Latest News Flash on Noah's Ark

Alice C. Linsley

Websites are buzzing over claims that remains of Noah’s ark have been found in Turkey. The finders say they are "99.9 percent" sure that a wooden structure found on the mountainside was part of an ark that sheltered Noah, his family and a menagerie of creatures during a flood 4,800 years ago.  Disclaimers are flying.  It is a hoax, but some persist in believing that Noah's ark must be there somewhere, despite Biblical evidence to the contrary. Read about it here.



The Historical Noah

Noah lived approximately 2490-2415 BC, when the Sahara experienced a wet period (Karl W. Butzer 1966). This is the period of the Old Kingdom, a time of great cultural and technological achievement in Egypt.

Noah, a descendant of the Proto-Saharan ruler named in the Genesis 4 and 5. He was a great king. The rulers named in Genesis controlled the major water systems of Lake Chad, the Nile, and the Tigris and Euphrates. The interconnected waterways were their roads. In other words, Noah would have been familiar with boats and likely had a fleet.

Proto-Saharan rulers such as Noah kept menageries with a male and female specimen for breeding purposes.

These ancient rulers imposed taxes on cargo that moved through their territories. They used the rivers to expand their kingdoms and to spread their Afro-Asiatic worldview. Nimrod is an example. His father was Kush, a ruler who controlled a vast region of the Upper Nile. Nimrod left the Nile region and built his kingdom along the Tigris in Mesopotamia. (Gen. 10:8-12)

Noah likely lived in the region of Bor-Nu (Land of Noah) near Lake Chad. This is the only place on Earth that claims to be Noah's homeland. Satellite photographs reveal that Lake Mega-Chad was once a huge body of water, five times the surface area of Lake Superior and with a depth ranging from 200 to 600 feet. This part of Africa was much wetter than it is today due to climate cycles and the African rifts that created great watersheds or troughs.
Noah likely lived in the region of Bor-No (Land of Noah) near Lake Chad. This is the only place on Earth that claims to be Noah's homeland. Satellite photographs reveal that Lake Mega-Chad was once a huge body of water, five times the surface area of Lake Superior and with a depth ranging from 200 to 600 feet. This part of Africa was much wetter than it is today due to climate cycles and the African rifts that created great watersheds or troughs.
Noah was the grandfather of Kush, so we should not be surprised to find him in Africa. During Noah's time, the water systems of Lake Chad, the Benue Trough and the Nile were connected and Noah controlled the waterways of the Lake Chad Basin.

Noah's ark has never been found.  There are several reasons:

• People are looking in the wrong place!
• Noah's ark came to rest on Mount Meni (Har Meni) in East Africa, 230 miles from the Lake Chad Basin
• The ark was made mostly of reeds, leaving little hope of finding remains after all this time

Related reading:  Answers to Questions About Noah's Flood

Holy Tradition is Family Tradition

“Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about.” ― G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy


Alice C. Linsley

As an Orthodox Christian I value Tradition, and as a biblical anthropologist I conceive of Tradition as a subject to be studied as objectively as possible. Such study is able to identify specific features and suggest an origin. This approach is likely to get me into trouble with my fellow Orthodox and so I ask them to forgive me if I offend. That is not my intention.

In Orthodoxy, Tradition is said to live in the Church as the continuous expression of the Spirit's guidance and revelation and is the basis for the Church's authority. For an anthropologist, this definition seems theoretical and raises more questions than it answers. What exactly is the substance of the revelation? Is it fixed or does it change?

Looking at Holy Tradition through the lens of anthropology one finds an unchanging tradition that was already well developed among Abraham's ancestors.  This is evidence that God has had witnesses to His divine nature and eternal power in every generation since Eden.

It also indicates that 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, His blood shed on a cross, His resurrection, and His oneness with the Father.

For an anthropologist, the Bible is a useful resource for understanding Holy Tradition because only here do we find a consistent and cogent account of the people who lived in expectation of the Son of God and taught their children to do so.  In other words, Holy Tradition is a family tradition. This is evident when one studies the genealogies and discovers that Abraham's ancestors and Abraham's descendants are a more homogeneous group than suggested by the different ethnic labels assigned to them.

Abraham and David are key figures in this unique family tradition. Strangely, the Bible does not identify their mothers. This should stir curiosity since, among Abraham's people, one's ethnicity or bloodline was traced through the mothers. Were we able to identify these two women, we could point to the core family around which Holy Tradition is built. That has been a pet project of mine these past 30 years.

The core of Christian Faith is found in kernel form in the Proto-Gospel of Abraham's Horite people. The origins of the faith of the Son or "Seed" of God came to Abraham, not as special revelation, but as a tradition received from his forefathers. The tradition is expressed in the first promise of Scripture: Genesis 3:15. Here we discover that the people who passed along the oldest material in Genesis believed that a woman of their ruler-priests lines would bring forth the Seed of the Creator and the Seed would crush the serpent's head.

The distinctive traits of Horite religion align remarkable well with the key features of catholic faith and practice:

Male priests
Sacrifice at altars
Expectation of the "Seed" of God, conceived by divine overshadowing of a Horite virgin
Expectation of the bodily resurrection of the Seed/Son

Article VII is one of the best of the Articles of Religion found in the Book of Common Prayer, especially this part: “Wherefore they are not to be heard, which feign that the old Fathers did look only for transitory promises.” Indeed.


Related reading:  Received Tradition: Pushing back the veil of time; Righteous Rulers and the Resurrection; The Horite Ancestry of Jesus Christ; Mary's Ruler-Priest Lineage; Is it Possible to Speak of the Proto-Gospel?; Did Abraham Believe Isaac to be Messiah?; Who Were the Horites?

The Bible as the Woman's Story

Alice C. Linsley


In many ways, the Bible is The Woman's Story. Reading some commentaries one gets the impression that the Bible is about men and the experiences of men. Exposition of the biblical text on the basis of the male experience alone does not render a full picture of God’s work in the world. The masculine perspective may be the louder voice heard in the narrative, but there is also a softer voice speaking under the dominant voice.

The relationship of the male and female is much like the conscious and subconscious. During the waking hours the conscious is dominant and during the sleeping hours the subconscious rules the mind. The individual is the sum (and more) of the conscious and subconscious.

Likewise, to understand the Bible, we must pay equal attention to the quiet voice of female experience and the dominant voice of male experience. This enables us to keep focus on God made flesh through the Virgin Mary. He is the fulfillment of the ancient expectation of the Righteous Ruler, the Son of God, who overcomes death and leads his people to immortality. She is the one to whom God made the first Messianic promise that her Seed would crush the serpent's head (Gen. 3:15). This is the over-arching hope of the biblical writers.

