Who Did Cain Marry?

Alice C. Linsley

Figurine of a Nok Ruler

If Cain were born of Eve, the first mother, we would have to speculate that he married a sister or perhaps a daughter of his brother Seth. If Eve is the original mother of all humanity, she and her children would have lived at least 3.8 million years ago since that is the age of archaic human fossils. In this case, Cain's historicity is impossible to prove.

That said, Genesis 4 describes Cain as a city builder and his descendants as metal-workers and artisans. This indicates that he was a ruler, as only ruler's build cities, and the technologies described place him in the Neolithic period. He would have lived about 3000 B.C., well after the establishment of Nilo-Saharan settlements (70,000 years ago) and inland settlements in Southern Arabia (55,000 years ago). He was one of the "mighty men of old."

It is certain from the biblical data that Cain was not one of the first humans on earth. He was the first king of biblical history, however. The Bible tells us many details about Cain, all of them pointing to his rank as a ruler. When he was born his mother declared kan-itti. E.A. Speiser noted that Qany(ty) or Qan itti shows close affinity to the Akkadian itti, as in itti šarrim, which means "with the king". Akkadian was the language of the empire during Nimrod's time (BC 2290-2215). Genesis 10 tells us that Nimrod was a Kushite, so it is not surprising to find that Akkadian shares many words with Nilotic languages. Among the Oromo of Ethiopia and Somalia, itti is attached to names. Examples include Kaartuumitti, Finfinneetti and Dimashqitti. That itti is associated with Nilotic rulers is evident in the name Nefertitti.

Cain was a tiller of the soil (Gen. 4:2). He controlled a territory as did Noah, one of his descendents, who was said to have planted a vineyard.

Cain married his cousin, the royal daughter of Enoch (Nok) as evidenced by analysis of the Genesis 4-5 kinship pattern.

He was a city builder (Gen. 4:17) as was his descendent Nimrod. These cities represent sacred centers of larger territories.

Cain is associated with metal smiths and one of his descendents – Tubal-Cain – is said to be the “father” of smiths. Smiths held a high social status in the ancient world. Early in the upper Nile, Badari smiths smelted copper. These are the same people who used ritual flint knives for circumcision, such at that used by Zipporah.

Cain’s name is derived from the word meaning “possession” or “lot”. As the first born son, he inherited the role of ruler. We might ask if he inherited it from Adam or by marrying into the House of Enoch (Nok).

He was a religious man, offering sacrifice to God, though his sacrifice wasn’t always acceptable (Gen. 4:5).

His bride named their first-born son after her father, which was the pattern among the ruler-priests of Abraham’s people.

By the time that Jude wrote his epistle (c. 68 AD) Cain was solidly established as the archetype of an earthly ruler. Jude warns those who might abandon Christ because of their suffering and false teachers that God punishes those who rebel against Him. He uses three men as examples: Cain the ruler, Balaam the prophet, and Korah the priest. These were the three most sacred offices among Abraham’s people and they were often filled by people corrupted by the world.

Cain's cousin bride

When we consider the king lists of Genesis 4 and 5 together, we discover that the lines of Cain and Seth intermarried. This makes Cain in historical time the first ruler named in the Bible to establish a territory which he named for his son Enoch. Enoch was born to Cain by a daughter of another chief named Enoch (Ha-Nock, Nok, Anochie). In other words, Cain married a princess to whom he was related. Since she named their first born son after her father, she was likely Cain's patrilineal cousin. This is called the "cousin bride's naming prerogative."

The line of descent of Cain's princess bride is given in Genesis 4. She is not named, nor is her sister, the bride of Cain's brother Seth. The line of descent from Seth's wife is given in Genesis chapter 5. Both Cain's wife and Seth's wife names their first-born sons after their father Enoch/Nok, so we know their father's identity.

When reading the "Begets" of Genesis 4 and 5, most readers imagine that they are reading about the children of Adam and Eve. Instead they are reading King Lists that reflect a fully developed pattern of marriage and ascendancy among Abraham's Proto-Saharan ancestors.This marriage and ascendancy pattern, involving two wives and two firstborn sons, can be traced throughout the Bible by tracing the cousin bride naming prerogative.

Analysis of this material reveals that Cain and Seth married the daughters of a ruler named Nok. Nok is the Chadic form of Enoch/Hanoch/Henosh; and the Arabic Anoosha. Chadic words tend to be bi-consonantal.

The brides named their firstborn sons after their father. This indicates that Cain and Seth married patrilineal cousins or nieces, since only the cousin or niece bride named her firstborn son after her father. Were we to diagram this kinship, it would look like this:

Enoch/Nok

/  \

Wife of Cain    Wife of Seth

/   \

Enoch/Nok    Enosh/Nok

Enoch is likely derived from the Ancient Egyptian anochi which means "I" and is likely the royal first person pronoun.The word anochi is also found among peoples who migrated from the Nile westward, such as the Igbo and the Ashante. Among the Igbo, anochie means “a replacer” or “to replace”and among the Ashante the word ano kyi means "Ano Junior." In both cases, we find the idea of succession from father to son, suggesting royal descent. A Nigerian biblical anthropologist reports that "Anochie also means 'direct heir to a throne.'" Therefore the biblical name "Enoch" is associated with royal ascendancy. Likewise, Terah is not a name, but a title, meaning priest.

