Abraham the Hebrew

 

Dr. Alice C. Linsley

The first person to be explicitly designated as “Hebrew” in the Bible is Abraham. He lived in the Middle Bronze Age around 2100 to 2000 B.C.  A detailed study of Abraham reveals a great deal about the biblical Hebrew and their authority.

Abraham’s Hebrew ancestors lived in the Nile Valley, Canaan, and Mesopotamia. They were a ruler-priest caste that dispersed widely in the service of the early kingdom builders such as Nimrod.

Beginning in chapter 11, Abraham becomes the focal point of Genesis. We are told that he was Hebrew, and he was very rich in cattle, silver, and gold (Gen. 13:2). His high social status is evident in the personal audiences he had with Pharoah and King Abimelech. Melchizedek, the priest-king of Jerusalem, ministered to Abraham after battle. This involved ritual cleansing from blood. The Hittites (descendants of Heth the Hebrew) recognized Abraham as a "great prince" among them. Abraham’s personal guard consisted of at least 318 warriors trained in his household.

Genesis 13 states that Abraham left Egypt and moved into the Negev (the "south"), a region known for mining and metal work. Abraham had kin living there among the Kenites, Cain’s descendants. It probably was at this time that he married Keturah of the clan of Sheba. She established their southern settlement at Beersheba (the Well of Sheba). From there Abraham moved north to the region of Bethel and Ai. Eventually, Sarah established her settlement at Hebron. The wives' settlements marked the southern and northern boundaries of Abraham's territory. Bethel and Ai are shown on this map. Hebron and Beersheba are also shown, farther south.

 

As with the earlier Hebrew ruler-priests Abraham had two wives. The wives' settlements marked the northern and southern boundaries of Abraham's territory. Abraham's father Terah also had two wives. One wife was the mother of Sarah, and the other wife was the mother of Abraham. Keturah was Abraham's patrilineal cousin and the wife of his later years. By his two wives, Abraham had 7 sons and an unknown number of daughters.

Hebrew sons who were not the firstborn of the half-sister (principal) wife or the firstborn of the cousin (second) wife were sent away. Genesis 25:6 explains that before he died Abraham "made grants" to his other sons and then sent them away from his proper heir Isaac. This feature of the marriage and ascendancy pattern of the early Hebrew drove their expansion out of Africa. The territories of some of the early kingdom builders were large. However, by Abraham's time the size of the territories of the sent-away sons was relatively small. 

When Abraham's father died in Harran, Nahor took control of Terah's territory and Abraham became a sent-away son. After some wandering, he established himself in a territory that extended on a north-south axis between Hebron and Beersheba, a distance of 27 miles/43 kilometers, and on an east-west axis between Ein Gedi and Gerar, a distance of 94 miles/152 kilometers. His authority in this territory was absolute and governed by a tradition of sacred law.

The biblical data surrounding Abraham presents a ruler who was heir to a long-standing priestly tradition. Though Abraham is claimed by many Semitic peoples as their common ancestor, that priestly tradition is largely ignored.


Competing Narratives

Abraham’s Hebrew identity is blunted by efforts to make him acceptable to various religious ideologies. For Jews, Abraham is problematic because he was not Jewish. This explains in part why Jews have made Moses the more important figure of their history. However, this is no remedy since the biblical data reveals that Moses and his family were not Jewish either. Moses and Abraham belonged to the same caste of ruler-priests as is evident in analysis of their common marriage and ascendency pattern.

It is problematic for Jews that the two key figures of their history were not Jews, but it is even more disturbing that both Abraham and Moses believed in God Father and God Son.

Muslims view Abraham as a great prophet. However, as Mohammed is viewed as the last or “seal” of the prophets his greatness eclipses that of Abraham and Moses. The Quran acknowledges that Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary. In this respect, Muslims are closer to the Messianic Faith than the Jews who deny the virginal conception of Jesus.

The Jews that Mohammed knew in Yathrib (Medina) apparently were not well informed about their genealogical connection to the Arabian Horites. Either they failed to demonstrate a common ancestry, or they did not know of it. By Mohammed’s time, Jews had embraced the Talmudic myths that support the prevalent Jewish ideology. Sadly, neither Jews nor Arabs have a good portrait of their “father” Abraham.

