The Christ in Nilotic Mythology

Alice C. Linsley


While the creation stories of Genesis are often likened to the Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic, they have much closer affinity to the creation stories of Africa. This is evident in motif and in theological detail. Since Abraham’s ancestors were Proto-Saharan and Nilotic peoples and Genesis reflects their worldview, we should not be surprised to find the closest parallels to the Genesis stories in this part of Africa. Here are some examples:

Asiatic/Nubian/Babylonian/Egyptian

The Shilluk of southern Sudan call the Creator Jo-Uk. Jo-Uk made white people out of white sand and the Shilluk of out black dirt. When he came to Egypt, he made the people there out of the Nile mud which is why the Egyptians are red-brown. 

Much of the soil of the Nile Valley is red or reddish brown due to the high levels of Chromic Cambisols which produce a strong brown or red color.

Here we find the motif of the Creator making the man from the dirt of the earth. We also have a clue as to the original context of the account of God creating the man (Gen. 2:7). The Hebrew adamah (Adam) means red clay and is related to the Hamitic/Hausa words odum, odu and edo, meaning red or reddish brown. So this story comes from that part of the Nile known as Egypt and probably dates to the time of the Kushite rulers. This is the origin of the associated of Edom with the color red. The Greek name for the Edomites was Idumea, meaning red people.

The Horites of Edom had a reddish skin tone. The Horites were a caste of ruler-priests who were devotees of Horus. Horus is the archetype by which Abraham's people would later recognize Jesus as the Son of Ra, the "Seed" of the Woman of Genesis 3:15.

Abraham's Proto-Saharan ancestors considered Horus the Seed of Ra because Hathor-Meri was said to conceive when she was overshadowed by the Sun. In the oldest known Messianic tradition the Son of God is born as a calf to Hathor-Meri who is portrayed as a sacred cow, and the birth took place in a stable with the Babe sleeping in a crib. By all appearances, Jesus fulfills the Horus myth perfectly.

The sacred cow is an ancient motif among the Proto-Saharans, Nilotes and Kushites. Jo-Uk brought forth his only begotten son, Kola, by the Sacred White Cow. Kola was the father of Uk-wa who had two wives. One of Uk-wa's son's was Nyakang who became the first ruler.
 
Here we find the idea of the Creator having an only begotten son. We also find the practice of the ruler having two wives, as did all the Horite ruler-priests among Abraham's people.

Hathor was later called Isis. She is part of the sacred Triad of the Nilotic peoples: Osirus (Re), Isis (Hathor) and Horus. Osirus and Horus are said to "be one." Hathor and Horus were often portrayed as a cow with her calf. The Hebrews asked Harun (Aaron) to make a golden calf, the symbol of Horus who was called the "son of God."

Abraham’s people were devotees of Horus (Horites/Horim). They were ethnically Kushite and the oldest known center of Horus worship is the ancient city of Nekhen in Sudan (Hierakonpolis) in Sudan. At the Nekhen temple, votive instruments were ten times larger than the mace heads and bowls found elsewhere, suggesting that this was a very prestigious shrine. Horite priests placed invocations to Horus at the summit of the fortress as the sun rose. This is the likely origin of the sun blessings in Hinduism (the Agnihotra morning ritual) and in Judaism (the Birka Hachama, or “Sun Blessing” ritual performed every 28 years).

The Kushites and Egyptians observed the death of Horus (Osirus) in a 5-day festival. The first 3 days were marked by solemnity (as Plutarch noted in Isis and Osiris, 69). The last 2 days were a time of feasting and rejoicing. Horus is said to have died on the 17th of Athyr. His death was commemorated by the planting of grain. On the third day, the 19th of Athyr, there was a celebration of Horus’ rising to life. It is no coincidence that Jesus alludes to the ancient Horite myth when describing his passion and resurrection. He is a direct descendant of the Horite ruler-priests lines which exclusively intermarried and he was born in Bethlehem of Judah, in the ruler-priest line of Matthew (Mattai/Mattan). This was the line of Joseph of Hari-mathea, a voting member of the Sanhedrin. He and Nicodemus, another member of the Sanhedrin, buried Jesus’ body.


The Bronze Serpent

Harun was apparently an Afro-Asiatic metal worker.  He also crafted the bronze serpent on Moses' rod. When bitten by vipers in the wilderness the people looked upon the rod with the serpent image and were saved. Jesus compared his crucifixion to Moses raising up the rod with a brass serpent: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:14,15). Why the comparison? Because Moses’ staff was a symbol of Horus, who was called the "son of God."

