Why the Name Jesus?

 

Dr. Alice C. Linsley

According to the early Nilotic Hebrew (4000-2000 BC), the first act of the Creator at the beginning was šw (Shu), meaning light. This is not the light of day. It is the eternal, uncreated light associated with the High God's son Y-shu (Yeshua), as proclaimed in John's Prologue.

Jesus or Yeshua is the name that was given to the son the Virgin Mary conceived by divine overshadowing. Luke 1:35 makes this clear. The angel explained to Mary: "The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God."

As Joseph's cousin bride, it was Mary's prerogative to name her firstborn son after her father, Joachim. However, according to Matthew's Gospel, an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream and told him to name the child Jesus. The angel instructed Joseph, "You are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins".

The name Jesus is related to the Hebrew word Yeshua, meaning Salvation. However, the name is older than the Hebrew language. It is found as early as 2600 BC among the Hebrew priests of the Nile Valley as Yesu or Yeshu.

A prince named Yesu is mentioned as the son of Ameny, the son of Shenwy, the son of Nakht on a memorial stela from Abydos. It speaks of Shenwy and his wife, Hedjret. One of Hedjret's grandsons is called išw, which could be an early form of the name Jesus/Yeshu (Bill Manley, Egyptian Hieroglyphics, p. 77.)

The name Yesu is attached to the roles of priest and king in ancient hieroglyphics. Reading from left to right: The feather represents judgment. The horn represents power. The staff represents royal authority, and the chick represents new life. All of these symbols speak of Jesus Christ.

The end of Matthew chapter 1 makes this startling assertion. This Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us. Therefore, in addition to being our judge, our authority, our king, and the giver of new life, Jesus is God. 

"Therefore God has highly exalted him and given him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven and those on earth and those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father". (Phil 2:9-11)

The initial Y is a solar cradle that indicated divine appointment/divine authority. The Son of God was called Y-Shu which is Yeshua or "Jesus" in English Bibles. Likewise, YHWH would have been Y-Hu in Ancient Egyptian which referred to the Divine Word. In Ancient Egyptian hu (ḥw) personified the generative word, authority, and the "first word" of creation. It refers to the authoritative word that resides with the high king or High God. In the Egyptian Coffin Texts (2000 BC) we read concerning the Creator God, "I was the one who began everything, the dweller in the Primeval Waters. First Hahu emerged from me and then I began to move."

People are surprised to learn this. However, the point of origin of the early Hebrew appears to be the Nile Valley and that is where the earliest known site of Hebrew worship was at Nekhen.

Related reading: BIBLICAL ANTHROPOLOGY: Who is Jesus?; They Believed in a Messiah 6000 Years Ago; Why Nekhen is Anthropologically Significant

The Maleness of Jesus

Painting by Nathan Greene

Alice C. Linsley

The maleness of Jesus is part of the Holy Tradition received from Abraham and his Horite Hebrew ancestors. It is not a matter for negotiation. To set aside the historical reality of Jesus as the Son of the Father is to eviscerate the Messianic Tradition and to denigrate the Gospel to simply another religious path.

Holy Tradition, as it is received from Jesus and the Apostles, has two categories: kergyma, and ecclesiastical order and discipline. The first is non-negotiable, and the second tends to accommodate to local conditions. The "priesting" of women touches on the first category. Women's ordination would not have become a divisive issue if Anglicans had held to the received tradition.

The royal priesthood of Jesus Christ is the foundation stone of the Church. Understanding the antecedents of the Church's priesthood is essential if we are to rebuild the foundations of the New Jerusalem. We cannot rebuild unless we know where the walls were and how they were sited and aligned. We cannot restore a firm foundation unless we understand the work of our ancestors in the Faith. Antecedents matter!

The Church is divided, yet there is but one Priesthood - that of Jesus Christ, the Eternal Priest - whose priesthood is given to the Church. The priesthood is a unique gift and it speaks of Jesus Christ, so we must get it right or we send a false Christological message to the world, such as that delivered by Presiding Bishop Curry at the recent Royal Wedding.

