The Roots of the Gospel are in Africa

Dr. Alice C. Linsley


The Nilotic Hebrew understanding of the human condition and our need of God’s saving mercy is evident in the Genesis 1-3 narratives which have their closest parallels in the African creation stories. This should not surprise us. Genesis 10:6-8 makes it clear that some of Abraham’s Hebrew ancestors lived in Africa. His ancestor Nimrod was a Kushite.

The African themes are concisely woven together in the Genesis creation stories. These include the dark primal waters, the separation of the waters above from the waters below, the creation of humans from the soil (humus), the tribal first parents, the Tree of Life, dangerous serpents, and estrangement from the Heavenly Father.

In the beginning...

The phrase "in/at the beginning" is a common introduction to creation stories among Africans. "In the beginning there was only darkness, water, and the great god Bumba." (Bantu of Central Africa)

The Nilotic narrative speaks of total darkness. "There was no sunlight... the whole land was in darkness." (Gikuyu of Kenya)

"At the beginning of things, when there was nothing, neither man, nor animals, nor plants, nor heaven, nor earth, nothing, nothing, God was and He was called Nzame." (Fan of the Congo)

The Nilotic Hebrew believed, "In the beginning there was only the swirling watery chaos." The Egyptians believed the first land appears as a mound rising from the primal waters. This mound was called Tatjenen, and the first life form was a lily growing on the peak of the emerging dry land.

The Nilotic Luo call the chaotic water of creation the "Dog Nam".

According to the Nilotic Oromo, the High God Waaq separated the impregnated body of water into two parts: the water above called “Bishaan Gubbaathe”, and the water below called “Bishaan Goodaa”. In Genesis 1:6-8 we read that God separated the waters above from the waters below.

Consider this song of the BaMbuti Pygmies:

In the beginning was God
Today is God,
Tomorrow will be God.
Who can make an image of God?
He has no body.
He is as a word which comes out from your mouth,
That word! It is no more,
It is past and still it lives!
So is God.

Here we find the belief in the generative Word, another common theme among Africans. The Nilotic Luo have a saying: Wach en gi teko which means "a word has power." The Prologue of John's Gospel identifies the Word with the Son of God. 

In the Egyptian Coffin Texts (2000 B.C.) we read, "I was the one who began everything, the dweller in the Primeval Waters. First Hahu emerged from me and then I began to move." Ha-hu (ruach in Hebrew) is the wind or breath of God that separated the waters above from the waters below and the dry land from the seas.

The waters were called Nun, a word found among the Horite Hebrew chiefs. Joshua bin Nun is an example. Nun represents the cosmic waters of the firmament above and firmament below (Gen.1:6). In Heliopolitan cosmology the watery realms were connected by the great pillars of the temple of Heliopolis (biblical On).

The Akan of Ghana tell this story: "In the beginning the heavens were closer to the earth. First man and first woman had to be careful while cultivating and grinding grain so that their hoes and pestles would not strike God, who lived in the sky. Death had not yet entered the world and God provided enough for them. But first woman became greedy and tried to pound more grain than she was allotted. To do this, she had to use a longer pestle. When she raised it up, it hit the sky and God became angry and retreated far into the heavens. Since then there has been disease and death and it is not easy to reach God."

In South African narratives, the point where heaven touches the earth is called bugimamusi, and this is the place where the women could lean their pestles against the vault of heaven.


The Creation of Humans

In Genesis 2:7 we read that God created the first man from the dust of the earth. This is another common theme of African origin narratives. According to the Shilluk of Sudan, the High God Juok/Jwok made white people out of white sand and the Shilluk of out black dirt. When the Creator came to Egypt, he made the people there out of the Nile mud which is rich in red silt. That is why the Egyptians are shown in ancient Egyptian reliefs as having a red-brown skin tone.

The Upper Nile soils are known to have a cambic B horizon. Chromic cambisols have a strong red brown color. The Biblical writers recognized that the people with red skin were of an ancestral line of extreme antiquity. Some of these people were rulers in Edom and are listed in Genesis 36. Esau of Edom is described as red in Genesis 26.

The Hebrew word for red is edom and it is a cognate to the Hausa word odum, meaning red brown. Both are related to the word dam, meaning blood, and to the name Adam, the eponymous founder of the early Hebrew ruler-priest caste people, some of whom lived in Edom/Idumea, the land of the red people. Adam was formed from the red clay that washed down to the Upper Nile Valley from the Ethiopian highlands.


