Hittite Religion

Alice C. Linsley

The Hebrew priests of the archaic world served at the Sun temples built by the early kingdom builders known in Genesis as the mighty men of old. They served rulers in Egypt, Arabia, Canaan, Mesopotamia, and Anatolia in southern Turkey. The Hebrew ruler-priests were kin to the ruler-priests of many peoples as they shared common ancestors before Noah's time (c.5000-4500 B.C.) The term Hittite is related to the name Heth, a descendant of Noah.

Ḫattuša (modern Boğazkale in Turkey) was the administrative center of a people as early as 2500 B.C. It was a shrine city with more than 30 temples. (Interactive map of Hattusa) The kingdom of Hatti was a powerful Near Eastern kingdom in the late 14th and 13th centuries B.C. The kings of Egypt, Babylon, and Assyria were received in Hattusa's reception hall located in the royal citadel, known as Büyükkale, or “Big Castle”. Vassal rulers came to Hattusa to reaffirm their loyalty and pay tribute to the Hittite king.

More than 232 letters of state correspondence have been found at Hattusa. One is a letter from the ruler of Išuwa to the "Chief of the Charioteers." Hattusa's administrative center had many scribes who were schooled in Akkadian. Ancient Akkadian is the oldest known Semitic language and the language of the territory of Nimrod, a Kushite kingdom builder (Gen.10).

Hittite Empire (c. 2000–1200 B.C.).

Many of the priests of the ancient world, including the priests of ancient Hatti, were devotees of Horus. The shrine centers of the greater region reflect this: Horoztepe (Horus Hill); Kültepe (Ash Hill, place of sacrifice) and Išuwa (Yeshua/Yesu). Yesu is an ancient ruler-priest name found among the early Egyptians.

The name "Jesus" (Yeshua/Yesu) 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". (Source: Bill Manley, Egyptian Hieroglyphs, 2012, Thames and Hudson Ltd., London)

At the Hittite capital in Ḫattuša there was a shrine dedicated to Horus. It is marked by a large green stone.

Green cube at Ḫattuša.

This green stone is believed to be a gift from the Egyptian king with whom the Hatti signed a treaty in 1258 B.C. Among the early Nilotes and later Egyptians green malachite was associated with Horus whose animal totem was the falcon. The Book of the Dead speaks of how the deceased will become a falcon "whose wings are of green stone" (chapter 77). The green stone may have symbolized the hope of resurrection. The land of the blessed dead was described as the "field of malachite." The Ancient Pyramid Texts speak of Horus as the Lord of the green stone (Utterance 301).

Bronze statue of mother and nursing infant found at Horoztepe (Horus Hill).

The Hittites called themselves the Nes and their language was called Nesli (Nesian, Nesite, or Neša). The word Nuzi is derived from the words Nes and Nuz. Nuzi was a Horite/Hurrian administrative center on the Tigris. The Horites were devotees of Horus and his mother Hathor, the patroness of metal workers. Documents from the household of a Nuzi official named Tehiptilla record grants of food, clothing, and shelter to a number of Habiru/Hebrew/Abrutu in his service. One who likely served in a military role received a horse.

The Hittite also were known for silver work. The Ugaritic word for silver - ḥtt - appears in the name of the people and Hittite place names. Hittite scribes often used the word sign for silver in their names: Ḥatti and Ḥattuša are examples.

The Hittites were famous for their metal work. HT is the Hebrew and Arabic root for copper - nahas-het. The mountains near the Hittite center of Isuwa had rich deposits of copper which were mined in antiquity.

Hittite Henotheism

The religion of the Hittites was henotheistic. They believed in a supreme Creator who was served by lesser "gods" or assisting divine powers. The deification of righteous rulers followed logically from the idea that divinely appointed powers on earth were also lesser gods (Allohi in Arabic and Hausa, Elohiym in Hebrew).

The Hittites conceived of the cosmos as God's sacred temple. Elevated sites were the preferred locations for their shrines and temples. These "high places" were fortified settlements near permanent water sources. Some place names reflect the Horite Hebrew presence among the Hittites. Such is the case of the Horite shrine on Mt. Silpius overlooking the Orontes (Draco) in Turkey. This ancient site was called Meroe. It hieroglyphic symbol was IO, representing a pillared sun temple. IO had a twin settlement designated as Ant-IO (Antioch).

