Circumcision Debated

Circumcision was practiced before the time of Abraham among the Nilo-Kushitic peoples. Both males and females were circumcised and the practice continues today in that same part of the world.

Circumcision is not unique to Jews. It is practiced among many of Abraham's Arab and Egyptian descendants as well. However, some European nations have taken action against it, considering it bodily mutilation, even "torture" of the infant. Dutch doctors no longer perform circumcisions. Circumcision wars are being waged in Australia. Last year San Francisco proposed a ban on circumcision.

Circumcision draws attention to the global conflict between ancient regard for the supernatural (metaphysical) and the modern materialist worldview.

The following is a report from BioEdge.

A row over circumcision in Germany has escalated after a formal complaint was lodged against a rabbi in the city of Hof. According to a doctor from the city of Giessen, "Religious freedom cannot be used as an excuse for carrying out violence against an under-age child". The dispute was ignited by a June 26 ruling by a Cologne court that circumcision of a child constituted "illegal bodily harm," even with parental consent.

Ever since the German government has been searching for a compromise which will satisfy the Jewish community and international critics, while honouring the court decision. The President of the Conference of European Rabbis, Pinchas Goldschmidt, has described the decision as "one of the gravest attacks on Jewish life in the post-Holocaust world".

Germany's national Ethics Council (Ethikrat) has recommended authorising circumcision if safeguards are in place. "There must be a green light for circumcision but under the conditions of a full explanation to the parents, the agreement of both parents, the treatment of pain and the professional execution of the circumcision," chairwoman Christiane Woopen said.

But the recommendation was made after a robust debate. A legal scholar, Reinhard Merkel, said that it was "bizarre" that religious communities could be allowed to define when and how a human body could be injured. If a child's right to bodily integrity had to be weighed against religious requirements, this was a "legal policy crisis". However, he squared the circle by invoking an "indebtedness" to Jews which called for a "special law". Constitutional law expert Wolfram Höfling, on the other hand, argued that parental rights were paramount. If they believed that the ritual was in the best interests of the child then this should be respected, especially since millions of circumcisions have occurred without complications.

The row has spread to Scandinavia as well. In neighbouring Denmark an article in the Politiken newspaper described circumcision as a ritual involving the torture of a baby. The Danish Parliament is gearing up for a debate on the issue. Since report by the Children's Ombudsman in 2003 described circumcision as a violation of children's rights, a ban has a lot of support. Finn Schwarz, president of the Jewish Congregation of Copenhagen, says that if circumcision is banned, Jews will have no choice but to pack their bags and leave.

For many Jews, this is a transcendental issue, despite the small but real possibility of harming a child. The deputy prime minister of Israel, Eli Yishai, wrote a letter to German Premier Angela Merkel in which he said: "Circumcision is one of the most important commandments for the Jewish people, and the first given to one of the fathers of our nation, Abraham, as a sign of his eternal treaty [with God]. Even in times of slavery and exile, Jews made sure to fulfill this commandment, and did so happily." German Jews should not have to choose between Judaism and their citizenship.

Related reading:  The Origins of Circumcision; Circumcision Among Abraham's People; Circumcised Phallus an Egyptian Hieroglyph; Circumcision and Binary Distinctions; Why Zipporah Used a Flint Knife; Female Circumcision or Genital Mutilation?

Nilotic Cattle Herders

Examples of the boat types as found on the prehistoric rock art of the Central Eastern Desert of Egypt. Note the transport of cattle.



Cattle were domesticated in what is today Kenya 15,000 years ago. The common term for cattle or cow in the many African languages is nag (Wolog, Fulani), nagge (Hausa), ning (Angas, Ankwe) and ninge (Susu). This corresponds to the Egyptian ng or nag.

The evidence suggests that cattle herding originated among the Nilotic peoples. It may be that they took with them their domesticated cows when they dispersed to Mesopotamia, southern Africa, and India. For example, the Kannada word for cattle is ha-su and could possibly be a reference to the Susu from which they received the cows. Kannada is a southern Dravidian language.

Here is an interesting report that connects DNA and anthropological studies to develop a picture of how cattle came to southern Africa. It appears that cattle were introduced there by Nilotic peoples.


“Africa has the most genetic diversity in the world, but it is one of the least-studied places,” said Brenna Henn, a doctoral student in anthropology who was the study’s lead author. “I’ve always felt like there were a lot of stories there that nobody’s had the time or interest to look into.”

The Stanford scientists picked the Y sex chromosome to examine for clues to migration because it changes very little from one generation to the next. Autosomes - the non-sex chromosomes - come in pairs, and the members of a pair can exchange bits of DNA during reproduction, making each autosome a mishmash of DNA from all of an individual’s ancestors. But the Y chromosome is a singleton; males inherit one Y chromosome and one X chromosome, while women have two X chromosomes. In men, only a tiny region of the Y chromosome can swap DNA with the X chromosome. This means almost all of the Y chromosome moves intact from father to son, changing only infrequently when a new mutation arises. That allows researchers to examine several generations of ancestry by looking at the Y chromosomes of living men.