Genesis 4 and 5 trace descent from a Proto-Saharan ruler who lived about 4500 B.C. and not from Adam and Eve. As we see from the diagram, the wives of Cain and Seth named their firstborn sons after their father. This naming prerogative of cousin brides continues throughout the Bible. We may assume from this that Cain and Seth married patrilineal parallel cousins, as did Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It is also likely that Cain and Seth had second wives who would have been half-sisters, as did Nahor, Terah and Abraham.

Bloodline among Abraham's people was figured through the mother, but social status (caste) and livelihood (occupation) were inherited from the father. Tubal-Cain is said to have worked metal. He would have inherited this from his father.

The brides of Cain and Seth were of noble status. Their father was a ruler of great wealth who controlled the water systems of his region. During this time Africa was much wetter than it is today. The Chadic Sea was about 600 feet deep and sustained boating and fishing industries. The average fishermen used canoe dugouts, but nobles used boats constructed of marsh reeds lashed together and sealed with pitch.

The Nile 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 Cain and Seth. The connection of the major water ways, controlled by rulers and chiefs, explains how the House of Nok (northern Nigeria) and the House of Set (Nubia) became the controlling houses of Kush. Ancient Kush would have included Egypt, southern Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya and Tanzania. Now there is evidence that these Proto-Saharan rulers also governed Chad and Niger where they built pyramids that are 1000 years older than the Giza pyramids in Egypt.

An Ancient River Civilization

Recent evidence suggests that the Nile floods were much more extensive than previously thought. Space photos show that they spread nearly 100 miles west of the river and created "mega-lakes" in the ancient desert. 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 major water ways were controlled by rulers whose houses were related by marriage. This explains how the House of Nok (Nigeria) and the House of Set (Nubia) came to control such a vast region.

On the west, the Nile connected with the Chadic Sea, which in turn connected to the Benue and Niger Watershed in Nigeria (the Benue Trough). This is the region of Noah's flood. As a ruler, Noah probably had a fleet of boats constructed of reeds and pitch. The biblical flood likely took place during the late Holocene Wet Period in the only area on earth that claims to be Noah's homeland: Bor-No, meaning "the Land of Noah."

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:

"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.)

Dr. Christopher Ehret explains how the climate caused the movement of groups of people. He writes, "The initial warming of climate in the Bølling-Allerød interstadial, 12,700-10,900 BCE, brought increased rainfall and warmer conditions in many African regions. Three sets of peoples, speaking languages of the three language families that predominate across the continent today, probably began their early expansions in this period. Nilo-Saharan peoples spread out in the areas around and east of the middle Nile River in what is today the country of Sudan. (History in Africa 3-4)

The Nilo-Saharan Ruling Houses Intermarried

It was the custom for the rulers of this region to have two wives. One was a half-sister (as was Sarah to Abraham) and the second wife, taken later in life, was a patrilineal cousin or niece. The second wife named her firstborn son after her father. This cousin-bride naming prerogative allows biblical anthropologists to trace the lineage from the earliest rulers in Genesis to Jesus. It also explains why there are two named Esau, two named Joktan (Yaqtan), two named Sheba and two named Lamech named in Genesis.

For example, Lamech's daughter Naamah (mentioned in Gen. 4) married her patrilineal cousin Methuselah and named their firstborn son "Lamech" after her father.

Copyright 1981 Alice C. Linsley

The intermarriage between the lines of Cain and Seth is paralled by the intermarriage between the lines of Ham and Shem and later between the lines of Eber and Sheba, and Abraham and Nahor. In fact, analysis of the Genesis genealogies reveals a consistent and unchanging marriage pattern among the Horite rulers before and after the time of Abraham.

Note that the Virgin Mary was Joseph's patrilineal cousin and that both were in the priestly lines.

Related reading: Cain's Princess Bride; Boats and Cows of the Nilo-Saharans; The Saharan Origins of the Pharaohs; The Marriage and Ascendancy Pattern of Abraham's Ancestors; Sub-Saharan DNA of Modern Jews; Are the Names Enoch and Enosh Linguistically Equivalent?

Cain's Princess Bride

Alice C. Linsley

Nok figurine

If Cain were born of Eve, the first mother, we would have to speculate that he produced offspring by a sister or perhaps a daughter of his brother Seth. If Eve is the original mother of all humanity, she and her children would have lived at least 3.2 million years ago since that is the age of the oldest human fossils. In this case, Cain's historicity is impossible to prove.

But what if Eve is the archetypical first mother, analogous to Mumbi among the Gikuyu? She then would represent the origins of a tribe of people (specifically Abraham's Nilotic ancestors), not the mother of all humanity.

This second approach enables us to consider Cain in historical time as the first ruler who established a territory for his son Enoch, born to him by a daughter of Enoch (Nok). In other words, Cain married a princess, probably a young woman to whom he was related.

The line of descent of Cain's princess bride is given in Genesis 4. She is not named, nor is her sister, the bride of Cain's brother, Seth. The line of descent from Seth's wife is given in Genesis chapter 5. Both Cain's wife and Seth's wife names theri first-born sons after their father Enoch/Nok, so we know their father's identity.

