Why the Name Jesus?

 

Dr. Alice C. Linsley

According to the early Nilotic Hebrew (4000-2000 BC), the first act of the Creator at the beginning was šw (Shu), meaning light. This is not the light of day. It is the eternal, uncreated light associated with the High God's son Y-shu (Yeshua), as proclaimed in John's Prologue.

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

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

The name Jesus is related to the Hebrew word Yeshua, meaning Salvation. However, the name is older than the Hebrew language. It is found as early as 2600 BC among the Hebrew priests of the Nile Valley as Yesu or Yeshu.

A prince named Yesu is mentioned as the son of Ameny, the son of Shenwy, the son of Nakht on a memorial stela from Abydos. It speaks of Shenwy and his wife, Hedjret. One of Hedjret's grandsons is called išw, which could be an early form of the name Jesus/Yeshu (Bill Manley, Egyptian Hieroglyphics, p. 77.)

The name Yesu is attached to the roles of priest and king in ancient hieroglyphics. Reading from left to right: The feather represents judgment. The horn represents power. The staff represents royal authority, and the chick represents new life. All of these symbols speak of Jesus Christ.

The end of Matthew chapter 1 makes this startling assertion. This Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us. Therefore, in addition to being our judge, our authority, our king, and the giver of new life, Jesus is God. 

"Therefore God has highly exalted him and given him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven and those on earth and those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father". (Phil 2:9-11)

The initial Y is a solar cradle that indicated divine appointment/divine authority. The Son of God was called Y-Shu which is Yeshua or "Jesus" in English Bibles. Likewise, YHWH would have been Y-Hu in Ancient Egyptian which referred to the Divine Word. In Ancient Egyptian hu (ḥw) personified the generative word, authority, and the "first word" of creation. It refers to the authoritative word that resides with the high king or High God. In the Egyptian Coffin Texts (2000 BC) we read concerning the Creator God, "I was the one who began everything, the dweller in the Primeval Waters. First Hahu emerged from me and then I began to move."

People are surprised to learn this. However, the point of origin of the early Hebrew appears to be the Nile Valley and that is where the earliest known site of Hebrew worship was at Nekhen.

Related reading: BIBLICAL ANTHROPOLOGY: Who is Jesus?; They Believed in a Messiah 6000 Years Ago; Why Nekhen is Anthropologically Significant

Horite Hebrew Expectation and the Star of Bethlehem

Alice C. Linsley

Sidereal astronomy is real science based on observation of the arrangement and movement of the fixed stars and planets. This science originated among Abraham's Nilotic ancestors who had recorded information about the fixed stars and clock-like motion of the planets for thousands of years.

By 4245 BC, the priests of the Upper Nile had established a calendar based on the appearance of the star Sirius. Apparently, Nilotes had been tracking this star for thousands of years and connecting it to seasonal changes affecting the Nile Valley. In 241 BC, the priest Manetho reported that Nilotes had been “star-gazing” as early as 40,000 years ago. Plato claimed that the Africans had been tracking the heavens for 10,000 years.

Plato studied with an Egyptian priest for 13 years and knew about Earth's Great Year, also called the "Platonic Year." This is the time of between 25,000 and 28,000 years that it takes for Earth to complete the cycle of axial precession. This precession was known to Plato who defined the "perfect year" as the return of the celestial bodies (planets) and the diurnal rotation of the fixed stars to their original positions.

The ancients were motivated to understand the celestial pattern because they believed that the order in creation was fixed by the Creator and they were concerned about trespassing boundaries or violating the order in creation. They believed "As in the heavens, so on earth."

For the ancient Nilo-Saharans and Egyptians the stars in the constellation of Leo were especially important because the Nile rose when the Sun passed through the constellation of Leo. Therefore, they associated the arousal of the Lion with the arousal of the waters. The lion was the totem of the tribe of Judah. In Genesis 1, we read that the Spirit of God hovered over the watery deep at the beginning. In John's Gospel we are reminded that the Son was with the Father and the Spirit before the world was made and that all things were made through Him.

The Magi were sidereal astronomers who lived east of Israel, likely in Babylon or Persia. They were heirs of the same astronomical knowledge as the ancient Egyptians, and like Daniel they were of Judah (Jews). They recognized the sign of a triple coronation of two royal celestial bodies in the constellation of the Lion, the totem of Judah. They knew it was connected to the ancient Horite Hebrew expectation concerning the Woman of their people who would bring forth the Seed, the Son of God (Gen. 3:15). Further, they believed Messiah would be born of the royal house of David.

When the Magi appeared before Herod they were told that the King of the Jews was to be born in David's city, the Horite Hebrew settlement of Bethlehem. Abraham and David were of the Horite Hebrew ruler-priest lines. Joseph and Mary, both descendants of Abraham and David, went there to register for the census.

The Magi were aware of God's promise concerning the Righteous Ruler whose kingdom would endure through all the ages because reference to the Messianic promise of Psalm 145:13 is found repeatedly in Daniel. It punctuates the rise and fall of kingdoms and proclaims the coming of an eternal kingdom. As astronomers, the Magi recognized the singular event of Jupiter's triple spiral that brought it in close proximity to Regulus in the constellation Leo, the Lion. The Babylonians called Regulus Sharu, which means king. The word is related to the Persian word Shir, meaning lion.

In his translation of the eighth-century AD Syriac manuscript "The Revelation of the Magi," Brent Landau describes the Magi as those who “pray in silence,” and he proposes that they were a small group of monk-like mystics from a mythical land called Shir. However, there is no such place. Shir refers to the lion, the totem for the Horite Hebrew clans that resided in Judah. The Magi are the descendants of those who were deported. They held the received tradition concerning the coming of Messiah. This explains their recognition of the Messianic symbolism of the alignment of the King Planet and the King Star.

Using Starry Night, a software program that tracks celestial events at any time in history, Rick Larson discovered that sidereal astronomy suggests clues about biblical events. He discovered that the king planet Jupiter met the king star Regulus at the beginning of the Jewish New Year in 3 BC. The conjunction of the Jupiter and Regulus produced the appearance of an extraordinarily bright star. Larson believes this is when Gabriel announced to Mary that she was chosen to bear the Son of God.
(Rick Larson's Star of Bethlehem)

When Mary asked how this could be, the Angel explained that she would be "overshadowed." This divine overshadowing is what the Horite Hebrew expected. In ancient iconography the mother of Horus is shown overshadowed by the sun, the emblem of the Creator. In Christian iconography, the sun is usually replaced by the image of a dove hovering over Mary.

The Horite Hebrew commemorated the death and resurrection of Horus in a 5-day festival. Horus (HR) in ancient Egyptian means "Most High One." As Plutarch noted in Isis and Osiris, 69, the first three days were marked by solemnity and mourning for the death of Horus. His death was commemorated by the planting of seeds of grain. On the third day, the 19th of Athyr, there was a joyful celebration of Horus’ rising to life.

