Wednesday, August 8, 2012

The Horite Ancestry of Jesus Christ


Recommended before reading this: The Horite High Places, The Ra-Horus-Hathor Narrative; Hebrew Priests in Judah, Aram, Edom, and Moab; Horite Mounds; The Substance of Abraham's Faith


Alice C. Linsley

After 35 years of “anthropological sleuthing of pre-Abrahamic origins” I have come to conclusions which are not well understood and rightly questioned. Readers should pursue the truth of this research because it will strengthen you spiritually and intellectually, and equip you for the work of Christian apologetics and evangelism.

The concern most often expressed has to do with Abraham’s Horite Hebrew caste and the Horite antecedents of Messianic expectation and Christianity. In a recent online conversation with a Messianic Jew I was asked:

Alice:

Why are you so persuaded by the theory that a priest class of devotees to Horus are the predecessors of Israel’s religion? You do know this belief of yours about history is not shared by many other people and has nothing to do with Judaism or Christianity, right? You seem like a great thinker and an articulate person.


My response was:

Horus (HR), was called “son of God,” but HR was actually a title or address. HR in ancient Egyptian means "Most High One." Abraham's Horite Hebrew ruler-priest caste believed in God Father and God Son. In a priestly prayers on behalf of the king in the Pyramid Texts (2000 BC), we find this: "Horus is a soul and he recognizes his Father in you..." (Utterance 423)




Horus was born of a royal woman who was overshadowed by the sun, the Creator’s emblem. Her totem was a cow and images of her show her wearing the solar crown with the bull's horns.

Since the king lists of Genesis reveal a Horite marriage and ascendancy pattern, it is logical to assume that the Horite belief is the origin of Messianic expectation. In other words, Christianity emerges in an organic way from the faith of Abraham and his Horite ruler-priest caste. In this sense, it is a received tradition of very great antiquity, not a copy-cat religion as many agnostics and atheists claim.

The Horites were a caste of ruler-priests who served at the ancient temples and water shrines. They can be traced back to the cattle-herding Proto-Saharans whose oldest known shrine (about 4000 BC) was Nekhen on the Nile. When they were not serving at the temples and shrines, they worked as metalworkers, tanners, scribes, stone masons, carpenters, shepherds, and warriors.

Another Horite shrine was Heliopolis. The Harris papyrus speaks of 'apiru of Re at Heliopolis, the shrine of the Sun. Joseph married into this royal priest line when he married Asenath, the daughter of the priest of On. On is Heliopolis. The terms 'Apiru and Habiru are derived from the ancient Akkadian word for priest, Abru.

The Horite Hebrew priests of Heliopolis were known for their meticulous devotion to the Creator and his son, and for their sobriety and purity of life. 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 Horites believed that heavenly recognition of a people depended on the righteousness of their ruler-priest.

The Horites did not worship the Sun. They regarded the Sun as the emblem, boat, or chariot of the Creator. The six spoke wheel of God's solar chariot, called "merkaba" is found on the ossuary boxes of such prominent Jews as the High Priest Caiaphas and his granddaughter Miriam.

Ossuary of Miriam, daughter of the priest Yeshua, granddaughter of the Caiaphas

Solar imagery for the Lord is common in both Horite and Biblical texts. Horus is described as “The Good God, Golden [Horus], Shining in the chariot, like the rising of the sun; great in strength, strong in might…” (Tablet of Victory of Amenhotep III, J.H. Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt, Part Two, p. 854). Psalm 92:2 describes the Lord as “a sun and a shield.”

The mother of Horus was called Hathor. She is shown at the Dendura Temple holding her newborn son in a manger or stable. The stable was constructed by the Horite priest Har-si-Atef. Atef was the crown worn by deified rulers. The Arabic word atef or atif means “kind.” The ruler who wore the atef crown was to embody kindness and he was to unite the peoples, as Horus was credited with united the Upper and Lower Nile populations. The rulers of the two regions wore different crown, but Horus wore both, which is why he was called "Horus of the Two Crowns."[2]

In his infancy Horus was depicted as either a calf or a lamb and in his maturity as a bull or a ram.[3] Horus is the only mythological figure in ancient Egypt who was understood to be a man and only as a man does he wear the two crowns.