Biblical anthropologist Susan Burns reports, "Jewelry work requires coils of metal. Coiling makes the metal stronger and easier to work. I have a picture of a bronze coil with a flattened nose resembling a snake from the Neolithic."

The flat part was where the metalworker held the coil while working the metal. Such coiled bronze serpents have been recovered at Neolithic metal working sites in the Arabah. Mining operations were always under auspices of Hat-Hor, the virgin mother of Horus, as at the Timna Valley copper mines near Eilat.


Horite Religion

The Horites were a caste of ruler-priests who were called Hapiru in Akkadian and Habiru in the Kushitic languages. The Egyptians called these temple attendants ˁpr.w, the w being the plural suffix. This has been rendered '*wap'er' by the Afro-Asiatic expert Christopher Ehret. The *wap'er had significant political authority alongside the ruler. They presided over the rituals directed toward the High God and acted as intercessors and prophets. The Habiru (Hebrew) were devotees of Horus, whose worship originated in what is today Sudan. At Nekhen in Sudan, Horite priests placed invocations to Horus at the summit of the fortress as the sun rose. The sun was the emblem of the Creator.

The Dravidian east-facing temple was termed O-piru, meaning Sun House or House of the Sun. The Arabic yakburu means “he is getting big” and with the intensive active prefix: yukabbiru means "he is enlarging." Likely this is a reference to the morning ritual of the Horite priests who greeted the rising sun and watched as it expanded across the horizon. This is the likely origin of the sun blessings in Hinduism (the Agnihotra morning ritual) and in Judaism (the Birka Hacama, or “Sun Blessing” ritual performed every 28 years).

Many Dravidian settlements and monuments are now submerged under the sea, but originally they were on a land bridge between the Arabian Peninsula and Southern Pakistan. This is sometimes referred to as the "Har-appa" civilization. Har refers to Horus and "appa" is the Dravidian word meaning father. The origin of Dravidian religion was apparently Egypt and ancient Kush.

The Indian archaeologist, B. B. Lal, contends that the Dravidians came from southern Egypt and Sudan (Nubia). Lal writes: "At Timos [Timnah in ] the Indian team dug up several megalithic sites of ancient Nubians which bear an uncanny resemblance to the cemeteries of early Dravidians which are found all over Western India from Kathiawar to Cape Comorin. The intriguing similarity extends from the subterranean structure found near them. Even the earthenware ring-stands used by the Dravidians and Nubians to hold pots were identical."

The Timnah Valley of the southwestern Arabah is rich in copper ore and has been actively mined since the 6th millennium BC. Here Beno Rothenberg excavated a small Horite shrine dedicated to Hat-Hor at the base of Solomon's Pillars. It was built during the reign of Pharaoh Seti I at the end of the 14th century BC. Hat-Hor was the Guardian of Afro-Arabian mines.


The Tree of Life and First Parents

The motifs of the Tree of Life and First Parents are also Nilotic. The Gikuyu of Kenya tell this story from precolonial times:  

There was wind and rain. And there was also thunder and terrible lightening. The earth and the forest around Mount Kerinyaga shook. The animals in the forest whom the Creator had recently put there were afraid. There was no sunlight. This went on for many days so that the whole land was in darkness. Because the animals could not move, they sat and moaned with the wind. The plants and trees remained dumb.
 
It was, our elders tell us, all dead except for the thunder, a violence that seemed to strangle life. It was this dark night whose depth you could not measure, not you nor I can conceive of its solid blackness, which would not let the sun pierce through it.

But in the darkness, at the foot of Mount Kerinyaga, a tree rose. At first it was a small tree and it grew up, finding a way even through the darkness. It wanted to reach the light and the sun. This tree had Life. It went up, sending forth the rich warmth of a blossoming tree - you know, a holy tree in the dark night of thunder and moaning. This was Mukuyu, God's tree.

