is only clear in the Septuagint. Bibles based on the Masoretic text do not include this information. The term dam means "blood" or "offspring" of Masek. Some Bibles have that Eliezar is from Damascus or that he is Damascene, but this is not implied in the older Greek version of the Old Testament.

To understand who Eliezar is and his importance, it is necessary to have some understanding of the marriage and ascendancy pattern of Abraham's Horim (called "Horites" in Genesis 36.)

Abraham had two wives, as was the pattern for Horite rulers. His father Terah had two wives. Sarah was Terah's daughter by one wife and Abraham was Terah's son by the other wife. This pattern of two wives meant that there were usually two firstborn sons; one by the half-sister wife and the other by the cousin/niece wife. As with all royal lines, there is problem when the wives are barren. 

In the Horite marriage and ascendancy pattern, the firstborn son of the cousin wife ascended to the throne of his maternal grandfather, after whom he was titled/named. Lamech the Younger (Gen. 5) ascended to the throne of Lamech the Elder (Gen. 4) Likewise, Esau the Younger ascended to the throne of Esau the Elder (Gen. 36). The first born sons of the cousin wives were not the proper heirs to the thrones of their biological fathers. Joktan, Abraham's first born son, the child of his cousin bride, Keturah, was never considered as Abraham's heir. He belonged to the household of Abraham's father-in-law.

The firstborn of the half-sister wife ascended to the throne of his biological father, so Isaac was Abraham's heir. However, he was not Abraham's firstborn. Neither was Ishmael. Ishmael was conceived late in Abraham's life, after Abraham had married Keturah. Keturah's firstborn son was Joktan (Yaqtan) of the Joktanite Tribes of Arabia. As Keturah was Abraham's cousin wife, Joktan ascended to the throne of his maternal grandfather.  

Sarah was barren. This meant that Abraham was without a proper heir, and growing desperate it appears. This is when he prayed about having an heir and received the promise (Gen. 15:4) that a son would come from his own "loins" (meaning blood descent from him and his half-sister).

Eliezar, as the firstborn of Masek, one of Abraham's concubines, was Abraham's only natural heir. Clearly before Isaac arrived, Eliezar was considered Abraham's rightful heir according to the Horite marriage and ascendancy pattern.

The name Eliezar/Eleazar appears twice in the Horite ancestry of Jesus Christ.

Related reading: Why Eliezer Was Abraham's Heir; Abraham's Sons; Abraham's Nephews and Niece; INDEX of Topics at Just Genesis; Sent Away Sons

Is a Presbyter a Priest?

Alice C. Linsley


Before reading this article, I recommend that this article be read first: What is a Priest?


In the New Testament the word "presbyter" is used to designate the one who presided when the body gathered for worship.  This probably didn't mean a priest, as only men born in the priestly lines would be considered priests and among these only some would have been sacrificing priests.  So the terms "presbyter" and "priest" do not represent the same concept. 

Some of the Apostles were likely born of the priestly lines, but that hardly matters since the Church's High Priest is Jesus and he was born of the priestly lines on his mother's side and Joseph's side.  Mary and Joseph were of priestly lines and cousins. Mary's father was the shepherd priest Joachim, and Joseph was of the priestly line of Mattai.

Ken Collins writes: “In the New Testament, the Temple has hierarchs and the church has presbyters. Most translate hierarch as priest, which is really incorrect, because priest is just an English contraction of the word presbyter. But if the translators put down priest for presbyter, it looks like they are discrediting churches that do not call their clergy priests. But if they put down presbyter, which is the untranslated Greek word, or elder, which is the word’s meaning, they discredit the churches that are so old that the word presbyter turned into priest as the language of their members changed.”

When did this morphing happen in history? Where do we find this expressed in Scripture? Clearly, there was a disjunction when the temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D. thus bringing the sacrificial system to an end. However St. Paul and St. John clearly believe that there is an eternal priesthood (in the Platonic sense) that nothing can destroy. They see it as a fixed ordinance in the Kingdom of God, derived from the one True Priest, Jesus Christ. In other words, the priesthood lives in Jesus Christ, the Sacrifice once offered who is to be the focus of every gathering. 

HE is the continuation of the only priesthood that the Apostles knew, a priesthood that maintained itself through a particular kinship pattern among Abraham' s Horite caste. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was born of Abraham’s ruler-priest bloodline.