The Horite Hebrew expectation that the Righteous Son would not remain in the grave is expressed in Psalm 16:10: "For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption." Jesus said, “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day..." (Luke 24:46)

Where is it written? Scholars cannot find this in the canon. However, a reference to the third day resurrection is found in the Pyramid Texts: "Oh Horus, this hour of the morning, of this third day is come, when thou surely passeth on to heaven, together with the stars, the imperishable stars." (Utterance 667) Jesus' third-day resurrection fulfilled that Horite Hebrew expectation in every detail.

Skeptics claim that Christianity is based on the ancient myth of Horus. Christians have done a poor job of responding to this assertion. It takes more faith to believe that Christianity is the Horus myth reworked than to accept the substantial evidence that that Abraham and his ancestors were Horite Hebrew who believed in God Father and God Son. They were people of faith who believed the promise that a woman of their ruler-priest lines would bring forth the Son of God, the Messiah. They believed that he would be born in Bethlehem of Judah and that God would make known his wonderful appearing.


Related reading: The Ra-Horus-Hathor Narrative;  Ancient Wisdom, Science and Technology; Who Were the Wise Men?; Mary's Ruler-Priest Lineage; The Substance of Abraham's Faith; Using Totems to Trace Ancestry

The Virgin Mary's Ancestry

Alice C. Linsley

Mary, the most honored woman of the Bible and in the Church, is called "Theotokos" because she brought forth Jesus, who is Christ our God. He is the promised Son of God, the long-awaited Messiah. His mission, as God in the flesh, was and is to save sinners, to make void the curse of death, to destroy the powers of darkness, to make dead men live, and to restore Paradise.

Through Mary the promise of Genesis 3:15 is fulfilled. The Seed of the Woman crushed the serpent's head and death has been overcome. The ancient expectation of a divine royal son who would overcome death is found only among the Horite Hebrew priests, the Virgin Mary's ancestors. Nekhen on the Nile is the oldest known Horite Hebrew (Habiru) temple (3800 BC). Here we find the clue as to the beginnings of Messianic expectation.

Such religious expectation would have been preserved through the generations by priests and prophets. In the Genesis story of the Woman and the Serpent we have a type of the Theotokos through whom Eve's disobedience is reversed. Satan is defeated by the Woman’s Seed (Gen. 3:15). Christians believe that Jesus is the Son of God, conceived by the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit, as the Angel Gabriel declared (Luke 1).

The expectation of Messiah was preserved through a priestly lineage that was carefully guarded and preserved through generations within the priestly lines. Priests married the daughters of priest (endogamy). This is evident in the analysis of the marriage and ascendancy pattern of Abraham’s ancestors, a pattern that continued to the time of Jesus.

The endogamous practice is alluded to in Mishna Taanith: “Four-score pair of brethren-priests took to wife fourscore pair of sister-priestesses in Gophne, all in one night.” It is alluded to also in Matthew's Gospel where Jesus' brothers and sisters are mentioned.

"Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And are not all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things?"

These brothers are also His cousins (Jerome) since the biblical Hebrew practiced clan endogamy. The Jews who doubted Jesus' identity as the Messiah recognized that Joseph and Mary had common ruler-priest ancestors.

The terms "cousin" and "brother" are sometimes interchangeable because of the marriage and kinship pattern of the Hebrew ruler-priests who practiced clan endogamy. In Hebrews, Lot is called the "brother" (adelphos) of Abraham, but in fact Lot was Abraham's nephew, the son of Abraham's brother Haran who died in Ur.

The Hebrew priests took great care in the selection of wives since the offspring would trace their blood lines through their mothers. This kinship pattern enables us to understand the relationship of Mary and Joseph, both of priestly lines. Mary's father was a priest, as was the father of Mary's mother. Joseph was her patrilineal cousin. Some of their ancestors are listed in Nehemiah.

In Nehemiah 7:39-42 the priests that returned from exile are named. "The sons of Jedaiah of the house of Jeshua, the sons of Immer, the sons of Pashhur, and the sons of Harim."

Nehemiah 10 names the priests who signed a document: "Nehemiah the governor the son of Hacaliah, Zedekiah, Seriaiah, Azariah, Jeremiah, Pashhur, Amariah, Malchijah, Hattush, Shebaniah, Malluch, Harim, Meremoth, Obadiah, Daniel, Ginnethon, Baruch, Meshullam, Abijah, Mijamin, Maaziah, Bilgai, Shemaiah."

These names are associated mainly with the southern kingdoms of Judah and Edom. Harim is a Horus name. The name indicated the high rank of his priestly clan, which was said to have 320 adult males (Neh. 7:35). The root of the word is HRM which is also the root of "Horim." Jews call their ancestors the "Horim." 

Hattush is a Hittite name. The Hittites of Hebron (Kiriath-Arba) were kinsmen of Abraham (Gen. 23:5, 6). 

Malchijah is a variant of Melchi or Melki. This name appears twice in the ruler-priest ancestry of Mary (Luke 3:23–31). 

Abijah is the priest line of Zachariah who married Elizabeth (Luke 1). Abijah was the eighth priestly division. 

Obadiah is a royal name. It is related to Obodas, the first ruler of Petra in Edom. According to the Talmud, the prophet Obadiah was from Edom.

Mary’s Lineage

Mary’s parents were Joachim and Anne. Joachim was a shepherd-priest and his wife Anne was a daughter of a priest. Hippolytus of Thebes records that Mary’s mother was one of three daughters of a priest named Matthan (Matthias), probably of Bethlehem of Galilee. The eldest sister, Mary, was the mother of Salome; the second sister, Sobe, married a Levite and was mother of Elizabeth; the third sister was Anne, Mary’s mother. Mary’s cousin Elizabeth was the mother of John the Baptist. Elizabeth and Mary were cousins, and both daughters of priestly houses.

Herod had removed a High Priest named Matthias. He was the 61st High Priest and a descendant of David. The ancestral family of Jacob ben Mattat, once a favorite of Herod the Great, came to have limited political influence with the House of Zadok, as this lineage of King David’s descendants appears to have been ostracized from Jewish political life.

It is certain that Mary was of the ruler-priest class because even those who hated her admit this. Sanhedrin 106a says: “She who was the descendant of princes and governors played the harlot with carpenters.” It is said that she was so despised that some Jews tried to prevent the Apostles from burying her body. A legend tells of how "a certain Hebrew named Jephonias" tried to seize her burial bier and his hands stuck to it until he repented.

Mary is said to have been born in the grotto under the Church of St. Anne which would have been adjacent to the Temple, in an area where the Temple priests lived.