Most readers imagine that they are reading about the children of Adam and Eve when they read these begats in Genesis 4 and 5. However, analysis of this kinship pattern reveals that the blood line was traced through the wives. Cain and Seth's brides were the daughters of an African chief name Nok (Enoch in the Hebrew). Were we to diagram this, it would look like this:

Enoch/Nok

/  \

Wife of Cain    Wife of Seth

/   \

Enoch/Nok    Enosh/Nok

So Genesis 4 and 5 traces descent from Enoch/Nok and not from Adam and Eve. As we see from the diagram, the wives of Cain and Seth named their first-born sons after their father. This naming prerogative of cousin brides continues throughout the Bible. We may assume from this that Cain and Seth married patrilineal parallel cousins, as did Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It is also likely that Cain and Seth had second wives who would have been half-sisters, as did Nahor, Terah and Abraham.

Bloodline among Abraham's people was figured through the mother, but social status (caste) and livelihood (occupation) were inherited from the father. Tubal-Cain is said to have worked metal. He would have inherited this from his father.

The brides of Cain and Seth were of noble status. Their father was a ruler of great wealth who controlled the water systems of his region. During this time Africa was much wetter than it is today. The Chadic Sea was about 600 feet deep and sustained boating and fishing industries. The average fishermen used canoe dugouts, but nobles used boats constructed of marsh reeds lashed together and sealed with pitch.

The Nile 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 Cain and Seth. The connection of the major water ways, controlled by rulers and chiefs, explains how the House of Nok (northern Nigeria) and the House of Set (Nubia) became the controlling houses of Kush. Ancient Kush would have included Egypt, southern Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya and Tanzania.  Now there is evidence that these Proto-Saharan rulers also governed Chad and Niger where they built pyramids that are 1000 years older than the Giza pyramids in Egypt.



An Ancient River Civilization

On the west side, the Nile connected with the Chadic Sea, which in turn connected to the Benue and Niger Watershed in Nigeria. This is the region of Noah's flood. As a ruler, Noah probably had a fleet of boats constructed of reeds and pitch. The biblical flood likely took place during the late Holocene Wet Period in the only area on earth that claims to be Noah's homeland: Bor-No, the Land of Noah.

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.)



The Ruling Houses Inter-married

It was the custom for the rulers of this region to have two wives.  One was a half-sister (as was Sarah to Abraham) and the second wife, taken later in life, was a patrilineal cousin or niece.  The second wife named her firstborn son after her father.  This cousin-bride naming prerogative allows biblical anthropologists to trace the lineage of Jesus back to the earliest rulers in Genesis.  It also explains why there are two named Esau, two named Joktan, two named Sheba and two named Lamech named in Genesis.

For example, Lamech's daughter Naamah (mentioned in Gen. 4) married her patrilineal cousin Methuselah and named their firstborn son "Lamech" after her father.

The intermarriage between the lines of Cain and Seth is paralled by the intermarriage between the lines of Ham and Shem and later between the lines of Eber and Sheba, and Abraham and Nahor. In fact, analysis of the Genesis genealogies reveals a consistent and unchanging marriage pattern among the Horite rulers before and after the time of Abraham.

It is very interesting to note that the Virgin Mary was Joseph's patrilineal cousin and that both were in the priestly lines.



Related reading:  Cain as Ruler; When the Sahara was Wet; Water Systems Connected Nile and Central Africa; Abraham's Kushite Ancestors; Are the Names Enoch and Enosh Equivalent?; Cain and Seth: Sons of Nok

Was the "Land of Nod" Enoch's Territory?

Nok bust with solar symbol on the forehead found near Jemaa, Nigeria.

(Photo credit: Andre Held)

Alice C. Linsley


Analysis of the kinship data in Genesis 4 and 5 reveals that Cain and his brother Seth married the daughters of a chief named Enoch. This Enoch would have been the contemporary of the historical Adam. The daughters named their first-born sons Enoch/Enosh/Enos after their father.

This explains the similarity between the names of their first-born sons' names: Enoch/Enosh. The names are related to the word anochie, which refers to an heir to the throne. This suggests that Enoch was a royal title given to sons who ruled after their fathers.

The linguistic equivalents of Enoch include these variants: Nok, Hanoch, Anoch, Anak, Anoki, and Nakht. Nakht means "powerful" in Egyptian (nkht - ruler of the horizon) and was applied to rulers such as Pepi-Nakht-Heqaib. Enoch is a title referring to the royal first person. It corresponds to the Hebrew first person singular pronoun forms anoki and ani, and to the Akkadian first person singular pronoun anaku. In ancient Egyptian the equivalent pronoun is ink.

The land to which Cain went is called Nod and refers to "wandering." Nod (נוד) is an etymological etiology intended to explain the apparent peripatetic lifestyle of Cain and his metal-working descendants, the Kenites. 

In Hebrew the words Nod נוד and Nok נוך are almost identical. This was recognized in 1984 by the Nigerian philologist Modupe Oduyoye who saw a likely connection between Cain's line and the metal workers of Nok. (The Sons of the Gods and the Daughters of Men: An Afro-Asiatic Interpretation of Genesis 1-11, NY, Orbis Books, 1984, p. 21.) 

The region of Nok was at the confluence of the Niger and Benue Rivers. Archaeologists have found 13 furnaces there used for smelting iron. These date to between 700-500 BC.

If Nod is Nok, it appears that the father-in-law of Cain and Seth lived in what is today Nigeria. The Nok civilization; dates to about 1200 years ago but has earlier antecedents as evidenced by discoveries in an "increasingly larger area" of Nok influence that includes the Middle Niger Valley and the Lower Benue Valley.

