The Fertile Crescent and the Cradle of Civilization

Alice C. Linsley

Breasted's Fertile Crescent

Historians have long used the term "cradle of civilization" to speak of Mesopotamia. Today the terms "fertile crescent" and "cradle of civilization" are synonymous in many minds. For anthropologists this poses a problem because "civilization" looks different among the Nilo-Saharans and the Mesopotamians when examined in greater detail. The ancient Nilo-Saharans and Mesopotamians had a different way of life, a different conception of the Creator and a different cosmology. The Nilo-Saharans were the first to practice circumcision and animal sacrifice, and the divine name YHWY originated in the Upper Nile. The expectation of a righteous ruler who would lead his people to immortality originated among the Nilo-Saharans. This is why they took such great care in the burial of their rulers.

Reporting on his second expedition to Abydos (1896-1897), Abbe Émile Amélineau had this to say about Abraham's Anu ancestors: "These Anu were agricultural people, raising cattle on a large scale along the Nile, shutting themselves up in walled cities for defensive purposes. To this people we can attribute, without fear of error, the most ancient Egyptian books, The Book of the Dead and the Texts of the Pyramids, consequently, all the myths or religious teachings. I would add almost all the philosophical systems then known and still called Egyptian. They evidently knew the crafts necessary for any civilization and were familiar with the tools those trades required. They knew how to use metals, at least elementary metals. They made the earliest attempts at writing, for the whole Egyptian tradition attributes this art to Thoth, the great Hermes an Anu like Osiris, who is called Onian in Chapter XV of The Book of the Dead and in the Texts of the Pyramids.” Abydos and Heliopolis (Biblical On) were Ainu shrine cities of the Fertile Crescent.

"Fertile Crescent" refers to part of the ancient Near East that has been considered to be the principal center for the emergence of agriculture, villages, and cities. The term was coined by James Henry Breasted (1865–1935), a scholar of ancient Egypt and director of the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago, in his 1916 textbook, Ancient Times: A History of the Early World.

Mesopotamia was assumed to be the “cradle of civilization” because of two developments that occurred there: the rise of the city and the invention of writing. Between 3000-2200 B.C, the principal Mesopotamian cities were Lagash, Iraq with about 60,000 inhabitants, Mohenjo-daro, Pakistan, with about 40,000 inhabitants, and Mari, Syria, with 50,000 inhabitants. At that same time Nekhen (Hierakonpolis) was the most important settlement along the Nile, with an estimated population of 20,000. It was a bustling city that stretched for over 2 miles along the edge of the floodplain. Recent discoveries at Nekhen continue to push back the dating of early civilizations. On May 6, 2014 Dr. Mohamed Ibrahim announced the discovery of a Pre-Dynastic tomb that dates to about 500 years before King Narmer of 1st Dynasty.

Renée Friedman, who has direct knowledge of the excavations at Nekhen, has written that the "evidence of industrial production, temples, masks, mummies, and funerary architecture as early as 3500 B.C. is placing Hierakonpolis at the forefront of traditions and practices that would come to typify Egyptian culture centuries later. These discoveries may have knocked Narmer and his palette off their historical pedestal, but they confirm the central role the city played in the long development of Egyptian civilization. It is little wonder that for millennia the deified early kings of Hierakonpolis, called the Souls of Nekhen, were honored guests at the coronations and funerals of all pharaohs."

Nekhen was a principal city of Breasted's Fertile Crescent.

Long before this (9700-4400 years ago), the Gobero populations were living between along the major water systems of Niger. The early Holocene occupants at Gobero (7700–6200 B.C.) were mainly sedentary peoples with lakeside funerary sites that include the earliest recorded cemetery in the Sahara. Surely, ritual burial sites as large as that found at Gobero should be considered marks of human civilization.

The cradle of civilization is indeed Breasted's fertile crescent, a much greater expanse of land than Mesopotamia alone. There were agricultural and cattle-herding settlements in the Nile Valley during the last Glacial Maximum and the terminal Pleistocene (20,000 to 8500 B.C.). The Nile Valley and the green Sahara are part of the cradle of civilization. The crescent was populated by peoples who had a common religious and linguistic heritage, but these developed differently outside of Africa.