Mary's full name would be "Miriam Daughter of Joachim, Son of Pntjr, Priest of Nathan of Bethlehem." Some editions of the Jerusalem Talmud specifically name Jesus as the son of Pandera/Panther. In this case "son" would mean descendant. From pre-dynastic times among the Nilotic Hebrew, ntjr designated God or the king. The name Pntjr is likely Pa-Netjer, the name of Joachim’s mother. In this case, Joachim's mother must have been of high social status for a matronymic to be employed. A limestone stela (1539-1291 B.C.) bearing the names of Pekhty-nisu and his wife, Pa-netjer, is on exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum.

The connection between Bethlehem and the Horites is alluded to in I Chronicles 4:4, which lists Hur (Hor) as the "father of Bethlehem." The author of Chronicles knew that Bethlehem was originally a Horite settlement in the heart of Horite territory. The prophets foretold Bethlehem as the birth place of the Son of God.

Before his marriage to Mary, Joseph was either an elderly widower with children of his own or Mary was his second wife. The latter is the more likely since Mary was Joseph's cousin and the second wife was almost always a patrilineal cousin (as was Keturah to Abraham).

Joseph’s father was Heli (also spelled Eli), and he was a priest. Joseph's family lived in Nazareth which was the home of the eighteenth division of priests, that of Happizzez (1 Chron. 24:15). The words happi and ntjr originate in the Nile Valley, as do the names of many of the ruler-priests listed by Luke and Matthew. Melchi, a name that appears twice in Mary's ancestry, means "my image" in Amharic, a language spoken in the Upper Nile.


The New Testament Priest Lists

The expectation of Messiah, preserved through thousands of years by the Horites, focuses on the line of Judah. Matthew 1:1–6 and Luke 3:32–34 are in agreement on that.

Abraham
Isaac
Jacob
Judah
Perez – son of Tamar by Judah
Hezron
Ram (Aram)
Amminadab
Nahshon
Salma (or Salmon), married Rahab
Boaz, married Ruth
Obed
Jesse
David

Luke 3:23–31 continues the list as follows (notice the recurrence of names, marked with an asterisk).

David
Nathan
Mattatha *
Menna
Melea
Eliakim
Jonam
Joseph *
Judah – father of Er                                                          
Simeon
Levi
Matthat *
Jorim
Eliezer
Joshua
Er – descendant of Er
Elmadam
Cosam
Addi
Melki
Neri
Shealtiel
Zerubbabel – who returned to Judah from Babylonian captivity with Mordecai
Rhesa
Joanan
Joda
Josech
Semein
Mattathias *
Maath*
Naggae
Esli
Nahum
Amos
Mattathias *
Joseph *
Jannai
Melchi
Levi
Matthat *
Heli
Joseph *
Jesus

The name Matthan/Mattai and its variants appear six times in Luke’s list. The name derives from the word “gift” and can also refer to the “giving’ of Torah. Mattaniah means “gift of God” and is a name found among priests in I Chronicles.

Note the recurrence of names, suggesting cousin brides who named their first-born sons after their fathers. The name Er appears in the 7th generation from Judah. This suggests that Judah's son Er, who married Tamar, had another wife besides Tamar. This would be consistent the with Horite ruler-priest marriage pattern. This might explain Er's refusal to produce an heir by Tamar for his deceased brother (levirate marriage). Tamar must have been Er’s patrilineal cousin. The firstborn son of the cousin bride could potentially become a very powerful leader in the territory of his maternal grandfather.

The Protoevangelium of James says that Mary’s father had flocks. This is a characteristic of priests in the Bible. They kept cattle, sheep and goats. Moses tended the flocks of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian. A common image of God in the Old Testament is as the Shepherd (Psalm 80:1) and the priests of Israel are referred to as “shepherds” who have a responsibility to tend the flock of Israel. What could be more natural than for priests to maintain herds of animals for sacrifice? They learned to be good priests by learning the skills of a good shepherd. A good shepherd must:

- watch for those who prey on the sheep

- defend the sheep from attackers

- heal the wounded and sick sheep

- find and save lost or trapped sheep

- call them by name and know their individual quirks

- and earn their trust

This is why Jesus is referred to as Good Shepherd, High Priest and “the Anointed [Messiah] of God”, the term applied to David, a king-shepherd who, according to 2 Samuel 24, offered acceptable burnt sacrifice at the threshing floor of Araunah, the Jebusite.

Through Mary the first Biblical promise was fulfilled (Gen. 3:15). Jesus is the Seed born to the Woman (not Eve, since she isn't named until 5 verses later). The promise was made to Abraham's royal Proto-Saharan ancestors of Eden. They were priests before Levi, related to the priest Melchizedek. In Genesis 36 their descendants are called "Horites" which is Horim/Harim. They expected a woman of their ruler-priests lines to conceive by the "overshadowing" of the Creator whose emblem was the Sun.

Mary is the woman appointed by God to bring forth Jesus, the High Priest, the Good Shepherd, the Messiah, the Eternal King, and the Son of God. When she asked the Angel Gabriel how she would conceive, seeing that she was a virgin, Gabriel explained "You shall be overshadowed..." (Luke 1).

Is it any wonder that the Blessed Virgin Mary is venerated in the Church?


Related reading: Who is Jesus?; The Ark Rested in Bethlehem; Joseph's Relationship to Mary; Mount Mary and the Origins of Life; God's Word Never Fails, The Daughters of Horite Priests; The Significance of Galilee in Matthew's Gospel; Matthew's Testimony Concerning the Empty Tomb; The Pattern of Two Wives; Joseph's Relationship to Mary

Bethlehem in the time of Abraham

Alice C. Linsley

Many people are not aware that there are two settlements in Israel called Bethlehem. One is on the West Bank near Jerusalem and the other is in Galilee, near Nazareth. It is possible that the Bethlehem that Abraham knew was in Galilee. Bethlehem of Galilee was in a fertile region as attested by the book of Ruth. That is why it was called Bethlehem Ephratha, meaning "Bethlehem the Fruitful."

Bethlehem was a Horite Hebrew settlement. It is specifically associated with the Horite Hebrew in I Chronicles 4:4 which names Hur (Hor) as the "father of Bethlehem." Rahab of Jericho was the wife of Salmon, the son of Hur (Horite). Salmon is called the "father of Bethlehem" in 1 Chronicles 2:54. Rahab was the grandmother of Boaz who married Ruth. Salmon is a Horite name associated with Bethlehem in 1 Chronicles 2:51.

Bethlehem means either “House of Bread” or “House of Meat.” Jews give the first meaning, but the Arabic for Bethlehem is Bēt Lahm, meaning "House of Meat." This later interpretation makes sense since Bethlehem had a division of Horite shepherd-priests who took animals from their flocks to sacrifice. The meat was distributed to the needy. In Christian belief, Jesus is the "Lamb of God" who gave his flesh for the life of the world. He is also regarded as the "Bread of Life."

David was anointed first in Bethlehem and later anointed as king of Judah in Hebron (II Samuel 2:1-4). It is possible that his father had a wife in Bethlehem and another in Hebron, according to the practice of Horite shepherd-priests who maintained two wives in separate households on a north-south axis. It is also possible that Jesse's wives lived in Bethlehem of Galilee and Ramah, another Horite settlement.