This places Cain close to Borno or Benue (Land of Noah) in the region of Lake Chad. This is where Noah probably lived between B.C. 4415-3800 when the Sahara was green and the Chad Basin was prone to flooding. 

Noah was a descendant of Seth and Cain, since the lines of Seth and Cain intermarried (endogamy). The rulers of their lines are listed in the Genesis 4 and 5 lists.

"And Cain went out from the presence of the LORD, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden." (Genesis 4:16)

 

Nok figurine of a chief

According to Genesis, the Land of Nod is located "to the east of Eden" and Cain went there when he was banished after murdering his brother. Indeed, Cain worried that he would become a wanderer without a homeland of his own, but this did not happen. Instead, Cain married the daughter of a powerful ruler named Enoch and built a settlement significant enough to be remembered as a “city” and named it for the son of his cousin bride (Gen. 4:17). 

Analysis of the kinship pattern of Abraham’s people, reveals that the rulers of territories maintained two wives in separate households on a north-south axis. It is likely that Cain and Seth had two wives and that they ruled over separate territories. One of their wives was the daughter of Enoch. The brides named their first-born sons Enoch/Enosh after their father, according to the cousin bride's naming prerogative. Seth's first-born son was named Enosh (from the Septuagint Enos) which is a variant spelling of Enoch/Hanock/Anoch/Nok/Nakht. This data suggests that Cain and Seth married into a noble house which controlled a territory in the region of Borno/Benue, the only place claimed to be Noah's homeland by the local populations.

To rule a territory, the chief had first to take a second wife. The wives lived in separate households on a north-south axis. Their settlements marked the northern and southern boundaries of the ruler's territory. If Cain and Seth followed the marriage and ascendancy pattern of the biblical Hebrew, they both had two wives. The first wife was a half-sister (daughter of Adam) and the second wife was a daughter of Enoch, Adam's contemporary.

Abraham's two wives lived in separate households on a north-south axis. Sarah resided in Hebron, and Keturah lived in Beersheba, to the south. Terah, Abraham's father, had the same pattern. One wife lived in Haran and the other in Ur, to the south. Terah would have controlled commerce between these two points. Perhaps Cain's territory extended between Kano and Nok on a north-south axis. This would not be east of Eden, however. Cain's movement may reflect the westward migration of Nilotic peoples. 


The Jebusites Unveiled

The Jebusites are one population that was present in Jerusalem, Gilead and Nigeria. Some migrated west along the connected water systems of the Sahara and settled in Nigeria. Here their rulers controlled the major water ways. This was documented as recently as 1892 in the New York Times which reported on the Jebu control of the water ways of the Port of Lagos. The king of the Jebu levied taxes on all products carried through his territory. 

The Jebu also moved east into the land of Canaan where Melchizedek, the ruler-priest of Salem (Jerusalem) lived in Abraham's time (Gen. 14:18). Jerusalem was a Jebusite city when David took control of the oldest and highest areas. 

Dr. Christopher Ehret explains how the climate caused the movement of three groups of people. He writes, "The initial warming of climate in the Bølling-Allerød interstadial, 12,700-10,900 BCE, brought increased rainfall and warmer conditions in many African regions. Three sets of peoples, speaking languages of the three language families that predominate across the continent today, probably began their early expansions in this period. Nilo-Saharan peoples spread out in the areas around and east of the middle Nile River in what is today the country of Sudan. Peoples of a second family, Niger-Kordofanian, spread across an emerging east-west belt of savanna vegetation from the eastern Sudan to the western Atlantic coast of Africa. In the same era, communities speaking languages of the Erythraic branch of the Afrasian (Afroasiatic) family expanded beyond their origin areas in the Horn of Africa, northward to modern-day Egypt. (History in Africa 3-4)

The Jebusites are classified in the second group. The western boundary of the Jebu is marked by a 1000-year rampart that is 70 feet high and 100 miles long. The British archaeologist Patrick Darling (1945-2016) is credited with drawing world attention to the discovery of the Eredo system of walls. He reports, "We are not linking what we found to a city, but to a vast kingdom boundary rampart."

The Eredo walls and ditches are located to the south-west of the Jebu town of Ijebu-Ode in Ogun state in southwest Nigeria. This is believed to be the largest pre-colonial monument in Africa outside of Egypt. Local people link the Eredo boundary walls to Bilikisu Sungbo, another name for Sheba, according to Patrick Darling. 

Today the Jebu (Ijebu) are classified as Yoruba, but the term 'Yoruba' applied only after the Eighteenth Century. The Jebu identify themselves as distinct from other Yoruba peoples and are divided into two groups, the Nago-Jebu and the Ketu-Jebu. These are the biblical Jebusites.

Study of the living Jebusites enables us to trace the origin of certain enthronement practices, such as the use of palm fronds. The two Jebu in Nigeria have two divisions: Jebu Remu and Jebu Ode. The supreme ruler of both is called "awujali” and he is installed with palm branches.

Jude Adebo Adeleye Ogunade writes in his memoir about growing up Ijebu. He was warned not to touch the leaves of the Igi-Ose tree, because as his Mama Eleni explained: “That tree is the tree whose leaves are used to install Chiefs and Kings of Ijebu and as your grandfather was a custodian of the rites of chieftaincy and kingship you must not play with its leaves.” It is interesting that this plant has been found to be a blood purifier. (The University of Oxford, 1937 Institute Paper, no. 7 on Medicinal Plants; reference HA1k).

