The Cosmology of Abraham's People

Alice C. Linsley 

 Anthropologically, the roots of religion are in the primitive soil of man’s most fundamental experience of and response to earthly phenomena. Early man observed distinctions: hot and cold, night and day, east and west, and male and female. These distinctions ordered their world and observing them was essential for survival. 

The ability to determine direction was important when migrating, and to find hunting grounds, and to mark the boundaries of tribal lands. The cardinal poles are important in all tribal religion, and because all peoples were originally tribal, these continue even today to influence our religious ideas. From the binary oppositions of east-west and north-south, archaic man was able to assign names to phenomena that he perceived as belonging to certain quadrants on a sphere. An example is the designation of winds that proceed from directions between the 4 cardinal poles: a southwest wind or a northeast wind. To each wind was given a name indicating a socio-metaphysical meaning. Winds proceeding from the west were regarded as a positive omen. Theophrastus, a 4th century BC scholar wrote, “Zephyros, the west wind, is the most gentle of all the winds and it blows in the afternoon and towards the land, and is cold.” The east wind (called “Sirocco” in Arabic) was less welcome as it brought heat and dust carried on strong winds. 

In the Afro-Asiatic scheme, quadrant 1 would be that space on earth where sunlight falls as the sun makes its journey from east to north (morning). Quadrant 2 would be that space on earth where sunlight is seen as the sun journeys from north to west (afternoon). Quadrants 3 and 4 would be those associated with the sun’s hidden activity from the setting of the sun (quadrant 3) to before the sun’s rising again (quadrant 4). Thus, according to ancient Egyptian hymns, the sovereign Deity was both immanent and transcendent and “double-concealed.” The key reference points in the cosmology are the sun’s arc and the polar star. The polar or North Star never changes its place in the sky. When you face it, you are always facing north. So east and north are the primary astronomical and religious points of reference and are associated with Divine arousal and judgment. 

Among Abraham's people the sun was the emblem of the Creator. Genesis reveals their cosmology. Were the writers of the Bible from the Paleo-Siberian culture, for example, where there are long periods of darkness and long periods of daylight, we would find a different theological perspective, one reflecting that phenomenon. The cosmology that we find in the Bible pertains to the experience of the biblical Hebrew, a ruler-priest caste known for its wisdom and technological prowess.

It is from them that Jews, Christians and Muslims receive the tradition of facing east in prayer. The notion of the shrine of the heart as the sacred place of the indwelling god is evident in Egypt as early as 1200 BC, when personal piety entailed facing the rising sun, thereby inviting the most sovereign Deity to dwell in the person. Even earlier, the Pharaoh was called “son of Re,” the celestial creative principle whose emblem was the sun. Rulers were not chosen based on hereditary bloodline (Egyptian texts never mention an earthly "father of the king"). Kingship was a manifestation of the solar deity’s cultic overshadowing of noble women. The cosmology of the early Nilotic Hebrew is represented in the Ankh. The loop at the top symbolizes the sun. The cross bar represents the sun's daily journey from east to west. The Ankh has affinity to the Agadez Cross of Niger (shown at left) and to the Sign of Tanit of Carthage (shown below at right.) 

A similar image with the TNT inscription was found in the temple of Eshmun near Sidon. It dates to about the 5 century B.C. Assignment of the name 'Tanit' is guess work, however, since no one knows how TNT should be transliterated. All the images shown here have the solar symbol over a horizontal bar representing the east-west movement of the sun. The sun is shown at the mountain top at the sacred center (high noon - as James explains, "In Him there is no shadow..."). 

Mountains were a meeting place between God and man. Consider the many incidents of biblical heroes ascending mountains and there experiencing theophanies. The horned altar is a negative image signifying the same view of God's sovereignty over the earth, only here the circle has disappeared, and God's presence is evident in the negative space (apophatic). The upright horns are similar to those on the Tanit symbol shown at right. 

Interestingly, the metal working Inadan who live in the Air Desert surrounding Agadez, maintain 2 wives in separate households on an north-south axis, as did the chiefs of Abraham's people. They speak a secret language called TeNeT (National Geographic, Aug. 1979, p. 389). 

The binary distinctions, based most fundamentally on the four directional poles, must have impressed upon early humans the reality of their limitations, since they had no power to make the sun follow a different course or to move the polar star. Early man recognized that a greater Power had established night and day, the seasons, and the rising and the setting of the sun. So it is that the great structures of antiquity were oriented to welcome the rising sun, the symbol of the High God. The layout of the Temple in Jerusalem was arranged taking the path of the sun into account, and the great pyramids of Egypt face east. The metal-working Hebrew knew true north because they had discovered the pattern of polarized iron filings. 

The Hebrew ruler-priests maintained two wives in separate households on a north-south axis rather than an east-west axis, out of deference to the Sovereign God, who journeyed daily between his wives: Dawn and Dust. This sheds light on Lamech (Gen. 5) whose 2 wives were settled on an east-west axis. Lamech’s wives’ names were Adah, related to the word “dawn” and T-Zillah, related to the word “dusk.” Lamech either was guilty of claiming equality with God by placing his wives' separate settlements on an east-west axis, God's territory symbolized by the Sun's daily journey. Or, the separate residences of his two wives (dawn and dusk) are meant to speak of the vastness of Lamech's dominion.

It appears that two wives of Hebrew rulers were an essential part of establishing and maintaining territorial boundaries among royal persons. That this practice pertained to exceptionally high-status persons is evident in that the pattern is associated only with rulers such as Abraham, or ruling families such as that of Jesse, the father of King David and the grandfather of King Solomon.

Consider the Song of Songs which speaks of two royal brides. One bride is described as “dark as the tents of Kedar” (1:5) and the other is described as “fair as the moon” (6:10). This is typical of the territorial claims of high kings in the Ancient Near East. The brides represent the east and the west, the territorial boundaries observed by the solar arc, the symbol of the God’s High rule over the Earth. This was a way of identifying the authority of the high king with the authority of the High God.