Solar images abound in Hittite culture. These metal artifacts are found in the royal tombs or on the standards of rulers. One example is the long horns of bulls and deer, such as appear on this bronze standard found at Horoztepe (shown right). The horns of the bull were a solar cradle that indicated divine appointment by overshadowing. Images of Hathor, the mother of Horus, show her overshadowed by the Sun resting in the long horns of a bull. Divine appointment of the ruler was indicated by the solar cradle Y at the beginning of the ruler's name: Yishmael, Yitzak, Yacob, Yeshua, etc. and by the ili/itti suffix in the Akkadian and Nilotic languages.

The dispersed Hebrew and their descendants living in Anatolia viewed the high king as the High God's earthly representative. This is clearly evident with King Hattusili I who claimed that he was divinely appointed, and that the prosperity of his people depended on his intercessions on their behalf. He moved his administrative center from Neša (near modern Kültepe) to Ḫattuša.

The March/April 2016 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review shows a statue found at the principal temple in Hattusa. The mother of the king wears the Sun as a sign of divine appointment. This is a Hittite version of ancient Nilotic images of Hathor holding Horus on her lap (shown below)

The divine son was a ruler-priest associated with the heavens and thunder. He was regarded as the High God and was known throughout the ancient world by different names: An, Ra, El, Yahweh, etc. The Hittites believed that the High God has a son. The son was known by different names also: Horus, Enki, Yehu, Hesus, etc. This is the only European bull deity that is celebrated in the middle of the Leo sign and he is often referred to as "the Giving God." The Giving God, sometimes shown as a bull between two lions, expresses the same idea as Aker among the early Nilotes. Aker is an image of the sun between two lions. The sun was the symbol or emblem of the High God among many peoples of the Fertile Crescent and Ancient Near East.

The Giving God, sometimes called Hesus, was crucified on an oak tree. The hope of his third-day resurrection was enacted by the sowing of grain in the fields. In antiquity, this annual ritual was overseen by Horite Hebrew priests who led the people in procession to the fields.

Related reading: Twin Cities of the Ancient World; Historical Relationship Between Sanskrit and Hittite; Abraham and the Hittites; The High Places; Horned Altars and Horned Sacred Vessels; Solar Imagery of the Proto-Gospel; The Last Days of Hattusa

A Tent for the Sun

Alice C. Linsley


The tent in Semitic desert tradition represents the territory of the chief through his wives. The tent was the possession of the wife, not the husband in ancient Hebrew culture. High chiefs, such as Abraham, maintained their wives in separate settlements. Sarah resided in Hebron and Keturah, Abraham's cousin wife, resided in the area of Beersheba. The tent pegs served as standards, marking the northern and southern boundaries of Abraham's territory in ancient Edom

This concept is signified by the Hebrew vav which is the tent peg or the ruler's staff. The vav or waw is designated by the letter Y. The symbol is very old. It is found among the ancient Egyptian, Canaanite, and Phoenician scripts. In the Oasis North Arabian scripts it is a staff with the solar orb on top, as shown below.

In ancient Egypt the waw was a symbol of a scepter carried by deities and deified rulers. The waw/vav originally symbolized the crook/hook of the ruler or the tent peg of the ruler's tent. As a lexeme this represented a cluster of related ideas including:

• the ruler himself
• the ruler's authority
• the ruler's territory
• the ruler's people
• the ruler's resources such as his herds and water sources

The waw/vav speaks of an ancient world in which settlements and shrines near water were ruled by chiefs and priests. Travelers moved from settlement to settlement and the ancient water laws were generally generous to those who wa-ndered.

The great chiefs of the Biblical world were designated as such by the initial Y in their names. This is more evident in Hebrew than in English. Consider the following:

Yishmael - Ishmael (Abraham's son by Hagar)
Yitzak - Issac (Abraham's son by Sarah)
Yaqtan - Joktan (Abraham's firstborn son by Keturah)
Yishbak - Yishbak (another of Abraham's sons by Keturah)
Yacob - Jacob
Yeshua - Joshua/Jesus

The Y-shaped headdress of the Somali nomads is called Barki and refers to the sun's blessing upon the wearer. The word corresponds to the Hebrew Birka.