Collins is right that many churches don’t have priests. These are churches removed from the Holy Tradition concerning the Christ received by the Apostles. Most are products of the Reformation and the many subsequent divisions that characterize churches that don’t hold to the sacramental center of the faith symbolized by the priesthood.

Now to Collins’ most provocative suggestion: that the oldest churches somehow morphed the word “presbyter” into "priest" over time. This is simply not the case.  Presbyter refers to elders, not priests.  There is no need to substitute priest for presbyter.  The early church had gatherings which were not presided over by priests.  No surprise there.  Many of the priests were hostile to Christians.  Yet some of those ruler-priests, men such as Nicodemus, came to believe and through them the Church recieved its priests after the order of Melchizedek, the prefigurement of Jesus Christ.

The true meaning of priest is defined by the Son of God whose Blood was shed for the life of the World. This Jesus was born to a long line of ruler-priests who are identified with the “order of Melchizedek” as an eternal priesthood. Presbyter means elder and not all elders are priests. But this is no reason to insist that the ancient churches which have priests have got it all wrong.


Related reading: The Priesthood in England (Conclusion); Who Were the Horites?; What is a Priest?; Growing Consensus that WO Must Be Addressed

The Order of Melchizedek

Right: Figure of an Egyptian priest with shaved head. Korah, Moses' half-brother, probably looked like this. Sarki means ruler among the people of Kano, which is where Noah’s ancestors came from. The Sarki are also a people group who live in the region of Orissa in India. Orissa is also a Nigerian word and Kano is in Nigeria. Sarki also live as ‘Haruwa’ in the Tarai region of Nepal. The word Haruwa is equivalent to the ancient Egyptian word ‘Harwa” meaning priest. It appears that priests played a leading role in the diffusion of the Afro-Asiatic worldview. It is interesting to note also that the word 'sarki' refers to red ochre which was ground into power and used almost universally in the burial of nobles as a symbol of blood between 20,000 and 80,000 years ago.

In this essay, I explore the connections between the priesthood identified with Melchizedek and the priesthood associated with Horus, one of the 3-God (baal shalisha), the source of light, and the Son of God.


Alice C. Linsley

The Priesthood begins with God who first shed the blood of animals to clothe Adam and Eve’s nakedness.[1]

It continues with Abel, a shepherd who offered acceptable sacrifice and was killed by his jealous brother.[2]

It is traced through Abraham’s ruler-priest ancestors who spread from west central Africa to the Indus River Valley. They are listed in the Bible and we know a good deal about their Afro-Asiatic worldview.

That the priesthood was already a fully developed office before the time of Abraham is evident in the person of Melchizedek, the Priest of Salem (Jerusalem). It is evident also in the presence of Neolithic fire altars throughout the Middle East.[3]

With Melchizedek, the priesthood of God comes to be associated with the Jebusite settlement of Jerusalem. Abdi-hepa was a Jebusite king who ruled Jerusalem three centuries before its conquest by David. This distinguishes the priesthood of God from other priesthoods that do not recognize the ancient prophecies concerning Mount Zion and the House of David. Interestingly, according to 2 Samuel 24, David built a fire altar at the threshing floor of Araunah, the Jebusite. Here David is shown as a ruler-priest and shepherd, the very roles that characterize the ruler-priests whose patrilineal lines intermarried, bringing us to the House of Joachim, Mary's father.

The antiquity of the priesthood is evident also when tracing the marriage pattern of Abraham’s Horite family in which the ruler-priests married the daughters of priests. The Horites were a particular group of priests whose worldview widely influenced Afro-Asiatic peoples and even the Indo-Europeans.[4]

Abraham's Horite ancestors believed in blood sacrifice for atonement of sin. They are likely the ones who spread the word about atonement through blood sacrifice. References to such redemption appear on a tablet titled "The Song of Debt Release," which was excavated in Hittite territory. The same practice was known to the Babylonians during Abraham's time.

The Horites take their name from the one they worship - Horus, the Son of God. They apparently believed that the Son of God would become incarnate from their bloodline. This is why they took great care that their priests married only patrilineal kin. (The priesthood was traced through the father. However, bloodline was traced through the mother.)

The Biblical record is so reliable that it can be used to reconstruct the priestly bloodline from Cain and Seth (whose lines intermarried) to Ham and Shem (whose lines intermarried) to Joktan and Sheba (whose lines intermarried) to the priest, Joachim, father of the blessed virgin Mary, Mother of the Promised Son of God.