 It was this mystical symbolism that guided Abraham in deciding what to do after he had been in the land of Canaan for a while. Genesis 12:8 says that Abraham proceeded “to the mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; and there he built an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord.” Bethel means “House of God” and is associated with the east, the direction of the sunrise. Yet we are told that Abraham pitched his tent with Bethel to the west and Ai to the east. 

This mysterious orientation appears to present a reversal. The word Ai suggests a mystical explanation. In Jewish mysticism, “Ain soph” is Hidden God and “Aima” is great reproductive Mother. Ain is one with Aima in a mystical union that signals that something new is about to be born. This is the forward motion of Abraham’s life. Now we must remember that Abraham had come into this land as a stranger and did not possess a territory. He was a sent-away son. In this vicinity was the Oak of Moreh near “the navel of the earth” (Judges 9:37). “Moreh” means instructor or diviner. In other words, Abraham went to the Diviner’s oak for guidance about how he was to become established in the land. 

In Jewish mysticism Ain soph is associated with north and the number 1 and represents the Hidden God. Aima is associated with south and the number 3 and represents creative union. In pitching his tent where he did, the house of Ain (Bethel) has moved to the west, which means that south has moved to the position of north. We have a reversal of directional poles that places south in the position of priority. South presents marriage and reproduction. In the very next verse (Gen. 12:9) we are told that Abraham heads south, making “his way stage by stage to the Negev.” The text appears to be telling us that this is when Abraham took Keturah as his second wife. Now with Sarah in Hebron and Keturah in Beersheba, he was able to establish control over a territory on a north-south axis, following the marriage and ascendancy pattern of his Hebrew forefathers. 

We have further confirmation of the association of 1 with north and 3 with south in 1 Kings 7:23-26 and 2 Chronicles 4:1-4. Here we read that the altar in Solomon’s temple was to rest on 12 oxen: 3 facing north, 3 facing west, 3 facing south and 3 facing east. We note that north heads the list, having the position of priority. Then comes west (associated with the numbers 9 and 10) and then in the third position we have south. 

Are the directional poles the “esse” of Christianity? No, but the Hebrew cosmology foretells Messiah's appearing, and the poles remind us that we must face the only Great God who alone can save, the uncreated, preexistent God who stretched out the heavens and made the sun to shine on the wise and the foolish, the same Eternal One who will make the new heaven and earth. Blessed be his Name! 

Related reading: The Sacred Center in Biblical Theology; Comparing Cosmologies to Trace Origins; Cosmologies of the Ancient Near East; The Marriage and Ascendancy Pattern of Abraham's People

Cosmologies of the Ancient Near East

Great Hypostyle Hall within the Karnak temple complex

Alice C. Linsley

I am often asked to offer an opinion on the popular work of Dr. John Walton (Wheaton College) and will do so briefly in this post.

John Walton's conclusion that Genesis 1 reflects a seven-tiered Babylonian temple imposes a later period onto a narrative that has both a Babylonian layer and a much earlier Nilotic layer. I believe his understanding of the cosmos as a celestial temple is correct. However, the temples that Abraham knew were pillared Sun Temples at high elevation near sources of water. These were the pattern for the temples built by the Horite Hebrew at Nekhen on the Nile (4000 BC) and the temple built by Solomon (c. 950 BC) in Jerusalem.

The Babylonian temple had seven tiers because the number seven represented the number of visible celestial bodies: Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn. The architecture was intended to express a celestial reality on earth. The temple became the archetype of the heavens above, a common architectural phenomena among ancient populations as Mircea Eliade demonstrated in his book The Sacred and the Profane.

The celestial bodies were sometimes depicted as bowls from which curses and blessings were poured out on the earth. The worst possible curse involved seven bowls or a seven-fold pouring. Cursing or "incantation bowls" such as the one shown above have been found in Mesopotamia and Egypt. This Egyptian cursing dates to 3000 B.C.

The bowls are mentioned in Revelation 15:7 as containing God's wrath. The Greek word for wrath is orge, the same word that appears in Romans 1:18: "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness."

Clearly, biblical populations conceived of the cosmos in different ways. Further, scholars recognize that the conception of the cosmos changed over time. The one consistent theme is that heaven and earth are connected. This connection is expressed in the story of Jacob's ladder and Paul’s mystical experience of being taken to the third heaven. By Paul's time Jewish thinkers conceived of heaven as having seven tiers similar to the stepped temples of Babylon. Dr. Walton interprets the seven days of creation in this light. He focuses on this cultural context, which is not the context of Abraham and his ancestors.

It is misleading to generalize the cosmology of the Ancient Near East based on a single period and cultural context. Not all biblical populations viewed the earth as flat, or as a bowl like dome (raqiya or rakiya) above. Some viewed the cosmos has having multiple layers of the firmament and other layers beneath the earth. Generally, the cosmos has been perceived as 3-tiered: the realm above (heaven), the plane of earth's surface (between the east and west), and the "deep" under the earth.

 The Apostle Paul speaks of being taken to the "third heaven" in 2 Corinthians 12. In the Second Book of Enoch, chapter 8, the third heaven is described as the heaven "whereon the Lord rests, when he goes up into paradise."

It is likely that Abraham was influenced by the Nilotic cosmology in which the plane of earth was what was visible from the eastern horizon to the western horizon. As a Hebrew, Abraham would have conceived of the cosmos as the earth and the visible firmament that stretched from the rising of the sun to the setting of the sun. Among the ancient Hebrew the sun was the emblem of the Creator (Ra/Ani) and his son (Horus/Enki). The sun was believed to inseminate the earth and to overshadow those divinely appointed to rule.

"The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows forth his handywork...Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tabernacle for the sun, which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoices as a strong man to run a race. His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof." (Psalm 19:1-6)

The Hebrew also conceived on earth resting on pillars. Genesis 1 is layered with both Babylonian and earlier Nilotic elements. The young earth had many active volcanoes. Some were above the surface (extrusive) and others were beneath the surface (instrusive). Many volcanic eruptions took place under the sea. According to Genesis 1 God separated the dry land from the sea as one of the first acts of creation. We can imagine a great sea with steam rising from deep underwater fissures in the earth. Now imagine volcanoes rising up from the sea. These are the "pillars of the earth" described in Psalm 72, Job 9:6, and I Samuel 2:8.