Hathor was the patroness of Horite metal-workers, such as Aaron. Mining operations were under the auspices of Hathor, as at the Timna Valley copper mines near Eilat. At an ancient city in southern Iraq there is a place called Bad-tibira, which means "Wall of the Copper Worker." This ancient site appears among antediluvian cities in the Sumerian King List. Its Akkadian name was Dûr-gurgurri, meaning "Fortress of the Horite traders."

Hathor's solar headdress represents the belief that she conceived by the overshadowing of the sun. Deified rulers were said to be born by such a miraculous means. Sargon claims this for himself. His claim to divinity was disproved when he died and did not rise from the grave.[4]

Hathor (cow totem) and Horus (falcon totem) flank the ruler, Ra's representative on Earth.

Horite belief in a deified son who would embody kindness and unite the peoples found fulfillment in Jesus Christ, a descendant of the Horite ruler-priests, the divine son of the Virgin Mary, daughter of the shepherd-priest Joachim of the line of Nathan. Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of the promise made to Abraham’s Horite ancestors in Eden (Gen. 3:15). This is why Frank Moore Cross cannot avoid the conclusion that the God of Israel is the God of the Horites.

The Horite ruler-priests were regarded as deified “sons” of God. They are often called “gods” (elohiym) as in Exodus 22:28: “Thou shalt not revile the gods (elohiym), nor curse the ruler of thy people.” They served in the temple on a rotating schedule and purified themselves before the time of service. It is from the Horite priesthood that the priesthood of Israel developed. Moses’ brothers Korah and Aaron were Horite priests before the nation of Israel existed. This is confirmed by the distinctive Horite marriage and ascendancy pattern of Moses’ father.

The Horite Hebrew worshiped the supreme Creator when other peoples were worshiping lesser deities. They anticipated the coming of the Seed of God (Gen. 3:15) and believed that He would be born of their royal-priest bloodlines. That is why the lines of priests intermarried exclusively and why unchaste daughters of priests were burned alive (Lev. 21:9). Sexual impurity was not tolerated.

Messianic passages of the Bible have parallels in ancient Horite texts. Consider how Horus, the archetype of Christ, describes himself in the Coffin texts (passage 148):

“I am Horus, the great Falcon upon the ramparts of the house of him of the hidden name. My flight has reached the horizon. I have passed by the gods of Nut. I have gone further than the gods of old. Even the most ancient bird could not equal my very first flight. I have removed my place beyond the powers of Set, the foe of my father Osiris. No other god could do what I have done. I have brought the ways of eternity to the twilight of the morning. I am unique in my flight. My wrath will be turned against the enemy of my father Osiris and I will put him beneath my feet in my name of ‘Red Cloak’.” (Myth and Symbol in Ancient Egypt by R.T. Rundle Clark, p. 216)

Note the similarity to Psalm 110:1, a messianic reference: The Lord says to my Lord: “Sit at My right hand until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet.”

Today there is adequate information available to gain a clearer picture of the pre-Abrahamic origins of the Messianic faith. It is not sufficient in this age of empiricism and skepticism to say that the Biblical record is true. People want to see that it is verified by the evidence in the sciences. That is why my research is valuable.


Part 1: The Question of Joseph’s Father

Matthew traces Joseph's ancestry through King Solomon and lists Joseph's father as Jacob, while Luke gives a line through Nathan and says Joseph is the son of Heli. Jacob and Heli are the same person. Heli was an honorific title that meant God, helper or strength. It is Nilotic in origin. The Egyptian cry to the Creator whose emblem was the Sun began “Helie!” Here we see the polysemic quality of the ancient Afro-Asiatic biradicals.[5] HL has multiple yet related meanings.