The Priesthood as Fixed Order

It is evident that the priesthood that points to Jesus Christ, the Son of God, pertains exclusively to ruling men. This appears to be fixed by God from the beginning. To modern ears the idea that anything in the created order is fixed sounds improbable. We have been indoctrinated in the evolutionary insistence that things in the created order can change in essence. But this is a delusion. The order of creation is fixed. Created entities can and do change their form (what the Greeks called “flux”), but they do not change their essence. Such is the case with the priesthood.

So when the Episcopal Organization decided to call women “priests” that decision (motivated by politics rather than by truth) had no effect on the created order. TEC has no power to create new ontological categories. Women priests are not priests in “the order of Melchizedek”. The priesthood by its essence excludes women from this office. All the Episcopal Church managed to do was to create confusion and division. It isn’t difficult to track the Devil’s fire trails in this case.

The Order that Pertains Exclusively to Women

Analysis of the kinship pattern of Abraham’s people from Genesis 4 to the New Testament makes it clear that the order of creation excludes men from taking all the credit for working righteous on the earth. Only women would perform blood sacrifice in the form of birthing, and from the dawn of time it was foretold that a certain Woman would bring forth the Son of God.

The incarnation of the Son of God makes necessary the monthly cycle of women and the act of giving birth. Every women of the Scriptures who could not bear a child knew that she would not share in the bloodline of the Promised Son.

So Sarah cried out and when she received the promised son, she insisted that he alone should reign over the kingdom of his father. [5]

So Rachel became embittered because she had not borne Jacob a child, but God opened her womb and she brought forth Joseph, who shaved his head as a ruler-priest[6] and married the daughter of the priest of the shrine of On (Heliopolis) in Egypt.

So Hannah, the priest’s wife, lamented her barren state before the Lord and petitioned with tears until she bore Samuel, prophet of the Most High God.[7]

NOTES

1. As God is the first priest, Jesus is revealed as High Priest after the order of Melchizedek. This is used in scripture to establish the primal authority of His Priesthood, from which every true priest derives his authority.

2. Abel is a type of Jesus Christ who offered acceptable sacrifice and was killed by his own brethren. Just as Abel's blood cries to the Father from the ground, so the Blood of Jesus is ever before the face of the Father.

3. The fire altars were sometimes made of stones and sometimes of brick. They were constructed according to the cosmology of the people. Some were built in the form of a falcon. The falcon was the symbol of Horus, the Son of God. To see the geometry of a falcon altar, go here to page 5. Ur means "fire" and it appears in many Afro-Asiatic place names. It probably refers to the fire altars. Archaeological evidence of such altars has been found in the Indus Valley culture dating from the proto-Harappan age (3500 BC- 2500 BC) to the Harappan age (2500 BC - 1750 BC). There was probably a fire altar in Jerusalem (a Jebusite city) in the time of Melchizedek. Elijah's offering, and Jezebel's false prophets, were consumed by fire from heaven on a fire altar.

4. See the Rev. John Campbell's research on the Horites here.

5. Abraham had two wives: Sarah and Keturah. Jacob had two wives: Rachel and Leah.

6.The word "korah" means shaved head and refers to a ruler-priest. It is also the name of Moses' half-brother who was apparently a ruler-priest. No wonder he contested Moses' authority! Moses was likely the youngest of Amram's 3 sons. For more on why Joseph shaved, see Biblical Archaeology Review, July/Aug. 2007, pages 36-41.

7. Elkanah had two wives: Hannah and Peninnah. For more on the pattern of ruler-priests having 2 wives, go here.

Elder Joseph on Adam and Eve

Adam and Eve speak of the most fundamental condition of humanity. We are created in the divine image from the dust and we return to dust in death. We listen to God's Word and obey Him, reaping Life, or we listen to the devil's delusion and reap death in disobeying our Creator.

The following insights on Adam and Eve come from Elder Joseph the Hesychast, one of the greatest Christian ascetics of the 20th century. He resided on Mt. Athos and exercised a profound influence on the monks there. He urged them to lives of purity and often held up the Virgin Mary (the new Eve) as the example of the pure life. He challenged them to put off the old Adam and to put on Christ, the new Adam.

Elder Joseph died in 1959. May his memory be eternal!