Job 9 speaks of God "Who shakes the earth out of its place, and its pillars tremble." I Samuel 2:8 - "For the pillars of the earth are the Lord’s and he had set the world upon them." Among Abraham's Nilotic ancestors the original volcanic mound that emerged from the sea was called TaTJaNuN which means the "twin pillars of God in the water."

Pillars were used to mark sacred places, royal tombs, and the entrances to temples. In the Ugaritic creation story the twin mountains likewise are indicated by the sign T. The mountains Trgzz and Trmg emerged from a universal ocean and held up the firmament. The temples that Abraham knew were pillared Sun Temples.

The twin pillars at the entrance to Solomon's temple (shown above) cast back to the Nilotic conception of the Earth (ki in Akkadian) as a pillared temple for the Sun. It may be that "ra-ki-ya" refers to the place above earth were the Creator Ra was thought to dwell. It certainly is related to the concept of vastness or an expanse (Ancient Egyptian rahbo - vast; Akkadian rabum, great, vast).

It was common for pillars to be inscribed in memory of righteous rulers and holy ancestors as stained glass windows in churches are dedicated to royal patrons and "pillars" of the congregation. The entrance pillars of Solomon's temple were called Boaz and Joktan. Boaz was Solomon's holy ancestor on his father's side and Joktan was a holy ancestor on his mother's side.

Related reading: Sun Cities of the Ancient World; The Pillars of the Earth; Sacred Mountains and Pillars; Sheol and the Second Death; The Ra-Horus-Hathor Narrative; The Swelling of Sun and River; The Nilotic Context of Genesis 1

The Cross and Reality

"Buddhism is centripetal [center-seeking], but Christianity is centrifugal [tending away from centralization]: it breaks out. For the circle is perfect and infinite in it nature; but it is fixed forever in its size; it can never be larger or smaller. But the cross, though it has at its heart a collision and a contradiction, can extend its four arms for ever without altering its shape. Because it has a paradox in its center it can grow without changing. The circle returns upon itself and is bound. The cross opens its arms to the four winds; it is a signpost for free travelers."--G.K. Chesterton (Orthodoxy, Chapter 2)


Alice C. Linsley

The cross presents a great paradox. It veils and is veiled, yet it is found everywhere in the order of nature. Consider the cross-shaped image of laminin (right). Laminin is a cell adhesion molecule that holds the body together. Referring to Jesus Christ, Paul wrote, “He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.” (Colossians 1:17)  The beta and alpha chains of laminin "influence pre-synaptic and post-synaptic development, thus providing a way to coordinate maturation of the sending and receiving sides of the synapse."

The cross is represented by the intersection of the directional axes of east-west and north-south, and by the solar arc. It is found as a solar symbol in archaic cultures. It is one of the symbols found in the Vinča culture. The cross symbol, called kolasta azdija, is a solar symbol referenced in numerous epic poems of people living in the region of the Vinča culture.

Symbols dating from the oldest period of Vinča culture (6th-5th millennia BC)

Th archaic rulers who dispersed widely in the ancient world  venerated the Sun. The Sun was the emblem of the Creator and the source of life and light on Earth.  The overshadowing of the Sun at high noon marked the temporal center, and noon on the mountain top marked the spatial center. This is the significance of sacred pillars and mountains (bnbn in Ancient Egyptian) that connected heaven and earth.

The cross appears in many monuments along the Nile. The sun and the cross were associated with Horus. Both were found on stone reliefs at the Temple of Horus in Edfu (shown below). The relief also shows the sun resting over the banks of the Nile (directly below the bird). A variation of this image is the Hebrew horned altar, an apophatic solar image. The sun resting over a place or person represents divine appointment and blessing. In this same image we find the sun resting over the cross (center). The Canaanite Y is another example.

Photo: Maureen Palmer

Abraham's Nilotic ancestors believed that Earth emerged as a peak rising out of a universal sea. Life began when the Sun rested exactly at the peak of that mound. This is likely the origin of the belief that a woman of their Horite priestly lines would be overshadowed by the Creator and would conceive the Seed of Genesis 3:15.  In Orthodox iconography sometimes the pregnant Theotokos is drawn as a mountain.  As such, she became the sacred center, the tabernacle of God, the new mount Zion. For Abraham's ancestors the swelling of Sun, river and the female belly spoke of the Creator's power to give life.

The perpendicular axes of north-south and east-west form a cross and this is the oldest known symbolic mark. Its great age is testified by its appearance on prehistoric rocks in Sudan, on Paleolithic ostrich shells in Southern Africa, and in the Proto-Saharan Thamudic scripts.


Nilo-Saharan Cosmology

In ancient times, the Nile was identified with the Milky Way which arches over the Earth from the extreme south to the extreme north. The Nile was viewed as Earth's Milky Way. The north-south axis was represented by the northward flow and the east-west axis was represented by the water's span from horizon to horizon. The center of the river at noon was regarded as the sacred spatial and temporal center. This cosmology is reflected in ancient Nilotic imagery, especially at Elephantine Island (Yebu). Even before Elephantine, the directional poles and the movement of circumpolar stars comprised an element of religion and were a factor in the construction of ancient monuments.

Andrew Collins notes "the earliest Neolithic cult centres, the prototypes of stone circles and chambered barrows everywhere, were directed roughly north-south. Since the north was a direction of death and rebirth at Çatal Hüyük, I quickly realized that the focus of attention at places such as Karahan Tepe and Göbekli Tepe was the movement of circumpolar stars around the northern celestial pole, for there was no Pole Star in c. 9500-9000 BC. I looked closely at the Skyglobe astronomical program for these dates, and realised that only one constellation could have been the object of their gaze, and this was Cygnus, which in European starlore is the celestial swan. However, there is clear evidence that in Ancient Mesopotamia Cygnus was seen as a raptor bird, while in classical myth it was occasionally seen as a vulture, the symbol of the transmigration of the soul in the Neolithic cult of the dead."