Having read a great deal of Feminist literature, I am no longer surprised by the bizarre constructions they present on Jesus, the Church, and the priesthood. Agenda driven "scholarship" is not true scholarship. Attempts to justify women priests by pointing to imagined examples of women who were priests are hollow and without substance. The only women of the ancient world who are called "priests" practiced pagan religions. They do not represent the ruler-priest caste of the ancient Horite Hebrew. They are not heirs of the Messianic Faith.

Feminists attempt to make the Virgin Mary a priest. She was not. Nor was Phoebe, Lydia, Juna, etc. None of these were priests. The Christ-following priests of the early Apostolic period were associated with the Sanhedrin. Two are named in the Bible: Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea. Joseph and Jesus Christ were kin, both descendants of the ruler-priest line of Mathea (Matthew).

St. John Chrysostom wrote in his treatise on the priesthood:

"For the priestly office is indeed discharged on earth, but it ranks among heavenly ordinances; and very naturally so: for neither man, nor angel, nor archangel, nor any other created power, but the Paraclete Himself, instituted this vocation, and persuaded men while still abiding in the flesh to represent the ministry of angels. Wherefore the consecrated priest ought to be as pure as if he were standing in the heavens themselves in the midst of those powers."

In "The Veiling of the Virgins" Tertullian speaks of the sacerdotal life as a "male function," and St. John Chrysostom wrote, "When one is required to preside over the Church, and be entrusted with the care of so many souls, the whole female sex must retire before the magnitude of the task, and the majority of men also.” (On the Priesthood)

That seems clear enough. Yet some want to prolong the debate. Some are compromised and cannot easily defend the received tradition. Anglican bishops who are married to priests should recuse themselves from the discussion. None should consider it worthy of Christ to promote anything that causes confusion, engenders strife, or brings division to the Body of Christ.

In his treatise On the Holy Spirit, St. Basil the Great wrote:

“Every man is a theologian; it does not matter that his soul is covered with more blemishes than can be counted. The result is that these innovators find an abundance of men to join their factions. So ambitious, self-elected men divide the government of the churches among themselves, and reject the authority of the Holy Spirit. The ordinances of the Gospel have been thrown into confusion everywhere for lack of discipline; the jostling for high positions is incredible, as every ambitious man tries to thrust himself into high office. The result of this lust for power is that wild anarchy prevails among the people; the exhortations of those in authority are rendered utterly void and unprofitable, since every man in his arrogant delusion thinks that it is more his business to give orders to others than to obey anyone himself."

Despite what feminists argue concerning women in the Church, there is not a shred of evidence in the Bible that even one woman served as a priest.

Despite what politically correct academics write, the priesthood of the Church is distinct from the priesthood of the pagan world.

Despite what rights activists might say, Jesus was not gay, homophobic, or a misogynist.

He was not illegitimate. The only scandal raised surrounding his miraculous and prophetic birth was raised by His enemies. He was conceived and born exactly according to the expectation of Messiah's appearing. What is written concerning Him in the Bible is entirely consistent with the expectation of the long-awaited Messiah.

The ministry of priests in the Church is not of human origin or human invention. It is the gift of the Messiah to those men who are called to priestly ministry. This office developed organically from the Horite Hebrew priesthood of Abraham's ancestors. Animal sacrifice, circumcision, ritual purity, and sacred moral codes originated with them. They alone believed that the Creator (Ra/Ani) is Father to His Son (Horus/Enki). That is where the evidence of Scripture, anthropology, linguistics, and genetic studies leads us. Fr. Thomas Hopko is correct in saying, "In his actions in and toward the world of his creation, the one God and Father reveals himself primarily and essentially in a 'masculine' way." (Women and the Priesthood, p 240)

The priestly function was exclusively the work of a select group of men, a caste of royal priests whose devotion to the worship of the Creator involved, by today's standards, extreme asceticism and purity of life. That there were priestesses in the Greco-Roman world is irrelevant to the question of women priests in the Church because this practice has no connection to the priesthood represented by Jesus Messiah and his followers. Failure to make this distinction has led to much confusion and obfuscation.