Fresh palm tree fronds are used ceremonially at the installation of chiefs and kings and are used to decorate places of worship. The association of palm trees (tamars) with rulers and prophets was common among Abraham's people. Deborah sat under a palm tree as a judge and a prophet in Israel.

When the people used palm fronds to greet Jesus as he entered Jerusalem, they greeted him as one to be enthroned. To this very day, the Jebusites use fresh palm fronds when greeting and installing a ruler or a high priest. This supplies the information we need as Christians to better understand who Jesus Christ is. He is our King and our Great High Priest.

Related reading: A Brief History of the Lake Chad Area; Discovering the Historical Noah; A Closer Look at the Jebusites; Is Enoch a Royal Title?; Are the Names Enoch and Enosh Equivalent?; Cain's Princess Bride 

The Ruler Seth

Alice C. Linsley

TIMELINE

Late Neolithic period (ca. 4000-3000 B.C.)
          - Nilotic pastoralists who were sedentary for part of the year
          - Dead buried with their faces toward the rising sun
          - Hierakonpolis, the most ancient Nilotic temple; dedicated to Horus. Here a 4000 B.C. tomb painting of two red ochre men. They carry crooked staffs and flails, suggesting that they are pre-dynastic ruler-priests.
          - Wine making equipment found in the tomb of the Scorpion I (c. 3150 B.C.)

Noah was drunk with wine on at least one occasion and the outcome wasn't good. Likewise, Lot's drunken stupor led to unfortunate events. Genesis is critical of excessive wine consumption.


The Saharan Wet Period (c. 4000-2000 B.C.)
          - Noah (ca. 2490-2415 B.C.)  Saharan Late Holocene (Karl W. Butzer 1966)
          - The Great Pyramid, aligned to the Dragon Star on the Vernal Equinox in 2141 B.C.
          - Lake Chad was much deeper and covered an much larger area
          - The Nile waters flooded more widely, with drainage channels extending west into the desert
          - Stronger monsoonal circulation throughout sub-tropical regions increased rain in Sudan

Analysis of deposited sediments in the Nile delta shows this period had a higher proportion of sediments coming from the Blue Nile, due to higher rainfall also in the Ethiopian Highlands.


Kingdom of Kush (ca. 2000-1500 B.C.)
          - Kushite rulers built pyramids for elite burials and ruled Egypt as its 25th Dynasty
          - Pan Grave burials of Nubia and Egypt of the Medjay/Beja people, about 1700 B.C
          - King Nebhepetre Mentuhotep (c. 2043-1992 BC) married Ashait, a Medjay princess


The Napatan Period (ca. 1575-525 B.C.)
          - King Kasta ("the Kushite")
          - King Piye named his firstborn son Hor (Horus)
          - King Sheba-qo 


Origin of the Name Seth

Seti was a royal name among the Nilotic peoples.  The name is associated with the territory of Ta-Seti, meaning the "Land of Set." Set and the biblical word Seth are cognates. Ta-Seti is also translated as "Land of the Bow" and attests to the skill of the Nubian archers, a skill for which the later Kushites were also famous.

I Chronicles 1:50 mentions an important Horite bride - Matred. Her name is related to Menmaatre, the throne name of Seti I. Seti is a name associated with Piye, which is identified with the "city of Pai" in I Chronicles 1:50. Queen Piye was a Nubian queen.

The great Nubian king Piye (780 B.C.) installed a black granite falcon head image of Horus in Napata, his capital.  Piye's brother and successor, Sheba-qo, moved the royal residence to Memphis. Sheba-qo (716-702 B.C.) and his successors Shebit-qo (702-690 B.C.) and Tahar-qo (690-664 B.C.) thought of themselves as God's earthly representatives and it was probably during their time that the rulers came to wear the double crown of Horus.

The biblical Seth lived before the emergence of the Kushite Kingdom, probably around 3000 B.C. He was an ancestor of Noah and Noah's son Kush. Director of museum of the University of Chicago Oriental Institute, Geoff Emberling reports that excavations at Kerma and the Fourth Cataract, "suggest that the early Kingdom of Kush was larger than previously believed, and that its raids into Egypt in about 1650 B.C. were a serious threat to the capital at Thebes. Compared with other civilizations of the region, such as Mesopotamia, early Kush controlled a vast area and was able to amass significant military power."

Thirty Palaeolithic sites were discovered in the region by a team of archaeologists led by Henryk Paner between 1996-2003. At seven Mesolithic site shards of wavy line and dotted wavy line pottery were found. Paner believes that these reflect an older decorative tradition. He reports, "The Neolithic witnessed a boom in settlement evidence. Of the total number of 711 sites recorded over 240 yielded ceramic, stone and flint artefacts dating from this period. Some Neolithic settlements tended to be located on higher terrain within natural hollows. Oval and circular stone structures up to 1.5m in diameter probably represent hearths. Larger concentrations of stones (also circular in plan but with larger diameters) may possibly mark the remains of dwellings which were made from organic materials.Querns and grinders were also found at these sites. Agate was among the raw materials used for making tools, with white quartz becoming increasingly popular on late Neolithic sites." (From here.)