The Sun as God's emblem

The swelling of the sun speaks of God's greatness and sovereignty. The Arabic yakburu means “he is getting big” and with the intensive active prefix: yukabbiru means "he is enlarging." Such would have been the observation of the Horite priests who greeted the rising sun and watched as it expanded across the horizon. At Nekhen, Horite priests placed invocations to Horus at the summit of the fortress as the sun rose. This is the likely origin of the Hindu sun blessing ritual (Agnihotra) and the Jewish sun blessing (Birka Hachama) performed every 28 years.

In the Lower Nile small pyramids carved from single blocks of stone were known as bnbn (benben), from the root, bn, meaning to "swell forth." This relates to the sun's rising or swelling. The Egyptian word for the rising sun is wbn. Tombs of officials from the 4th Dynasty (2613-2494 BC) were surmounted by conical mounds or benben. These tombs, along with the east-facing royal tombs at Giza, indicate that the ancient Kushite and Egyptian rulers hoped to rise from death, even as the Sun rises. Doubtless this the allusion behind the Prophet's words: “But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise [swell/be magnified] with healing in its wings.” (Mal. 4:2)

The prevalence of solar imagery in the ancient world is evident in the study of sacred texts. Psalm 92:2 describes the Lord as “a sun and a shield.” The Victory Tablet of Amenhotep III describes Horus as “The Good God, Golden [Horus/Her], 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).

The Egyptian word her (hor, har) means "the one on high", a reference to the soaring falcon, Horus' animal totem, and to the Sun as the emblem of Ra, Horus' father. Horus was the principal deity at Egypt's earliest shrines such as Nekhen (Heirakonpolis) in Sudan, and he was the patron of the Nekhen Saharan monarchy from which the pharaonic state emerged. Horus and Ra were the first known national gods of the Egyptians. Their ruler-priest devotees are called Horites (Horim).

One of the most striking expressions of solar imagery for the Creator is Psalm 19:1-4 which distinguishes between the Creator and the Sun by asserting that God has made a tent for the sun.

The heavens declare the glory of God;
    the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
² Day after day they pour forth speech;
    night after night they reveal knowledge.
³ They have no speech, they use no words;
    no sound is heard from them.
⁴ Yet their measuring line goes out into all the earth,
    their words to the ends of the world.
In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun. 

To praise the Creator with upraised hands in Hebrew is Yana.


Order and boundaries in creation

The Kushites and the ancient Greeks noted that the cosmos is ordered and has certain fixed patterns that are observable by all people. They were making such empirical observations long before the development of modern science. They noted that the constellations moved in a clock like manner. They observed binary sets in the order of creation and recognized that rhythms and patterns of the cosmos could be described numerically. Time was ordered according to 12 months, following the 12 lunar cycles, and the week was broken into 7 stations (days), following the 7 heavenly bodies (stars and planets) that can be observed by the human eye at the eclipses.

For both the Kushites and the Greeks the boundaries and measurements of earth, space, time, the dimensions of buildings, wind directions and sea currents were regarded as having been established by the gods, and most anciently by Horus. From Horus come the words horizon, horas/hours, horotely, horologion, horoscope, and an ancient word for mountain or high place - har. These words express the significance of Horus as the marker of boundaries and directions and reflect the veneration of Horus in the ancient world.

Pythagoras (a contemporary of Daniel and Haggai), Plato (a contemporary of Nehemiah), and Aristotle saw a geometric quality to the cosmos and a numerical order behind musical harmony. This wisdom made its way to the British Isles, to China and to the Americans, as is evident by the geometrically aligned Stonehedge, burial mounds and pyramids. These monuments reveal knowledge of astronomical alignments, engineering, and architecture among Neolithic peoples worldwide. The sun was the principal celestial point of reference.


Ancient water shrines and burial sites faced East

Among the ancient Proto-Saharans the sun was regarded as the emblem of the Creator. This is reflected in ancient texts which speak of the Creator mounting the sun as a rider mounts a chariot, and in ancient images that show Ra sailing traversing the heavens in a solar boat. Often these images also show Horus in the form of a falcon perched on the masthead. Such an image has been found at Anghor Wat in Cambodia (see below). Ankh-Hor means "May Horus Live!" or "Life to Horus!" It appears that the earliest expressions of Hinduism were consistent with ancient Kushite and Proto-Saharan religion.