Rachel was buried at Bethlehem and her grief is associated with Ramah. In Jeremiah 31:15, we read "A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping; Rachel, weeping for her children, refused to be comforted for her children, because they were no more.” Here we see Bethlehem and Ramah are connected.

Rachel gave birth to Joseph who married the daughter of the priest of Heliopolis in Egypt. Heliopolis (called On in Genesis 41:45) was a Horite shrine city of great prominence in the ancient world. The great pyramids of Giza, Saqqara and Abusir were aligned to the obelisk at this Ainu shrine city.

Speaking about the recent discovery of a seal in Bethlehem dating to the First Temple, Eli Shukron of the Israel Antiquities Authority said, "This is the first time the name Bethlehem appears outside the Bible, in an inscription from the First Temple period (1006-586 B.C.), which proves that Bethlehem was indeed a city in the Kingdom of Judah, and possibly also in earlier periods."

Figurine found at Hazor

When the Magi appeared before Herod they were told that the Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem. Herod’s men found this in the book of Micah. The Horites believed that the Seed/Son of God was born at the winter solstice (December 24). The infant grew in stature from that day, even as from that day forward the Sun grows in strength as the days lengthen. In an ancient Egyptian ritual a male baby was placed before the image of Hathor-Meri and priests set gifts before the "divine son."

Abraham's Kushite ancestors were the first to unite the Upper and Lower Nile and their influence is seen on the earliest dynasties of Egypt. Kushite rulers were heirs of the Nilo-Saharan rulers who venerated cows. Elements of their religious beliefs and practices were borrowed by the ancient Egyptians. The image (right) of Horus' mother shows her overshadowed by the Sun. The Sun rests in the horns of a cow, a solar cradle (Y). The cow was Hathor's animal totem and she is shown at Nile shrines holding her child in a stable or manger.


Tracing Jesus' Bloodline

As Jews traced their blood lines through their mothers, it was necessary for Joseph to register both he and Mary in Bethlehem. Mary’s full name was "Miriam Daughter of Yoachim Son of Pntjr (Panther) Priest of Nathan of Bethlehem."  Long before the time of the Pharaohs the Horites designated the king ntjr. The name p-ntjr meant "God is King."

Abraham, David, Joseph and Mary were of the Horite ruler-priest lines associated with Bethlehem and Nazareth. Joseph went to Bethlehem to register for the census (Luke 1:26) because he was a descendant of David who was a descendant of Boaz and Ruth.

Bethlehem is where Ruth gave birth to Obed, the father of Jesse, the father of David. Ruth is praised and likened to Tamar who gave birth to Perez and Zerah. Judah gained these righteous sons by Tamar after losing unrighteous sons. His kingdom was amplified through Perez from whom Israel's greatest king and the promised Messiah came.

Bethlehem was King David’s hometown. He tended the sheep of his father, just as Moses tended the sheep of his priest father-in-law, Yetro (Jethro). Jesus comes from a long line of shepherd-priests, on both Joseph's and Mary's sides. Mary’s father Yoachim was a priest who kept flocks, according to the Protoevangelium of James.

Nazareth

Jesus was born in Bethlehem , and grew up in nearby Nazareth of Galilee. His closest followers were from Galilee and it was to Galilee that He returned and met with His disciples after His resurrection. At the Last Supper, He informed his disciples: "After I have been raised, I will go before you to Galilee.” (Matt. 26:32)

In 1962 excavators discovered in the ruins of a Caesarea synagogue a small 3rd to 4th century marble fragment with a list of the twenty-four priestly divisions. This lists names the places where four of the divisions resided, including Nazareth. Until the discovery of this fragment, there was no extra-biblical record of Nazareth's existence before the sixth century A.D and no identification of a priestly division at that town.

There were twenty-four priestly divisions after the construction of the Second Temple. Nineteen of these divisions are listed in Nehemiah 12:10-22. In the Nehemiah list we find these names of particular interest: Yoachim, Yoseph, and Mattenai (also spelled Mattai/Mattan/Matthew). These are the names of priests who married the daughters of priests and from these lines came John the Baptist, Joseph, Mary and Jesus (Yeshua), the Incarnate Son of God. 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 in a cave tomb similar to those used by their Horite ancestors in Bethlehem and Hebron. Joseph and Nicodemus experienced first-hand Jesus' death. They buried him and sealed the tomb. They believed that He rose from the grave, and at great personal risk, they testified to His resurrection.

Yoachim is the name of Mary’s father, which is one reason that scholars believe that Mary was the virgin daughter of a priest. Writing in the third century, Hippolytus records that Mary’s mother was a daughter of a priest named Matthan. Mary was clearly of the Horite ruler-priest lines. Even those who hated Mary acknowledged her ruler status, as it is written in the Talmud: “She who was the descendant of princes and governors played the harlot with carpenters.” (Sanhedrin 106a)

According to 1 Chronicles 24:15, Nazareth was the home of the eighteenth priestly division, hapiTSETS (Happizzez). The name is related to the ancient Egyptian word for the life-sustaining Nile which was called Hapi. While in Nazareth, Jesus read from the scroll of Isaiah. He opened to Isaiah 61:1-3 and read about the long-expected Messiah. Then he declared, "Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."

Related reading:  Which Bethlehem is Jesus' Birthplace?; David's Royal City; The Ark Rested in Bethlehem; Who Were the Horites?; Jesus' Horite Ancestry; The Genesis Record of Horite Rule; Royal Babies; The Destruction of Hazor: Another Theory; The Significance of Galilee in Matthew's Gospel; The Nazareth-Egypt Connection

YEC Dogma is NOT Biblical

Young Earth Creationism has been criticized for lacking a solid scientific basis. It also should be criticized for lacking a solid Biblical basis.


Alice C. Linsley

Young Earth Creationists use Archbishop James Usher’s chronology to date the age of the Earth. They believe that the genealogies in Genesis 5 and 11 are chronological and can be used to estimate when God created the Earth. They calculate the earth's age at 6000 years on the basis of lifespans assigned to the men named in Genesis 5 and 11. They ignore the line of Cain in Genesis 4 because they assume that his line became extinct in Noah's flood.

Biblical studies and discoveries in various sciences have left Usher's erroneous interpretation in the dust.

Usher lived before the development of molecular genealogy which has shed much light on human origins, and especially on the dispersion of the ancient Nilotes and Kushites. He also lived before the development of kinship analysis which makes verification of the Genesis King Lists possible. It can no longer be claimed that these rulers did not live in history. Their marriage and ascendancy pattern is authentic and can be traced from Genesis 4 to the New Testament records of Mary and Joseph's families. It is not possible that this aspect of Biblical history could have been written back into the texts since the 66 books of the Bible represent the contributions of numerous scribes and authors over about 1200 years.