The Pole Star was only one way by which the ancients could determine true north. Their cosmology was binary, which means that no pole can isolated from its opposite. The poles are binary opposites and in the binary worldview on of the opposites is regarded as superior in some way to its opposite. Among the Horites, north and east were the superior directions but they were never considered in isolation from south and west. The Nilotic worldview was characterized by binary sets such as male-female and sun-moon.

The intersection of the axes was represented by X or T in ancient glyphs. This cross-shaped cosmology is fundamental to the binary distinctions and metaphysical tensions that characterized the ancient Nilotic worldview. The great contribution of Jacques Derrida, an Arabic-speaking North African Jew, was to re-introduce to Western Philosophy this binary approach to meaning.

As Derrida suggested: "Deconstruction cannot limit itself or proceed immediately to neutralization: it must, by means of a double gesture, a double science, a double writing, practice an overturning of the classical opposition, and a general displacement of the system. It is on that condition alone that deconstruction will provide the means of intervening in the field of oppositions it criticizes" (Metaphysics).

This reversal of the subordinated term of an opposition is no small aspect of deconstruction's strategy. Derrida's argument is that in examining a binary opposition and reversals, deconstruction brings to light traces of meaning that cannot be said to be present, but which must have metaphysical existence. This is not a new idea or even a new approach to meaning. It is consistent with the most ancient Biblical approach to meaning, that of the Semites and their Kushite ancestors.

Among the Horites, North and East Were the Superior Poles

Among Abraham's Horite people the Pole Star was an important celestial marker.  Beside this, they were metal workers who had discovered that magnetized iron particles pointed to magnetic north. In fact, the word compass (kom-pas) is originally an Egyptian word. Horite rulers were buried with their heads to the north and their faces toward the east.

All the rulers among Abraham's ancestors had two wives. The wife of the man's youth was a half-sister and the wife on his later years was a patrilineal cousin or niece. The wives lived in separate households on a north-south axis. In Abraham's case, Sarah lived in Hebron and Keturah lived in Beersheba. Sarah, as the first wife, ranked above Keturah. Only the firstborn son of the half-sister wife ascended to the throne of his father. So Issac became Abraham's heir, though he was not Abraham's firstborn son.

The placement of the wives' settlements reflects the Horite belief that the Sun was the Creator's solar boat or chariot which He rides daily to survey his territory from east to west. This idea was apparent even before Noah. Lamech the Elder (Gen. 4) is portrayed as a braggart not only because he boasted of killing a man, but also because he set his wives on an east-west axis, thereby setting himself up as God.

The Sun's east-west path was thought to be the Creator's circuit, stretched "as far as the east is from the west." The Almighty comes as a bridegroom from the tent of the Sun and makes his circuit from east to west (Ps. 19).

While north was associated with death and judgment, its opposite was associated with birth and renewal of life. South symbolized earth, fertility and birth. It was to the south that Abraham went seeking a second wife. Abraham, still without a heir, consulted the Moreh at the Oak between Bethel and Ai. His next move, chronicled in Genesis, was a journey to Beersheba in the Negev. There he married his patrilineal cousin Keturah, by whom he had five sons.

Marriage to a second wife was required before a Horite chief could ascend to the throne. Abraham's marriage to Keturah enabled him to become the ruler over a territory hat extended between Hebron and Beersheba. It did not provide him with an heir since the firstborn son of the cousin wife ascended to the throne of his maternal grandfather, after whom he was named. The sons of concubines and the younger sons of wives were given gifts and sent away to establish territories of their own. They are the sent-away sons who expanded the Kushite dominion far beyond in the Nile. The marriage and ascendancy pattern of Abraham's Horite caste drove Kushite expansion into Europe, Mesopotamia, Southern India, Cambodia and even Japan. The Kushite migration out of Africa has been verified by DNA studies.


Ethical Implications

The ethical implications of a cross-shaped reality are evident. There is a geometrical quality that suggests lines, angles and boundaries. The boundaries fixed by the Creator can be observed in genetics, climate cycles, and in time and space. Abraham's people wanted to discern and respect the boundaries since they perceived of them as having been established by God. Worship, rituals such as the blessing of the Sun, gender distinctions, laws concerning purity among the ruler-priests, all these reflect concern to distinguish between the binary sets of Heaven-Earth; God-Man, Pure-Defiled, and Life-Death and to serve the greater.

In this cross-shaped Reality, the only safe place, metaphysically speaking, is the sacred center. After all his deconstruction, Jacques Derrida concluded that there is a center and that something is there. He spoke of this something as "presence." He claimed that throughout the history of Philosophy this metaphysical presence is called by different names, “God” being one of them. This is uncomfortable for those who hold to materialist ideologies. They are baffled by the metaphysical. It is terrifying for those who claim there is no Creator. If there is something, a "presence" (Derrida's term) at the metaphysical center, it must surely be of greater power and authority than they. Even the Atheist exhibits existential angst about the possibility that any form of authority depends on God's existence (Rom.13:1).

Abraham's Proto-Saharan ancestors were famous sky watchers. For them a lunar eclipse was less significant than a solar eclipse because they regarded the sun was as superior to the moon. This was not an arbitrary preference nor does it represent mythological ignorance, as Materialist and Atheists often assert. Rather it is a description of reality since the sun gives light whereas the moon merely reflects the sun's light. The sun's superiority is expressed in Genesis 1:16: "God made the two great lights: the greater to rule the day, the lesser light to rule the night."  In our time, the idea that one entity is greater than another meets with great resistance. Many are lost in an ethical wilderness without a compass.

Ethics for Abraham's people meant being spiritually present at the center of X; finding the sacred center by reference to earth's spokes: north-south/east-west, and by reference to the binary sets observed in the order of creation. The late Rabbi Kaduri appears to have found that sacred center in contemplation of the tradition he received from his Horim. He was a highly respected rabbi in Israel who was deeply formed by the daily reading and recitation of the Hebrew Scriptures.

Rabbi Yitzhak Kaduri

Before he died at age 108, Yitzhak Kaduri left a signed note indicating Messiah's identity: Yeshua - Jesus. A few months before, Rabbi Kaduri had surprised his followers when he told them that he met the Messiah in dreams and visions. Kaduri gave a message in his synagogue on Yom Kippur, teaching how to recognize the Messiah. His manuscripts, written in his own hand for his students, have cross-symbols painted by Kaduri all over the pages.