John 3:16 states that belief in the Son of God is necessary for salvation.  There is the Martha's testimony "I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.” (John 11:27) There is also the Woman's urging of the servants at the wedding in Cana: "Do whatever he tells you." (John 2:5)

When we listen to the quieter voice we hear proclamation that the promise made to “the Woman’ in Eden has been fulfilled (Gen. 3:15). Behold a virgin conceived and brought forth the Seed who crushes the serpent's head and restores paradise. Jesus claimed to be the fulfillment of this promise. He explained to his disciples that he was going to Jerusalem to die: unless a seed falls into the ground and dies, it cannot give life to the world. (John 12).

Abraham’s ancestors expected the Seed to be born of their priestly bloodlines, which is why the Horite Hebrew ruler-priests practiced endogamy within and between their clans, that is, they intermarried exclusively. This also explains their strict moral code. Many of the rulers attempted to live into the expectation of the Righteous Ruler. Some went so far as to claim that their mothers miraculously conceived while in the temple. One of these was Sargon whose title means King of Kings or Most High King.

The female experience as it is presented in the Bible is not well represented. The commentaries written by women tend to be feminist critiques of the patriarchal world in which the women lived. Feminists largely portray the women of the Bible as victims of systematic oppression when, in fact, few are victims and few are oppressed. Many women of the Bible are shown to exercise considerable influence, some for good and some for bad. Most of the women named in the Old Testament are the wives, daughters and daughters-in-law of rulers and priests. This means that they were upper class and rather protected, though not often pampered. The women of the Bible were prophets, judges, witches, queens, wise women, harlots, merchants, seamstresses, and servants of the Most High God. Their stories round out our understanding of the Bible and of the received tradition concerning the Son of God that comes to us from Eden, born of the "Woman" Mary, the daughter of the shepherd priest Joachim. [1]

To understand the received tradition concerning the Son of God we must pay attention to the women in the Bible because among Abraham’s people, as with Jews today, bloodline was traced through the mothers. We see how this is true when we trace Jesus’ ancestry through key women. Consider this telescopic line of descent from A to K. Telescopic means that not all the generations of mothers are listed. If we begin with B – Cain’s wife – we have a depth of 10 mothers, which is the usual number in telescopic lines of descent.[2]

A. The “Woman” of Eden (Gen. 3:15) is not Eve since Eve is not named until verse 20. This woman is the mother of the Son of God. She conceived, according to Horite expectation, by divine overshadowing.

B. The wives of Cain (Gen. 4) and Seth (Gen. 5), daughters of Enoch/Anak. The lines of Cain and Seth intermarried.

C. Naamah, cousin wife of Methuselah (Gen. 4 and 5)and the mother of Lamech the Younger, who she named after her father, Lamech the Elder.

D. Wives of Shem and Ham. We know little about these women. They may have been sisters. The lines of Shem and Ham intermarried, so Abraham is a descendant of both men.

E. Mother of Abraham (Horite wife of Terah)

F. Sarah, Abraham’s half-sister, daughter of Terah. (Terah/Tera means priest.)

G. Rebekah, daughter of a priest

H. Leah, wife of Jacob

I. Tamar, daughter of a priest (She is cast as more righteous than Judah because she made sure the levirate law was fulfilled. The Deuteronomist defines righteousness as the fulfillment of the Law. Faith does not enter into the definition, so justification by faith is not expressed by the Deuteronomist Historian.)

J. Rahab of Jericho, wife of Salmon the Horite (She is cast as a "whore" by the Deuteronomist's shouting voice.)

K. Ruth, descendant of Terah by Lot (Lot is cast as a drunken incestuous father by the Deuteronomist Historian who wanted the Jews to think of the Moabites as their enemies, rather than their kinsmen.)


Explanation

A. The “Woman” of Gen. 3:15 is recognized by the Church Fathers as the Theotokos, or God-Bearer. She is at the beginning of the Messiah’s line as prophesy and she is at the end of Messiah’s line as his virgin mother. She is foreseen in the same way that Levi is said to have existed in the “loins” of Abraham. Hebrews 7:9-10 explains: “And, so to speak, through Abraham even Levi, who received tithes, paid tithes, for he was still in the loins of his father when Melchizedek met him.” Levi, yet unborn is said to have paid the tithe while still in the loins of his "father" Abraham when Abraham paid the tithe to the priest Melchizedek (Gen. 14:20).

B. Cain and his brother Seth married sisters, the daughters of the African chief Nok. We must trace Jesus' ancestry through Cain's descendant Naamah who married Methuselah and was the grandmother of Noah.

C. Naamah is the daughter of Lamech the Elder and the mother of Lamech the Younger. She was Methusaleh’s cousin bride.

D. Shem’s wife is not named. She was likely his half-sister. Shem and Ham’s lines intermarried according to the pattern of the ruler-priests. So Jesus is descended from both Shem and Ham.

E. Abraham’s mother is not named in the Bible, but according to tradition she was the daughter of a priest associated with the Egyptian shrine of Karnak (Karnevo in the Babylonian Talmud). This shrine was dedicated to Horus, called the “son of God”. The genealogical information indicates that her father was Na’Hor. She named her first-born son Na'Hor, according to the cousin bride's naming prerogative.

F. Sarah and Abraham had the same father, Terah, but different mothers. As a ruler-priest, Terah had two wives. One was a half-sister and the other was a patrilineal cousin.

G. Rebekah was Isaac’s cousin wife. His half-sister wife was the daughter of Abraham by Keturah who dwelt in Beersheba. This explains why Eliezar brought Rebekah to marry Isaac in Beersheba, and not to Hebron.

H. Leah is the mother of Judah. The Son of God would come from Judah by Tamar.

I. Tamar, the Righteous, tricked Judah into impregnating her. When Judah discovered that Tamar was pregnant, he ordered that she be stoned to death. This was the sentence for daughters of priests who committed adultery or harlotry.

J. Rahab was visited by Hebrew spies. She helped them to escape and as a reward her family was spared when the Hebrews attacked Jericho. The sign of her protection was a scarlet cord hanging from her window, a symbol of the Blood of Lamb. This is like the blood on the doorposts in Goshen, and Rahab’s story is a second Passover, a narrative that stresses the heroine. The Exodus story lifts up the hero Moses. Rahab married Salmon, the Son of Hur (Hor). Salmon is called the "father of Bethlehem" in 1 Chronicles 2:54.  Rahab became the grandmother of Boaz who married Ruth. Salmon (also Salma or Solomon) is a Horite name and is associated with Bethlehem (1 Chronicles 2:51).