Horus perched on the mast of Ra's solar boat

Anghor Wat temples reflect early Dravidian architecture. Dravidian priests and their east-facing temples and shrines were called O-piru. The O is a sun symbol. Opiru appears in different ancient texts as Hapiru, Habiru (Hebrew in English). The Habiru were devotees of Horus, the son of Ra. Ra's emblem was the sun. Hathor, the mother of Horus, is often shown with the sun over her. The sun's rays were believed to impregnate or inseminate the earth. Hathor conceived by the overshadowing of the sun.

The Hebrews had a similar conception of God's life-giving shekhinah (golden radiance) and Jerusalem which is spelled with an initial Y (YRWShLM) was a shrine city dedicated to the God of Light. In Abraham's time, Canaan was a collection of city-states that paid tribute to the Great House of Egypt, as attested in the Amarna tablets. Amarna letters dating from 1370 BC refer to Jerusalem as Ur-Salimu which is a variant of Ur-Sal-ma, a reference to the God of Light (Sal-Ma). Many ancient kings carried this name: Soloman, Salma, Selim, Salmoneus, etc.The kings of Judah had constructed horses at the entrance to the temple in dedication to the sun (2 Kg. 23:11)

Among Abraham's Proto-Saharan ancestors were the metal-workers who gathered meteoric iron which to them must have appeared as seeds from the sky. Probably this is the origin of the word beja, which means seeds and refers to cattle-herding people who worked metal. Linguist Penelope Aubin notes, "In Demotic sources they are called Brhm while in classical sources they are the Blemmyes, ancestors of the modern Beja." Here we see the connection between the Vedic tradition of the Brahmins and the Nilotic Proto-Saharans.

Beja name comes from the ancient Egyptian word for meteroric iron - bja and corresponds to the Sanskrit word bija, meaning semen or seed. Meteoritic iron was used in the fabrication of iron beads in Nubia 6000 years ago. As R.F. Tylecote notes, "Around 4000 BC small items, such as the tips of spears and ornaments, were being fashioned from iron recovered from meteorites."  (A History of Metallurgy, 2nd edition, 1992, page 3) These beads or seeds from heaven were likely perceived to bring the wearer divine power. Meteoritic iron was used in the fabrication of crooks and flails, the symbols of the Egyptian and Kushite pharaohs. These symbols were believed to give the ruler powers from heaven.

The Brahmins referred to the Divine Architect as AUM (cf. Buddhist OUM), and the Dravidians as the God of Heliopolis (On), the City of the Sun and the place of sacred pillars (Iunu).  Plato agreed with the latter. He wrote "Tell me of the God of On, which was, is and shall be." Plato studied under a Horite priest at Heliopolis for thirteen years.  He probably traveled to Memphis also.The theology of Memphis was much like that at Heliopolis. Strabo suggests that Plato and a friend curried the favor of the Heliopolis priests, seeking to “let them learn some of the principles of their doctrines.”

The pyramid triads at Giza, Zaqqara and Abusir are aligned to the obelisk at Heliopolis, possible because the ancient Egyptians believe that this is where the first dry mound of earth appeared at the beginning. Baalbek in Lebanon, also called Heliopolis, aligns to Heliopolis in Egypt as well.


The linguistic connections

The term "Kushite" is a general term that refers to Nubians, Sudra, Nilotes, Egyptians, Ainu, Canaanites, and the Akkadian rulers of Mesopotamia. The Dravidian priest-scribes were linked to the Kushite rulers and Proto-Saharan beliefs and practices. Evidence of this is found in linguistics which has established a connection between the Nilotic Proto-Saharans and the Dravidians. Consider these examples:

The Hebrew yasuah = salvation, corresponds to the Sanskrit words asvah, asuah or yasuah = salvation.

The Semitic svam or samyim = sky or heavens corresponds to the Sanskrit svah = sky or heaven and resembles the Proto-Dravidian word van = heaven.

The Semitic word wadi = river, corresponds to the Sanskrit nadi = river.

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. The Egyptian ntr = deity is related.

The Hebrew hay = “living being” and the Hebrew iya = mother, corresponds to the Dravidian ka ayi = mother.

There is also a correspondance between the names Ram/Rama, Kush/Kusha, Karnak/Karnataka, and Hari/Hori which are found in Vedic and Hebrew texts.