Many Jews have attempted to explain away the crosses, arguing that the great Rabbi Kaduri was not a Christian. Only God knows. However, Rabbi Kaduri was wise and prayerful, and he knew the cosmology of his ancestors. Perhaps this lead him to Jesus, the Son of God, at the sacred center of our cross-shaped reality. Perhaps he found the One who his people have been awaiting.


The Sun Among Abraham's Horite People

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).

At Angkor Wat in Cambodia, there is a stone relief of a solar boat with Horus flying as a falcon above the flames of the sun. Most of the religious depictions found in Southern India are also found among the Proto-Saharan peoples. There is strong evidence that messianic expectation began, not with the Jews, but with Abraham's Nilotic ancestors. They were devotees of Horus who they called "Son of God."  In a five day festival the ancient Egyptians commemorated the death and rising of Horus. He was associated with the rising or swelling sun and with the falling of grain into the earth.

In relation to the sun, Horus was said to rise in the morning as a calf or a lamb and to set in the evening as a bull or a ram. The east represented the present, and the west represented the future. On Mount Moriah Isaac was replaced with a ram.  To Abraham the Horite this would have meant that his offering was set aside by the provision of a greater sacrifice that was to come in the future. It would also have meant that Isaac was not the fulfillment of the promise made to Abraham's ancestors in Genesis 3:15. Isaac was not the "Seed" of the Woman who would make the curse of death void, crush the serpent's head, and restore Paradise. Jesus was the fulfillment of this first promise and prophecy of the Bible.  In speaking of his impending death, He told his disciples that only the "seed" that falls into the ground and dies can give life. (John 12:24)

As St. Augustine noted, the Egyptians took great care in the burial of their dead and never practiced cremation, as in the religions that seek to escape physical existence. Abraham's ancestors believed in the resurrection of the body and awaited a deified king who would rise from the grave and deliver his people from death.

On ancient Jewish ossuaries the sun was shown as a 6-pointed star inside a circle.  This was the solar boat of the Creator, the vehicle of Light that would carry the dead to the place of rest. From that place they hoped to rise on the Last Day. In the Iron Age this mer-ka-ba was shown as a chariot. The spokes within a circle are both the rays of the sun and the spokes of the chariot wheel. This symbol likely appeared on the Ark of the Covenant. In the Ethiopian Church a replica of the Ark, called ta-bot, is displayed in the churches. It is decorated with the 6-pointed star inside a circle at the center of the ark.

The spokes inside an orb also represent the precession of the equinoxes at various angles. The precession was symbolized by X inside a circle. This morphed into the Tau, which is used by Christians to represent the upright cross.

The precession cross and the merkaba are very ancient cosmological images. They have been traced to the Horite temple at Heliopolis on the Nile. Heliopolis is called ONN in Genesis and was shown in Old Egyptian as NXN, with the X representing the Creator's presence at the sacred center. Again, the cross is central and associated with the sun. Just as the sun is a universal symbol of light, so the sign of the cross is universally found in creation. The mark of Jesus Christ is ubiquitous. Reality is cross shaped and it stretches out in all direction to embrace in love.


Related reading: A Cross-Shaped Universe: Reflections of a Christian Physicist; The Sacred Center in Biblical Theology; Afro-Asiatic Rulers and Celestial Archetypes; Binary Distinctions and Kenosis; Christ's Sign in Creation; Tehut's Victory Over Tehom; The Ostrich in Biblical Symbolism; Cosmology and Ethics; The Rabbi Who Found Messiah

Plato's Debt to Ancient Egypt

Alice C. Linsley


Judaism and Christianity draw from ancient Egyptian-Sudanese belief, religious practice, and cosmology. [1] The ancient Greeks were also influenced by Egyptian-Sudanese ideas, especially their observation of sidereal astronomy.

The Egyptians regarded the Sun as the symbol of the Creator because it was the source of light and life. [2] They observed that whereas the Sun is the source of light, the Moon merely reflects light. This is why the Bible criticizes Mesopotamian moon worship and why Abraham's father was regarded as an idol-worshipper (Joshua 24:2) since he maintained households in Ur and Haran, cities dedicated to the moon god Sin.

Note the binary distinction between the source of light (Sun) and the reflection of light (Moon). This observation is the basis for Plato's famous Allegory of the Cave. Those in the cave are able to see only passing shadows, not the true objects that cast those shadows. Yet they believe that the shadows are the real objects. They continue to do so until they turn toward the cave's opening and walk out of the cave.

Plato’s Application of Egyptian Cosmology

Here is but one example of how Plato's thinking was informed by Egyptian cosmology. Another example involves the development of the Greek alphabet from the Pro-Canaanite alphabet which was based on Egyptian hieroglyphics. To understand how the alphabet expresses ancient Egyptian-Sudanese cosmology, consider the Teth (or Tau) below.

Read it all here.

Tracing Origins by Comparing Cosmologies

Alice C. Linsley


I've been attempting to understand the cultural context of Genesis for over 30 years. It is important to understand what the material meant to the people who are named in Genesis so that we do not misinterpret and misrepresent their worldview.  Their worldview was passed to the Jews and then to Christians. Before we can identify a people called "Jews" Abraham's Kushite ancestors were sharing your worldview with peoples from the Sahara to Cambodia, and even Japan.

What are the distinctive characteristics of the worldview of Abraham's ancestors? It is a question that deserves closer investigation.

Using the genealogical data, I have identified Abraham's ancestors as originating in Africa.  Genesis tells us that they were Kushites. But Genesis 4 and 5 suggest that earlier ancestors came from the region of Northern Nigeria and Lake Chad. Nok, Kano and Bor-No (land of Noah) are in Nigeria and Nubia and Kush were Nilotic civilizations that included Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia. There is also the genetic marker of the Nubians of the Nile which indicates that they migrated from further south in Africa. This supported a long-standing suspicion on mine and stirred me to investigate cosmologies that might link rulers of west central, eastern and sub-equatorial Africa.