Now you know that at the beginning of things there was only one man (Gikuyu) and one woman (Mumbi). It was under this Mukuyu that He first put them. And immediately the sun rose and the dark night melted away. The sun shone with a warmth that gave life and activity to all things. The wind and the lightening and thunder stopped. The animals stopped moaning and moved, giving homage to the Creator and to Gikuyu and Mumbi. And the Creator, who is also called Murungu, took Gikuyu and Mumbi from his holy mountain to the country of the ridges near Siriana and there stood them on a big ridge. The He took them to Mukuruwe wa Gathanga about which you have heard so much. But He had shown them all the land - yes, children, God showed Gikuyu and Mumbi all the land and told them: 'This land I hand over to you, O Man and Woman. It is yours to rule and to till in serenity, sacrificing only to me, your God, under my sacred tree.'

Here we find the motifs of primal darkness, a tree of life, first parents, sacred mountains, and sacrifice to the Creator.
 
The Kikuyu place the first parents on a ridge north of Muranga, a town south of Nyeri in Kenya. One can visit the site. A sky-blue gate marks the entrance to Mukurwe Wa Nyagathanga—the Tree of Gathanga. Inside the gate are two mud huts, one for Gikuyu and one for Mumbi. The site looks toward the cloud-shrouded Mount Kirinyaga (Mount Kenya).
 
To the Kikuyu, Mount Kenya was the seat of God, who they called Ngai. Ngai created Gikuyu and told him: “Build your homestead where the fig trees grow."  This is why many believe that the forbidden fruit was not an apple, but a fig.
 
At the foot of Mount Kenya's northeast slope, is the town of Meru, on the Kathita River. This town takes its name from Mount Meru in neighboring Tanzania. Some call Mount Meru "Kinyangiri," which is the equivalent of Kirinyaga, meaning Mount Kenya.
 
Mount Kenya stands at 15,000 feet and is 42 miles west-southwest of Mount Kilimanjaro. It is an extinct volcanic crater and the land at the base is rich volcanic soil. As one ascends the mountain, there are forests with fig and Acacia trees. Mahogany, olive, and date palm trees grow on the drier crater walls. So many species of animals live here that the Kenyan tourist agencies refer to Mount Meru as "Noah’s ark."  Some say that Mount Meru is where Noah's ark landed. This makes sense because the biblical Noah lived in the area of Lake Chad in Bor-No, meaning the "Land of Noah."  No other place on earth claims to be Noah's homeland.


The Meru/Meri/Meni Connection
 
The word "meni" appears in Isaiah 65:11, where it is paralleled with the word gad, meaning good fortune. A connection can be established between the word meni and sacrifice on mountain tops because where the word gad appears there is often a contextual reference to sacrifice on mountains. We recall that Noah offered burnt sacrifice on Ar-Meni after his deliverance (Gen. 8:20). Armenia is an incorrect translation of 'Ar-Meni.

Angkor Wat in Cambodia is a symbolic representation of Mount Meru in Buddhist and Hindu myths. This was originally a Horite shrine as evidenced from a stone relief which shows Horus as a falcon flying above the sun on Re' solar boat.

Horus at top right flying as a falcon above the sun.

Angkor Wat faces west toward the Nile. Angkor Wat and the Egyptian royal tombs correspond in form to the number 72. The number 72 represents represents the numerical sequence linked to the earth’s axial precession, which causes the apparent alteration in the position of the constellations one degree every 72 years. It has been noted also that Angkor Wat is located 72 degrees of longitude east of the Pyramids of Giza. The name Angkor correlates with the ancient Egyptian Anhk-Hor, meaning "May Horus Live." This was originally a Horite shrine, evidence that the Horite ruler-priests are responsible for the diffusion of Horite religious beliefs and practices across the ancient Afro-Asiatic Dominion.

Meru is Meri in Egyptian and Mary in English. In Cambodia, Meri is Meni, with the n taking the place of the r, as often happens in the Southeastern Asian languages. There Mary is called "Mania." The association of Mary with a sacred mountain is very old. The Virgin Mary, whose womb swelled with the Son of God, is often portrayed in Christian iconography as the sacred mountain.

The Prophet Daniel saw a mountain, from which a stone was cut by the hand of God (Dan. 2:34, 45). This is the stone which the builders rejected and which has become a stumbling block, even Jesus Christ, the Son of God.


Related reading:  The Horite Ancestry of Jesus Christ; Petra Reflects Horite Beliefs; Horite Expectation and the Star of Bethlehem; What Color was Abraham?; The Genesis Creation Stories; The Afro-Asiatic Metalworkers;  Mount Mary and the Origins of Life; Genesis: Is It Really About Human Origins?