Who were the Proto-Dravidians and did they leave the Nile region?

The Proto-Dravidians were likely one of the cattle herding groups that made up the C-Group culture of Nubia and Kush. From around 2000 BC, Kush was Egypt’s principal rival. However it does not appear that they impeded commerce between Egypt and Nubia, because from around 1600 BC, commodities moved in both directions on the Nile, likely with cargo taxes being paid to Kushite chiefs who controlled sections of the Nile.

Around 1500 BC Thutmose I defeated the Kushites and this marked the beginning of 300 years of Egyptian control as far south as Jebel Barkal below the Fourth Cataract. Although the C-group cattle herders continued to live along the Nile, there is very little material evidence of their presence from the archaeological record after about 1550 B.C.

One wonders where these Nubian cattle herders went. Were they the Proto-Dravidians who moved into Southern Pakistan and Southern India bringing with them the veneration of cattle, the sun, and devotion to Horus?


Related reading: Where Dwelleth Japheth; Clyde Winters, Ancient Writing in Middle Africa; Solar Imagery of the Proto-Gospel; The Sun and the Moon in Genesis; Afro-Asiatic Metal Workers; The Afro-Asiatic Dominion; Who Were the Horites?; What Language Did Abraham Speak?; Thamudic Scripts; Of Dung Beetles and Red Herrings; Celestial Symbols That Speak of God

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." 

Related reading: Who Were the Horites?; Etymology of the Word "Horite"; The Sun and Moon in Genesis; Jesus: From Lamb to Ram; Mary's Ruler-Priest Lineage; Samuel's Horite Family

Of Dung Beetles and Red Herrings

Alice C. Linsley


In Ugaritic texts the liver and the heart are often correlated. This correlation came into Hebrew poetry, reflecting the influence of Babylonian culture on post-exilic Jews. The Ugaritic kbd (liver) stands in poetic parallelism with lb (heart). This is demonstrated in the Babylonian libbaki linuhkabittaki lipsab, meaning “May thy heart be at rest, thy liver be pacified.” (American Journal of Theology, Vol 2, p. 136. University of Chicago Divinity School

This parallelism from Babylonian culture led Bible translators to translate heart as liver in many Bible passages. Lamentations 2:11 is an example. "Mine eyes fail with tears, my heart is troubled; My liver is poured upon the earth..." (American Standard Version)

Allen P. Ross (Beeson Divinity School) has said that a Jew in ancient times would not say, "I love you with my whole heart" but rather “I love you with my whole liver." However, this parallelism is not found among Abraham’s Kushite ancestors for whom the heart was the single organ that was not extracted from the mummified body. All the other organs were removed and stored in canopic jars. Further, in ancient Egyptian medical texts the liver and the heart are not correlated. Egyptian physicians were well aware of the different functions of these organs.

Babylonian clay sheep liver dated between 2000 and 1500 BC (British Museum)  Babylonian priests used the livers of sacred sheep to investigate the cause of illness, to divine the future and to determine the will of the gods. 

It is clear that the parallelism of liver and heart in Old Testament poetry does not come from the Hebrew ancestors (Horim), but from the Babylonians. This post-exilic influence is a red herring when it comes to the Horite understanding of the heart and its importance for the resurrection of the dead.

Abraham’s Horite people viewed the heart as the mind and the seat of decision-making. The heart was the essential organ when it came to resurrection of the body, as it would be weighed in the afterlife. The body of the pure hearted would rise from the dead, as the sun rise in the morning. This is the significance of the dung beetle scarab, placed over the mummy's heart.

This beetle rolls balls of dung along the ground and deposits them in its burrows. The female lays her eggs in the dung ball and when they hatch, the larvae feed off the dung until they emerge from the earth. The orb of the lowly beetle replicated on earth the solar orb of the Creator.  Both were seen to sink below the earth and were believed to give life to those buried in the earth.

Among Abraham’s ancestors the heart was believed to be the seat of the will. It was weighed in the afterlife and only the pure heart would receive resurrection from the dead. David, a direct descendant of Abraham, confessed his sin to God, and prayed, "Create in me a pure heart, O God." (Ps. 51:10) None have been so foolish as to translate this “Create in me a pure liver…” It is the pure heart that hopes for resurrection.