Though Christians acknowledge Abraham as a model of justifying faith we hardly know him better. Nor do we recognize that Messianic expectation originated among Abraham’s Nilotic ancestors. The parallels between creedal Christianity and the ancient Horus myth are so striking that cynics claim that Christianity is a copy-cat religion. In this they are mistaken. The Christ of Christianity is the perfect fulfillment of the early Hebrew expectation of the coming of the Son of God in the flesh to save sinners and to restore Paradise. The belief was preserved by the Horite and Sethite clans who intermarried. Abraham, Moses, David, and Jesus are biological descendants of those clans, as is evident in analysis of the kinship data of the Bible. This suggests a continuous family/caste tradition that is overlooked by the average reader, proving Thomas Paine’s observation that "The Bible is a book that has been read more and examined less than any book that ever existed."

Related reading: The Hebrew were a Caste; Sent-Away Sons; Terah's Two Wives; Leaving Haran, The Calling of Abraham

The Origin of Castes

Alice C. Linsley


The evils of the caste system are regularly expounded in contemporary writings. In The Open Society and Its Enemies, Karl Popper argued that Plato’s ideal state, with it three-tier structure, is totalitarian. Yet, as others have noted, Plato's ideal represents an improvement upon the rigid caste structure that characterized ancient societies. Plato suggested that some particularly gifted individuals should be trained to work outside of their caste. This was a radical idea for his time (BC 428-347).

The egalitarian nature of American society makes castes anathema. We react strongly to perceived or real limitations of our freedom of choice. On this matter we find agreement among such disparate groups as feminists, the National Rifle Association, gay activists, and libertarians.

Rarely do we consider the benefits of the caste system. It lent stability to ancient societies. The castes represented line of work: tanners, potters, metal workers, warriors, etc. Members of a caste were proud of the work they did and this pride extended to their family's heritage.  A young man stepped into the occupation of his father and the caste protected the occupation against intruders. This worked better than modern labor unions.

People knew their place in society. This is literally the case, since the cities of the ancient world reflected the social hierarchy and that hierarchy was reflected in the location of residences. Nobles, priests and temple staff lived more centrally. The lower castes, such as potters and tanners, lived on the edges or outskirts.

Caste identity provided a strong sense of duty. The Bhagavad Gita states, "By devotion to one's particular duty, everyone can attain perfection... By fulfilling the obligations he is born with, a person never comes to grief." (BG 18:44-48) This idea is found in Judaism also. Baba Batra wrote, "All appointments are from Heaven, even that of a janitor." (Talmud, Baba Batra 91b)

Members formed stable marriages with partners within their caste and received support from their kinsmen. The caste also lent job security similar to that provided by Medieval guilds and modern trade unions.

Castes as a reflection of the heavenly hierarchy

As Mircea Eliade noted, ancient social structures and religious rituals are patterned on celestial archetypes. The ancient Horites believed that their ruler-priests were deified "sons" of God. They are often called "gods" (elohim) as in Exodus 22:28:

"Thou shalt not revile the gods (elohim), nor curse the ruler of thy people."

In this view, rulers are appointed by God to restrain evil, to establish justice, and to reward those who do good. Not only do they act on God's behalf; they act as “gods” on earth, patterned upon the Horim (Judaism) or Houris (Islam) who comprise the divine council in heaven. This is evident in Psalm 82:1:

"Elohim has taken his place in the divine council in the midst of the elohim he holds judgment."

That this is about rulers is evident in Psalm 82:6,7:

"I said, 'You are gods [elohim]; you are all sons of the Most High. However, you will die like men and fall like any other ruler."

The divine council is a central theological (and Christological) image in the Old and New Testaments. A later expression of the celestial hierarchy is the fascination with the ranks of angels. Often it is unclear in Biblical texts whether the writer has in mind deified rulers or angels. Consider, for example, how the terms "priests" and "angels" are interchanged in St. John's Apocalypse.

In the Rig Veda (c. 1000 B.C.) four castes are elaborated as the representation of the divine body.

When they divided the Supreme Being,
how many portions did they make?
What did they call his mouth? What his arms?
and what his thighs and his feet?

The Brahmin was his mouth, and
his arms were made the Kshatriya,
his thighs became the Vaisya, and
from his feet was the Sudra born.
(Rig Veda 10:90.11-12)

Paul likewise describes the Church as the mystical Body of Christ. His analogy of arms and legs, with Christ as the head, draws on ancient tradition. The Church is the Body of Christ, a new creation ushered in by the Messianic age. This body has many parts, but four in particular are named. In I Corinthians 12:27-30, Paul explains, “Now Christ’s body is yourselves, each of you with a part in the whole. And those whom God has appointed in the Church are…

First - apostles
Second - prophets
Third - teachers
Fourth - workers of miracles and so on


The caste system as it developed in India has five classes:

The ruler-priests or Brahmin caste performs Vedic rituals and provides guidance

The warrior-nobles or Kshatriya caste which protects society and keeps the peace

The merchant class or Vaishya caste which includes the landed families, farmers with large holdings, bankers, and merchants

The Sudra which includes artisans, peasants, servants and manual laborers

The Dalit or "untouchables" who the Aryans subjugated and forced to do the basest work.