Correcting Distortions

Some Bible scholars have distorted the anthropological picture by ignoring Abraham's Nilo-Saharan ancestors as they are identified in Genesis 4-10. Jewish writers, for example, generally begin the history of the Jews with the calling of Abraham. While Abraham did live in Mesopotamia, his ancestors came from Africa. One was the Kushite kingdom builder Nimrod (Gen. 10). 

In the mid to late 20^th century Old Testament studies benefited from archaeological discoveries in the Near East and from linguistic studies of ancient Near Eastern languages such as Akkadian, Elamite and Sumerian. Connections were made between ancient Near Eastern religious practices and those of Abraham and his ancestors. Today scholars continue to labor those connections though there is overwhelming evidence that practices such as animal sacrifice and circumcision began in the Nile Valley, not in Mesopotamia. For example, William W. Hallo, a former Yale professor, insists that the practice of animal sacrifice originated in ancient Mesopotamia. He seems to be unaware that priests sacrificed animals at the Horite shrine city of Nekhen as early as 4000 B.C. 

It was commonly asserted that the Gilgamesh Epic was the basis for the Biblical story of the flood. Much was made of the parallels between the two accounts, but generally the differences, which are significant, were overlooked or ignored. More recently, the "Ark Tablet" of only twenty lines was translated by British Museum scholar Irving Finkel. It is an Old Babylonian account in which the deity instructs the ruler Atrahasis to build and waterproof a circular boat or coracle. The tablet dates to 1900-1700 B.C. and therefore dates to a time about 500 years after the Biblical Noah.

As far as the invention of writing, Breasted included the Nile Valley because writing was already in an advanced state among the Nilotic and Proto-Saharan peoples before the 4th millennium B.C.

Nilotic scribe
(c. 2494 to 2345 BC)

In Abraham's time there were about 750 hieroglyphs (priest symbols). Only about 500 signs were commonly used. However, in the time of Menes there may have been as many as 1000. Archaeology Magazine reported (1999) that the earliest Egyptian glyphs date to 3400 BC, the time of Menes, which challenges "the commonly held belief that early logographs, pictographic symbols representing a specific place, object, or quantity, first evolved into more complex phonetic symbols in Mesopotamia."

The rock paintings of the Sudan and Arabia, and the lexemes that appear in the Nilotic, Dedanite and Thamudic scripts indicate considerable uniformity in written communication over a vast region. We recognize Y/I/J, O, X, T and W among the oldest of the lexemes.

Further, DNA studies have demonstrated that modern humans first emerged in Africa and that these populations moved out of Africa, taking with them their languages and their religious practices. Linguistic studies provide evidence that the oldest units of spoken language (phonemes) originated in Africa and the farther from Africa that peoples migrated the greater the loss of the original phonemes. Even today, Africa has the greatest genetic and linguistic diversity of any place in the world.


Related reading: The Origin of Circumcision, Where Did Animal Sacrifice Originate?; The Urheimat of the Canaanite Y; Scholarly Prejudice?; Newly Discovered Pyramid Predates Noah; The Nubian Context of YHWH; Boat Petroglyphs of Egypt's Central Desert; Why Nekhen is Anthropologically Significant

Christianity and Messianic Expectation

Alice C. Linsley


Recently an Orthodox priest asked me about the most ancient worship and religious practices to which Christianity could be traced. He specifically wanted to know about the time before Moses so I will discuss the time of Abraham and his ancestors, from 2000 BC to 4000 BC.

There are many features of the religion of Abraham and his ancestors that relate to Christianity. I cannot address all features in a single blog post. Therefore this will be a series of related posts. Today's concentrates on two features: animal sacrifice and the priesthood.

For an explanation of how the oldest Messianac references predate Judaism by over 1000 years read this article about the Horite Hebrew belief in the Divine Son.


Animal sacrifice predates Abraham

William W. Hallo, former Yale professor, and Peter Leithart consider ancient Mesopotamia to be the point of origin of ritual animal sacrifice. Hallo writes, "Here we have not only, as in Israel, the canonical (literary) formulations of how sacrificial rites are to be performed, but also economic texts providing accounts of events after the ritual and objectively recorded, detailing the expenses of each step in the ritual against the possibility of a future audit by a higher authority. These records leave no doubt that in Mesopotamia, animal sacrifice, though ostensibly a mechanism for feeding the deity, was at best a thinly disguised method for sanctifying and justifying meat consumption by human beings—a privilege routinely accorded to priesthood, aristocracy and royalty, and sporadically, notably on holidays and holy days, to the masses of the population."