K. Ruth is the celebrated great grandmother of King David. With Ruth the bloodlines descending from Terah converge. Ruth is the celebrated great grandmother of King David.


NOTES

1. Genesis 2:10-14 says that Eden was watered by four rivers: the Tigris, the Euphrates, the Pishon and the Gihon. Two are in Mesopotamia and two are in Africa. This is the heart of the ancient Afro-Asiatic Dominion. This is the place of origin of the ruler-priests and of "him that holds the scepter from the house of Eden" (Amos 1:5). So Eden is not a mythical garden, but a vast well-watered region and the point of origin of Abraham’s ancestors.

The description of Eden as a well-watered region is supported by climate and geological studies. Around 12,000 years ago the Nile river system filled with waters from the Angolan Highlands. Geological uplift tilted the region to create Lake Victoria and direct its excess flow north into the White Nile which provides most of the Nile's water during the dry season. Essentially the entire Albertine Rift was a vast flood plain extending 3,700 miles from Syria to central Mozambique.

The Ethiopians identify the Gihon with the Abay River, which encircles the former African kingdom of Gojjam (where Ge'ez was spoken, the language of the Ethiopian Orthodox church). The Pishon "flows through the whole land of Havilah" (Gen. 2:11). Havilah is a son of Kush (Gen. 10:7) and the "Kushites" lived in the upper Nile region and the Sudan. Kushite kings also ruled in Egypt. These four rivers encompass the heart of the ancient Afro-Asiatic Dominion which was ruled by a network of ruler-priests. They controlled the major water systems and built shrines along the rivers. The Kushite expansion out of the Nile Valley continued into the Indus Valley, Bactria, and southern China where they are called the Kushan.

2. One theory holds that the genealogical segments were in groups of 10 because to facilitate the memory of the tribal story teller. While this is certainly possible, it seems more likely that 10 represents the beginning of a new cycle, since the counting system of Abraham’s people used 9 as the base. This would mean that Ruth, descendant of Terah, begins the new cycle and this cycle traces the Son of God through David. This is significant since David’s city was Bethlehem and the “father of Bethlehem” was a Horite chief. I Chronicles 4:4 lists Hur (Hor) as the "father of Bethlehem". The author of I Chronicles knew that Bethlehem was originally a Horite settlement, less than 10 miles from Mt. Hor.

Related reading:  The Daughters of Priests; Mother and Son Pierced: An image of intimacy; The Virgin Mary's Horite Ancestry; The Question of Patriarchy; The Paradox of Feminism; Rethinking "Biblical Equality"

We're in Big Trouble!

Alice C. Linsley


In a course I’ve been teaching on Women of the Bible students were asked to list the purposes of the Bible. Here is a compilation of the list:

• To communicate God’s message
• To understand the Ten Commandments
• To better understand our lives
• To better understand the mystery of God
• To give us faith in Jesus Christ
• To help us to live a good life
• To prepare us to enter Heaven
• To prepare us for death
• To understand the world
• To get a handle on Reality
• To comfort us in times of sorrow
• To provide guidance
• To aid evangelism
• To inspire
• To help us repent of our sins
• To explain where humans and life on Earth came from/started
• To tell us about our ancestors
• To tell us about Jesus’ ancestors

Many of the answers can be grouped under the heading moral guidance, but if the Bible’s purpose is moral guidance we would expect this aspect to be as obvious and precise as the great ethical teachings of the Vedas, or Buddhist teaching or Confucius’ writings.

Other answers reflect the belief that the Bible is an evangelistic tool to be used to save souls by calling people to repentance. This is a good use of the Bible, but such answers identify one use of the Bible as the Bible’s purpose. Was the Bible written for Christian evangelism? I think not. In fact, evangelistic use the Bible without a clear sense of its purpose confuses people.

It was interesting that some of the answers pose the Bible as an epistemological resource. I agree that the Bible helps us to understand the world, and I believe that the Bible presents a true view of reality, but I do not regard this as the Bible’s purpose, per se.

Some of these answers reflect what the students recognize as their teacher’s anthropological interest in origins and the ancestors of Jesus Christ. These are good answers, but not what I consider the purpose of the Bible. This surprised my students! They were sure that they were giving me the answers I wanted to hear.

Based on extensive study, I believe that the purpose of the Bible is to record what those who wrote the Bible considered important. This purpose never makes the list because Americans don’t value what people of the ancient world considered important.  We are despisers of tradition and most consider ancient wisdom irrelevant. We believe that we are the most knowledgeable people, living in the most enlightened age, when in fact we are babblers who chase after entertainment rather than enlightenment.

If I am correct about this, we are in big trouble! For as Cicero said: To know nothing of what happened before you were born is to remain forever a child. The Apostle Paul says the same, urging believers to grow up through apprehension of the Holy Tradition concerning the Son of God. It matters that Abraham’s people lived in expectation of the appearing of the Son of God and that they knew God's purpose in His coming. It means that we have not invented Christianity. It means that, when our dogmatic quarrels take us off course, we can find the way by attending to this Holy Tradition.

The Scarlet Cord: Poem and Painting

Rahab and the Scarlet Cord


"so secreted into cold air
they made their way
from your roof
your bed
bound by promise
and sealed with a sign
to wave when the Day would come

and come it will...
but spared (you and yours)
from the falling swords
by this silken pledge
Jericho Jericho
your dead
will pile like wet leaves
choking the gutters

walls will fall
stone blood
and ash
and in the harlot's window
a scarlet cord
made of midnight oaths
will be all that remains"

From here.

God as Male Priest

"In his actions in and toward the world of his creation, the one God and Father reveals himself primarily and essentially in a 'masculine' way."-- Fr. Thomas Hopko (Women and the Priesthood, p 240)


Alice. C. Linsley

Among Abraham's ancestors the sun was venerated as the emblem of the Creator. It was believed to inseminate the earth and bring forth life. This is a distinctly masculine image for God and key to understand the origins of Messianic expectation among the Nilo-Saharans.

Their worldview was based on universally observed binary distinctions such as male-female, the east-west solar journey, dark-light, life-death, and on human experiences on a fundamental level of existence. The binary sets are observed by all people in all places on earth. The biblical worldview is not concerned with subjective distinctions such as tall-short, talented-untalented, dark skin-light skin, intelligent-unintelligent, etc. as these are not absolute and objective. The Bible is concerned about what is real ontologically.