For the Horites the heart was the seat of the inner being. This is expressed in these words: "Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart." (Ps. 51:6)

The heart among Abraham’s Nilotic people was associated with the mind and decision-making. "I have stored up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you." (Ps. 119:11) Again, no Bible translator has thought to translate this “I have stored up your word in my liver..."  To do so would be to impose a foreign notion on Horite theology.


Related reading:  Solar Imagery of the Proto-Gospel; A Tent for the Sun, Marcus Byrne: The Dance of the Dung Beetle

Swelling of Sun and River Speak of God

Alice C. Linsley


In Genesis 1 the creation begins when God’s speaks order (tehut) into the chaos (tehom) and says, “Let there be light.” This is not the light of the Sun, but the uncreated light of God’s presence which counters the chaotic deep. Psalm 29:10 describes “Yahweh who sat as king upon the flood; He is king forever.”

God spoke, saying "Let there be light," and light flooded the vast darkness. There is a parallel between flooding by light and flooding by water. Both the sun and the river swell and in the ancient Nilotic cosmology both speak of God.

A central experience of Abraham’s Kushite ancestors was the annual flooding of the Nile. As spring rains fell in the Ethiopian headlands the river rose above its banks, flooding the Nile Valley between June and October. The flooding lasted for forty days and turned the valley into shallow lakes and deposited fertile silt which renewed the earth. As the waters receded, only the highest mounds of earth would been seen at first. These mounds seems to swell up from the water. When the waters began to recede, families waited another forty days before returning to their homes. This is the origin of the biblical phrase “forty days and forty nights.” It is distinctly Nilotic (which explains why the number forty doesn't appear in Daniel, a book rich in number symbolism).

The Nile flooding brought disorder and was likened to the primordial waters of tehom, the watery and disordered deep which God put in order by His Word, tehut. The victory of tehut over tehom helps us to understand one of the oldest creation myths in which the ancient Egyptians envisioned the world as a mound emerging from the waters of a universal ocean. Here the first life form was a lily growing on the peak of the primeval mound. The mound itself was named Tatjenen, meaning "the emerging land."

The Kushites carried this notion to Asia where it is found today in Hindu and Buddhist mythology. The emerging mound is called Mount Meru. It emerges from the center of the cosmic ocean, and is encircled by the Sun and the seven visible planets. Mount Meru in Hinduism is a mythological mountain. However, it relates to a real Mount Meru in East Africa known to Abraham’s Kushite ancestors. The names meru, meri (Egyptian) and Mary are cognates. The Virgin Mary, whose womb swelled with the Son of God, is sometimes portrayed in icons as a mountain. The Prophet Daniel saw a mountain, from which a stone was cut by the hand of God (Dan. 2:34, 45).

At the Annunciation, the Angel's greeting to Mary was ave, perhaps related to the Hebrew vav צבה meaning "to swell.” Ave also means bird. In many icons and paintings of the Annunciation a dove appears in the background or hovers over the Virgin. There is a relationship between ave and vav if you consider that the dove eats seeds (never worms) and their stomachs swell as the seed expands. Jesus is called the "Seed" of the Woman in Gen. 3:15. He identified himself as the fulfillment of this first biblical promise in John 12:23: "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.  I tell you the truth, unless a kernal of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed.  But if it dies, it produces many seeds."

The grain rising from the earth, the heads of wheat swelling parallel the stone pillars by which the ancients established boundaries and covenants. In the Lower Nile small pyramids were carved from single blocks of stone. These were known as bnbn (benben), from the root, bn, meaning to "swell forth." This relates to the sun's rising or swelling. The Egyptian word for the rising sun is wbn. Tombs of officials from the 4th Dynasty (2613 to 2494 BC) were surmounted by conical mounds or benben. These tombs, along with the east-facing royal tombs at Giza, indicate that the ancient Kushite and Egyptian rulers hoped to rise from death, even as the Sun rises. Doubtless this is what the Prophet alluded to when he wrote, “But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise [swell/be magnified] with healing in its wings.” (Mal. 4:2).

Many of the practices of the ancient Israelites originate in the Nile Valley.  It is not far fetched then to suspect an ancient Nilotic background for the Tetragrammaton: Yod-Heh-Vav-Heh. In Aramaic and Hebrew the hey הא means "behold."  The vav pertains to the tribal ruler and deity. So the meaning is something like “Behold our God. Behold he is magnified.”