The Sudra and Dalit are descendants of the Har-appan peoples who built the great temples of southern India with the falcon-shaped fire altars. In Vedic tradition the Shulba Sutras teach that "he who desires heaven is to construct a fire-altar in the form of a falcon." Har-Appa means "Horus is Father" in Dravidian, and the falcon was Horus' animal totem. Gandhi called the Dalits "Harijans" and Pakistani Dalits are called "Haris."


Tracing castes to Africa

Evidence from linguistics, anthropology, archaeology, and molecular genetic indicates an African point of origin. People in the ancient world were born into their caste and married within their caste. Among the Nilo-Saharans, one's occupation was determined by the caste to which one belonged and the caste members protected their trade secrets. The Biblical Kenites did their metal work outside the towns (I Sam. 15:6) where the artisans' secrets could be protected.

The protection of trade secrets and metal working prerogative is evident today among the Inadan smiths of Niger. When a Taureg overlord attempted to do metal work, an Inadan prerogative, the Inadan smiths launched a mock attack on his home to warn him against further attempts to make jewelry (See image below. Photo credit: Michael Kirtley).

Inadan metal worker attacks Taureg 's house with bellows
National Geography, Aug. 1979 (p. 289)

As many subcastes exist, it is difficult for a Hindu to know who is one’s equal or one superior. Many Hindus are concerned with who they may marry and with whom they may eat. Similar concerns are found among observant Jews.

Although the origin of castes is disputed, castes characterized ancient societies well before the Vedic Age (c. 1700-800 BC). One of the oldest known castes is that of the Hapiru or Habiru (Hebrew). This was a caste of priests and priest attendants who served at the water shrines and temples of the ancient world beginning as early as 4000 BC. They are sometimes called "O-piru" because they reveranced the Sun as the emblem of the Creator. The O in O-piru is a solar symbol.

Within this priest caste there emerged a cult devoted to Horus as early as 3500 BC at Nekhen in Sudan. These are called Horites. The Horites were a Proto-Saharan caste who later were found among the Kushites. The Kushite marriage and ascendancy structure speaks of the promised Son to whom God will deliver the eternal kingdom. Abraham's people were Horites. Even today Jews call their ancestors "Horim" which is a variant of "Horite."

While the term "caste system" is generally associated with the Vedic culture in India, this social organization can be traced back to neolithic Africa. Although not all lines of work were along caste lines, as John W. May has demonstrated, the Horite priesthood shows evidence of having been a caste in the strictest sense of the word. The Horites practiced endogamy whereby they preserved their bloodlines in anticipation of the coming of the Deified Ruler who would be born from one of their chaste Horite virgins.

In the Bible the Horites are associated with the Edomites (Genesis 36). Their ruler-priests (the ha'biru) were renown for a high standard of sexual purity and morality. Before their terms of priestly service they shaved their bodies and did not consume wine. Plutarch wrote that the “priests of the Sun at Heliopolis never carry wine into their temples, for they regard it as indecent for those who are devoted to the service of any god to indulge in the drinking of wine whilst they are under the immediate inspection of their Lord and King. The priests of the other deities are not so scrupulous in this respect, for they use it, though sparingly.”

The southernmost state of India, Tamil Nadu, is well known for its caste system. The languages spoken here are related to ancient Egyptian and Proto-Saharan languages. Genetic studies have linked the people to Africa rather than to Asia.

The distribution of deep-rooted Indian-specific Y-chromosomal and mitochondrial lineages suggests an initial settlement of modern humans in the subcontinent from the early out-of-Africa migration. Most of the extant mtDNA boundaries in south and southwest Asia were likely shaped during the initial settlement of Eurasia by anatomically modern humans. The genetic heritage of the earliest settlers persists both in Indian tribal and caste populations. Polarity and temporality of high-resolution y-chromosome distributions in India identify both indigenous and exogenous expansions and reveal minor genetic influence of Central Asian pastoralists. (From here.)