The ancient Afro-Asiatics honored many realities, but one of the most significant is the male-female distinction. They associated maleness with the Sun and femaleness with the Moon. This association extended to semen and milk. The Sun inseminates the earth with its light and warmth and the Moon, which influences tides and body fluids, stimulates female reproduction and lactation. The ancients observed a relationship between the lunar cycle and the periodicity of the menstrual cycle. In France, menstruation is called le moment de la lune.

The binary distinctions were the basis for law and religious practice in the Afro-Asiatic Dominion. Both law and religion recognized that one of the opposites is always greater in some way. The Sun’s light is greater than moonlight. Males are stronger and larger than females. Heaven is more glorious than earth, and life is superior to death. Only in this last category is the feminine greater than the masculine, because the blood of menstruation and childbirth speaks of life, whereas the blood drawn by men in war, hunting and animal sacrifice speaks of death.

Because the Creator wants the distinction between life and death to be clear at all times to all peoples, He established this distinction between the “blood work” of women and men. This distinction between the two bloods is the basis for the priesthood, an office ontologically exclusive to males, since only men in the priestly lines could fill the office.

Warriors were responsible for the blood they shed in battle. Hunters were responsible for the blood they shed in the hunt, and priests were responsible for the blood of the animals they sacrificed. Midwives, wives and mothers were responsible for the blood of first intercourse, menstrual blood and blood shed in childbirth. The two bloods were never to mix or even to be present in the same space. Women didn’t participate in war, the hunt, and in ritual sacrifices. Likewise, men were not present at the circumcision of females or in the “mother’s house” to which women went during menses and to give birth.

It is also significant that among tribal peoples, brotherhood pacts are formed by the intentional mixing of bloods between two men, but never between male and female. The binary distinctions of male and female were maintained as part of the sacred tradition.


Female Blood Work

As a point of fact, the first reference to the shedding of blood in the Bible is not Cain’s murder of Abel. The first reference is to the blood of “the Woman” who would give birth to the One who would crush the head of the cosmic serpent and restore Paradise. This is significant because it places life-giving blood before killing. In other words, the blood work of women is posed as both prior to and equal to the blood work of priests.

In the Bible, the first blood work of women is not the birth of Cain, but the birth of Messiah promised to “the woman” in Eden in Genesis 3:15. This woman is not Eve, since Eve is not named by Adam until verse 20. The first blood work of Scripture is Christological, as indeed is the blood work of priests.


Male Blood Work

God sacrifices an animal to cover the nakedness of Adam and Eve (Gen. 3:21). In the Biblical chronology this places God as priest between the birthing blood of the Woman (Gen. 3:15) and Cain's murder of his brother (Gen. 4:8). God is at the sacred center between life and death. There God sacrifices what is His for humanity. In this sense, God is the first priest and that first animal that covers nakedness is a symbol of the Lamb that takes away the sin of the world.

From the Afro-Asiatic perspective, which is the perspective of the Bible, God is male and God is priest.  It is clear also that God condescends to grant to the lesser a greater role. So it is that a young maiden from the ruler-priest lines should become the un-wedded Bride of God and the ever-virgin Mother of Christ our God.


Related reading:  The Importance of Binary Distinctions; The Binary World and Kenosis; Blood and Binary Distinctions; The Priesthood as Heavenly Ordinance; Ideologies Opposed to Holy Tradition; Why God is Father and Not Mother by Mark Brumley; Why I am Not a Protestant

Seven Planets, Seven Bowls

Alice C. Linsley

The Milky Way seen through the pillars of the Temple at Karnak.

           

For many ancient populations of the Fertile Crescent, the Sun was the symbol of the High God, and it was venerated much as Christians venerate the Cross of Jesus Christ. Priests and rulers concerned themselves with the movement of the Sun, the Moon and the planets because it was their responsibility to fix the dates for feasts and fasts and because they believed that the pattern for right living on earth was found in the God-established pattern found in the heavens. [1]

This makes sense when you consider that the Sun is the single entity visible in creation that speaks adequately of the Creator's divine nature, eternal power, faithfulness, and omnipresence. The apparent disappearance and return of the Sun's brilliance during a solar eclipse speaks of the conquest of Light over Darkness. A solar eclipse begins with light and ends with light. Between, there is darkness, and the darkness is overcome by the Light.

By watching the heavens ancient man was able to better understand his place on earth since the stars and the planets move relative to one another in a fixed and stable pattern. There are seven visible planets and stars, although all were called "stars" by the ancients. These were perceived as urns or bowls from which God poured forth both blessings and curses. In Revelation 16, the angels are instructed to go and pour out the seven bowls of the indignation of God.

According to Heraklitus of Ephesus [2] these bowls carried the stars and other celestial bodies. Heraklitus explained the diurnal motion of the fixed stars as they revolved around a point above the north pole, and the apparent motions of the sun, the moon and planets. 

In the temple dedicated to the Sun in Upper Egypt, at the ruins of Babian, there were seven urns. These represented the seven visible planets. The urns caught blessings from heaven in the form of rain. The six urns at the wedding in Cana, where Jesus Christ turned water to wine, speak of what is to be fulfilled in Jesus at the Cross and Empty Tomb. He who went down also ascended to the heights, taking captives and giving gifts to mankind (Ephesians 4:9,10). [3] Perhaps this is what Heraklitus meant when we wrote that "the path up and down is one and the same."

This Afro-Asiatic perception of the seven bowls of heavenly blessings is evident in the Hindu wedding ceremony during which the new bride takes seven steps around the altar. The Agharias marriage ceremony (Orissa, India) begins with the bride’s father delivering a bracelet (as did Abraham's servant to Rebekah) and seven small earthen bowls to the bride. The bride is seated in the open, and seven women hold the bowls over her head one above the other. Water is then poured from one bowl into the other, each being filled in turn and the whole finally falling on the bride's head. The bowls represent the blessing of fecundity on the bride’s womb. Pouring the water from above represents the heavenly blessing by which God overcame the demonic forces that withheld water inhibiting life on earth. The bride is then bathed and carried in a basket seven times round the marriage-post, after which she is seated in a chair and seven women place their heads together round her while a male relative winds a thread seven times round the heads of the women.

Though many churches baptize by immersion, use of a bowl to baptize in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit is consistent with this ancient practice of blessing.

In Jewish weddings the seven marriage blessings (Sheva Brachot) are recited under the huppah and the wedding feast lasts seven days. Seven days was the duration of the wedding feast for Samson (Judges 14:12) and for Queen Vashti (Esther 1:5-11).