From the Letters of Elder Joseph The Hesychast:

I earnestly entreat you: take care of your souls. May not one of you resemble our foremother Eve, but may all of you imitate Theotokos Mariam, the Virgin Mary. She said, 'Behold the handmaid of the Lord!' and became the Mother of God and the Lady of angels. Her fruit, our sweet Jesus, through obedience ascended the Cross and descended into Hades to heal the great wound of disobedience. Therefore, understand from this the power of this mystery.

We are human and children of transgression, having as a cornerstone the sin of Adam and Eve. So the Lord is condescending towards us and forgives everything when we repent.

...once we recognize God as the Creator of every good thing, as our Father, Provider, and Protector, we must believe in Him with all our heart and soul. We must have our hope only in Him, and when we perceive his manifold benefactions, we shall love Him. And when we love God with all our heart as the Creator, then we shall also love our neighbor as ourselves, knowing that we are all brothers - by nature, in Adam; and by grace, in Christ.

Grace comes gradually, and as soon as it approaches a person, he melts like wax. And at that moment he does not recognize himself; he is wholly a many-eyed, very clear nous. During this supernatural activity, he cannot distinguish himself, because he is completely united with God. Then the rust falls out. The seal is removed. The 'old man' dies. The primeval blood is removed. The whole man is renewed. The person does not undergo a bodily change, but his natural talents and gifts are enlightened, strengthened, and renewed by grace. And the Adam of old, who was formed in the image of God, is vitalized.

This world, my child, is so vain; full of every evil; a place of exile for Adam and subsequently for us as well. But blessed is he who has traded well during this exile and reached the haven of salvation, for he will eternally rejoice with the saints and reign together with Christ unto all ages.

God's Word Never Fails

Alice C. Linsley

John Collier's Annunciation

Collier's wonderful painting shows Mary as a typical school girl. It is a good reminder of both her humanity and her humility. Her purity is represented by the lillies which also foreshadow the empty Tomb.

If the Angel Gabriel is facing east, Mary is portrayed as reading her lesson or preparing for a test in the morning. The new dawn shines on her and on the Book which she holds firmly in her hands. She is as attentive to the Word as the archangel is to proclaiming her unique blessedness.

I like this painting because it reminds us that God's Word never fails to accomplish God's purpose. Mary was not a random choice. She was of a long line of women descended from the first people to receive the Word that the Woman's Seed would crush the serpent's head (Gen. 3:15). For Satan to be defeated, the Woman’s Seed would have to be of God, so Jesus is the Son of God and the fulfillment of the expectation of Abraham's people that the Son of God would be born in human form from their bloodline.

How can this be? Because Abraham's people preserved the bloodline of priests by maintaining a specific kinship pattern in which priests married half-sisters and patrilineal daughters of priests (cousins or nieces). Their expectation of the promised Son of God explains their strict adherence to this marriage pattern, with priests marrying only the daughters of priests (confirmed by DNA studies which have identified the cohen/priest marker). These daughter grew up as chaste women.  In Abraham's time they grew up at their father's water shrines because the ancient priests kept sheep for the sacrifice and controlled water systems such as wells to sustain their flocks. This explains why many of the heroes of the Old Testament met their brides at wells or river shrines.

Calling to remembrance our all-holy, immaculate, most blessed and glorious Lady Theotokos and ever-virgin Mary, with all the Saints, let us commend ourselves and each other, and all our life unto Christ our God.


Related reading:  Mary's Priestly Lineage; Mount Mary and the Origins of Life; Peleg: Time of Division; Cousin Brides and the Ruler Sons

Shaken Confidence of Materialists

“For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes....” Romans 1:16

Materialists view religion as a human invention and regard those who believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God as deluded or naive. Their confidence rests on the assumption that this Gospel is invented. Their confidence is easily shaken because nothing in Reality supports this assumption.

Reality supports the view that everything exists by the Word of God and that the Word of God has fulfilled all things in the Son of God, Jesus Christ. St. Anthony the Great articulated this philosophically when he wrote: "God’s providence controls the universe. It is present everywhere. Providence is the sovereign Logos of God, imprinting form on the unformed materiality of the world, making and fashioning all things. Matter could not have acquired an articulated structure were it not for the directing power of the Logos, who is the Image, Intellect, Wisdom and Providence of God.”

Reality shakes the confidence of Materialists so thoroughly that they must escape into fantasy. They fantasize about a universe governed by randomness. They invent creatures to fit their convergence evolution theory but have no physical evidence for such creatures since they never existed. They attribute Christianity to the Jews and then illogically insist that the Jews corrupted Jesus' true religion by shunning the Gnostics.