Related reading: Etymology of the Vav; Mount Mary and the Origins of Life; Cosmology and Ethics; Tehut's Victory over Tehom

Solar Imagery of the Proto-Gospel

The stone ossuary of Miriam, the granddaughter of the High Priest Caiaphas.
Note the six-prong solar image.

Alice C. Linsley

To better understand the roots of the Messianic Faith called "Christianity" we must investigate the origin of Messianic expectation deep in antiquity. The hope for a ruler-priest who would overcome death and rise on the third day is at the heart of the Christian Faith and is a feature that makes Christianity unique among the world's religions.

An investigation into the roots of the Messianic Faith will take us to Abraham the Hebrew and his Nilo-Saharan ancestors for whom the Sun was an emblem of the High God and His Son. One of their shrine cities was Nekhen on the Nile.

Votive offerings at the Nekhen temple were ten times larger than the normal mace heads and bowls found elsewhere, suggesting that this was a very prestigious shrine. The temple was a large structure, fronted by huge cedar timber pillars, and it was to become the prototype for temple architecture for many millennia.

At Nekhen, Horite Hebrew priests placed invocations to God Father (Ra) and to the Son (HR) at the summit of the fortress as the sun rose. The primary orientation for the Hebrew and other biblical peoples of the Ancient Near East was east. The Hebrew word for East is קדם (qedem, Strong’s #6924), from the root word קדם (Q.D.M, Strong’s #6923) meaning "to meet," and the rising sun is "met" each morning facing the east.

Prayers were offered at dawn. This practice continued throughout dynastic Egypt. Moses was told to meet the king early in the morning as he was going down to the Nile to pray.

The relationship of the divine Father and the divine Son is central to the Christian Faith but belief in the divine Son is rejected by Judaism. YHWH has no son. Therefore, we find the introduction of a new idea about God, one that expresses the Jewish understanding and is removed from the Proto-Gospel with its understanding of the divine Father and divine Son.

The rising and setting of the sun was symbolic of the expectation of the rising God for the Horite Hebrew. This gives us insight into the significance of the lamb-ram transformation on Mount Moriah. The lamb was associated with the east and the rising sun. The ram was associated with the west, the setting sun, and the future. Horus rode the solar boat of his father in the morning hours. This state was called Mandjet, and the boat of the evening hours was called Mesektet. While Horus was on the Mesektet he was in his ram-headed form.

The ram provided on Mount Moriah represented God's acceptance of Abraham's offering at that moment (justification now) and God's acceptance of Abraham at the eschaton (future justification). What Isaac expected was a lamb, but what God proved was a ram in mature strength. Horus was the Lamb in his weaker (kenotic) existence, and he was the Ram in his glorified strength. Both are associated with the Horite Hebrew death and resurrection symbolism and with their Messianic expectation.

Messianic solar references are found throughout the Bible. Consider James 1:17. "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning."  God's presence is like the brightness of high noon when there are no shadows.

Psalm 84:11 says, "For the LORD God is a sun and shield."

Malachi 4:2 likewise uses solar language: "But for you who fear my name, the Sun of Righteousness will rise with healing in his wings (rays)."

The Father-Son relationship and the solar imagery was later suppressed under rabbinic Judaism in which there is no Son of God. John's Gospel seeks to correct this. John explains that the purpose of writing is "that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God." (John 20:31) Likewise, Martha professes that Jesus is Messiah, the Son of God (John 11:27), and John the Baptist bears witness that Jesus is the Son of God (John 1:34).

The ancient Horite Hebrew knew the Father and the Son from the Nile to the Orontes and the Tigris and Euphrates. Among the Nilotes, the father was called Ra and the son Horus. Among the Akkadians, the father was called Ani and the son Enki.

Clearly this aspect of Christianity did not originate with the Jews, and it did not originate with the Disciples. It developed organically from deep roots. Therefore, it is nonsense to speak of Christianity as an invention. It is not a synthetic religion which cobbles together beliefs and ideas according to the spirit of the age. Rather, Christianity emerges out of a belief that God made a promise a long time ago to a certain people living in a place called "Eden" and that He has been busy fulfilling the Edenic Promise (Gen. 3:15) in the God-Man Jesus Christ.