At First Things, Leithart wrote, "What are the chances that someone sometime in nearly every ancient culture decided that killing animals was a good way to worship their gods? What are the chances that this would be a near-universal practice without any tradition, any traditio/handing-over, of sacrificial rites? Aren’t the facts much better explained if we assume that there was mutual interaction, cross-fertilization, borrowing and mimicry, perhaps an Ur-sacrifice and an Ur-sacrificer?"

The Mesopotamian civilization to which Hallo and Leithart refer was essentially Kushite and the Kushites were Nilo-Saharans. Genesis 10 tell us that Nimrod, the son of Kush, moved into the Tigris-Euphrates Valley and established a kingdom there. He brought with him the practice of the sacrifice of rams, bulls, and sheep. Abraham is a descendant of Nimrod.

Hallo does not recognize the important distinction between animal sacrifice in Mesopotamia and animal sacrifice among the Horites. For the Horite devotees of Horus animal sacrifice was linked to purity, and purity was linked to holiness.

The sacrifice of animals among Abraham's Horite ancestors does not appear to have been to appease their God through the offering of food. It appears to be about the blood itself which was the symbol of life, regeneration, healing and cleansing. In the Horite context, blood was regarded as a purifying agent when offered by a pure priest. The Hebrew root thr, meaning to be pure, corresponds to the Hausa/Hahm toro, meaning clean, and to the Tamil tiru which means holy. All are related to the Dravidian tor which means blood. The Horite priest was to be pure (w'b) before entering the temple. His purification involved shaving his body and head and ritual washing. Korah, Moses' half-brother, was a priest. His name means "shaved head" and according to Numbers 16:17-18, he carried the incense censor. This suggests that kor and tor are cognates. Here we find a very early connection between blood, purity and holiness.

Dr. Margaret Barker makes a connection between purity and healing in her article Atonement: The Rite of Healing. She writes, "Atonement translates the Hebrew kpr, but the meaning of kpr in a ritual context is not known." However, in her paper on The Temple Roots of the Liturgy, Barker explains that kapporeth is "the place of atonement in the temple, where the Lord was enthroned."

When we investigate the antecedents of Christian religious practices and beliefs among Abraham's Horite ancestors we find clues to the meaning of kpr. The k refers to ka, meaning Kushite. The Sa-Ka were ethnically Kushites. The pr likely refers to piru, which is temple or shrine. Atonement would then pertain to the Kushite priest standing in the most holy place. 

The author of Hebrews speaks of the priest standing at the altar until he has completed his task (Heb. 10:12). "But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God." Here we find hints at the origins of Messianic expectation among Abraham's ancestors who practiced circumcision, animal sacrifice, built east-facing temples at high elevations, and observed sacred moral codes.

As Hallo notes, it was the priests who sacrificed animals and the oldest known caste of priests is that of Abraham's Horite ancestors who can be traced to Nekhen in the Sudan (4000-3000 BC). It was dedicated to Horus whose totem was the falcon. Votive offerings at the Nekhen temple were ten times larger than the normal mace heads and bowls found elsewhere, suggesting that this was a very prestigious shrine. Horite priests placed invocations to Horus at the summit of the fortress as the sun rose.

The Horites are called Hapiru in Akkadian and Habiru in Kushitic languages. These words are related to the Arabic yakburu, meaning “he is getting big” and to the intensive active prefix: yukabbiru, meaning "he is enlarging." The Y is a solar symbol, the k refers to Kushite, and biru means temple. This is a reference to the morning ritual of Horite priests who greeted the rising sun in their temples, offered prayers, and watched as the sun expanded across the horizon. Many words reflect Horus as the one who establishes boundaries of time and space and marks them by the Sun. The word hour, which is horos or oros, is an example. Horizontal is another, and likely the word "oriental" was originally a reference to Horus of the eastern horizon.

The Horite practice is evident in the morning ritual (agnihotra) whereby the sun is blessed each morning in devout Hindu homes and in the Jewish sun blessing (Birkat Hachama) that is performed every 28 years.

Atonement through the sacrifice of Christ, the Lamb of God, is not an invented belief. It emerges out of the oldest known practice of animal sacrifice among Abraham's Horite ancestors who moved into Mesopotamia from the Nilo-Saharan region. Further, it is prefigured in the account of Abraham's offering of his son on a fire altar. On the eastern horizon Horus rises as the lamb. On the western horizon, after his sacrifice at the sacred center (high noon on the mountain top), he is the ram who comes to full strength. So it is that Abraham was provided a ram to sacrifice in place of his son, not a lamb.