Related reading: Freeing God From Gender and Tradition; The Priesthood is About the Blood; Why Women Were Never Priests; Why God is Father and Not Mother by Mark Brumley; Anglican Fudge: Women Priests

Genesis on Sons and "The Son"

Alice C. Linsley

The marriage and ascendancy pattern of Abraham's ancestors involves rulers with two wives. This meant that the ruler usually had two first born sons. The first born son of the half-sister wife was the ruler's heir. So Isaac was Abraham's heir and ruled over Abraham's territory in Edom. Hebron (where Sarah lived) and Beersheba (where Keturah lived) are in Idumea (shown below). Abraham's territory extended between the settlements of his two wives and was entirely in Edom.

Edom or Idumea, land of red people

The first born son of the second wife, a patrilineal cousin, ruled in the territory of his maternal grandfather, after whom he was named. So Joktan (Yaqtan), Abraham's first born by his second wife Keturah, was named after Keturah's father Joktan the Elder. Joktan the Younger ruled as a regent or prime minister in his maternal grandfather's territory.

The first born son inherited his father’s earthly kingdom. Nahor, Abraham's older brother, inherited Terah's kingdom between Ur and Haran. Haran may have been the oldest of Terah's sons, but according to Genesis he died before his father. After Nahor inherited Terah's earthly kingdom, God led Abraham to leave his family and promised him a kingdom. This kingdom speaks of the Messianic kingdom.

Often there were other sons and to these the ruler gave gifts before his death and sent them away. These sent-away sons are often the great heroes of the Bible I that they receive divine grace to enable them in establishing territories of their own. Cain, Nimrod, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, David are examples.

The ruling sons formed 3-clan confederations based on common ancestry. Here are some confederations:

Cain Abel Seth (Gen. 4-5)
Ham Japeth Shem (Gen. 5-9)
Uz, Huz and Buz
Magog Og and Gog (Gen. 10 and Nu. 21:33)
Haran Nahor Abraham (Gen. 11-12)
Yishmael Yaqtan (Joktan) Yitzak (Gen. 16, 21, and 25)
Jeush Jalam Korah (Gen. 36: 4-18)
Jimnah, Jishvah and Jishvi (Gen. 46:17)
Korah Moses Aaron (Ex. and Nu.)
Dedan Tema Buz (Jeremiah 25)

In Genesis, we often find that the third son either dies or is hidden in the text.  Abel, Haran, and Onan are examples of sons who die. Og is an example of third son hidden in the text. Another example is Joktan, Abraham's first-born son. He is related to the Jokanite tribes of Arabia. Hidden sons invite us to come closer. The Markan mystery is about the hidden Son. Jesus command his followers to keep silence about his identity as Messiah. He was recognized in Tyre, not in Jerusalem.

We see this theme expressed in the Seder. The three matzohs are enveloped and the middle one is broken and hidden from the others. It is found after a search and returned to its natural group. The three matzohs are called the Unity, but we might as appropriately refer to the unity as Three in One, or a Trinity.

Hidden sons point to Jesus Christ, the Son hidden in the Father's bosom from before the ages. He inherits the Kingdom that is not of this earth. Genesis is the story of His ruler-priest ancestors.


Related reading:  Archaic Rulers, Ascendancy and the Foreshadowing of Christ; Abraham's Sons; The Marriage and Ascendancy Pattern of Abraham's People; Kushite Kings and the Kingdom of God; Why Jesus Visited Tyre

YEC Dogma is NOT Biblical

Young Earth Creationism has been criticized for lacking a solid scientific basis. It also should be criticized for lacking a solid Biblical basis.