At Hosh el-Guruf in Sudan, Emberling's team found a Kushite gold-processing center along the middle Nile. Gold was processed here between 2000 and 1500 B.C. This may be the biblical land of Havilah (Gen. 2:11), known for gold. The Gihon wound through the entire land of Kush (Gen. 2:13) and was connected to the Pishon which wound through the entire land of Havilah. The identification of this area with the Nile is further supported by the claim that aromatic resin (amber) is found there (Gen. 2:12).  The Gihon and Pishon appear to be sections of the Nile, probably between the 4th and 6th cataracts. As Northern Sudan is geologically active, the Nubian Swell has diverted the Nile's course to the west, making it difficult to definitively locate these waterways of Eden.


The Biblical Seth

Having established that the name Seth comes from the Nile region of ancient Nubia and Kush,we must now explore the biblical information that sheds light on this royal person.

Genesis tells us that Seth was Cain's younger brother. (Cain is also spelled Kenan, Qayan, Kano).  According to Genesis 5:6, Seth's firstborn son was Enosh. There has been some debate as to whether Enosh is equivalent to Enoch, the name of Cain's firstborn son (Gen. 4:17). I believe that both names are derived from the Nilotic or Proto-Saharan word anochie, meaning "one who is to follow" as heir to the throne. The word anochie is found among peoples who migrated westward from the Nile, such as the Ashante. Among the Igbo, anochie means “a replacer” or “to replace.” A Nigerian biblical anthropologist reports that "Anochie also means 'direct heir to a throne'."  The biblical word Enoch is clearly a royal name or title, as is the name Seth.

Genesis provides more detailed information about Cain's line (Gen. 4) than about Seth's line (Gen. 5). Likely this is because the Canaanites, Cain's descendants, were the dominant people in the land where Abraham became established as a ruler. It is possible that the majority of Seth's descendants remained in the area of Nubia, though the lines of Cain and Seth continued to intermarry, as is common among royalty. The women of these royal lines married their patrilineal cousins or uncles and named their firstborn sons after their fathers.  Naamah, the daughter of Lamech, is an example.

© 1995 Alice C. Linsley

Another royal title of Nubian origin is Terah, the name of Abraham's father. It means "devotee" and is found on the Tera-neter tile, shown below.

Tera-ntr was a ruler of the Anu people, pre-dynastic inhabitants of Egypt. Abraham’s father, Terah, is named after this line that comes out of the Nile Valley. They are the earliest known to worship Horus, the prefigurement of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Another name for Heliopolis is On (Gen. 41:50). Joseph married a daughter of the high priest of On. The residents called it iunu, meaning "place of pillars" due to the many pillars of the temple.

Related reading: The Daughters of Horite Priests; Abraham's Nubian Ancestors; The Ethnicity of Abraham and David; The Saharan Origins of Pharaonic Egypt

Time to Jettison Young Earth Creationism

 

100,000-year red ocher burial at Qafzeh (Israel). Red ocher was a symbolic blood covering.

Dr. Alice C. Linsley

Young Earth Creationists believe that the days of Genesis 1 were six consecutive 24-hour days which occurred 6,000–8,000 years ago. They cannot explain the huge body of material evidence that proves an old earth and the presence of humans on earth for millions of years. They argue almost exclusively from geological anomalies. They believe that the surface of the earth was radically rearranged by a global flood. The extinction of species is explained by the flood. Creatures that were not preserved on Noah’s Ark perished and were subsequently buried in the flood sediments. YEC creationists believe that the catastrophic global flood was responsible for most of the rock layers and fossils. They maintain that some rock layers and some fossils were deposited before the Flood and other layers and fossils were produced in localized sedimentation events or processes.

Proponents of Young Earth Creationism include the Baptist Pastor and biochemist Duane Gish, Terry Mortenson, a missionary for 26 years with Campus Crusade, and Henry M. Morris, a civil engineer and author of several books on Young Earth Creationism.

Most who adhere to the Ken Ham view of the Bible do not care about the scientific evidence that supports biblical history because they have been taught to distrust the sciences. Nevertheless, the sciences of anthropology, archaeology, climates studies, genetics, geology, hydrological studies, linguistics, and migration studies agree on the deep history of humans of Earth.

Young Earth Creationism is criticized for lacking a scientific basis. It also should be criticized for lacking a biblical basis. Consider the following points:

If Adam and Eve were the parents of Cain, they could not be the first humans on Earth because Cain built a settlement that he named for his son Enoch (Gen. 4:17). Enoch is a royal title derived from the ancient Akkadian first-person pronoun: anāku and the Ancient Egyptian anochi, a reference to one who ascends. The word anochi is also found among African populations. Among the Igbo, anochie means "a replacer" or "to replace". Among the Ashante the word anokyi means "Ano Junior" or the "Ano who follows his father." Here we find the idea of succession from father to son. A Nigerian friend says that anochie also means "direct heir to a throne."

Clearly, Enoch is associated with royal ascendancy among the early Hebrew. One of Cain’s descendants is called Lamech, another royal title. Lamech is related to the Hebrew melech, which means king. According to the Bible scholar Umberto Cassuto, Lamech is related to the Mesopotamian word lumakku, meaning “priest.” (Commentary on Genesis, Vol. 1, p. 233). Two men named Lamech appear in the Genesis 4 and 5 lists of Hebrew ruler-priests (Gen. 4:18 and Gen. 5:25).