The significance of the number seven in reference to union or completion is seen in the first Genesis creation story which says that God rested from all His work on the seventh day. Seven in association with God at rest portrays the concept of a peaceful relationship between Master and Servant, between Heaven and Earth, between Creator and Creation, and between Husband and Bride. Seven in reference to the Sun's coming forth as a bridegroom speaks of the eighth day in which the Great Wedding Banquet is consummated.

The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork...Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun, which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.  (Psalm 19:1-6)

Bowls in the Ancient World

Bowls were used both to bless and to curse.  In the ancient Afro-Asiatic world, both were done by priests because they alone knew the words of power. Blessing and cursing were seen as binary opposites. To be blessed was to be under divine protection and to be cursed was to be removed from divine protection.  This is the meaning of the twin mountains of Gerizim and Ebal. From Gerizim came declaration of divine protection for those who follow the path of righteousness. The opposite was declared from Ebal (Deut. 11:26-30).

Shown is a cursing bowl. The curse is inscribed inside the bowl and the one invoking the curse would pour water from that bowl on the cursed person or on their property.  Presumably the worst curse would involve seven bowls or the pouring of water seven times. This bowl dates to about 3000 B.C. and was found in Egypt.

In the use of bowls for opposite purposes, we again find an example of the binary worldview of Abraham's people. John H. Walton has noted, "Blessing and curse are common terms in Genesis from the initial blessing in Genesis 1 to the curses of Genesis 3, 4 and 9, and then to the juxtaposition of curse and blessing in Genesis 12:1-3."  This helps us to understand what is meant in Genesis 12:3, where God says to Abraham: "The one who curses you, I will curse", which is to say that God will remove from his protection and favor from the one who invokes words against Abraham's seed.


Daniel's rejection of the "new" cosmology

Antiochus IV (the "little horn" of Daniel 8) attempted to stamp out knowledge of the diurnal rotation of the earth by imposing geocentric corruptions and insertions in the Hebrew scriptures. Daniel presents him as the little horn reaching to the sky to cast down stars and trample on them. He sought to eliminate the "daily", which can refer only to the Sun (Dan. 8:10).

The Hebrew doesn't say daily sacrifice. The word sacrifice was added by later interpreters who missed the significance of this passage. Antiochus IV opposed the older solar cosmology of Abraham's people which emphasized God's daily oversight and promise of union. We gain a better understanding of the cosmological references in Scripture by looking at the larger Afro-Asiatic context of the Bible.


NOTES

1. Eupolemus in Eusebius ascribed the origin of astronomy to Enoch. Enoch is a royal and priestly title. 

2. Heraklitus, a pre-Socratic philosopher, understood binary opposites as being unified by the Logos. He stated that "all things come to be in accordance with this Logos." In this belief, he appears to have been influenced by the astronomy of the early Nilotic priests, who (according to Plato) had been keeping astronomical records for 10,000 years. Diogenes Laertius wrote of Heraklitus [ix, 9-10] He does not reveal the nature of the surrounding; it contains, however, bowls turned with their hollow side towards us, in which the bright exhalations are collected and form flames, which are the heavenly bodies. Brightest and hottest is the flame of the sun ... And sun and moon are eclipsed when the bowls turn upwards; and the monthly phases of the moon occur as a bowl is gradually turned. (See Plato's Debt to Ancient Egypt.)

3. This is suggested by the diurnal motion of the stars around the north and south celestial poles. Earth's Great Year begins when the north-south polar axis is exactly perpendicular to the equatorial axis. This happens about every 25-28,000 years. In other words, earth's New Year begins with the erect Cross, the sign of Jesus Christ.

What Makes a Woman Virtuous?

Alice C. Linsley

The Proverbs 31 Woman is presented as a model of the virtuous or godly woman. She was the wife of a city elder (like Ruth) and a respected figure in her own right (like Deborah and Anna, the Prophetess). Her responsibilities include buying and selling merchandise, which means that she was a business woman (like Phoebe). The Proverbs 31 Woman “makes herself coverings of tapestry; her clothing is silk and purple” (like Lydia). [1]

In other words, the Virtuous Woman is a composite of the industrious, self-disciplined and faithful woman. Such a woman would have been a great asset to her husband. The King James Bible expresses her worth in these words: “A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies.” We wonder if this image of the woman is from the husband’s perspective more than from the woman’s perspective. From the woman’s perspective, this life was one of constant duty to family, household and community. And while her husband and children respect and honor her, this image doesn’t portray much warmth or intimacy.

For thousands of years, Jewish women recited Proverbs 31 when they lighted the Sabbath candles at dusk on Friday. Jesus’ mother would have had this poem about the Virtuous Woman in mind from earliest childhood.

Although Proverbs 31 is held up as a model of the virtuous woman, what we actually have is a general template of faithfulness to God. The same qualities would be expected of a godly man. The woman described in Proverbs is a portrait of ideal womanhood, but the focus of this portrait is a woman’s relationship with God, not her abilities or her efficiency as a homemaker. The Proverbs 31 woman realizes that her strength and her value come from God. [2]

Many faithful woman don't fit the good homemaker model of Proverbs 31. The Prophetess Anna was married for only 7 years. The rest of her years were spent as a “monastic” living in the temple.

Some of the women are remembered for unladylike acts, such as when Zipporah acted as a priest in circumcising her son. In doing so, she sacrificed her femininity to save her husband’s life. She also made it clear to Moses that she wasn’t happy about it, thus dismissing the idea that women must sweetly sacrifice themselves for their husbands. This is the opposite of what the Bible teaches. St Paul reminds Christian men that they are to love their wives and to be ready to lay down their lives for their wives, as Christ loved and gave His life for the Church.

Jael, wife of a tent-making descendent of Kain, can hardly be praised for her hospitality and gentleness. She killed her houseguest Sisera while he slept by driving a tent peg through his temple. And the Bible praises her for disposing of an enemy of Israel!

In fact, there is no single model of godly womanhood in the Bible. Some were judges who waged war, some were influential prophets, some were rulers’ wives, some were virgin daughters of priests, and some were barren and troubled women. The only thing they have in common is their reliance on God.

None fit the stereotype of the housewife overwhelmed by dirty dishes, laundry and the demands of husband and children. None seem to be oppressed women, though Feminists insist that their condition under Patriarchy was one of subjugation.[3]

Instead we find strong, dignified, multitalented, caring women who make a mark for themselves in the world by putting their trust in God. They invest wisely, oversee servants, and manage real estate. They are listed in the lines of descendent, sometimes even called “chief”, as in the case of Anah, Oholibamah’s mother. They are consulted by priests and kings as in the case of Huldah, and by the heads of tribes, as was Deborah. They are responsible for running large households and often save their husband’s estates from destruction, as did Abigail. They were recognized in their communities for their wisdom, such as the Wise Woman of Abel Beth-Macaah. They were respected in their communities for their kindness and generosity, such as the seamstress, Dorcus.