Heli is equivalent to Eli and appears to indicate the chief priest as personification of God. This precedes the establishment of Israel’s monarchy. This was a common notion among Abraham’s Horite people. The ruler was expected to become a deified son. Eli was the chief priest at Shiloh. He acted as a seer in foretelling Hannah’s miraculous conception of Samuel (I Sam. 1:9-18).
Heli and Eli are derived from El and Al in the North and Southern Arabian dialects, and related to Eloi in Aramaic, ‘Alahy in Syriac and Ηλει in Greek. The transliteration of Heli Heli (my God, my God) in Matthew 27:46 as Eloi, Eloi follows the Codex Sinaiticus and Vaticanus.

The priestly line of Joseph is evident in both Matthew and Luke. Consider this list in Matthew: Zadok, Eleazar, Matthan, Yaqob, all names associated with the priesthood of Israel. The priest Zadok (Tzadok צדוק, meaning "Righteous") was descended from Eleazar, one of the sons of Aaron (Harun). Zadok was the first chief priest to serve in Solomon’s temple. David addressed him as ha-Kohen ha-ro'eh attah, meaning "You are the seer-priest" in II Sam. 15:27. The sons of Zadok are praised by the prophet Ezekiel as staunch defenders of the true faith. Ezekiel was himself a Horite, the son of Buz (Buzi in Akkadian).[6] Ezekiel 42:13 and 43:19 suggests that the priestly descendants of Zadok would serve in the future Third Temple, which Ezekiel envisions along the lines of an ancient Horite archetype.

The antiquity of the priestly ancestry of the Virgin Mary’s husband is evident in these names, Melchi, Levi, Matthat, and Heli. Melchi-Tzadok (Melchizedek) is the first named ruler-priest of Yerusalem in the Bible (Gen. 14:17-20). His name means “Righteous King.” Levi was a son of Jacob. His descendants, the Levites, served in the temple. As was characteristic of the Horites, they were dispersed among the peoples.[7] Matthat and Heli are Nilotic names pertaining to the Horite ruler-priest caste. The royal hat is found in the names of Egyptian rulers such as Amen-em-hat, Hat-shep-sut, Merytre-Hat-shep-sut and in the name of one of Isreal’s great rulers, Yeho-shep-hat/Jehoshephat (Matt. 1:8). One of Yehoshephat’s sons was Shep-hat/Shephatiah (II Chron. 21:2).


Part 2: The Question of Divergent Spellings

There was no J in Biblical Hebrew. The J only appears in English and German translations of the Bible after the 16th century. That being the case, Jacob was Yaqob; Joseph was Yosef; Judah was Yahuda, and Jorim was Yorim or Horim.

Different versions of the Bible have different spellings for the same person. There are many examples, including Asa/Asaph; Hophni/Ophni and Phinehas/ Phinees. The spellings Mattatha, Matthat and Mattathias are the same name, though they do not refer to the same person in Luke’s genealogy. This name appears 4 places in Luke’s list and elsewhere in the Bible as Mattai, Mattan and Matthew.

Another variant of the name is Hara-mathea. In the Masoretic Text the name of Samuel's city is hara-matatyim zophim.[8] Samuel’s father Elkanah was a Horite priest of the line of Matthew/Matthat. Hara-matatyim is the priestly line of Joseph of Arimathea, the maternal grandfather of Mary’s husband Joseph the Younger. He was the member of the Sanhedrin who requested the Lord's body in order to bury Him. Consider the following diagram.



Part 3: The Question of Different Genealogical Lists

Luke’s list is longer than Matthew’s because it reflects the cousin bride’s naming prerogative, which suggest that Luke received this information from Mary, Joseph’s cousin bride. The cousin bride named her firstborn son after her father. This is evident in Luke’s list in the repetition of the names Matthew, Joseph and Melchi. The repetition of names in lists of rulers indicates that the cousin bride named her firstborn son after her father. The pattern is first found in Genesis 4 and 5. Consider the following diagram.

In Luke’s list, there are forty-two names after David and in Matthew's genealogy there are only twenty-seven names after David. Luke places Joseph and his brothers Judah, Simeon and Levi in sequence, creating 4 generations.  However, Joseph, Judah, Simeon and Levi represent one generation. It is immediately after this insertion of Jacob’s four sons that Luke’s list becomes very interesting, as demonstrated in the following chart.