Cain and his son cannot be among the first people on earth because they already had a royal succession and territories over which they ruled. They are among The First Lords of the Earth.

The dogmas of YEC hinge on interpretations that have been demonstrated to be inaccurate. One is Bishop James Ussher's scheme whereby he counted the generations to conclude that the creation of the Earth occurred around 10,000 years ago. Ussher did not recognize that the "begats" of Genesis are not generational. They are regnal. All the men listed are rulers and some of their reigns coincided. Tubal-Cain (Gen. 4) and Methuselah (Gen. 5) ruled at the same time over different territories.

YEC assumes, contrary to the biblical evidence, that the line of Cain was wiped out by the flood. However, analysis of the kinship pattern of Genesis 4 and 5 reveals that the descendants of Cain and Seth intermarried (caste endogamy). A feature of their marriage and ascendancy pattern is the naming of the cousin bride’s firstborn son after his maternal grandfather. The pattern is evident in this diagram.

Lamech the Elder had a daughter named Naamah. She married her patrilineal cousin Methuselah. This marriage took place c. 4300 B.C.  

One of their descendants was Nimrod, a Kushite kingdom builder (Gen. 10:6-12). He married a Sumerian princess between 3500-3300 B.C. Erech (Uruk) was one of the cities ruled by his father-in-law. Uruk was the largest settlement in Mesopotamia at that time. Settlement at that site began in the Ubaid period (c. 5500-4000 B.C.), that is 7500 years ago, about the time that Young Earth Creationists claim the earth was formed.

Around 3100 B.C. Uruk may have had 40,000 residents (See Algaze, Guillermo, 2013, "The end of prehistory and the Uruk period" in Crawford, Harriet (ed.), The Sumerian World (PDF). London: Routledge. pp. 68–95. ISBN 9781138238633.)

A Better Approach to the Biblical Material

The empirical approach of Biblical Anthropology (a science) contributes to a better understanding of biblical history. Genesis makes it clear that Abraham's ancestors lived in the land of Kush as he descended from the Kushite kingdom builder Nimrod (Gen. 10). Analysis of the kinship pattern of the early Hebrew rulers listed in Genesis 4, 5, 10, 11, 25 and 35 proves they are of the same caste and they are historical figures.

Adam and Eve lived c. 5000-4800 B.C. in a vast well-watered region called Eden. The Genesis 2 description of this region corresponds to the ancient Fertile Crescent. At this time humans were already globally dispersed. Further, humans were making tools, jewelry, and ritual objects for thousands of years before the time of Adam and Eve.

Nimrod left Kush and established his territory on the Euphrates River c. 3500 B.C. (Gen. 10). That is why we find Abraham living in Mesopotamia. After he relocated to Canaan (around 2000 B.C.), Abraham controlled the water systems at Hebron and Beersheba and had wells in Gerar. We see a gradual movement out of Africa into Mesopotamia and Canaan. (See Rulers of the Ancient Water Systems.)

We also see a span of time of at least 3000 years between Adam and Eve and Abraham. The different time periods and cultural contexts of these rulers cannot be made congruent by the final Jewish hands on the Hebrew Scriptures coming after 580 B.C. 

Consider a Native American chief with a fleet of birch wood canoes controlling trade between villages on the Mississippi in 1720. Fast forward a mere 200 years to 1920 when a river magnate controls commerce on the same river with his fleet of riveted steel ships. Same river, very different contexts. To understand biblical history, we must grapple with these contextual incongruities and the best disciplines to apply in this effort are cultural anthropology, archaeology, molecular genetics, and linguistics.


Related reading: The Roots of the Gospel are in Africa; Artifacts of Great Antiquity; Nimrod's Sumerian Wife; YEC Dogma is Not Biblical; YEC's Silence on Anthropology; Facts About Human Origins; YEC Hinders Understanding of the Bible; Think Like a Biblical Anthropologist; A Healthy Approach to the Bible

The Historicity of Noah's Flood

Alice C. Linsley

The historicity of the flood in Genesis is highly probably once we determine when and where Noah lived, using the data of Scripture. One of Noah's grandsons is called "Kush" (Gen. 10) which is also a place name associated with the Nile Valley. This is a clue that Noah lived in Africa, not the Middle East.

Noah lived c. 4200 BC, at a time when the water systems of Central Africa were larger. There was a seaway through the Sahara, and the Benue Trough connected to Lake Chad and to rivers and lakes of the east which in turn connected to the Nile.

Analysis of the kinship pattern of the rulers listed in Genesis chapters 4, 5, 10, 11, 25 and 36 reveals that these rulers have a common ancestry. This is because the Hebrew ruler-priests were a caste and typical of caste, they took the marriage partners from members of the caste (caste endogamy).

The Hebrew ruling lines intermarried. In the diagram below, the intermarriage of the lines of Ham and Shem is evident. Cain's daughter married her cousin and named their firstborn sone Kenan, after her father. Irad's daughter married her cousin and named their firstborn son Jared/Yared/Irad, after her father. Consistent with the cousin bride's naming prerogative, Lamech's daughter, Naamah, named her firstborn son Lamech, after her father.

