Binary Sets in the Ancient World

Alice C. Linsley


Ethical concerns of the ancient Afro-Arabians involved binary opposites or binary sets such as east-west, male-female, day-night, hot-cold, dry-wet, raw-cooked, life-death, and heaven-earth. These sets are universally and objectively observed in creation. Not every set of opposites is a binary set. Tall-short and talent-untalented do not represent binary sets because they are entirely subjective.

There is no doubt that these peoples going back to at least the Neolithic period thought of the world in terms of observable binary sets. Further, they observed these binary sets as a fixed feature in nature. The binary sets were used to determine good and evil. Good recognized and honored the fixed boundaries observed in creation. Evil violated the boundaries observed in creation.

Good and evil were themselves opposites, but not equal. The binary worldview of the ancients was not dualistic. One member of the binary set is by its nature superior in some way to the other.  So the Sun, as the greater light, is superior to the Moon. The male, as the larger and stronger, is superior to the female. Modern values and political correctness are irrelevant here. These distinctions are objective and universally observable.

Ancient peoples were close observers of nature. They recognized that seasons run in a cycle, the Sun appears to move from east to west, and people bring forth people, not plants or other animals. In other words, there is a fixed quality to the binary sets and to the cycles of nature. This is very unlike the randomness notion held by many today.

Today scientists study the sky for answers to the origins of the universe.  The ancients studied the heavens because they believed that the pattern observed there speaks of the Creator's nature and how we should order our lives on earth.  This is the idea behind the part of the Lord's Prayer that says "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."

The binary sets also provide direction and guidance. Lacking a compass, we can watch where the Sun rises to determine east. Knowing east, we can determine the direction of west. Just as the directional poles help us to avoid disorientation, so the binary sets observed universally and objectively in Nature can help us to avoid ethical confusion.

For the ancients they also suggested that there was a center point at the intersection of the perpendicular lines connecting north-south and east-west. One can image the place where these lines intersect as the center of a cross. This is a metaphysical sacred center that took on physical form when Jesus was nailed to the cross at Calvary. The cross is a fundamental symbol in creation and it appears on the perimeter of the Blombos Cave Plaque (shown right), the oldest known symbolic artifact.

The world hasn't changed in any essential way. Nothing ever really changes. That is what Plato understood and why he is still the greatest of the philosophers. There is one reality and all people exist in that one reality. Things can only become more what they were created. They can't become less what they were created without rebelling against God's design. This is why homosex was regarded as a serious violation of the created order.  This is why men were circumcised to remove the soft flesh that was associated with females, and why females were circumcised to remove the hard protrusion that was associated with males. 

Onanism was also regarded as a violation of the order of creation. The seed that should fall to the earth is the seed of plants, which spring forth from the earth. The seed of man should fall on his own type (the womb), from which man comes forth. Clement of Alexandria wrote, “Because of its divine institution for the propagation of man, the seed is not to be vainly ejaculated, nor is it to be damaged, nor is it to be wasted” (The Instructor of Children 2:10:91:2 A.D. 191).

Likewise the prohibition against mixing types of seeds and types of fibers is intended that human should observe the order of creation and honor the way it is. The prohibition against mixing seeds, fibers, and blood, is a reminder to not confuse the holy and the unholy, or to blurr the distinction between life and death, or between life-nurturing actions and life-destroying actions. This is one of the reasons why the Hebrews were not to boil a baby goat in its mother's milk (forbidden three places in Scripture - Ex. 23:19; Ex. 34:26, Deut. 14:21).

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Holding the binary opposites as distinct permitted the ancient priests to help their rulers make wise God-pleasing decisions. For example, the priests of Israel during Moses' time were to use the urim and thummim to receive divine guidance. These represent numerous binary sets. The urim would have a number of associations which would be assigned the opposite meaning with the thummim. Using these tools involved more than yes-no questions. It involved deriving meaning from the directional poles, gender, numbers and reversals.  The morehs or ancient prophets apparently used the same approach when rendering counsel such as that given to Abraham by the moreh at the Oak of Mamre (Gen. 12:6).

Related reading:  The Binary Distinctions of the Horites; Binary Distinctions and Kenosis, Blood and Binary Distinctions; Circumcision and Binary Distinctions; Shamanic Practice and the Priesthood; Males as Spiritual Leaders: Two Patterns