NOTES

1. The extraction of the purple dye from the Tola mollusk was extremely time consuming and labor intensive. That’s why only royalty and the very wealthy could afford the colored garments. To took about 250,000 mollusks to make one ounce of the dye.

2. This is an important message for women today, especially for those who consider that their value comes from being married or from achieving success in a career.

3. Feminists accuse St Paul of hating women and of attempting to impose a hierarchical order that oppresses them. This is a misrepresentation of the Apostle's teachings.  In the ancient Tradition which St. Paul knew very well, the binary distinctions of male and female meant that both sexes gained meaning for their lives from their differences and from the distinction between them as creatures and God as Creator.

Eden Was a Well-Watered Region

Henry Breasted's map of the Fertile Crescent. He coined the term "Fertile Crescent."

Alice C. Linsley

According to the Genesis 2 description, Eden was a vast well-watered region that corresponds to the Fertile Crescent shown on the map above. This is the home of the biblical Hebrew who dispersed out of Africa in Canaan, Arabia, Mesopotamia, Iraq, and Anatolia.

In the garden of Eden narratives, we find clues as to the cultural contexts of the narrators. The term Eden derives from the Akkadian term edinu, which refers to a fertile plain or a well-watered region. The Hebrew word gan (garden) is related to the Kushite term egàn, which refers to a virgin forest.

Cain moved "east of Eden" (Gen. 4:15) and his descendants are found in the land of Kenan/Kenites, which is the land of Canaan, or כנען, pronounced kena'an.

Cain was a sent-away son who established his territory "east of Eden" which is to say that he moved away from his brother Seth who is associated with the Upper Nile Valley. (See An Anthropologist Looks at Genesis 5.)

The phrase "east of Eden" in the Hebrew text is "quimat-Eden" and appears to be a Nilotic reference. Originally, the word was probably qma, and ancient Egyptian word that refers to bulrushes. So it is possible that Cain went to the place of bulrushes, which would be the Nile Valley. In Exodus 2:1-10, we read the story of how Moses; mother hid her infant in the bulrushes of the Nile.

Perhaps Eden simply refers to a well-watered region, just as the Hebrew word gihon (Genesis 2) refers to a gushing spring. One of the rivers that bounded Eden to the south is called the Gihon. It is likely one of the rivers at the source of the Nile in the Ethiopian highlands. The earliest human populations settled by major water sources which sustained them.


Abraham's ancestors were Nilotes and Proto-Saharans

The book of Genesis contains the oldest layers of information about Abraham's Nilo-Saharan ancestors who ruled territories along the Nile when the Sahara was wet (Neolithic Subpluvial). At that time the water systems of the Sahara were larger and interconnected.  This has been confirmed by geological and hydrological studies of Central Africa and by discovery of proto-Saharan petroglyphs of boats and cows.

It has also been attested by the discovery of an 8000-year black mahogany dugout in Dufuna in the Upper Yobe valley along the Komadugu Guna River in Northern Nigeria. The Dufuna boat (shown above) is about 2500 years older than the oldest known boat in Egypt.

The area shaded in red is the location of biblical Eden. It was said to be a well-watered area. Today this is one of the driest regions on earth, but during Noah's time and before it was vastly wetter. Abraham's ancestors came from this region. It is the point of origin of the Abrutu or Habiru (Hebrew) who preserved for us in a biblical record the traditions, beliefs, and practices of their ancestors.

Biblical Eden had forests, sustained large herds in the grasslands.
The region was well watered by extensive, inter-connected water systems
including the Nile, Lake Chad, Lake Victoria and the Benue-Niger Trough

Mega-Nile was once comparable in surface area to Lake Michigan (22,394 sq miles) in the US, Lake Tanganyika (12,703 sq miles) in East Africa, and Lake Baikal (12,248 sq miles) in Siberia. Here is the latest information on the vast expanse of the Nile during the last interglacial period.

Between 12,000 and 10,000 years ago the Nile filled with waters from the Angolan Highlands. Before this time, the streams of the Ugandan highlands flowed west to join the Congo River, which drains into the Atlantic. Geological uplift about 12,000 years ago tilted the region to create Lake Victoria and direct its excess flow north into the White Nile. The waters of the White Nile provide most of the Nile's water during the dry season. Essentially the entire Albertine Rift was a vast flood plain extending 3,700 miles from Syria to central Mozambique.

Likewise, the now dry Botswanan lake basin in southern Africa was once a sea, filled by water from the Angolan Highlands. Thousands of manmade stone tools have been found in the area dating to between 80,000 and 100,000 years.

Between 12,000 and 7,000 years ago Lake Chad filled its present drainage basin and spilled southwest out the Benue River to the Atlantic. It was called "Lake Mega Chad" and during that time it was the world's largest lake with a surface five times larger Lake Superior. The local population calls Lake Chad the "Sea of Noah" and the regional place names "Benue" and "Borno" also refer to Noah. 

Genesis 2:10-14 says that Eden was watered by four rivers: the Tigris, the Euphrates, the Pishon and the Gihon. Two rivers are in Mesopotamia and two are in Africa. This is the place of origin of the ruler-priests and of "him that holds the scepter from the house of Eden" (Amos 1:5). They are "the mighty men of old" who spread across this region. This is the point of origin of the practices associated with the priests of ancient Yisrael/Israel: circumcision, animal sacrifice, two-wife marriage pattern for rulers, sent-away royal sons, and the Holy Name YHWY.

The Ethiopians identify the Gihon with the Abay River, which encircles the former African kingdom of Gojjam. The Pishon "flows through the whole land of Havilah" (Gen. 2:11) which was rich in gold and bdellium, a semi-transparent oleo-gum resin extracted from Commiphora wightii and from Commiphora africana. These trees only grow in Ethiopia, Eritrea, and other parts of sub-Saharan Africa.

Havilah was a son of Kush (Gen. 10:7) and the "Kushites" lived in the upper Nile region and the Sudan. Kushite kings also ruled in Egypt and were the first to unite the peoples of the Upper and Lower Nile.