Alice C. Linsley

Young Earth Creationists use Archbishop James Usher’s chronology to date the age of the Earth. They believe that the genealogies in Genesis 5 and 11 are chronological and can be used to estimate when God created the Earth. They calculate the earth's age at 6000 years on the basis of lifespans assigned to the men named in Genesis 5 and 11. They ignore the line of Cain in Genesis 4 because they assume that his line became extinct in Noah's flood.

Biblical studies and discoveries in various sciences have left Usher's erroneous interpretation in the dust.

Usher lived before the development of molecular genealogy which has shed much light on human origins, and especially on the dispersion of the ancient Nilotes and Kushites. He also lived before the development of kinship analysis which makes verification of the Genesis King Lists possible. It can no longer be claimed that these rulers did not live in history. Their marriage and ascendancy pattern is authentic and can be traced from Genesis 4 to the New Testament records of Mary and Joseph's families. It is not possible that this aspect of Biblical history could have been written back into the texts since the 66 books of the Bible represent the contributions of numerous scribes and authors over about 1200 years.

Usher's scheme is terribly flawed. He failed to recognize that the so-called "genealogies" are actually King Lists. These lists are not generational, but regnal, and the reigns of some kings coincided. Tubal-Cain (Gen. 4) and Methuselah (Gen. 5) ruled at the same time. Tubal-Cain's sister, Naamah, married Methuselah. (See diagram below.) This is an example of how people abuse Biblical lists.

Usher also missed the fact that the lines of Cain and Seth intermarried, and as St. John Chrysostom recognized, the line of Cain received great mercy. Not only 7 fold for Cain, but 77 fold for Lamech the Elder (Gen. 4:24), and 777 in the case of Lamech the Younger (Gen. 5:31).

Further, these men are not the first humans on earth, but rulers of the Afro-Asiatic Dominion. They were kingdom builders, like Nimrod the Kushite (Gen. 10:8). This was a time of  law codes such at the Law of Tehut, warriors, weapons, shrine cities such as Nekhen in Sudan, and numerous technologies associated with the Neolithic Period. These earliest rulers of Genesis lived between 6000 and 3000 B.C., millions of years after the appearance of archaic humans. The evidence of the Bible and the various sciences indicates that they lived in Africa or migrated out of Africa.

This last fact reveals the un-biblical and racist nature of YEC dogma. At the back of YEC books one finds the 12 Affirmations and Denials. Affirmation XII claims that the diversity of languages and skin color came about as a result of divine judgment at the Tower of Babel.

XII. We affirm that all people living and dead are descended from Adam and Eve...and that the various people groups (with their various languages, cultures, and distinctive physical characteristics, including skin color) arose as a result of God's supernatural judgment at the Tower of Babel..."

Africa always has had the greatest genetic and linguistic diversity of any continent. Long before the earliest Genesis rulers there already existed diversity of skin color. Here are images of red, black and brown Nubians.

Red and black Nubians
(Ippolito Rosellini)

Red and brown Nubians
They resemble the warriors of Petra who had long wavy hair and wore feathers.
(Dr. Arthur Brack)

The Habiru (Hebrew) marriage and ascendancy pattern

Usher's errors reflect ignorance of the marriage and ascendancy structure of Abraham's ancestors as it is revealed in Genesis 4, 5 and 11. This same pattern characterizes Moses' family and Samuel's family. It is the distinctive pattern of the ancient Habiru (Hebrew), a caste of ruler-priests.

Ussher did not understand that the rulers listed had two wives so there were two first born sons. The first born son of the half-sister wife was heir to his father's throne. So Isaac was heir to Abraham's territory between Hebron and Beersheba. The first born son of the patrilineal cousin wife was named after his maternal grandfather and served as a prime minister in his grandfather's territory. So Joktan, Abraham's first born son by Keturah, was not Abraham's heir. He would rule in the territory of Joktan the Elder.