Most Materialists should be delighted with my discovery that Abraham and his ancestors looked forward to the appearance of the Son of God in human form and believed that He would be born from their blood line. They might argue that because the promise of the Son existed before Abraham's time, Christianity is so terribly old that it should be relegated to the realm of extinct entities. But it is also possible that their confidence would be shaken by the fact that the Jews didn't invent Christianity.

Their confidence is further shaken because they can't explain how this belief in the Incarnate Son of God could be preserved from primal man in Africa to this day. Just as none were able to explain how the 318 bishops who came to the Council of Nicea from around the world and had not formerly communicated with each other should hold a consistent view of Jesus Christ. Such preservation of Truth can't be explained by material mechanisms.

The Materialist worldview is riddled with holes and a thoughtful Materialist recognizes this. He probably doesn't recognize that his worldview is an artifact of the Father of Lies. Satan is the chief materialist.

St. Anthony the Great on Creation

"God, by His Logos, created the different kinds of animals to meet the variety of our needs: some for our food, others for our service. And He created man to apprehend them and their actions and to appraise them gratefully. Man should therefore strive not to die, like the non-rational animals, without having attained some apprehension of God and His works.”

“Providence is manifested in events which occur in accordance with divine necessity – such as the daily rising and setting of the sun, and the yielding of fruits of the earth. Law, similarly, is manifested in events which occur in accordance with human necessity. Everything has been created for man’s sake. Since God is good, whatever He does, He does for man’s sake.”

“God’s providence controls the universe. It is present everywhere. Providence is the sovereign Logos of God, imprinting form on the unformed materiality of the world, making and fashioning all things. Matter could not have acquired an articulated structure were it not for the directing power of the Logos, who is the Image, Intellect, Wisdom and Providence of God.”

Jesus and the Horus Narrative

“The most pressing question on the problem of faith is whether a man as a civilized being can believe in the divinity of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, for therein rests the whole of our faith.” - Fyodor Dostoevsky


Alice C. Linsley


Recently a reader named Jonathan asked about the significance of the Horite Hebrew. I had identified Abraham's people as a caste of ruler-priests organized into 2 ritual groups (moieties): the Horite Hebrew and the Sethite Hebrew. The point of origin of this caste appears to be the Nile Valley where the Horites and Sethites maintained temples and shrines as early as 6200 years ago. It is clear in the Ancient Pyramid Texts (2400-2000 B.C.) that the Horites and the Sethites maintained separate settlements. Utterance 308 addresses them as separate entities: "Hail to you, Horus in the Horite Mounds! Hail to you, Horus in the Sethite Mounds!"

The Horites and Sethites often were in competition with one another. However, the Pyramid Texts make it clear that of the 2 Hebrew groups, the Horites were the higher ranking. PT Utterance 470 contrasts the Horite mounds with the Sethite mounds, designating the Horite Mounds "the High Mounds."

The oldest known site of Horite Hebrew worship is Nekhen on the Nile. Nekhen predates the building of the Great Pyramids at Giza and the step pyramid of King Djoser (Third Dynasty). The oldest known tomb at Nekhen has murals on its plaster walls and dates to c. 3500–3200 B.C. 

Green malachite was placed in some graves at Nekhen. A leather pouch containing chunks of malachite was found in Tomb 39 in Nekhen, a city dedicated to Horus. Green malachite was associated with the falcon, the animal totem of Horus. The Book of the Dead speaks of how the deceased will become a falcon "whose wings are of green stone" (chapter 77). The protective Eye of Horus amulet was made of green stone. The Ancient Pyramid Texts speak of Horus as the "Lord of the green stone" (Utterance 301).

The Horites were devotees of Horus, the "Son of Ra/Re". In Ancient Egyptian he is simply identified as HR, meaning the "Most High One". In Ancient Egyptian Re means "father". (See BIBLICAL ANTHROPOLOGY: Ancient Egyptian Lexicon.) Horus was said to be the parthenogenetic child of the virgin mother, Hathor, whose animal totem was the cow. Ancient images of Hathor show her overshadowed by the sun resting in the horns of the celestial bull. 