Founding First Parents

Adam and Eve are posed in Genesis as the first parents of the rulers listed in Genesis 4, 5, 10, 11, 25 and 36. All of these rulers were Hebrew, so we may understand the historical Adam and Eve as the earliest known ancestors of the biblical Hebrew.

This is a common theme in African stories. The first parents of the Mbuti Pygmies are called Tole and Ngolobanzo.

Gikuyu and Mumbi are said to be the first ancestors of the Gikuyu of East Africa. Here is a portion of their story: "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 lightning 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. 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."

Estrangement from God

Many African narratives explain the distance between God and humans. Some speak of a time at the beginning when the sky was low. It was necessary for people to be careful while cultivating or pounding grain to avoid striking God's resting place with their hoes or pestles. The Akan of Ghana tell the story of how God once lived on earth, but an old woman kept striking Him with her pestle. Then one day, God withdrew to the sky.

Another African story tells how "in the beginning death had not yet entered the world. There was plenty to eat, but a woman became greedy and tried to pound more grain than she was allotted. This required using a longer pestle. When she raised it to pound the grain, it struck the sky and God became angry and withdrew far into the heavens. Since then, people must toil the earth, death and disease trouble the people and it is no longer easy to reach God." (Richard Bush, ed. The Religious World, MacMillan Publishers, 1982, p. 38).

While studying tribal peoples in Nigeria, the anthropologist Charles Kraft asked a clan chief, "What did your people believe about God before the missionaries came?" In response, an old chief told this story: “Once God and his son lived close to us. They walked, talked, ate, and slept among us. All was well then. There was no thievery or fighting or running off with another man's wife like there is now. But one day God's son ate in the home of a careless woman. She had not cleaned her dishes properly. God's son ate from a dirty dish, got sick, and died. This, of course, made God very angry. He left in a huff and hasn't been heard from since."  The old chief turned to Kraft and asked how his people could be in contact with God and his son again. (Charles Kraft, Christianity in Culture, Orbis Books, 1990, p. 153)

The Gift of God's Son

Belief in the Son of the High God was more widespread than is generally acknowledged. According to the Shilluk the Creator Juok brought forth his only begotten son, Kola, by the Sacred White Cow. Kola was the father of Ukwa who had two wives. One of Ukwa's sons was Nyakang who became the first ruler of the Shilluk. 

The Nilotic Hebrew expectation of the Son of God’s appearing in the flesh is expressed in Genesis 3:15. The "Woman" shall bring forth the Son of God who will crush the serpent's head. This early Hebrew expectation was expressed in the Pyramid Texts, dating to 2200 B.C. "Horus has shattered (crushed) the mouth of the serpent with the sole of his foot" (Utterance 388).

The sun was the symbol of the Father and the Son. In the early Hebrew solar symbolism, the Son of God rises as a lamb in the east and sets as a ram in the west. This explains the lamb-to-ram sequence found in the story of Abraham on Mount Moriah.

We may speak of the "Proto-Gospel" because the Nilotic Hebrew believed that the Son of God would be miraculously conceived by divine overshadowing (cf. Luke 1:35), and that in his repose he would proclaim glad tidings to those awaiting the resurrection. A Horite Hebrew song found at the royal complex at Ugarit speaks of Horus who descends to the place of the dead "to announce good tidings." In ancient Egyptian, Horus is HR and means "Most High One".

In the Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts, a priest prays for the King, saying, "Horus is a soul and he recognizes his Father in you..." (Utterance 423) In the Egyptian Book of the Dead, Horus is called the "advocate of his Father" (cf. 1 John 2:1), and all the gods are said to be "in the train of Horus." Here we find the language of a royal procession such as this: "When He ascended on high, He led captives in his train, and gave gifts to men.” (Eph. 4:8).

The New Testament speaks about Jesus as the firstborn from the grave. By his cross and third-day resurrection He delivers to the Father a "peculiar people." He leads us in the ascent to the Father where we receive heavenly recognition because we belong to Him.

Related reading: Adam Was a Red Man; The Themes of Genesis 1-3, Adam and Estrangement from God; An Anthropologist Looks at Genesis 1; An Anthropologist Looks at Genesis 2; Belief in the High God; The Father of Adam and Eve; The First Lords of the Earth