Matthew’s List                                                 Luke’s List

Jehoshep-hat (Matt. 1:8)                                   Matta-hat (Luke 3:29)
Joram (Yoram)                                                 Jorim (Yorim/Horim)
Uzziah                                                              Eleazar
Jotham                                                             Yeshua/Jesus
Ahaz                                                                Er
Hezekiah                                                          Elmadam
Manasseh                                                         Cosam
Amon[9]                                                           Addi
Josiah                                                              Melchi
Jechoniah                                                         Neri
Shealtiel                                                           Shealtiel
Zerubbabel                                                       Zerubbabel
Abiud                                                               Rhesa
Eliakim                                                             Joanan
Azor                                                                 Joda
Zadok                                                              Josech
Achim                                                              Semein
Eliud                                                                 Mattahias
Eleazar                                                             Joseph
Matthan                                                            Jannai
Jacob (Heli)                                                      Melchi
Joseph, husband of Mary                                   Levi
                                                                        Matta-hat
                                                                        Heli (Jacob)
                                                                        Joseph, husband of Mary


Conclusion

It is evident that Joseph and Mary were patrilineal cousins, that is, they had common male ancestors. This is true of all the Horite Hebrew lines presented in the Bible. The lines of Cain and Seth intermarried (as per diagram above).  The lines of Ham and Shem intermarried. The lines of Abraham and Nahor intermarried. This was the custom of the Horites (Horim) and the lists in Matthew and Luke indicate that the practice continued to the time of Jesus.

Though it appears that Luke inserts names for his own editorial purposes, we can assume that the families of Joseph and Mary understood how these records were organized. They understood the marriage and ascendancy pattern of their Horim.

The Horite marriage and ascendancy pattern remained unchanged from the Neolithic period of Genesis 4 and 5 to the time of Joseph and Mary. The pattern can be traced through various parts of the Bible, and it is an impossibility that this pattern could have been written into the text at a late date. The various books that convey information about the Horite marriage and ascendancy structure were scribed by different writers over more than 1000 years.

Using kinship analysis, a tool of cultural anthropology, I have demonstrated the veracity of the Christian claim that Jesus is the long anticipated Son of God and the fulfillment of the first Biblical oracle concerning a Horite Hebrew virgin who would bring forth the Seed (Gen. 3:15). Jesus claimed to be that Seed when he told His disciples that He was going to Jerusalem to die. He explained his death using the analogy of a seed. "Timeless truth I speak to you: Unless a grain of wheat falls and dies in the ground, it remains alone, but if it dies, it yields much fruit.” (John 12:24, translation from the Aramaic)

The Virgin Birth is as central to our Messianic faith as Jesus Christ's death and resurrection. The Gospel is of one piece and cannot be torn apart. I agree with Dr. Albert Mohler who wrote, "It is conceivable that someone might come to Christ and trust Christ as Savior without yet learning that the Bible teaches that Jesus was born of a virgin. A new believer is not yet aware of the full structure of Christian truth. The real question is this: Can a Christian, once aware of the Bible’s teaching, reject the Virgin Birth? The answer must be no." (From here.)

Christianity is a Tradition of very great antiquity, received from Abraham's Horite ancestors and passed by them as they lived in expectation of the coming of the Seed who would crush the serpent's head, free Adam from the curse of death, and restore Paradise. He is the true divine Son to whom the eternal kingdom will be delivered. For God's promise in Psalm 110 is sure: The Lord says to my Lord: "Sit at My right hand until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet."

Likewise, Psalm 2 declares: I will surely tell of the decree of the Lord: He said to Me, "Thou art My Son, today I have begotten Thee. Ask of Me, and I will surely give the nations as Thine inheritance, and the very ends of the earth as Thy possession."