Usher's scheme is terribly flawed. He failed to recognize that the so-called "genealogies" are actually King Lists. These lists are not generational, but regnal, and the reigns of some kings coincided. Tubal-Cain (Gen. 4) and Methuselah (Gen. 5) ruled at the same time. Tubal-Cain's sister, Naamah, married Methuselah. (See diagram below.) This is an example of how people abuse Biblical lists.

Usher also missed the fact that the lines of Cain and Seth intermarried, and as St. John Chrysostom recognized, the line of Cain received great mercy. Not only 7 fold for Cain, but 77 fold for Lamech the Elder (Gen. 4:24), and 777 in the case of Lamech the Younger (Gen. 5:31).

Further, these men are not the first humans on earth, but rulers of the Afro-Asiatic Dominion. They were kingdom builders, like Nimrod the Kushite (Gen. 10:8). This was a time of  law codes such at the Law of Tehut, warriors, weapons, shrine cities such as Nekhen in Sudan, and numerous technologies associated with the Neolithic Period. These earliest rulers of Genesis lived between 6000 and 3000 B.C., millions of years after the appearance of archaic humans. The evidence of the Bible and the various sciences indicates that they lived in Africa or migrated out of Africa.

This last fact reveals the un-biblical and racist nature of YEC dogma. At the back of YEC books one finds the 12 Affirmations and Denials. Affirmation XII claims that the diversity of languages and skin color came about as a result of divine judgment at the Tower of Babel.

XII. We affirm that all people living and dead are descended from Adam and Eve...and that the various people groups (with their various languages, cultures, and distinctive physical characteristics, including skin color) arose as a result of God's supernatural judgment at the Tower of Babel..."

Africa always has had the greatest genetic and linguistic diversity of any continent. Long before the earliest Genesis rulers there already existed diversity of skin color. Here are images of red, black and brown Nubians.

Red and black Nubians
(Ippolito Rosellini)

Red and brown Nubians
They resemble the warriors of Petra who had long wavy hair and wore feathers.
(Dr. Arthur Brack)

The Habiru (Hebrew) marriage and ascendancy pattern

Usher's errors reflect ignorance of the marriage and ascendancy structure of Abraham's ancestors as it is revealed in Genesis 4, 5 and 11. This same pattern characterizes Moses' family and Samuel's family. It is the distinctive pattern of the ancient Habiru (Hebrew), a caste of ruler-priests.

Ussher did not understand that the rulers listed had two wives so there were two first born sons. The first born son of the half-sister wife was heir to his father's throne. So Isaac was heir to Abraham's territory between Hebron and Beersheba. The first born son of the patrilineal cousin wife was named after his maternal grandfather and served as a prime minister in his grandfather's territory. So Joktan, Abraham's first born son by Keturah, was not Abraham's heir. He would rule in the territory of Joktan the Elder.

Judah likely had two wives. In Genesis 46, we read that Judah went into Egypt with his brothers and presumably settled in the land of Goshen with his wife and children. In Genesis 38, we read that Judah had sons by Shua who lived in the region of Adulla, Mareshah and Chezib in Horite territory.

Some lists provide the names of the first born sons of half-sister brides. Other lines are traced through the cousin bride who named her first born son after her father. This is the case with Methuselah's wife, Naamah, who named their first born son "Lamech" after her father (see bottom of diagram).

Let us examine in greater detail the problems with Ussher's scheme.

Ussher did not recognize that the Genesis genealogies are regnal, not generational. They cannot be used to count generations because they are king lists and some kings ruled simultaneously. Others ruled for short periods, and still others ruled for longer than a generation (40 years).

Usher insisted on reading Genesis as chronology, and therefore missed that some rulers were contemporaries. Lamech the Elder was a contemporary of Enoch, Methuselah's father. Abraham was a contemporary of Job. Nahor's son Tahash was a contemporary of Isaac.

None lived the lifespans assigned to them. These numbers are symbolic, with Kabalistic meanings coming from a later period. (Kabal is derived from the Egyptian words ka and ba which in modern parlance would "body and soul.")

Ussher did not recognize that some of the Biblical lists are telescopic. Telescopic lists leave out some names. Such lists give the names of only the most famous rulers. This means that we cannot use the king lists to date the earth.

Ussher ignored the later king lists, such as the Horite rulers in Genesis 36 and their royal kinsmen in Genesis 22:20-24. Here we find the identical marriage and ascendancy pattern as among the Genesis 4 and 5 rulers.

Ussher did not recognize that the lines of Cain and Seth intermarried, as did the lines of Ham and Shem and the lines of Abraham and Nahor.  Each ruler had two wives. The cousin bride named her first born son after her father. Thus we find Esau the elder and Esau the Younger, Joktan the Elder and Joktan the Younger,   Kenan is a variant of Kain, and could be called Cain the Younger. Likewise, Irad is a variant of Jared and could be called Jared the Younger.

In the case of Lamech's daughter, Naamah, the pattern is quite clear. She married her cousin Methuselah and named her first-born son Lamech after her father. This pattern of marriage can be traced from Genesis 4 and 5 to the lines of Joseph and Mary in the New Testament, demonstrating that Jesus is a direct descendant of the people to whom God made the first promise of the Bible that a woman of their ruler-priest lines would bring forth the "Seed" of God (Gen. 3:15).

Jesus' mother's name was Miriam daughter of Joachim Son of Pntjr (Panther) Priests of Nathan of Beth Lehem. From predynastic times, ntjr designated the ruler among the Kushites. The name Panther or p-ntjr meant "God is King." It is certain that Mary was of the ruler-priest caste because even those who hated her admit this. Sanhedrin 106a says: “She who was the descendant of princes and governors played the harlot with carpenters.”

Ussher didn't know about the cousin bride's naming prerogative which meant that the cousin bride's father and her first born son had the same name. This explains the recurrance of names skipping a generation. There are two named Enoch; two named Lamech; two named Joktan, and two named Sheba. There are also two named Esau, as shown below.

Here we see that Esau the Elder married Adah. Esau the Younger married Oholibamah, a prefigurement of the Virgin Mary.





Seir is identified as a Horite in Genesis 36. The names Esau, Dishon, Uz, Lot/Lotan and Timna are Horite names. The name "Adah" can be traced back to Lamech the Elder. One of his wives was named Adah (Gen. 4:23).


Related reading: Facebook Conversation on Creationism; Evidence of an Old Earth; Smoking Gun Evidence of an Ancient Earth; Genesis on the Ancient Kingdom Builders; Cain as Ruler; Lamech's Story and Horite Kingship; Bishop Ussher Goofed; DNA Research Confirms Kushite Migrations; Biblical Anthropology...the Science, not speculative theology; Calculating the Dates of the Patriarchs; The Genesis King Lists; Two Named Esau; Abraham and Job, Horite Rulers; The Cousin Bride's Naming Prerogative; Objections to the Fundamentalist Reading of Genesis

The Bible: Episode 3 - The Messiah Appears!