The description of Eden as a well-watered region is supported by climate and geological studies. These four rivers encompass the heart of Eden in the ancient world which was ruled by a network of kings, priests, and clan chiefs. They controlled the major water systems and built shrines and temples along the rivers. They exacted taxes on cargo that moved along the rivers between twin cities that set up effective maritime checkpoints.

Related reading: Boats and cows of the Nilo-Saharans; Noah's Flood: Where and When?; The Gold of Ophir; Sudan is Archaeologically Rich; The Ancient Egyptians Were Sea-Faring

Holy Theophany Church of Nagoya Japan

Holy Theophany Church (Orthodox)

For my friend Yumi:

There is an Orthodox Church in your town. Go here for information. 

You are in our prayers, dear sister!

Sweeping Away Gender and the Biblical Worldview

Alice C. Linsley

What is at the heart of attempts to sweep away the gender distinctions? As unpopular as it may be to say this, this comes from the fallen nature which resists God and God's purpose.  The arrogance of the human heart which pushes against the boundaries and distinctions that God has established. How foolish! We are humble clay imagining ourselves to be gods who can make the Sun rise in the west and can conform reality to our sinful desires. Here is a perfect example:  Gene Robinson on the Bible. The following news report is another.

+ + +

Norrie, a 48-year-old born in Scotland but now living in Sydney, was allowed to list "sex not specific" on his government-issued "details certificate" last month. However, news of this achievement flew round the globe and the Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages of the state of New South Wales told him that the certificate would be cancelled.

The Attorney-General, John Hatzistergos, said: "Advice from the Crown solicitor is that the registrar may only issue a recognised details certificate or new birth certificate following a change of sex in either male or female gender."

Norrie, who was born male, but lives an androgynous existence after a sex-change operation, was outraged. "I felt killed. It's a hideously humiliating position to find myself in and makes a mockery of my human rights. I feel completely violated by the [NSW] Attorney-General's office," he told ABC News. He has lodged a complaint with the Australian Human Rights Commission.

Perhaps unaware of the reversal of the decision, Oxford bioethicist Julian Savulescu applauded it as "a step forward for respect for personal autonomy and for human enhancement". He went on to explain, "The old binary categories are falling - tall and short, talented and untalented, smart and stupid, male and female. Human life is incredibly diverse. All states and talents affecting humans occur in shades of grey. We should make our choices in recognition of the shades of grey. And it makes sense to make decisions not based on crude categories but fine-grained realities." ABC, Mar 18;C-FAM, Apr 1


Note how Savulescu dismisses all the ancient wisdom with thee two words "Crude categories. It is apparent that Savulescu doesn't understand what binary distinctions are. Of his list - talented-untalented, smart-stupid, tall-short, male-female, etc.- only one is a binary distinction: male-female.

To what "fine-grained realities" is Julian Savulescu referring?  The binary distinctions are as fine-grained as one can get. They are observable as the pattern of nature and have been the basis for Law and Ethics for at least 12,000 years. The grey areas of which he speaks always represent anomalies in nature. In Law and Ethics they are a nightmare!

When we attempt to sweep away gender distinctions we are saying to the Creator that we know better. When we overthrow gender we overthrow the biblical worldview.


Related reading:  What's Lost When Women Serve as Priests?; The Importance of Binary Distinctions; Blood and Binary Distinctions; Genesis on Homosex: Beyond Sodom; The Biblical Worldview is Binary

How to Invite Ridicule

Alice C. Linsley


To understand the biblical worldview we must grasp the supplementary nature of the binary opposites. This involves understanding of what is meant by binary opposites and supplementary.

Supplementary is about meaning.  It is not an egalitarian principle. That is to say that meaning is derived from the relationship of the binary opposites. I experience hateful acts as evil because I have experience of loving acts and know them to be good. The reverse is also true. The male-female relationship has meaning because of the supplementary nature of male-female.

Supplementary doesn’t mean equal, since one of the opposites is perceived as greater in some way. This is how the biblical worldview avoids dualism.

Supplementary is what makes a relationship meaningful. In fact, meaning is derived from the supplementary nature of two things.

Consider Law and Grace. St. Paul presents these as binary oppositions, and their meaning is found in the supplementary relationship of the oppositions. One is greater, stronger, brighter, etc. than the other in its attributes. Grace is superior to the Law, but makes no sense without the Law. For as St. Paul says, the Law was our "school teacher" until grace should be revealed in the Incarnate Son.

The Sun is brighter than the Moon and the Moon's light is a reflection of the Sun's light. The western Afro-Asiatics thought the Chaldeans and Babylonians were confused because they venerated the Moon. Since the Moon merely reflects the Sun's light, it is a lesser entity. Why would anyone want to venerate a lesser entity? Abraham's father was accused of being an idol worshiper (Joshua 24:2) because he lived in the region of Ur and Haran where people worshipped the moon god.

Binary distinctions are not figments of the ancient imagination. They are observed in the order of creation. Men are physically larger and stronger than women.

Among Abraham's people it was taboo to allow distinct entities to become confused. This is why both men and women were circumcised, a custom that continues in many parts of Africa. Male circumcision is seen as an enhancement of maleness and the complement to the circumcised male could only be a circumcised female.  Circumcision in its original context derives meaning only when considered in this supplementary way.

Many examples of supplementary binary distinctions are found in Scripture. Consider the distinction between heat and cool. Abraham was visited “in the heat of the day” by God in 3 Persons (Gen. 18:1). Compare this to the binary opposite of “in the cool of the day”, the time of God’s visitation to Adam and Eve in Paradise (Gen. 3:8). Why are the two accounts posed as hot and cool encounters with God? Because in the first God has come to punish the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, and in the second God has come to enjoy fellowship with the Man and the Woman.

Bible verses which forbid sowing two types of seed in the same field, weaving two types of fabric in the same garment, and boiling a baby goat in its mother's milk - are about NOT blurring the distinctions God has created in nature. The last is especially troublesome because the offspring meets death in the life-giving mother's milk.

The prohibition against mixing types, be they fibers, seeds or blood, is like the prohibition against confusing the holy with the unholy, or blurring the distinction between life and death, such as happens when a baby goat is boiled in its mother's milk (forbidden 3 places in Scripture). That is why each seed is to go to its own kind. As plants are born from the earth, so the seeds of plants return to the earth. As the man is born from the woman, so the seed/semen of man is to return to woman. The spilling of seed called 'onanism' was regarded as an evil deed, a violation of the order of creation and therefore an affront to the Creator. So obviously was homosex.

Bloods were never permitted to mix or even to be present in the same space. For example, men were not permitted in the birthing hut. Women (and many men also) were not permitted where animals were sacrificed. This is why women were never priests and why in church tradition they waited 40 days to return to church, following the ancient custom requiring purification after shedding blood.