The Turin Canon, which provides important information on Egypt's early history, describes the Predynastic rulers of Egypt as "followers of Horus" and Horus as being one with his father Ra. Ra-harakhty means that together the father and the son rule the twin horizons. The very word "horizon" is derived from the root HR and relates to Horus.

Horus marked the boundaries and established the "kinds" (essences). He guarded the four directional points and controlled the water and wind currents. The Harmattan trade wind that blows from the northeast and east across the Sahara was named for Horus. The word is comprised of the biradicals HR for Horus and MT meaning order.


Priests predate Abraham.

It is evident that priests, as a distinct group or caste, were well established before the time of Moses and the Levites. Beside offering sacrifices, they offered cleansing rituals for persons who had come into contact with blood, especially blood shed in battle. Thus we read that the ruler-priest Melchizedek came to Abraham after the battle between the kings (Gen. 14) to ritually purify Abraham from blood guilt. The ritual that Melchizedek performed for Abraham involved bread and wine, recognized by Christians as the Eucharistic elements.

Archaic man had an intuitive anxiety about blood. We see this in the belief that the blood of Abel cries to God from the ground (Gen. 4:10). Anxiety about the shedding of blood is universal and very old. The Horite priesthood, one of the oldest known religious institutions, probably came into existence the first day that the individual and the community sought to be cleansed of blood guilt.

The Horites priests were devotees of Horus, the son of Ra. Horus was conceived by Hathor-Meri when she was overshadowed by the sun, the emblem of the Creator. The Horites spread their beliefs and religious practices from ancient Kush to Mesopotamia and beyond. The oldest fire altars were falcon shaped (shown below). The falcon was the totem of Hor/Horus, who was called "Son of God." This is why the Shulba Sutras state that "he who desires heaven is to construct a fire-altar in the form of a falcon."

At the Harappan water shrines of Kalibangan and Lothal, numerous fire altars have been discovered. The Dravidian word Har-appa means "Horus is father." Here is further evidence of the spread of Horite religion from ancient Kush to Pakistan and India.

We have evidence also in words that derive their meaning from Horite beliefs. Har-Ur refers to Horus in maturity, or the Elder Horus. In his infancy, he was depicted in ancient Egypt as either a calf or a lamb and in his maturity as a bull or a ram. The Mesopotamian cities of Haran and Ur are related to Har-Ur.

It is possible to trace many Mesopotamian religious practices back to Abraham's Nilo-Saharan ancestors who are presented in Genesis 10. For clarity on this subject it is necessary to distinguish between priests of other deities and the Horite priests who were devotees of Ra and Horus. In Horite belief the two are frequently spoken of as having one being, on essence: As Jesus claimed, "I and my Father are one" (John 10:30).


Conclusion

The religious traditions of the Horites developed in a traceable way from great antiquity. Such traditions are passed down through families, clans and tribes. Christianity emerges out of a belief that God made a promise a long time ago to a certain people living in "Eden" and it appears that their Horite descendants believed that promise and lived in expectation of its fulfillment. Throughout time, God has been fulfilling the Edenic Promise (Gen. 3:15) in the God-Man Jesus Christ.

The core of Christianity concerns this same Son of God, born of the Woman by the overshadowing of the Spirit of God. He suffered at the hands of his own brethren, died, and rose on the third day with the dawn's expanding light. By his death he tramples down death and leads captives to the Father (Eph. 4:8). These features of Christian belief can be traced to a time long before Judaism. Therefore, Christianity is not original, but what it lacks in originality, it makes up for in great antiquity. Herein rests its authority.

Related reading:  Where did Animal Sacrifice Originate?; A Tent for the Sun; Fundamentalism and Syncretism in Hebrew History; Water and Blood; Christ Across the Pages of the Bible

Where Did Animal Sacrifice Originate?

Alice C. Linsley


What is the point of origin of animal sacrifice? In "The Origin of Israelite Sacrifice" in the November/December 2011 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, William W. Hallo, former Yale professor, attempts to answer that question.
 