“The family tree of the Y chromosome is very, very clear,” Mountain said.

The team analyzed Y chromosomes from men in 13 populations in Tanzania in eastern Africa and in the Namibia-Botswana-Angola border region of southern Africa. They discovered a novel mutation shared by some men in both locations, which implied those men had a common ancestor. Further analysis showed the novel mutation arose in eastern Africa about 10,000 years ago and was carried by migration to southern Africa about 2,000 years ago. The mutation was not found in Bantu-speakers, suggesting that a different group - Nilotic-language speakers - first brought herds of animals to southern Africa before the Bantu migration.

This new genetic evidence correlates well with pottery, rock art and animal remains that suggest pastoralists - herders who migrated to new pasture with their flocks - first tended sheep and cattle in southern Africa around 2,000 years ago. The genetic finding also helps explain linguistic similarities between peoples in the two regions.

“I like the fact that the linguistic, genetic and archaeological evidence all line up,” Henn said. “When you see lines of evidence converge on a single model, it means that’s probably something that actually happened.”

Read the full report here.

Red and black Nubian cattle herders

The Horite Hebrew who lived in Palestine tended sheep because the terrain is less hospitable to cattle than the broad grasslands of the wet Sahara. So Jesus Messiah is called "Lamb' of God in Scripture. However, Abraham's Nilo-Saharan ancestors were cattle herders and for them the image of the divine sacrifice was the Bull Calf of God. This is the meaning behind the account of the Golden Calf fabricated by Aaron, the Horite Hebrew priest (Ex. 32). The Deuteronomist Historian either did not understand this, or in his iconoclastic fervor, rejected it.

Related reading: Nilo-Saharan and Saharo-Nubian Populations; Boats and Cows of the Nilo-Saharans; The Urheimat of the Canaanite Y; Terah's Nubian Ancestors; The Bull's Head in Antiquity

Egypt in the Book of Genesis

Alice C. Linsley

Grieving Egyptian. Note the reddish-brown skin tone

Egypt is mentioned more than 300 places in the biblical narratives. It is often the place to which people escape  trouble: famine, political persecution, and war. What was considered Egypt in Abraham's time has never been established. Egypt's cultural and political influence extended far beyond the borders of present-day Egypt.  

The Greek historian Herodotus (484-425 B.C.) used the Greek term for the Red Sea to encompass the Gulf of Suez, the Gulf of Aqaba, the Red Sea, and the Indian Ocean. This is because he understood that the major bodies of water were controlled by the Hamitic Afro-Arabian and Semitic Afro-Asiatic rulers. These rulers were related by marriage. The water ways were the great highways of that time and it was along these rivers that the Horite priests spread their religious beliefs concerning Horus, who was called "son of God."  Horus is the pattern by which Abraham's descendants recognized the Messianic identity of Jesus of Nazareth. The primitive shape of messianic expectation is found among the Nilotic peoples. Their sea (bahr) was the Nile, the longest river in the world.

As notes Egyptian author Galal Amin:  "... These villages were, by communications standards of that time, very far away from the sea [i.e. Mediterranean, Gulf of Suez and Red Sea]. Their inhabitants still sang the praises of the summer breeze, and went in search of it, finding the breeze that came from the direction of the sea available to them on the banks of the Nile and the many canals that branched out of it. As a matter of fact, when most Egyptians referred to the 'sea,' bahr, it was the Nile and its canals they were talking about. As for the real sea, they called it 'the salty one,' and it was something that inspired great awe, provoked presumably by ignorance of it and a lack of any direct experience with it, and no realistic hope of ever seeing it. (Galal Amin, Whatever Happened to the Egyptians, p. 121)

Amin is describing the average villager, not the rulers whose territories were much vaster than is generally recognized. Abraham's father, for example, controlled almost the entire length of the Euphrates since his principal cities were Haran at its extreme north and Ur at its extreme south.

The Horites and Ancient Egypt

Abraham and his ancestors were Horites, a caste of ruler-priests who were devotees of Horus, the Divine Seed of Ra. This is the origin of Messianic expectation. Jesus Christ fulfills the Horus myth. The  oldest Horite shrine was the city of Nekhen in Sudan. Abraham's Nilo-Saharan ancestors appear to have been associated with Nekhen.

It was the Proto-Saharan rulers who first united the peoples of the Upper and Lower Nile. The first Pharaohs were Kushite kingdom builders who venerated of cattle and Hathor-Meri whose totem was the cow. She is the archetype of the Virgin Mary who gave birth in a stable. Hathor was said to conceive when she was overshadowed by the Sun.