Christianity draws some observances from Jewish worship practices, but the belief that God would take on flesh, die and rise again were evident among Abraham’s Hebrew people long before Judaism emerged. IN that sense, the roots of Christinaity are deeper than those of Judaism. 

The dying and rising of God was symbolized by the sun’s rising and setting. The early Hebrew did not worship the sun as is erroneously stated in some books on ancient civilizations. Rather the sun served as the symbol for the Creator's rule over the whole world.

The swelling of the sun speaks of God's greatness and sovereignty. The Arabic yakburu means “he is getting big” and with the intensive active prefix: yukabbiru means "he is enlarging." (The term biru refers to a sun temple, or house of God. Ha'biru/Hebrew refers to those who serve at the shrine or temple.) Such would have been the observation of the Horite Hebrew priests who greeted the rising sun and watched as it expanded across the horizon. This is the likely origin of the Hindu Sun blessing ritual (Agnihotra) and the Jewish Sun blessing (Birka Hachama) performed every 28 years.

What Jews in Jesus’ day believed and practiced emerged from the tradition that they received from their horim, their ancestors. The elements of this tradition align with the ancient Nilotic beliefs surrounding HR (Hor/Hur/Horus) who appears on ancient steles and monuments as a falcon-headed man or as a falcon flying above the Sun on his Father's solar boat, as shown below.

At the Horite temple in the Delta city of Behdet (Damnhour) Horus was represented by a winged Sun disk. The name Damnhour means "town of Horus" and derives from the ancient Egyptian dmi-Hor.

Aspects of the ancient solar symbolism are found in the Bible and in historical texts. Psalm 92:2 describes the Lord as “a sun and a shield.” The Victory Tablet of Amenhotep III describes Horus 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).

Horus was the guardian of the ancient Egyptian and Kushite kings from as early as 4000 B.C. The kings were perceived to be the representatives on earth of the Ruler of the universe, the “sons” of God. From the earliest Dynastic Period, the king's name was written in the rectangular device called a serekh, which depicted a falcon perched on a palace façade. Horus as guardian and deity was manifest within the palaces and the shrines as the king himself. The king’s “horus name” was associated with gold and the sun which is the meaning of the title “Golden Horus” in which a falcon appears on the hieroglyphic sign for gold.

Horus was sometimes shown with the sun as his right eye and the moon as his left. The right eye was the one with which he saw all things, but his left eye was weaker, having been injured in combat. This reflects the binary distinctions which characterize the Messianic Faith as it is revealed in the Bible. In this view, one entity of the binary set is superior to the other in an obvious way. The Sun is superior to the Moon (Genesis 1) because it is the greater light. The Moon's light is refulgent. The male is larger and stronger than the female.

The sun is to the moon what the male is to the female, superior in size and strength. This is characteristic of the binary distinctions observed by the early Hebrew in the patterns of Nature. Their acute observation of those patterns informed their binary reasoning.  

The Sun was assigned a masculine gender and was greater than the Moon which was assigned a feminine gender. This pattern was modeled on earth by the kings and their queens. The kings appeared with skin darkened by the Sun. Their queens appeared with white skin, representing the Moon.

The binary distinctions of the Horite and Sethite Hebrew were based on observable patterns in nature. By observing celestial and earthly patterns they recognized that one of the entities in the binary set is superior to its other in visible ways. Thus, the biblical worldview is binary. It involves binary sets in which one of the entities of the set is superior in a visible way. This is quite different from the dualism of religions that emerged later.

Religious traditions, such as that of the Horite and Sethite Hebrew, develop in traceable ways from great antiquity. Such traditions are passed down through families, clans and tribes. The core belief of Christianity concerning the Son of God can be traced to Abraham and his Horite Hebrew ancestors, long before Judaism. In this sense, Christianity isn't original, but what it lacks in originality, it makes up for in antiquity and therein rests its authority.

Related reading: Contextual Incongruities in Genesis; The Sun and Celestial Horses; The Sun and the Sacred; The Sun and the Moon in Genesis; Of Dung Beetles and Red Herrings; A Tent for the Sun; Boats and Cows of the Nilo-Saharans; Solar Symbolism Among the R1b Peoples