The spread of ideas required contact between peoples. The widespread nature of the cosmology of Abraham's ancestors from Africa to southern India can be explained only by the movement of people. The Genesis genealogical data indicates that Abraham's ancestors were rulers of territories in Nigeria and Sudan. These rulers and their priestly lines intermarried in a unique pattern.  Genetic research that shows that the ancient Nubians migrated to Sudan from southern Africa. They continued their migration all the way to southern India where they are called the "Sudra." [2] They spread the cosmological ideas that we term "biblical." In a sense, they were the first missionaries.

What are the most fundamental elements of their cosmology?  The evidence suggest 2 things:  crosses and blood [3]. Let us look are 3 specimens that would support this view.

Specimen 1:  80,000 year old iron ore ochre plague from the Blombos Cave (southern Africa) carved with geometric patterns. [4] This symbolic artifact has xxx shape crosses around the rim. Lithic industries of the African Middle Stone Age have been found in a handful of caves in South Africa. 

The red ochre came from mines that were in operation between 80,000 to 100,000 years ago in the Lebombo Mountains. We are not speaking here of small hallows in the earth, but of major mining operations.

“One of the largest sites evidenced the removal of a million kilos of ore. At another site half a million stone-digging tools were found, all showing considerable wear. All of the sites in fact produced thousands of tools and involved the removal of large quantities of ore; and while some were open quarries, others had true mining tunnels.” (From here.)

What was the significance of this red ore that was ground to powder and used to paint ritual objects and to bury dead rulers? It is generally agreed that the red ochre was a symbol of blood, the liquid of life. Stan Gooch explains:

Everyone, both heretic and orthodox, and including the present-day users of ochre themselves, agree that it represents blood. A very common interpretation, and one that we can readily accept here, is that just as a new baby comes into the world covered with blood, so the corpse must also be covered with blood to facilitate, or perhaps cause, the re-birth of the deceased in the spirit world beyond. Birth blood is therefore one very probable meaning.

A further significance (borne out also by much other evidence) is given by the Unthippa aboriginal women. They say that their own female ancestors once caused large quantities of blood to flow from their vulvas, which then formed the deposits of red ochre found throughout the world. So we can say that red ochre also represents menstrual blood: in both cases therefore female blood connected with the birth process. (We shall later be able to be even more precise and say that ochre is the menstrual blood of the Moon Mother; or more properly, the placental blood which covered the Earth when She gave birth to it.)"

The priesthood emerges out of this primeval perception of blood as the substance of life and a substance which can both pollute and purify. The Hebrew root "thr" = to be pure, corresponds to the Hausa/Hahm "toro" = clean, and to the Tamil "tiru" = holy. All are related to the proto-Dravidian "tor" = blood. These are cognate languages in the Afro-Asiatic language group and it is from these peoples that we receive the institution of the priesthood.

It appears that the cosmological concern with crosses and blood was carried into the Nile region by people migrating from southern Africa. DNA analysis in ancient Nubians supports the existence of gene flow between sub-Sahara and North Africa in the Nile valley. [5]


Specimen 2:  The Phoenician Alphabet.  Note that the Tau is a cross within a sphere. The Tau often serves as a symbol of the Cross in Christianity.

The sphere with the cross could represent the precession of the equinoxes. This would have been observed by primitive peoples who studied the heavens carefully. For Plato, the "perfect year" is marked by the return of the planets and the fixed stars to their original positions.
He wrote: "And so people are all but ignorant of the fact that time really is the wanderings of these bodies, bewilderingly numerous as they are and astonishingly variegated. It is none the less possible, however, to discern that the perfect number of time brings to completion the perfect year at that moment when the relative speeds of all eight periods have been completed together and, measured by the circle of the Same that moves uniformly, have achieved their consummation."

The cycle takes between 25,000-28,000 years to complete and is called a "Great Year." According to Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend there are over 200 myths from ancient cultures that refer to a Great Year.

Specimen 3:  Note the movement of the vernal points, called the "precession of the equinoxes."

The changing relationship between the moving vernal axis and the fixed galactic axis creates the cycle of earth's precessional cross. When the vernal point (VP) resides at the 3/4 point (270°) in its cycle, the vernal axis is exactly perpendicular to the galactic axis (GEN), creating a perfect cross in the ecliptic. The last time this occurred was July1998 (and since that time, earth's weather patterns have been changing).

The precession of the equinox is observed as the stars moving across the sky at the rate of about 50 arc seconds per year, relative to the equinox. Conventional theory holds that this phenomenon is due to the gravity of the sun and moon acting upon the oblate spheroid of the earth causing the axis to wobble (the lunisolar theory). The alternative binary model holds that most of the observable is due to solar system motion, causing a reorientation of the earth relative to the fixed stars as the solar system gradually curves through space. (Read here about the binary model, and here about the lunisolar model.)

As we consider these 3 specimens we can't help but be struck by the vast time periods.  It is apparently true that "In the beginning God..." and in every age God has communicated concerning His plan of salvation. That's something to ponder.

NOTES

1. There can be no doubt that Abraham's African ancestors understood themselves to be receiving the Word of God. The concept is found outside the Bible. While the creation stories of Genesis are often likened to the Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic, they have much closer affinity to the creation stories of Africa. This is evident in motif and in theological detail. Consider the motif of the generative Word of God whereby all things came into being. The bards of the Bambara Komo Society of Uganda recite this:

The word is total:
it cuts, excoriates
forms, modulates
perturbs, maddens
cures or directly kills
amplifies or reduces.
According to intention
it excites or calms souls.

The phrase "In the beginning was God" is not found in Babylonian prose, but it is found in Africa. The following is a song of the BaMbuti Pygmies:

In the beginning was God
Today is God,
Tomorrow will be God.
Who can make an image of God?
He has no body.
He is as a word which comes out from your mouth,
That word! It is no more,
It is past and still it lives!
So is God.

2. B. Pfaffenberger, Caste in Tamil Culture: the religious foundations of Sudra domination in Tamil Sri Lanka, reviewed in JSTOR, Dec. 1983, pp. 805-806.