Judah likely had two wives. In Genesis 46, we read that Judah went into Egypt with his brothers and presumably settled in the land of Goshen with his wife and children. In Genesis 38, we read that Judah had sons by Shua who lived in the region of Adulla, Mareshah and Chezib in Horite territory.

Some lists provide the names of the first born sons of half-sister brides. Other lines are traced through the cousin bride who named her first born son after her father. This is the case with Methuselah's wife, Naamah, who named their first born son "Lamech" after her father (see bottom of diagram).

Let us examine in greater detail the problems with Ussher's scheme.

Ussher did not recognize that the Genesis genealogies are regnal, not generational. They cannot be used to count generations because they are king lists and some kings ruled simultaneously. Others ruled for short periods, and still others ruled for longer than a generation (40 years).

Usher insisted on reading Genesis as chronology, and therefore missed that some rulers were contemporaries. Lamech the Elder was a contemporary of Enoch, Methuselah's father. Abraham was a contemporary of Job. Nahor's son Tahash was a contemporary of Isaac.

None lived the lifespans assigned to them. These numbers are symbolic, with Kabalistic meanings coming from a later period. (Kabal is derived from the Egyptian words ka and ba which in modern parlance would "body and soul.")

Ussher did not recognize that some of the Biblical lists are telescopic. Telescopic lists leave out some names. Such lists give the names of only the most famous rulers. This means that we cannot use the king lists to date the earth.

Ussher ignored the later king lists, such as the Horite rulers in Genesis 36 and their royal kinsmen in Genesis 22:20-24. Here we find the identical marriage and ascendancy pattern as among the Genesis 4 and 5 rulers.

Ussher did not recognize that the lines of Cain and Seth intermarried, as did the lines of Ham and Shem and the lines of Abraham and Nahor.  Each ruler had two wives. The cousin bride named her first born son after her father. Thus we find Esau the elder and Esau the Younger, Joktan the Elder and Joktan the Younger,   Kenan is a variant of Kain, and could be called Cain the Younger. Likewise, Irad is a variant of Jared and could be called Jared the Younger.

In the case of Lamech's daughter, Naamah, the pattern is quite clear. She married her cousin Methuselah and named her first-born son Lamech after her father. This pattern of marriage can be traced from Genesis 4 and 5 to the lines of Joseph and Mary in the New Testament, demonstrating that Jesus is a direct descendant of the people to whom God made the first promise of the Bible that a woman of their ruler-priest lines would bring forth the "Seed" of God (Gen. 3:15).

Jesus' mother's name was Miriam daughter of Joachim Son of Pntjr (Panther) Priests of Nathan of Beth Lehem. From predynastic times, ntjr designated the ruler among the Kushites. The name Panther or p-ntjr meant "God is King." It is certain that Mary was of the ruler-priest caste because even those who hated her admit this. Sanhedrin 106a says: “She who was the descendant of princes and governors played the harlot with carpenters.”

Ussher didn't know about the cousin bride's naming prerogative which meant that the cousin bride's father and her first born son had the same name. This explains the recurrance of names skipping a generation. There are two named Enoch; two named Lamech; two named Joktan, and two named Sheba. There are also two named Esau, as shown below.

Here we see that Esau the Elder married Adah. Esau the Younger married Oholibamah, a prefigurement of the Virgin Mary.





Seir is identified as a Horite in Genesis 36. The names Esau, Dishon, Uz, Lot/Lotan and Timna are Horite names. The name "Adah" can be traced back to Lamech the Elder. One of his wives was named Adah (Gen. 4:23).