Genesis 10:8 tells us that Nimrod was a Kushite kingdom builder who established his territory in Mesopotamia. He married a cousin, a Hebrew princess of Sumeria who named their firstborn son Asshur after her father. Abraham is one of Nimrod's descendants. Nimrod was one of Noah's great grandsons. This is a clue that Noah was not Mesopotamian. His homeland was in Africa.

This identical pattern of intermarry (endogamy) is evident between the lines of Cain and Seth. In the diagram below, note that Lamech, a descendant of Cain, had two wives. By his wife Zillah, he had a daughter named Naamah. Naamah married her patrilineal cousin Methuselah. Methuselah is a descendant of Seth. Naamah named her first born son Lamech, after her father. Lamech the Younger is the great grandfather of Noah.

We may logically wonder if Noah might have lived in the Nile Valley (Kush) or perhaps in the region of Lake Chad which connected to the Nile in the period of the African Aqualithic.

The region of Lake Chad was called Borno or Benue, meaning "Land of Noah." Even today the natives of that region consider it to be Noah's homeland. The local Kanuri people call Lake Chad Buhar Nuhu, meaning "Sea of Noah." This is the only place on earth that is claimed by the native population to be Noah's homeland. Since Abraham's early ancestors (4200 BC and before) came out of Africa this should not surprise us.

The Lake Chad Basin is relatively flat and prone to monsoonal flooding. It is ringed by mountains from which water drained into the Basin. The Chad River Basin is shown in this map outlined in red.

At the time Noah lived, the Sahara was much wetter. There was an extensive system of interconnected lakes and rivers. The western Nile watershed extended well into the Sudan. Hydrological studies indicate many periods of flooding from the Nile to the Atlantic coast of Nigeria. Noah lived in the region of Lake Chad. The gray shaded areas show the ancient water ways in the African Sheer Zone.

There was an abundance of reeds. According to Genesis 6:14, Noah's ark was constructed of גפר (gofer/gopher), which is the word used to describe the basket in which Moses floated on the Nile. In other words, the ark was constructed of reeds. The hollow reeds were extremely buoyant. Such vessels are still constructed by the marsh Arabs of Iraq and East Africans.

There is a great deal of evidence that boats were once prevalent in the Sahara. The black mahogany Dufuna dugout (shown below) 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.”

Boats appear on prehistoric rock paintings in the Sahara. Many show people transporting long horn cows by boat. The Proto-Saharan were cattle-herding. Here are examples of the sickle, incurved sickle, square, incurved square, and flared boat types found on the prehistoric rock art of the Central Eastern Desert of Egypt.

The historicity of Noah’s concern for animals is supported by the discovery that Proto-Saharan rulers kept royal menageries of exotic animals. The oldest known zoological collection was found during the 2009 excavations at the shrine city of Nekhen on the Nile. The royal menagerie dates to about 3500 BC and included hippos, elephants, baboons and wildcats. Noah would have known about the shrine city of Nekhen. It was one of the earliest worship centers for the Horite Hebrew. This painting was found on the wall of a tomb in Nehken.

At Nekhen archaeologists discovered a mummified ruler with red hair and a red beard. Although most of the hair found in the graves at Nekhen was of a dark brown color, natural red hair was discovered in association with the male in Burial no. 79. (Nekhen News, page 8)

Noah and his descendants appear to be in Y-DNA Haplogroup R1b. The R1 rulers were the "mighty men of old" who dispersed into southern Europe, the Tarim Valley of China, and eventually into the British Isles. About 70% of native British men are in Haplogroup R1b. The dark red spot in Central Africa is Noah's homeland near Lake Chad.

Populations of the Lake Chad region before Noah

The oldest known cemetery in the Sahara dates to 7500 B.C., about 3500 years before the time of biblical Noah. The material evidence indicates a settled population at the edge of a very large lake or trough, possibly Lake Mega-Chad which connected to the Benue Trough.

The initial discovery was made by National Geographic photographer Mike Hettwer in 2000, and the excavation work was led by University of Chicago archaeologist, Paul C. Sereno, famous for his discovery of dinosaurs.

About 7500 B.C., at the time that this graveyard was used, Lake Chad had an area of about 249,000 miles. It is likely that the graveyard that Paul Sereno uncovered was originally at the edge of Lake Mega-Chad.

According to a recent report about the cemetery site, "The burial density, tool kit, ceramics, and midden fauna suggest a largely sedentary population with a subsistence economy based on fishing and on hunting of a range of savanna vertebrates."

This Gobero skeleton measures 6 feet.

Photo (c) Mike Hettwer, courtesy Project Exploration

According to Sereno, the Early Holocene people left when it became arid, but the area was repopulated by a taller people around 4600 B.C. when humid conditions returned. That is the time of Noah whose descendants are described as tall in the Bible.

The region was much wetter than today and the inhabitants of the area experienced flooding. There was flooding on and off over a long period, and wet conditions prevailed from 7700-6200 (phase 2).

Sereno states, "The darkened bone color of all human skeletons in phase 2 burials is indicative of sustained inundation." (Read about Sereno's findings here.)

Another wet period corresponds to the time that Noah would have lived in the region of Lake Chad, between 4200 and 3800 B.C.

Related reading: The Animals on Noah's Ark; Boats and Cows of the Nilo-Saharans; INDEX of Topics at Just Genesis; The Marriage and Ascendancy Pattern of the Horite Hebrew; The Wet Sahara; The Antiquity of the Edomite Rulers