Prophesy concerning the Son of God

The Horite Hebrew believed in a divine son who would be conceived by divine overshadowing, just as the Angel Gabriel explained to the Virgin Mary (Luke 1:34). The Son would embody kindness and unite the peoples. The Protoevangelium (Gen. 3:15) is the Word gone forth that shall not return void. Note that the "woman" to whom God speaks in Genesis 3:15 is not Eve. Eve is not named by Adam until 5 verses late (Gen. 3:20). So, who is "the woman" whose offspring will crush the serpent's head? "The Woman" can only be Mary, the Mother of God (Theotokos). Jesus is the Seed of the Woman of Genesis 3:15, the long-expected Immortal Mortal who tramples down death by death and receives an eternal kingdom.

Why He was Named Jesus

According to the early Nilotic Hebrew (4200-2000 B.C.), the first act of the Creator at the beginning was šw (Shu), meaning light. This is not the light of day. It is the eternal, uncreated light associated with the High God's son Y-shu (Yeshua), as proclaimed in John's Prologue.

Jesus or Yeshua is the name that was given to the son the Virgin Mary conceived by divine overshadowing. Luke 1:35 makes this clear. The angel explained to Mary: "The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God."

As Joseph's cousin bride, it was Mary's prerogative to name her firstborn son after her father, Joachim. However, according to Matthew's Gospel, an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream and told him to name the child Jesus. The angel instructed Joseph, "You are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins".

Prophesy about Crushing the Serpent's Head

The early Hebrew believed that HR would crush the serpent's head. The early Messianic expectation was expressed in the 4200-year-old Pyramid Texts: "Horus has shattered (crushed) the mouth of the serpent with the sole of his foot" (PT Utterance 388).

 

Prophesy about the Son's Resurrection

The early Hebrew prayers were written on the royal tombs along the Nile, and many are collected in the Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts. These prayers reveal that the early Hebrew believed in bodily resurrection and expected a Righteous Ruler to rise from the grave and lead his people to immortality.

Prophesy about the Son's Ultimate Victory of God's Enemies

In Psalm 110:1 a Messianic prophesy says, The Lord says to my Lord: "Sit at My right hand until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet." This is drawn from the belief of the early Hebrew, as is evident from a text dating to the time of Abraham the Hebrew (2000 B.C.) Consider how Horus, the archetype of Christ, describes himself in the Coffin Texts (passage 148):

"I am Horus, the great Falcon upon the ramparts of the house of him of the hidden name. My flight has reached the horizon. I have passed by the gods of Nut. I have gone further than the gods of old. Even the most ancient bird could not equal my very first flight. I have removed my place beyond the powers of Set, the foe of my father Osiris. No other god could do what I have done. I have brought the ways of eternity to the twilight of the morning. I am unique in my flight. My wrath will be turned against the enemy of my father Osiris and I will put him beneath my feet in my name of 'Red Cloak'."

There is a great body of evidence to indicate that the Bible scholar Frank Moore Cross was correct to conclude that the God of Israel is the God of the Horites.

Related reading: The Shrine City of Nekhen; Why the Name Jesus?; Early Resurrection Texts, Horite and Sethite Mounds, Hebrew Names and Titles; Righteous Rulers and the Resurrection; Christ Descended to the Dead

Riddle for the Readers

Americans are a racially and ethnically diverse people. We often ask "What's your background?" and what we mean is "Where did your ancestors come from?"

My father's parents were the children of missionary families. His mother was born in India and lived there until age 16. His father was the nephew of Adoniram Judson, American Baptist missionary to Burma. So while my father's parents were ethnically Americans and lived in California, they had a view of the world that included India and Burma.

My mother's parents aren't easy to label either. My maternal grandfather was British and although he married an American, he retained his British citizenship until his death. As a young man he collected taxes for the Crown in South Africa. My maternal grandmother was the only daughter of Bavarian immigrants who settled in the Yakima Valley of Washington. So my mother's side also held a large view of the world.

It is evident that Abraham's family held a view of the world that included Egypt, Mesopotamia and Horite Territory in Canaan. How might Abraham respond to the questions "What's your background? " "Where did your ancestors come from?

If we are to trust the Genesis geneological information we would have to say that Abraham's background was Horite, since his mother was Horite and race was traced through the mother. And we would have to say that Abraham's ancestors came out of Africa, since he is directly descended from Noah and Noah lived near Lake Chad.

Here is where it gets interesting... How might Ishmael answer these questions?

Or Isaac?

Or Joktan?

All are first-born sons of Abraham by three different woman.

Let's hear your ideas!