According to some stories Horus was killed by his brother and rose again. 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 Horite myth when describing his passion and resurrection. “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit" (John 12:24). He identifies himself as the "Seed" of Genesis 3:15.

Horite belief in a deified son who would embody kindness and unite the peoples found fulfillment in Jesus Christ, a descendant of the Horite ruler-priests, the divine son of the Virgin Mary, daughter of the priest Joachim of the line of Nathan. Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of the promise made to Abraham's Horite ancestors in Eden (Gen. 3:15). This is why Frank Moore Crosscannot avoid the conclusion that the God of Israel is the God of the Horites.

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'." (Myth and Symbol in Ancient Egypt by R.T. Rundle Clark, p. 216)

Here we find the words of Psalm 110:1, a messianic reference: The Lord says to my Lord: "Sit at My right hand until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet."

Related reading:  The Nazareth-Egypt Connection; The Afro-Asiatic Dominion; Moses' Horite Family; Egypt in the Christmas Narrative; Samuel's Horite Family; The Horite Ancestry of Jesus Christ; The Conversion of Hagar the Egyptian

Water Systems Connected Nile and Central Africa

Alice C. Linsley


New evidence suggests that the Nile's famous floods were much more extensive than previously thought — in fact, they spread nearly 100 miles west of the river and created "mega-lakes" in the ancient desert.


A team of American and Egyptian researchers have used Space Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission (SRTM) data to determine the floods the Nile is famous for started at a much earlier time — 250,000 years ago — and were much more extensive than originally thought.


Newly processed topographic data from the 1980s and 1990s show drainage channels that extend more than 100 miles (160 kilometers) west of the Nile that end abruptly in the desert, where an ancient lake would have had its shoreline.

Read it all here.
 
Ted Maxwell of the National Air and Space Museum believes this is how the Nile Valley and central Africa were once integrated. It took a long time for these water systems to shrink. The region was still wet in the time of Kain and Seth. The connection of the major water ways, controlled by rulers and chiefs, could explain how the House of Nok (Nigeria) and the House of Set (Nubia) became the controlling houses of that region.
 
On the west side, the Nile probably connected with the Chadic Sea which in turn connected to the Benue and Niger Rivers of Nigeria. This is the region of Noah's flood. About 8500 years ago, the Chadic Sea was about 600 feet deep and sustained boating and fishing industries. The average fishermen used canoe dugouts which they could carve themselves, but nobles used boats constructed of marsh reeds lashed together and sealed with pitch. As a ruler, Noah probably had a fleet of boats on constructed in this way.

The western Nile watershed extended well into the Sudan. This explains why the Sudanese always have thought of the Nile as their river. The Sudanese-born BBC commentator, Zeinab Badawi, expresses the Sudanese view of the Nile:
 
"Ideologically, I wouldn't say that there are any huge differences between the Sudanese and the Egyptian governments certainly, and there is a huge affinity between the people. I think that the biggest source of friction and potential tension between Egypt and Sudan has been in the Nile, and how the waters of the Nile are used. The feeling that a lot of northern Sudanese might have is that the Nile actually in a sense runs much more through Sudan than it does through Egypt. Sudan is the biggest country in Africa. It's the tenth biggest in the world, the size of western Europe. It is the land of the Nile, and maybe there is a kind of brotherly resentment by the northern Sudanese that the Egyptians have in a sense claimed the Nile as their own, whereas the Sudanese in a sense feel they are the proper custodians of the Nile, because after all, most of its journey is through the territory of Sudan." (From here.)

African Sheer Zone

Rifting combined with prolonged rains caused this entire region to flood. Lake Chad is located at the boundary of Niger, Nigeria, Chad and Cameroon. Between 12 and 10 thousand years ago, the Nile connected to the Chadic and Niger water systems through a series of shallow lakes in the Sahara Desert. This explains the common plant and animal species found in all three water systems.

The black mahogany Dufuna dugout was found in the Sudan buried 16 feet under clays and sands whose alternating sequence showed evidence of deposition in standing and flowing water. The dugout is 8000 years old. By comparison, Egypt's oldest boat is only about 5000 years old.  Peter Breunig (University of Frankfurt, Germany) has written this description of the Dufuna boat: “The bow and stern are both carefully worked to points, giving the boat a notably more elegant form”, compared to “the dugout made of conifer wood from Pesse in the Netherlands, whose blunt ends and thick sides seem crude”. Judging by stylistic sophistication, Breunig reasons that, “It is highly probable that the Dufuna boat does not represent the beginning of a tradition, but had already undergone a long development, and that the origins of water transport in Africa lie even further back in time.”


Related Reading: An African Reflects on Biblical Names; When the Sahara Was Wet; Boats and Cows of the Proto-Saharans; Boat Petroglyphs in Egypt's Central Eastern Desert; 70,000 Year Settlement Found in Sudan; Mega-Nile was 17374.6 Square Miles