Related reading: Facebook Conversation on Creationism; Evidence of an Old Earth; Smoking Gun Evidence of an Ancient Earth; Genesis on the Ancient Kingdom Builders; Cain as Ruler; Lamech's Story and Horite Kingship; Bishop Ussher Goofed; DNA Research Confirms Kushite Migrations; Biblical Anthropology...the Science, not speculative theology; Calculating the Dates of the Patriarchs; The Genesis King Lists; Two Named Esau; Abraham and Job, Horite Rulers; The Cousin Bride's Naming Prerogative; Objections to the Fundamentalist Reading of Genesis

The Holy One Hidden and Revealed

Alice C. Linsley

Clement of Alexandria (AD 150-215) believed that the writers of scripture practiced a "prophetic and venerable system of concealment." He explained: "For many reasons the scriptures conceal their meaning; primarily, with the aim of making us diligent and unresting in our study of the words of salvation and, secondly, because it is not in the province of all men to examine their meaning, lest they should receive hurt through a mistaken interpretation.” (Clement of Alexandria by R.B. Tollinton. 1914. Volume II, p. 302.)

Clement believed that concealment encourages truth-seekers to dig deeper. There is also a belief among the early Church Fathers that revealing the sacred mysteries to scoffers can bring condemnation upon them. This belief is evident in these words of the Eastern Orthodox liturgy: For I will not speak of Thy Mystery to Thine enemies, neither like Judas will I give Thee a kiss; but like the thief will I confess Thee: “Remember me, O Lord, in Thy Kingdom.”

What is the nature of this "prophetic and venerable system of concealment"? The rabbis believed that sacred mysteries were concealed by mystical symbols. Rabbi Kaduri's pronouncements that the hidden Messiah had been revealed is an example. His name is Yehoshua or Yeshua (Jesus). Yeshua comes from the ancient royal and priestly name Yesu, found among Abraham's early Hebrew ancestors.

(Source: Bill Manley, Egyptian Hieroglyphs, 2012, Thames and Hudson Ltd., London)

The name is derived from the ancient Egyptian name Yesu (shown above) which is associated with royal authority. The feather represents the letter Y and stands for one who judges, measures, or weights. The next symbol represents horns. The idea of God's presence "between the horns" predates Judaism. Then there is the sedge plant which represents a king, and finally the falcon, the totem of HR (Horus), the patron of kings. HR in ancient Egyptian means "Most High One" or "Hidden One".

Mark seems to veil the Christ more than the other Evangelists. He tells us that Jesus' true identify was known in Tyre, not in Jerusalem.

The king of Tyre was allied by kinship with David and sent skilled artisans to help David build a palace in Jerusalem. Hiram is also known as "Huram" and "Horam" and these variant spellings contain the HR root which is a Horus name. The Horus Name is the oldest part of the Nilotic royal titulary, dating to at least 1200 years before Egypt became a political entity. Abraham's older brother Na-Hor had a Horus name as did Moses' brother-in-law Hur, and Moses' brother Harun (Aaron). 

Hur’s grandson was one of the builders of the Tabernacle. I Chronicles 4:4 lists Hur as the "father of Bethlehem" in the heartland of Horite Hebrew territory. Matthew 2 explains that the title "Nazarene" is derived from the prophecy "He will be called a Nazorean", but this has no Old Testament source. The source is likely from the much older Akkadian language. Na-Zor means "one belonging to the Zorites". In 1 Chronicles 2:54, Salma of Judah is called the father of the צרעי (Zorites). Salma is also called the "father of Bethlehem" in 1 Chronicles 2:51. So, the prophecy speaks of one born in Bethlehem, which was home to the Zorites.

The king of Tyre and David had common ancestors in the early Hebrew who believed that the Son of God would be born of a young woman of their ruler-priest caste. They expected Him to appear among them. This was fulfilled when Jesus visited Tyre (Matt. 15:21-28; Mark 7: 24). Here the Markan mystery is revealed, for we are told that in Tyre Jesus "could not pass unrecognized."

The early Hebrew (both Horites and Sethites)believed that the Son of God would be born of a woman of their ruler-priest caste, that he would be conceived by divine overshadowing, that he would die and rise on the third day, and that He would be God incarnate. They referred to the son as HR, which in ancient Egyptian means "Hidden One."


Related reading: The Theme of Hidden Sons; The Hebrew Were a Caste; Hebrew Names and Titles; Why Jesus Visited Tyre; Sons and The Son