3. Humans yearned for the death-defeating benefits of the Pleromic Blood as early as 80,000 years ago. Sophisticated mining operations in the Lebombo Mountains of southern Africa reveal that thousands of workers were extracting red ochre which was ground into powder and used in the burial of nobles in places as distant as Europe. Anthropologists agree that this red powder symbolized blood, and its use in burial represented hope for life after death.

4. Blombos Cave is near the southern Cape shore of the Indian Ocean, about 200 miles of Cape Town, South Africa. Researchers have concluded that the artifacts date to between 70,000-85,000 years.

5. To read the Abstract of Lucotte's study of the Y chromosome haplotypes in Egypt go here. There has been no immigration into the lower Nubia area from Asia according to Lycotte's Y chromosome study. The singular Nubian haplotype would be the expected result of the unique marriage pattern revealed by the Genesis genealogical data.


Related reading: Tracing Ancestry Using Totems; Artifacts of Great Antiquity; Kathu Tool-Making Site; On Blood and the Impulse to Immortality

Heaven or Heavens: Does it Matter?

Alice C. Linsley

When studying the Scriptures it is wise to use different versions. I place three versions side by side and pay attention to the differences as they are often very instructive. Such is the case with the rendering of Genesis 1:1, which tells us: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Three versions speak of God creating "heaven and the earth" (Jewish Study Bible, The Orthodox Study Bible, and the New Jerusalem Bible). Three other versions speak of God creating the "heavens and the earth" (The Schocken Bible, The New International Version, and La Version Reina-Valera). It is interesting that none of these six versions includes a footnote allowing for the alternative form. The difference doesn't seem to matter to the editors of these versions, and yet it does matter!

The plural form 'heavens' suggests a different cosmology from the singular form. Surely the distinction between heaven and heavens is important since Genesis 1 is about the creation of the cosmos.

'Heavens' is the more accurate rendering as attested by the Hebrew word 'shamayim' which is a plural form. The plural suggests the concept of a multi-layered or tiered cosmos. When the Apostle Paul speaks of being mystically transported to the third heaven (2 Cor. 12:2), he is interpreting his experience in the context of a specific worldview. His account is "emic", that is, meaningful in the context of his specific Afro-Asiatic cosmology.

Using comparative linguistics we are able to reconstruct a connection between the Afro-Asiatic languages. The Sanscrit word for sky or heaven is 'svah', which corresponds to the Semitic 'svam' or 'sham-yim'. The Semitic resembles the Proto-Dravidian (7000 - 6000 B.C.) 'van', meaning heaven. The word for attic or upper room in Spanish is 'desvan' which is related to the verb desvanecer, which means to vanish as smoke rising into the sky. This appears to be borrowed from the Arabic. (Readers will recall that the Arabic-speaking Moors dominated much of the Iberian Peninsula for over 700 years. Their linguistic contribution to Spanish is considerable.)

Genesis 1:1 too often receives interpretation from the perspective of an observer who stands outside the Afro-Asiatic context (an etic account). Ignoring the specific Afro-Asiatic context often causes readers to miss some of the significance of the first and second creation stories.

Chapter one speaks of the creation as it is experienced on the seventh day, the day awaiting a new eighth day. Chapter two speaks of creation as paradise, an existence in which God walks with humans in "the cool of the day". In paradise there is no distance between God and Man, but in the first creation story God is on high, above the seventh heaven, where no mortal can enter.

This concept of seven heavens is found in the Qur'an also. "It is He Who created everything on the earth for you and then directed His attention up to heaven and arranged it into seven regular heavens. He has knowledge of all things." (Qur'an, 2:29)

"Then He turned to heaven when it was smoke. In two days He determined them as seven heavens and revealed, in every heaven, its own mandate." (Qur'an, 41:12)

It is well docmented that the Babylonians, another Afro-Asiatic people, believed in a seven-layered heavens. In the Prophet Daniel we read how Darius, having taken over the Babylonian kingdom, issued a decree that the people should reverence the God of Daniel who "performs signs and wonders in the heavens" (Dan. 6:27). The Babylonians conceived of the universe has having seven heavens and seven hells. Above the seventh heaven was the "highest heaven", divided into upper and a lower portions. (See figure to the right.)

The multi-tiered heavens signifies distance between God and Man. This conception presents God as transcendent, unknowable and unreachable. On the other hand, the paradise story (Gen. 2) speaks of God as being intimately close and able to enjoy the pleasures of earth.

Do we have contradictory worldviews or do these different conceptions together speak of a metaphysical reality? The ancient Hebrews believed that when God was offended by human acts, God turned His face away from Man. Turning away one's face signals loss of intimacy or a distancing from the other. Paradise is lost when God turns His countenance from us (Gen. 3).

If we look to Africa, we find many stories that explain how the distance between God and Man came to be. These involve the withdrawing of God from earth. Consider the following story related to anthropologist Charles Kraft while he was studying tribal peoples in northern Nigeria.

Kraft asked, "What did your people believe about God before the missionaries came?" In response, an old chief told this story:

Once God and his son lived close to us. They walked, talked, ate, and slept among us. All was well then. There was no thievery or fighting or running off with another man's wife like there is now. But one day God's son ate in the home of a careless woman. She had not cleaned her dishes properly. God's son ate from a dirty dish, got sick, and died. This, of course, made God very angry. He left in a huff and hasn't been heard from since. (Charles Kraft, Christianity in Culture. Orbis Books, 1990, p. 153)

Some African creation stories speak of a time at the beginning when the sky was low. It was necessary for people to be careful while cultivating or pounding grain to avoid striking God's resting place with their hoes or pestles. The Akan of Ghana tell the story of how God once lived on earth, but an old woman kept striking Him with her pestle. Then one day, God withdrew to the sky. The vertical pestle symbolizes the north-south axis and the heavens-earth-under the earth axis.

Another African story tells how "in the beginning death had not yet entered the world. There was plenty to eat, but a women became greedy and tried to pound more grain that she was allotted. This required using a longer pestle. When she raised it to pound the grain, it struck the sky and God became angry and withdrew far into the heavens. Since then, people must toil the earth, death and disease troubles the people and it is no longer easy to reach God." (Richard Bush, ed. The Religious World. MacMillan Publishers,1982., p. 38).