NOTES

1. In the Song of Songs the ruler's sister bride is described as having been "made white" like the moon (6:10) while her beloved has skin as dark "as the tents of Kedar" because, as with David, he was made to work in the sun by his older brothers. Kedar was a son of Ishmael by his Egyptian wife (Gen. 25:13). The tents were woven of the hair of desert black goats of North Sinai and Egypt.

2. In Zachariah 6, the priest Joshua/Yeshua/Jesus is crowned with a double crown. "Take the silver and gold, and make crowns, and set it upon the head of Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest..." Zechariah 6:11

3. Horus was called the Lamb in his weaker (kenotic) existence and he was called the Ram in his glorified strength. Both are associated with the death and resurrection symbolism of the vernal equinox. This sheds light on the story of Abraham's offering of his son. As they ascended Mount Moriah, Isaac asked Abraham "where is the lamb" for the sacrifice. Abraham replied that God would provide the lamb, but God didn't provide a lamb, but rather a ram.

4. The Dravidian east-facing temple was termed O-piru, meaning “Sun House” or “House of the Sun.” Those who served in the Sun tempels were called Ha-piru or Habiru (Hebru?). Sargon I is said to have been the son of a virgin queen who was overshadowed by the High God. He was born in an O-piru. His home city was called Azu-piranu, meaning House of God (Azu in Akkadian, Asa in Chadic, Asha in Kushitic, Ashai in Hebrew; a Jerusalem priest was named Am-ashai in Neh. 11:13). The Dravidian shrine cities in southern Pakistan are referred to as the "Har-appa" civilization. Har refers to Horus and "appa" is the Dravidian word meaning father. The origin of Dravidian religion was apparently Egypt and ancient Kush from which the Horites came.” Har-appa might refer to Horus as father, just as today a Jew might refer to his father as horeh.

5. A polyseme is a word or phrase with multiple related meanings. The Afro-Asiatic languages have this characteristic, as do Dravidian and Hindi. For example, the phrase a-laya-vijña-na is the seed of the receptacle-world, or literally, the receptacle of the seed. There is a relation to the word va-gina. In Vedic tradition, karmic seeds laid down in one A-laya-vijña-na produce karmic fruition. Prajña means "wisdom of the great house." The title Pharaoh comes from pr-aa which means "great house.” Likewise the biradical TR in the various cognate languages can mean blood, purity, rain, holy and God. The Hebrew root thr = to be pure, corresponds to the Hausa/Hahm toro = clean, to the Amarigna (Ethiopia) anatara = pure, and to the Tamil tiru = holy. All are related to the proto-Dravidian tor = blood. In some Kushitic languages mtoro means rain and toro refers to God. Here we find a relationship to the Ancient Egyptian ntr = deity. The Virgin Mary was "Miriam Daughter of Joachim Son of Pntjr (Panther) Priests of Nathan of Beth Lehem." From the earliest pre-dynastic times among the Horites, ntjr designated the king. The name Panther or p-ntjr meant "God is King."

6. Buz, Huz and Uz formed a three clan Horite confederation. Uz was the name of Job’s homeland. Uz was associated with the Dedanite traders of Arabia and the Horites in the hill country of Edom/Seir. Job also was a Horite, as were Abraham, Moses and Samuel.

7. The word Horite takes many forms: Khar, Gur, Hur, Horonaim, Horoni, Horowitz, Horim, and Hori. Hori was the son of Lotan son of Seir whose descendants were the "lords of the Horites in the land of Seir" (Gen. 36:20-29 and 1 Chronicles 1:38-42). Lot, Lotan, and Nim-Lot are Egyptian titles. Nimlot C was the High Priest of Amun at Thebes during the latter part of the reign of his father Osorkon II. Horite does not refer to the ethnicity of the people, but to their caste. The ancient world had a caste structure. This explains why Horites are found among many peoples across the Afro-Asiatic Dominion. For more information see the related readings below.

8. See The Anchor Bible Commentary on I Samuel by P. Kyle McCarter, Jr., p. 51

9. Amen/Amon is a name for God that originated in the Upper Nile. Amen-hotep means "the Peace of Amen." 


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