Alice C. Linsley


Episode 3 is expected to see a ratings bump with the first appearance of Jesus, played by the Portuguese actor Diogo Morgado. Though Morgado does not look like a Middle Eastern Semite, the producers have the age right. Morgado is 33, the age of Jesus at his death.

Satan was played by Moroccan actor Mohamen Mehdi Ouazanni. Apparently some people believed this was President Barack Obama giving another performance.

The History Channel's third episode of the Bible takes huge leaps through history. It moves from the Babylonian captivity to the baptism of Jesus. It is dramatic and entertaining, but as with episodes 1 and 2, it lacks historical grounding and fails to present the cultural complexities of Abraham's Horite descendants, especially those taken to Babylon.


The Babylonian Captivity

The inhabitants of the southern kingdom of Judea were subjected to two deportations to Babylon. The first took place in 597 BC when Jerusalem was conquered by Nebuchadnezzar. According to II Kings 24:1-6, King Jehoiakim and the distinguished men of his kingdom were taken to Babylon, along with the treasures of the Temple and the palace.

The second deportation took place in 586 BC in the eleventh year of the reign of King Zedekiah, who was also named Mattaniah. He had formed an alliance against Babylon with the Edomites, Moabites, Ammonites, Sidonians and Tyrians. Jeremiah prophesied that all these would also experience divine judgment.  When the Babylonians entered Jerusalem, Zedekiah and his soldiers fled by night and were pursued by the Babylonians who overtook them near Jericho.

Nebuchadnezzar ordered that Jeremiah be freed from prison and treated well (Jeremiah 39:11-40:5). Jeremiah went to live in Egypt and never returned to Jerusalem.

The number of persons taken to Babylon is estimated between 14,000 to 18,000. Historians recognize that many people were not taken to Babylon. The Babylonians were mainly interested in the urban populations and the ruling classes who had skills which were useful to them. These included skills in medicine, mining, metal work, writing, languages, astronomy, prophesy and dream interpretation. In other words, skills for which the Horites were famous.

Among these distinguished men were Ezekiel and Daniel. Such men refused to compromise the truth in order to save their lives. They knew that Nebuchadnezzar was not the true deified son whose kingdom would never end (Ps. 145:13; Dan. 2:44; Dan. 4:34; Dan. 7:27). Daniel was thrown into the lions' den because he refused to worship the Babylonian king.

Later, in the time of Joseph and Mary, some of the wise Horites who remained in Babylon came to Bethlehem seeking the King who was born under the celestial sign which their wisdom enabled them to read.

 
The Scepter will not depart from Judah

In Genesis 49:10 Jacob states, "The scepter will not depart from Judah..." This is generally taken to mean that the Messiah would come from Judah, but it is possible also that it refers to an historical reality; namely, that some of Jesus' ancestors were never taken to Babylon. Jacob's holdings extended to Beersheba and the Babylonians were not interested in engaging warriors in the Negev.

The Virgin Mary's father was the Horite shepherd-priest Joachim. Amram, Moses' Horite father, married according to the Horite pattern also. He was a shepherd-priest with water sources to provide for his flocks. His daughter, Miriam, grew up around her father's water shrine and she married another Horite chief, Hur.

The name Joachim appears with these variants: Jehoiachin and Joaquin. It is a family name which reoccurs among Jesus' ancestors.

From David to the Babylonian captivity, the following ancestors are listed in Matthew 1:1-12: David, Solomon, Rehoboam, Abijah, Asa, Jehoshaphat, Jehoram, Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, Manasseh, Amon, Josiah, and Jehoiachin and his brothers.

From the time of the exile to the birth of Jesus, the following ancestors are listed: Jehoiachin, Shealtiel, Zerubbabel, Abiud, Eliakim, Azor, Zadok, Achim, Eliud, Eleazar, Matthan, Jacob, and Joseph, who married his cousin Mary, the daughter of another Jehoiachin. She was the mother of Jesus, who is called Messiah. Mary's ruler-priest lineage has been well established.

The recurrence of the name is consistent with the Horite marriage and ascendancy pattern whereby the cousin bride names her firstborn son after her father. The Horite lines intermarried, but this does not mean that all of them were taken to Babylon as captives. The Horite shepherd-priests maintained two wives in separate households. Mary's ancestors probably withdrew to the Negev where they had family and where the Babylonians did not pursue them. It appears that some of Mary's ancestors remained free, and Jacob's prophesy came true in a literal sense.

Return from Exile

The 538 BC Edict of Cyrus the King of Persia (Iran) authorized and encouraging the Jews to relocate to Israel and rebuild the temple destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. Some Jews returned and some did not.  Jews were living in Persia in cities like Isfahan were they had been dispersed by Nebuchadnezzar. Cyrus was therefore familiar with Jewish religious practices.

The walls of Jerusalem were rebuilt under the leadership of Nehemiah, but the reconstruction of the Temple was not complete until 517 BC. 

The historian Josephus records that Herod the Great completely rebuilt the Temple, and even replaced the foundation stones of the Temple Mount. This renovated Temple became known as Herod's Temple and was a symbol of his power. He hoped to impress the Jews by this show of piety since, as an Edomite, he was not accepted by the dominant Pharisaic group. The Edomites were Horites and well aware of the expectation of the coming King. Herod was quickly informed that Bethlehem was to be the new King's birth place and Herod's insecurities led him to destroy every threat to his power.

This is the Scripture that Herod's wise men were frantically seeking:  “But thou, Bethlehem Ephrath, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.”

Ephrath was the wife of Caleb and the mother of Hur (I Chron. 2:19, 50). She was a Horite.

Horite Bethlehem and Jesus' Horite Ancestry

Joseph takes Mary, his cousin wife, to Bethlehem for the census as required by the Romans. Jesus is born in Bethlehem because he is Horite through his mother. Horite does not refer to the ethnicity of the people, but to their caste. The ancient world was characterized by a caste structure. Horites were widely dispersed among many peoples across the Afro-Asiatic Dominion.

Jesus' mother's name was Miriam daughter of Joachim Son of Pntjr (Panther) Priests of Nathan of Beth Lehem. From predynastic times, ntjr designated the ruler among the Kushites. The name Panther or p-ntjr meant "God is King."

It is certain that Mary was of the ruler-priest caste because even those who hated her admit this. Sanhedrin 106a says: “She who was the descendant of princes and governors played the harlot with carpenters.”

Mary is the blessed "Woman" of Genesis 3:15.

After Jesus' birth, Joseph is warned in a dream that Herod is seeking the Child's life. Joseph takes Mary and the Child to safety in the desert and on to Egypt.

The Church Fathers saw this as a fulfillment of the prophesy "Out of Egypt have I called my Son" (Hosea 11:1). While the Christians sees Jesus as the fulfillment of this prophesy, Jewish interpretation insists that the "son" is Israel and this verse refers to the Exodus. The Evangelists John and Matthew clearly believe that Hosea 11:1 pertains to Jesus because Jesus is the fulfillment of the Edenic Promise made to their Horim.