The Indian archeologist B. B. Lal's contends that the Dravidians came from Nubia and Upper Egypt. Lal writes: "At Timos the Indian team dug up several megalithic sites of ancient Nubians which bear an uncanny resemblance to the cemeteries of early Dravidians which are found all over Western India from Kathiawar to Cape Comorin. The intriguing similarity extends from the subterranean structure found near them. Even the earthenware ring-stands used by the Dravidians and Nubians to hold pots were identical." According to Lal, the Nubian megaliths date from around 1000 B.C." (From here.)

Herodotus referred to the Sudra as the “eastern Ethiopians” and described them thus: “The Eastern Ethiopians differed in nothing from the other Ethiopians, save in their language, and the character of their hair. For the Eastern Ethiopians have straight hair, while they of Libya are more woolly-haired…” (Herodotus VI.70, The History, trans. George Rawlinson, Dutton)


Related reading: The Low Castes that Live Among the Hawiyya; Evidence of Castes in the Book of Ruth; African Religion Predates Hinduism; A Tent for the Sun; The Afro-Asiatic Dominion; Wine Use in Antiquity; The Hapiru Were Devotees of Horus; Religious Tradition; Stone Work of the Ancient World

The Amorites: Royal Hebrew Scribes?

Alice C. Linsley

Aaron A. Burke has written,

"After more than a century of scholarship on Amorites no real consensus has emerged on their origins, identity, and cultural legacy. It remains the case that little dialogue occurs across geocultural zones or between scholars working on different historical periods. Furthermore, few efforts have been made to incorporate anthropological approaches, despite the fact that more than thirty years ago Kamp and Yoffee (1980) noted its conspicuous absence among prior methods. The only consensus that exists, therefore, is that there is no consensus."

The Amorites remain a mystery, but the science of Biblical Anthropology sheds light on this population. It is likely that "Amorite" is an anglicized form of the word Amurru. Apparently, the Amurru were a widely dispersed population. Some lived in the Nile Valley Egypt and are shown on ancient monuments as having "fair skins, light hair, blue eyes, aquiline noses, and pointed beards.” (Easton’s Bible Dictionary)

Henry George Tomkins (1897), a member of the Royal Archaeological Institute believed that the Amorites were blue eyed and fair haired.

Egyptologists Flinders Petrie and Assyriologist Archibald Sayce believed that the Amorites/Amurru were white, with blue eyes and fair hair. According to Sayce (The Hittites, 1889): The Amorites… were a tall, handsome people, with white skins, blue eyes and reddish hair, all the characteristics, in fact, of the white race.

According to Sayce, tomb No. 34 at Thebes, belonging to the Eighteenth Dynasty (c. 1550-c. 1292), illustrates a bearded Amorite chief with white skin and red-brown hair. This tomb dates to a time after the earliest evidence of Amorites in Genesis 10:16.

Amur-ru is also the name of the northernmost district of Egypt's empire and it included the coastal region from Ugarit to Byblos. The Orontes in Turkey marked the northern boundary of Amur-ru.

In ancient times, the Orontes (Draco) River was the chief river of the Levant and had sufficient depth for boats to sail up the river from the Mediterranean near modern Beirut in Lebanon. This was aided by the north-flowing currents. Meroe on the Orontes was a fortress on the spur of Mount Silpius overlooking the Orontes. It was named IO, which designated it as a “pillared place dedicated to the Creator.” The O was a solar symbol and the emblem of the Creator. IO had a twin city on the opposite side of the river: AntIO, known as Antioch. Meroe on the Orontes was thousands of miles from Meroe on the Nile. Meroe in Turkey was the farthest outpost of the Egyptian Empire and at its peak the city would have had Amur-ru.

Likewise, Heliopolis (On) on the Nile was called “Iunu” which means "place of pillars" because it was a shrine city. There were numerous twin cities in the ancient world.


White Canaanites?

Genesis 10 does not tell us about all the human populations living on earth. There were many migrations of peoples 70,000 and 100,000 years ago, long before Noah.  However, the name Ar does not appear in the Genesis king lists until four generations after Noah. Consider the following:

B.C. 2490-2415 – Noah, lived when the Sahara experienced a wet period (Butzer 1966)
B.C. 2438-2363 – Ham, son of Noah by his cousin-wife
B.C. 2417-2342 – Kush, son of Ham and the father of Nimrod and Raamah
B.C. 2290-2215 - Nimrod who married a Sumerian princess, a daughter of Asshur
B.C. 2238-2163 - Arpacshad, son by Asshur's daughter. (Shad means happy.)
B.C. 2217-2042 - Salah, likely Arpacshad's son by his sister-wife
B.C. 2196-2121 - Eber, likely Salah's son by his sister-wife
B.C. 2175-2100 - Peleg, likely Eber's son by his sister-wife. Peleg's brother was Joktan the Elder.