Horite priest sacrificing ram

Hallo insists that the practice comes from the much older Mesopotamian civilization. Likewise Peter Leithart considers that Ur might be the point of origin. At First Things he wrote, "What are the chances that someone sometime in nearly every ancient culture decided that killing animals was a good way to worship their gods? What are the chances that this would be a near-universal practice without any tradition, any traditio/handing-over, of sacrificial rites? Aren’t the facts much better explained if we assume that there was mutual interaction, cross-fertilization, borrowing and mimicry, perhaps an Ur-sacrifice and an Ur-sacrificer?" 

Both men have fallen in the common trap of beginning the story with the calling of Abraham in Genesis 12. Yet Genesis 4-11 makes it clear that Abraham's ancestors were Nilo-Saharans and it is there that we must look for the antecedents of animal sacrifice.

This civilization to which Hallo and Leithart refer was essentially Kushite and the Kushites were Nilo-Saharans. Genesis 10 tell us that Nimrod, the son of Kush, moved into the Tigris-Euphrates Valley and established a kingdom there. He brought with him the practice of the sacrifice of rams, bulls, and sheep. Abraham is a descendant of Nimrod.

The sacrifice of animals was done by priests and the oldest known caste of priests is that of the Horites who can be traced back to Nekhen in the Sudan (4000-3000 BC).
 
Horite priests had shaved heads such as shown (above) in this third-millennium B.C. Mesopotamian mosaic.  Moses' half-brother Korah was a Horite priest.  His name means 'shaved one." Compare this image to the one below of an Egyptian priest or harwa. Har-wa means "Horus rules the waters" (or rules universally). Harwa or Arwa always refers to the priestly role. In Hausa, for example, the word arwa refers to the prediction of the future done mainly by priests in ancient times.

 
The Horites spread their religious practices and beliefs from ancient Kush to Mesopotamia and beyond. The oldest fire altars were falcon shaped (shown below).  The falcon was the totem of Hor/Horus, who was called "Son of God."  This is why the Shulba Sutras state that "he who desires heaven is to construct a fire-altar in the form of a falcon."

Figurine of Harappan girl shows Kushite features

At the Harappan water shrines of Kalibangan and Lothal, numerous fire altars have been discovered.  The Dravidian word Har-appa means "Hor is father." Here is further evidence of the spread of Horite religion from ancient Kush to Pakistan and India.

The Nilotic or Kushitic religious practices diffused through the agency of Horite ruler-priests who controlled water systems at a time when the Sahara, Mesopotamia, southern Pakistan and southern India were wetter. These ruler-priests are called Horites because they were devotees of Horus, the divine son by whose pattern Abraham's descendants would recognize Jesus' true identity.

The Horite  Hebrew are called Hapiru or Habiru in ancient texts. These words appear to be related to the Arabic yakburu, meaning “he is getting big” and to the intensive active prefix: yukabbiru, meaning "he is enlarging." Likely, this is a reference to the morning ritual of Horite priests who greeted the rising sun with prayers and watched as it expanded across the horizon. This is the origin of the morning ritual whereby the sun is blessed daily in every devout Hindu home and the Jewish Sun Blessing ritual (Birkat Hachama) that is performed every 28 years.

The oldest known center of Horite Hebrew worship is Nekhen (Hierakonpolis) on the Nile. Votive offerings at the Nekhen temple were ten times larger than the normal mace heads and bowls found elsewhere, suggesting that this was a very prestigious shrine. Horite Hebrew priests placed invocations to Horus, the son of God, at the summit of the fortress as the sun rose.

The twin shrine cities of Nekhen and Nekheb are mentioned in the Ancient Pyramid Texts which also speak of Horite mounds (Utterance 308), the son of God who tramples the serpent (Utterance 378), and of the resurrection of the dead King (Utterance 373).

In the ancient world, a temple was considered the mansion (hâît) or the house (pirû) of the deity. The shrines and temples were aligned to the rising of the Sun and among the Dravidians were called O-piru, the O symbolizing the Sun. Heliopolis (City of the Sun) was on the east side of the Delta. Joseph was married to a daughter of the priest of Heliopolis (Biblical On). Hathor, the virgin mother of Horus, had her principal temples in Dendera and Memphis to the south of Heliopolis and on the west side of the Nile. The principal temples of Horus were further south in Nekhen and Edfu, on the west side of the Upper Nile. The pyramids at Giza, Saqqara and Abusir were aligned Heliopolis.

Recently twin pyramids have been found in Zinder, Niger.  They reflect the Nilo-Saharan roots of the Abrahamic faith.