Ancient peoples recognized a fixed order in creation. The male is larger and generally stronger than the female. The male is equipped for war and hunting while the female is equipped for cultivation and childbirth. This leads us to the distinction between the blood shed by men and the blood shed by women. Male "blood work" was expressed in hunting, war, execution of lawbreakers, and in animal sacrifice by the rulers, priests or prophets.

The blood work of women is supplementary to the blood work of men. Women sacrifice blood in first marital intercourse. They bleed in their monthly cycle and in childbirth. The blood shed of women represents life and is distinct yet supplementary to the blood shed by men in hunting, war and animal sacrifice.

I’ve found that speaking about the binary distinctions draws fire. Suggesting that they are important invites ridicule. Yet this is how the ancient Afro-Asiatics made sense of the world and their thinking informs us today through the Bible, Law and Ethics. Abraham's ancestors were not spinning an illusion that we moderns in our superior knowledge may set aside, they were describing a cross-shaped reality.


Related reading:  Levi-Strauss and Jacques Derrida on Binary Oppositions; The Origins of Circumcision; Circumcision and Binary Distinctions; Genesis and Genetics; Biblical Anthropologists Discuss Darwin; More Questions About Sex

Documents, Sources, and the Bible's Purpose

Alice C. Linsley

The Bible is inspired by the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit always points us to Jesus Messiah. Therefore, it is logical to conclude that the main purpose of the Bible is to help us understand who Jesus is and how His mission radically transforms all of life.

Twentieth century scholarship has failed to account for the purpose of the Bible. It has explored the texts from different disciples: text criticism, the documentary hypothesis, Near Eastern studies, and fundamentalist interpretations with their tendency to read Genesis as a literal account of the creation.

The Documentary Hypothesis proved to be of limited use, but it failed, as has most modern scholarship, to demonstrate the purpose of the Bible. Until we can answer that question we miss the larger picture.

The Documentary Hypothesis was the dominant approach in critical scholarship for most of the 20th century.  Its detractors were largely ignored, but some were too persuasive to dismiss, such an Hermann Gunkel. In his three commentaries on Genesis, Gunkel posed serious doubts about Wellhausen's hypothesis. Wellhausen regarded Genesis as a compilation of narratives projected back into pre-Mosiac times at the time of the Monarchy. He argued that the material reflects the life and times of the Monarchy and presents an erroneous picture of the earlier time of the Patriarchs. Gunkel, on the other hand, insisted that the Patriarchal sagas are a reliable oral transmission from before the time of Moses.

Wellhausen wasn't interested in the archaeological discoveries that shed light on the Afro-Asiatics living in Canaan, but Gunkel recognized that the finds of biblical archaeology revealed that Canaanite culture was not an anomaly. Rather it was consistent with the larger ethnological and linguistic heritage of the Afro-Asiatics who had been around for centuries before the time of Moses.

Both men failed to account for the purpose of the Bible, and especially for the uniqueness of Genesis, the account of Ha'biru (Hebrew) ruler-priests who preserved their bloodlines through endogamy. The intermarriage between fraternal priestly lines existed long before the emergence of the Jewish people. The pattern is consistent throughout the Bible and can be traced from Genesis to Jesus' mother, the Virgin Mary, the daughter of Joachim, a Hebrew priest. I have been unable to find the pattern muchbeyond Jesus' time, probably because the temple priests were either killed to forced to flee with the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. It is also possible that the pattern ended because with the incarnation of the Son of God, the marriage and ascendancy pattern of the Hebrew priest casts fulfilled its purpose, and that purpose is explained in the Bible.

The historical-critical method of Gunkel, R. H. Pfeiffer and Julian Morgenstern is helpful in identifying older sources. Pfeiffer identified the Seir Source (S) which brings forth the people of Edom whose history is linked to Abraham and his Horite ancestors. Morgenstern identified a Kenite Source (K) and explores the Kenite link to Moses through his bride, Zipporah. In both sources, we uncover important information about Jesus' ruler-priest ancestors. Pfeiffer and Morgenstern were scratching the more ancient level of the biblical material.

Having completed lengthy research on Genesis, I'm persuaded that the genealogical data provided is accurate, verifiable, and the account of historical people. This is the single conclusion that one could reach based on analysis of the marriage and ascendancy pattern of the rulers listed in Genesis 4, 5, 10, 11, 25 and 36. The analysis authenticates the data and proves that the rulers are historical persons.

The distinctive kinship pattern of the Horite Hebrew remains unchanged from Genesis to the New Testament. Some might assert that this pattern was written back into the text by a later editor. That would be impossible, given that the Bible consists of sixty-six books written by many different authors over a period of around 1300 years.

So how do we explain the consistent pattern of intermarriage between priestly lines from Genesis to the New Testament? There is only one explanation. The Bible is the account of the people whose story it claims to be: the ancestors of Jesus Christ our God. This provides a clue as to how the Bible came to be. Only God could have authored a book over 1300 years! Granted He used human agents, but they were agents who understood God’s purpose and who were attached to the ruler-priest lines from which Jesus would come.

Twentieth century scholarship has failed to account for the purpose of the Bible and for the uniqueness of Genesis. In part, this is due to the blind eye European scholars have turned to the African context of much of the earliest material.

Today it is impossible to ignore the African substrate, since the haplogroup of the biblical peoples has been identified and it includes peoples of Lake Chad and the Upper Nile. Genesis 10:8 tells us that Nimrod, the great kingdom builder, was a Kushite. Abraham is one of his descendants.

There were Habiru in Nimrod's kingdom. These ruler-priests married the daughters of other ruler-priests and thereby preserved their priestly bloodlines. Study of the Akkadian lexicon of Nimrod's kingdom tells us a great deal about these priests. They believed in a supreme Creator called Anu. Anu was said to have a son. The son of God was called En-Ki, which means "Lord over the Earth."

The endogamous marriage pattern of the Hebrew ruler-priests is consistent throughout the Bible and can be traced from Genesis to Jesus, the Son of God. The pattern ends with Jesus’ appearance, having fulfilled its purpose. The purpose of the Bible is to refresh the knowledge of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in our minds.

I wish all the readers of JUST GENESIS a blessed Holy Week. May you have joy in knowing that the Son of God has destroyed death and opened for us the way to Paradise.

Related reading: The Social Structure of the Biblical Hebrew (Part 1); Abraham's Ancestral Faith; The Virgin Mary's Ancestry; Marrying that Christ May be Born