Further, they would have known that Jesus' mother was the daughter of  the shepherd-priest Joachim and a descendant of David and Abraham. Jesus' bloodline was traced through his mother and she was Horite by blood. Bethlehem was an ancient Horite shrine city. 1 Chronicles 2:55 which says that Caleb's sons were Kenites. They were of Kenaz, a son of Eliphaz by Timna, daughter of Seir the Horite. Caleb's son Salma is designated the "founder" of Bethlehem in I Chronicles 2:51. 

The word "Horite" takes many forms: Khar, Gur, Hur, Horonaim, Horoni, Horowitz, Horim, and Hori. Hori was the son of Lotan son of Seir whose descendants were the "lords of the Horites in the land of Seir" according to Genesis 36:20-29 and 1 Chronicles 1:38-42. Lot, Lotan, and Nim-Lot are Egyptian titles. Nimlot C was the High Priest of Amun at Thebes during the latter part of the reign of his father Osorkon II.

Foretaste of Paradise Restored: The Waters Restored

Jesus' baptism in the Jordan is surrounded by a great deal of very ancient symbolism. When John baptized Jesus, the Trinity was made manifest. Up to this moment, there are only hints or glimpses of the Trinity. Abraham was visited by the Three Person God (Baal Shalisha) before the destruction of Sodom.

There is also the image of the chaotic waters at the beginning of creation being subdued again. The chaotic deep that conceal the great serpent is restored to order, and the serpent is given warning of his impending doom. The Apocalypse of St. John identifies the dragon as "that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray" (Rev. 12:9, 20:2).

In Genesis 1 we read that the primal substance covering the earth was water and it was disordered, that is, it had no boundaries. God’s breath (Ruach/Logos) created order from the chaos, separating the waters above from the waters below, and the dry land from the seas. The chaotic waters are called Tehom and the ordering word of God is called Tehut. In the cosmic struggle, Tehut is victorious over Tehom. The oldest known law code is the Law of Tehut (c. 3500 B.C.) and it was said to express the wisdom of God by which boundaries were established and fixed.

This is why there are some many stories about Jesus and water. His first miracle was to turn water to wine at a wedding. He gives Peter a great catch of fish. He calms the wind and the waves. At his baptism Christ our God enters the waters which must obey him.

Jesus' Baptism marks the beginning of the promised restoration of Paradise, that is, perfect communion with God. This is why the Orthodox hold an annual blessing of the waters on the Feast of the Baptism of Christ our God.

Orthodox bishop blessing the waters

The ancient symbolism is seen in this Orthodox prayer:

That these waters may be sanctified by the power, and effectual operation, and descent of the Holy Spirit, let us pray to the Lord.

That there may descend upon these waters the cleansing operation of the super-substantial Trinity, let us pray to the Lord.

That he will endue them with the grace of redemption, the blessing of Jordan, the might, and operation, and descent of the Holy Spirit, let us pray to the Lord.

That Satan may speedily be crushed under our feet, and that every evil counsel directed against us may be brought to naught, let us pray to the Lord.

That the Lord our God will free us from every attack and temptation of the enemy, and make us worthy of the good things which he hath promised, let us pray to the Lord.

That he will illumine us with the light of understanding and of piety, and with the descent of the Holy Spirit, let us pray to the Lord.

That the Lord our God will send down the blessing of Jordan, and sanctify these waters, let us pray to the Lord.

That this water may be unto the bestowing of sanctification; unto the remission of sins; unto the healing of soul and body; and unto every expedient service, let us pray to the Lord.

That this water may be a fountain welling forth unto life eternal, let us pray to the Lord.

That it may manifest itself effectual unto the averting of every machination of our foes, whether visible or invisible, let us pray to the Lord.

For those who shall draw of it and take of it unto the sanctification of their homes, let us pray to the Lord.

That it may be for the purification of the souls and bodies of all those who, with faith, shall draw and partake of it, let us pray to the Lord.

That he will graciously enable us to perfect sanctification by participation in these waters, through the invisible manifestation of the Holy Spirit, let us pray to the Lord.

Related reading:  Marrying That Christ May be Born; The Blessed Woman of Genesis 3:15; The History Channels Scores a C (Episode 1); History Channel's Bible Series: Episode 2; The Horite Ancestry of Jesus Christ; The Dragon and the Beast of Revelation; God's Victory Over Chaos

Mary, the Mound and the Bread of Life

This Nativity icon shows Mary with the Christ Child (the Bread of Life) in a mound.
The mound is shaped like an ancient clay bread oven.

Alice C. Linsley

The mountain image for the Nativity of Christ follows verses such as Habakkuk 3.3 - "God came from Mount Paran" and the clay oven shape relates to the claim that Jesus is the "bread of Life."

In observation of the Heavens it is evident that the Sun always rises in the east and appears to journey across the sky to the west. The only time when there are no shadows is high noon, so in terms of the solar day, this is the temporal sacred center. The spatial sacred center is between Heaven and Earth, on the mountain top. Abraham, Moses and other biblical figures climbed to the tops of mountains to encounter the Creator.  Jesus, who "came down from Heaven", was revealed on Calvary and on the Mount of Transfiguration.

The sacred center is temporal and spatial, halfway between East and West as measured by the Sun's movement to high noon, and halfway between Heaven and Earth. This is the place of encounter between God and Man, the place of both judgment and redemption. 

The mountain image as a celestial pattern is very old. It is the safest place to be when the chaotic waters rise. Te-hom (Hebrew: תְּהוֹם‎), the chaotic deep,  is the opposite of te-hut, divine wisdom and order. (The oldest known moral code is the Law of Tehut which dates to about 5,000 B.C.) According to the ancient Afro-Asiatics, when God spoke the creation into being He also fixed boundaries which those who honor God are not trespass. Trespassing divinely established boundaries invites chaos (tehom) to return like a great flood to the world. So tehom and tehut are binary opposites, but tehut is the greater of the two because it preserves order and life.

The victory of tehut (order) over tehom (chaos) relates to the annual inundation of the Nile and helps us to understand the Egyptian concept of creation. One of the oldest creation myths envisioned the first place in the world as a mound emerging from the waters of a universal ocean. Here the first life form was seen as a lily, growing on the peak of the primeval mound. The ancient Egyptians called the mound Tatjenen, meaning "the emerging land".

In Hindu and Buddhist mythology the mound that emerged from the primordial seas at the beginning of time is called Mount Meru. It emerges from the center of the Cosmic Ocean, and the Sun and seven visible planets circle the mountain. Mount Meru in Hinduism is a mythological mountain. However, there are two mountains called Meru in Africa, one in Kenya and the other in Tanzania. Meru, spelled Meri in Egyptian, is Mary in English. Meri is sometimes spelled Meni, with the n taking the place of the r, as in the Southeastern Asian languages (like Siamese), which call Mary "Mania."