Genesis 10:16 and 1 Chronicles 1:13-14 mention the Amorites in connection with the Canaanites. The Arvadites (residents of Arvad) and Arkites (Gen. 10:15-18) appear to be related to the Amorites. They are peoples of Sidon and also classified as Canaanites.

During Abraham's time, the Amorites were centered in Engedi, a large oasis on the western shore of the Dead Sea bounded on the south by the Wadi Arnon. They apparently considered the Arnon a natural boundary because they eventually forced the Moabites south across the river.

Genesis 10 maintains that the Amorites are descendants of Noah by his great grandson Nimrod who, a Kushite Hebrew, who went to live in Mesopotamia where he became a great city builder. Clearly the Amorites are kin to the early Hebrew who also were widely dispersed before the time of Abraham (2000 BC).


The Amorites: a caste of royal scribes?

There are linguistic clues as to the Am-Ar’s identity as a scribal caste. Arsh means “throne” in Arabic, suggesting a connection to the royal house. Among the Igbo, the scribe clans are called Ar or Aro. The Am-Ar may have been Hebrew scribes, just as the Horite and Sethite Hebrew were a ruler-priests. These likely were castes. The ancient world had castes, and a trait of castes is endogamy, the selection of marriage partners from within one's caste. marriage within the ruling castes was endogamous.

Israelites who may have been associated with the Am-Ar include Aroch (1 Chr 7:39, Ezra 2:5, Neh 6:18, Neh 7:10) and Ariel (Ezr 8:16, Isa 29:1, Isa 29:1, Isa 29:2, Isa 29:2, Isa 29:7). Ariel means “scribe/messenger of God.” So, it appears that the Am-Ar were scribes and royal messengers. This is further suggested by the name Ar-vad. Vad means “to speak” in Sanskrit.

The association of the name Ar with the scribal caste is further demonstrated by the discovery of Aramaic scrolls from the satrap Arsames to his Egyptian administrator Psamshek and to an Egyptian ruler named Nekht-hor. (A.T. Olmstead, History of the Persian Empire, Chicago, 1948, pp.116-117)

The alphabetic inscriptions from the Wadi El-Hol in Egypt date between 1800 and 2000 B.C. and provide some of the earliest evidence for the development of the alphabet that would have been known to the Am-Ar. Concerning this find, Dr. John Coleman Darnell (Yale University) has stated, “These are the earliest alphabetic inscriptions, considerably earlier than anyone had thought likely."

The inscriptions were found at Mount Tjauti, where caravan routes converge northwest of Luxor and about 250 miles south of Cairo. The Farshut Road (also known as the “Road of Horses”) departs Thebes north of the Valley of the Kings, crosses the high plateau between Mount Antef and Mount Roma and descends at the Wadi el-Hol.  This is a very ancient commerce route, possibly established by King Menes who was the first to unite the Upper and Lower Nile. Menes was called Ahauiti and Mount Tjauti was likely named for him.  His territory was called Tjenu. The earliest evidence of Tjenu as a ruled territory dates to 4000 B.C. Royal scribes and messengers would have traveled this route.

We find further association between Ar and the royal name Auti in the region of Arachosia, which corresponds to the Aryan land of Har-auti. Har refers to Horus.

Dr. Catherine Acholonu writes, "The Igbo Ar/Aro are the scribes of the Igbo God Ele/El (Chukwu Abiama) who dwells in the southern extension of the Underground Duat called the Long Juju. They were and are still proficient in various kinds of ancient scripts called Akwukwo Aka Igwe, and Nsibidi which has many Sumerian pictographs and Egyptian hieroglyphics and has been said to be older than 5000 yrs. Sumerian pictographs were in use by 3500 BC. That shows how old Nsibidi is. It has been called the oldest writing system in Africa. The Aro were originally the military arm of the Eri clan of Priest-kings who were the first Pharaohs of Egypt and the first kings of the world. They were charged with guarding the Great Serpent's Shrine called ARO BU N'AGU."

The Ar venerated the serpent. The metal working Nes of Anatolia who venerated the serpent are likely related to the ancient scribes of old Nsibidi. In ancient Egypt Nesu biti referred to the ruler of a united Upper and Lower Nile.

Related reading:  The Hebrew Were a Caste; Hebrew Names and Titles; The Peoples of Canaan; Twin Cities of the Ancient World