The Purpose of Animal Sacrifice

The sacrifice of animals among Abraham's Horite Hebrew ancestors does not appear to have been to appease God, nor to offer food to God. It appears to be about the blood itself which was the symbol of life, regeneration and healing. Blood is the substance associated with this priesthood. In this context, blood is a purifying agent when offered by a pure priest. The Hebrew root thr = to be pure, corresponds to the Hausa/Hahm toro = clean, and to the Tamil tiru = holy. All are related to the Dravidian tor = blood.

The Hebrew priest was to be pure (w'b) before entering the temple. Their purification involved shaving their bodies and heads. Korah, Moses' half-brother, was a priest. His name means "shaved head" and according to Numbers 16:17-18, he carried the incense censor. This suggests that kor and tor are probably cognates. Here we find a very early connection between blood, purity and holiness.

Dr. Margaret Barker makes a connection between purity and healing in her article Atonement: The Rite of Healing. She writes, "Atonement translates the Hebrew kpr, but the meaning of kpr in a ritual context is not known."

However, in a paper on The Temple Roots of the Liturgy, Barker explains that kapporeth is "the place of atonement in the temple, where the Lord was enthroned."

If the antecedents of Judaism are found among Abraham's Horite Hebrew ancestors we do well to look at the Ancient Egyptian and Nilo-Saharan languages for a clue to the meaning of kpr. The pr likely refers to piru, which is temple or shrine. The k likely refers to ka, which means spirit, soul or deified ruler. Atonement would then pertain to the divine ruler-priest standing in the most holy place. Surely, this is a Messianic image. Isaiah 6:1 - "In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple."

Hebrews 10:12 which speaks of how the priest stands at the altar until he has completed his task. "But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God."


Related reading: Africa is Archaeologically Rich; Biblical Sheba and Nubians Linked; Margaret Barker, Atonement: The Rite of Healing; The Kushite Marriage Pattern Drove Kushite Expansion; Nimrod Was a Kushite Ruler; The African Origin of the Dravidians; Dr. Margaret Barker, Our Great High Priest: The Church is the New Temple; Christianity is the One True Messianic Faith

Osiris and Dionysus Foreshadow Christ

Alice C. Linsley


C.S. Lewis accepted that the pagan myths of Osiris and Dionysus foreshadowed Christianity and spoke of spiritual realities. J.R.R. Tolkien expected Christ-figures to appear in myths, because from the beginning, the human has longed for a great ruler with the power to defeat death. Both understood the lasting power of myth compared to historical accounts.  Were I to interview random persons, most if not all, would be able to tell me about Adam and Eve. However, few if any, would be able to recount key events of 1520 or 1880. Myths have staying power.

All myths about a dying deity who returns from the grave are really the same myth with variations on the theme. As Joseph Campbell noted this myth has a wide global dispersion, indicating that it is very old. He called it the "monomyth" of the hero's journey.

The Greeks, who were much infatuated with ancient Egyptian religion, borrowed Osiris for their Dionysian cult. To understand how this myth is about Jesus Christ, we must investigate the religion of Abraham's Horite people. The expectation of a Righteous Ruler who would destroy death originated among them.

The Horites were devotees of the high God (Ra) whose emblem was the Sun. Ra's son was Hor (Horus) whose emblem or totem was the falcon.  Hor is sometimes shown flying above the Sun on Ra's solar boat.  This is important because it is Hor who dies and rises, not Osiris.  Osiris was murdered and his body dismembered and scattered. The pieces of his body were rejoined and he became the lord of the dead. Osiris did not rise from the grave.  He descended to the shadow land of Sheol.

The ancient Egyptian priests taught that the dead person continues as a shadow and they considered the blessed dead “the living ones.” [1] The word Sheol is derived from the Egyptian word Sheut (šwt), meaning shadow. Statues or ancestor figurines of deified rulers were painted black to convey their continued existence as shadows. On the final day, some in shadowland will be granted eternal life and others will die the second death.

Genesis 25:8 says, “Then Abraham breathed his last and died at a good old age, an old man and full of years; and he was gathered to his people.” The phrase “gathered to his people” or “gathered to his fathers” applies to the Horite ruler-priest caste to which Abraham, Job, Moses, Aaron and David belonged, and from whom Jesus Christ came as a direct descendant. Abraham, Job, Moses Aaron and David all died and remained in the grave, but Jesus Christ rose. As Hebrews attests, He is our great High Priest, after the order of Melchizedek.