The Virgin Mary, whose womb swelled with the Son of God, is sometimes portrayed in icons as the mountain of God. 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.

The Virgin Mother of God is also called the "Mother of Life" as in the following Toparion (Tone 1):

In giving birth you preserved your virginity,
In falling asleep you did not forsake the world, O Theotokos.
You were translated to life, O Mother of Life,
And by your prayers, you deliver our souls from death.

This conception of Earth emerging from a universal ocean likely originated in the Upper Nile region where stone pillars and mounds of earth were erected. In the Lower Nile region small pyramids were carved from a single block of stone. These were known as a bnbn (benben), from the root, bn, meaning to "swell forth". The image of the sun resting at, or swelling forth from the peak of the pyramid or mountain is represented in the sign of tnt and in the Agadez crosses made by the Inadan metalworkers of west central Africa. The Egyptian word for the rising sun is wbn, which comes from the same root as benben.

One can't help but think of Noah's flood and how his ark landed in Ar-menia, which could mean "mount Meni". Godfrey Higgins, in his 1874 monograph Anacalypsis: An Inquiry into the Origins of Languages, Nations and Religions, noted that "Armenia" could mean "mount of Meru… that is, Ar or Er-Meni-ia, the country of mount Meru or Meni." This leaves open the possibility that Noah's ark landed on Mount Meni in central Africa, about 230 miles from the present limits of Lake Chad, and the most likely site of Noah's flood.

Higgins noted the conflation of the names Meni and Meru. Here is another indication that the legend of Noah was carried to the eastern extension of the ancient Afro-Asiatic Dominion by the ruler-priests of Abraham's people.

The sacred center is the place where the Sun rests at the peak of the day (noon). This is why the Sun is shown at the top center of many cross-like images such as the Agadez Cross, the sign of TNT, and the Egyptian Ankh.  For the individual the inner shrine is the sacred center. This notion of the inner shrine as the sacred center where God may dwell is evident in Hierakonpolis as early as 3200 B.C., when personal piety involved facing the rising sun and inviting the Deity to dwell within. The Pharaoh was called “son of Re,” whose emblem was the Sun. Egyptian king lists never mention the king's earthly father. Each Pharaoh was called the "son of Re" because kingship was a manifestation of the solar deity’s overshadowing of noble women.  So Mary is the one by whom both Jesus' kingship and His sonship are traced back to the Father.


Related reading:  Sacred Mountains; Peaks and Valleys; Baba: Earthen Bread Oven

The Blessed Woman of Genesis 3:15

Alice C. Linsley


"for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
(Luke 1:48)



Mary is without doubt the most honored woman in the Church as the mother of Christ our God and the very model of obedient love.  She is the Mother of the Church and where the Church is, she is venerated.

Through her God has fulfilled the first promise of Scripture: Genesis 3:15, the Edenic Promise. She is the culmination of the expectation that led the ruler-priest lines to intermarry exclusively so that the Promised Son would be born of their blood lines.  Analysis of the kinship pattern of Abraham's people reveals a unique pattern of intermarriage between patrilineal cousins of priestly lines. It is possible to trace these lines because the cousin brides named their first-born sons after their fathers. The genealogies of Genesis trace only male rulers. The naming of the first-born son after the cousin bride's father was a way to trace royal lineage on the mother's side.

Keep in mind that kinship patterns are highly resistant to change. The unique kinship pattern of ruler-priests survived Egyptian captivity and deportation to Babylon.  It continued afterwards as we see in the case of the priest Elkaniah with his two wives (1 Samuel 1:2). It continued to the time of Jesus and then stopped because the pattern had fulfilled its purpose once Messiah was born.

Mary and Joseph were cousins and both of priestly lines. These lines had been intermarrying from before Abraham's time and continued to intermarry until to the birth of Jesus Christ. Joseph's family lived in Nazareth which was the home of the eighteenth division of priests, that of Happizzez (1 Chronicles 24:15).
Abraham's people traced bloodline through the mother but social status and occupation was inherited through the father. So Joseph was a carpenter like his father and Jesus was a carpenter like Joseph. Likewise, St. Paul was a tent maker like his father.

Jesus was the Son of God, born to "the Woman" according to the ancient expectation (Gen. 3:15). Mary was the proper bride for Joseph since she was of a priestly line. He too was of a priestly line descending from Judah and Ram, David's ancestors. Joseph of Nazareth married the daughter of a priest. In doing so he simply adhered to the custom of his ancestors. Joseph married the daughter of a priest in Egypt and Moses married the daughter of a priest in Midian.  All of these priests are related, though they lived in different places at different times.

The marriage of Joseph and Mary was the pinnacle of biblical history in that the Promised Son was born into their union, but not by their union.  From God, the Son received his divine rights (being one with the Father), from Blessed Mary He received His flesh, and from Blessed Joseph He received his social position as a carpenter in Nazareth.

According to Holy Tradition, Mary’s parents were Joachim and Anne. Joachim was a priest and his wife Anne was probably a daughter of a priest. The Protoevangelium of James says that Mary’s father had flocks, which does not preclude him from being a priest. Many priests of the Bible had flocks. Moses tended the flocks of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian. A common image of God in the Old Testament is as the Shepherd of Israel (Ps 80:1) and the priests of Israel are referred to as “shepherds.”

Mary is said to have been born in the grotto under the Church of St. Anne which would have been adjacent to the Temple, in an area where the Temple priests lived. It is certain that Mary was of the ruler-priest class because even those who hated her admit this. Sanhedrin 106a says Jesus' mother was a whore: “She who was the descendant of princes and governors played the harlot with carpenters.” It is said that she was so despised that some Jews tried to prevent the Apostles from burying her body. One of the Jews seized the coffin. A rabbi approached her burial procession and attempted to overturn her casket.

In the Talmud, ignominious names are given by the rabbis to Mary and be Son.  Mary is called "Charia" which means dung or excrement. In Hebrew her name is Miriam. Jesus is called "Jeschu" which means May his name and memory be blotted out. His Hebrew name in Jeschua (Yeshua) which means Salvation. That Mary was hated as much as her Son tells us that she was a force to be reckoned with, a person of great influence.  She was abused in her repose as was her Son in his passion and God has granted her an exalted place among the saints.

May God have mercy upon those who hate and abuse Jesus the Christ and his most blessed, most pure, and most honorable Mother.


Related reading: Marrying that Christ Mat be Born; Mary's Ruler-Priest Lineage

God's Word Never Fails

Alice C. Linsley

John Collier's Annunciation

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

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

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

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

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


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

Jesus and the Horus Narrative

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


Alice C. Linsley


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

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

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

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

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

Prophesy concerning the Son of God

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

Why He was Named Jesus

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

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

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

Prophesy about Crushing the Serpent's Head

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

 

Prophesy about the Son's Resurrection

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

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

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

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

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

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