This phrase "gathered to his people" should not be generalized. It does not apply to all people, but is specific to the unbroken line from Abraham to Christ our Lord. This is why I believe the phrase relates specifically to the Horites or Horim who were a priestly caste. This is evidenced again in Numbers 20:26: “Remove Aaron's garments and put them on his son Eleazar, for Aaron will be gathered to his people; he will die there.”

In Predynastic times, the whole people was embodied by the ruler who was expected to intercede in life and death for his people. Great pains were taken to bury the ruler so that he would rise from the grave. Likely, Abraham's beliefs about resurrection would have corresponded to those of his Horite ancestors who were called "gods" (elohiym).

The rulers of Egypt were associated with Osiris in death. Osiris controlled the shadowlands and rose daily from the deep as the Sun rises. His death is symbolized by the setting of the sun in the west.  There his son, Hor/Horus reigned for him as his heir. The Egyptian word hr (her, hor, har) means "the one on high." The Turin Canon, which provides important information on Egypt's early history, describes the Predynastic rulers of Egypt as "Followers of Horus" and Horus as the "Ruler of the Two Horizons."

Horus was identified with ruler-priests in ancient Egypt. His identification with the king was shown on early decorated monuments from Nekhen (Hierakonpolis). The Horites believed that heavenly recognition of a people depended on the righteousness of their ruler-priest.  If God turned His face away from the ruler, the people suffered from want and war. If the ruler found favor with God, the people experienced abundance and peace. The ruler's resurrection meant that he could lead his people beyond the grave to new life. This is why great pains were taken to insure that the ruler not come into contact with dead bodies, avoid sexual impurity, and be properly preserved after death. The ruler's burial was attended by prayers, sacrifices and a grand procession to the royal tomb.

Heavenly recognition for the Horites was never an individual prospect. Heavenly recognition came to the people through the righteousness of their ruler-priest. This is the context for the Christian understanding of Jesus as the risen ruler who leads his people from the grave to the throne of heaven.

Horite rulers hoped to rise from the grave in union with Osiris and inherit eternal life. They were a caste of ruler-priests whose origins are veiled in great antiquity.  They were honored in 4400 B.C. at Nekhen, the oldest known center of worship of Horus of Nekhen.  His totem was the falcon.

As the priests became more ambitious, the idea that heavenly recognition depended upon the Righteous Ruler who could defeat death shifted.  The cult of Osirus became very powerful and very profitable for the priests. Costly initiation rites were encouraged by priests willing to change the tradition of their Horim to line their pockets.This shift began about 500 years after Abraham and is reflected in the Vedic Age. People sought to be initiated into an emerging Osiris/Horus cult.[2] They hoped that ritual association with Horus' death and resurrection would bring them resurrection. They no longer expected a Righteous Ruler to actually rise from the dead.

Expectation of life beyond the grave came to depend, not on the appearance of a Righteous Ruler, but on the agency of priests and sacrifice. This happened among the Vedic and Pagan priests who encouraged animal sacrifice to such extreme proportions that blood flowed from their altars. A Vedic proverb states that "Sacrifice is the navel of the world." The priests taught that the merit of the sacrifice depended on its costliness. Sacrifices of twelve and three victims (trittues) were the most common, but hundreds of animals might be sacrificed at a time.

The priests of Israel distanced themselves from the Pagan and Vedic priests. They taught that sacrifice was for the atonement of sin, but they also looked for the coming of the Righteous Ruler.  Many had hoped that David would be that ruler, but he too died and was gathered to his fathers. He did not rise from the grave.  In all of history, there is but one Righteous Ruler who rose from the dead, even Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

1. Conceptions of God In Ancient Egypt: The One and the Many", Erik Hornung (translated by John Baines), p. 233, Cornell University Press, 1996, ISBN 10-8014-8384-0

2. “Man, Myth and Magic", Osiris, vol. 5, p. 2087-2088, S.G.F. Brandon, BPC Publishing, 1971.

Related reading: Righteous Rulers and the Resurrection; Resurrection as Mirrored Reality; "Gathered to His People"; Horite Expectation and the Star of Bethlehem; The Eyes of Horus Speak of Jesus; The Double Crown of Horus; Jesus Christ of the Two Crowns; Why Does Genesis Speak of Gods?