When we seek to understand Genesis 1 from the context of the Afro-Asiatic peoples, we discover a subtle relationship between the two creation stories and the story of the Fall in Genesis 3. They speak of God as transcendent yet among us, as distant yet intimate. The assertion that the heavens are layered is an essential part of the picture that Genesis presents.


Related reading:  The Genesis Creation Stories; The Sacred Center in Biblical Theology; The African Context of Biblical Material; The Cosmology of Abraham's People

Celestial Symbols that Speak of God

Alice C. Linsley

East and north are the key reference points in Biblical cosmology. East is associated with the rising sun and the arousal of God. East is easily identified by watching for the first sun rays at dawn. It is easy to know west once east has been identified. To Abraham's Horite people east represented new life, youth and vigor. West represented maturity, full strength and the future.  Horus, the son of the Creator God Re, was said to rise in the east as a lamb or calf and to set in the west as a ram or bull. This is the key to understanding the story of the binding of Isaac.  Isaac asked his father, "Where is the lamb for the sacrifice?"  Abraham answered in faith that God would provide the lamb, but instead God provided a ram. By this Abraham would have understood that Isaac was not the promised Son who would rise from the dead. That Son would come in the future.

North is associated with divine judgment. It is identified by observing the polar star, a fixed point in the heavens. The Pole Star was seen near Alpha Draconis 4000 years ago at the time of the construction of the Great Pyramid of Giza. This was a reference point in the Pharaoh's hope of resurrection.  This is indicated by the fact that the entrance passages of six of the pyramids are inclined downwards at such an angle as to make the Pole Star visible perhaps even in daylight.

East-west and north-south are binary sets. Within these sets one was regarded as greater than the other. So east was greater than west because it represented God rising. Likewise north was regarded as greater than south because of the fixed position of the Pole Star. So east and north are the primary astronomical and religious points of reference and are associated with divine arousal (east) and divine judgment (north). West and south are their binary opposites. West generally represents the future and the Eschaton, and South represents earth, burial, fertility and marriage.

Among Abraham's people the sun was the emblem of the Creator. The glory and sovereignty of the Lord God were exemplified in the Sun's apparent journey from east to west and the shedding of light and heat over all the earth's surface. We see this in Psalm 113:3: "From east to west the name of the Lord is praised." And in Psalm 19:6: "He places in the heavens a tent for the sun, who is like a groom coming forth from the chamber, like a hero, eager to run his course. His rising-place is at one end of the heaven, and his circuit reaches the other; nothing escapes His heat."

Among Abraham's people the sun was venerated as the emblem of the Creator. They would have conceived of God as the Great Chief who daily makes his circuit between the two wives dawn and dust. This is why none of the rulers listed in Genesis placed their wives on an east-west axis, except for the Lamech who posed himself as God's equal. Bible scholar Theodore Gaster noted this, explaining that the names of Lamech's two wives, 'Ada' and 'Tzilla', suggest dawn and dust (The Schocken Bible, Vol. 1, p. 28).

Imagine if the writers of the Bible had been from the Paleo-Siberian culture, where there are long periods of darkness and long periods of daylight. Were that the case, we would find a theological perspective that reflects that phenomenon. Such a perspective would not be a one with which most cultures could relate. Nevertheless, even the shamans of the Arctic recognize at least the four cardinal points and conceive of them as bisecting lines, presenting us with a cross-shaped Reality.

The cosmology of the Afro-Arabian peoples provides the framework for the whole Bible and is especially evident in the book of Genesis. It is from them that Jews, Christians and Muslims receive the tradition of facing east in prayer. The temple in Jerusalem was aligned to track the Sun's light and the pyramids in Egypt faced the east.

The cosmology of the Afro-Arabian and Nilo-Saharans is also represented in the cross-shaped Egyptian Ankh. The loop at the top symbolizes the sun. The cross bar represents the Sun's daily journey from east to west. The Ankh is similar to the Agadez cross of Niger (shown below at left) and to the Carthegian Sign of Tanit which often bears the letters TNT (shown at right.)

A similar image with the TNT inscription was found in the temple of Eshmun near Sidon. It dates to about the 5 century B.C. Assignment of the name 'Tanit' is guess work, however, since no one knows how TNT should be transliterated. There has been speculation that Tanit is a goddess and that her devotees practiced infant sacrifice. There is very little evidence to support his view however.

All the cross-like images of Africa have the solar symbol over a horizontal bar representing the East-West movement of the Sun. The horizontal bar rests in perfect balance on the top of a triangle. The triangle likely represents a mountain. In the tradition of the Afro-Asiatics, the mountain rising into the heavens was a place of meeting between God and Man. The Sun, a symbol of the Creator, is shown at the the sacred center of the mountain top. Consider the many incidents in the Bible of God self-revealing or making miraculous provision on the tops of mountains:

Mt. Moriah
Mt. Horeb
Mt. Sinai
Mts. Ebal and Gerizim
The Mount of Transfiguration


The Negative Image of the Sun

The horned altar is another image signifying God's sovereignty over the Earth, only the image of the sun has disappeared. The horned altar is an apophatic rendering of the Sun/divine image. Apophatic means “unspeakable” and making the Sun invisible means that no one is tempted to worship the creation above the Creator. This dates to a later time than Abraham, when the Israelites rejected the old solar representation of God. That the sun was not to be worshiped is evident in Psalm 148:3, which says "Praise Him, sun and moon, praise Him, all bright stars." In the horned altar, God's presence is evident in the negative space since God cannot be presented as something created. St. Hilary of Poitiers (4th century A.D.) expressed it this way: “The proper service of faith is to grasp and confess the truth that it is incompetent to comprehend its Object.”


That the horned altar and the symbols of Agadez and TNT share a common cosmology is evident when one compares the altar and the so-called sign of Tanit. The upright horns are similar to those on the Tanit symbol shown at right.


Interestingly, the metal working chiefs of the Inadan who live in the Air Desert surrounding Agadez, maintain two wives in separate households on a north-south axis, as did the Horite chiefs of Abraham's people. The Inadan metal working caste speaks a secret language which they call TeNeT and they claim to be related to David of Judah (National Geographic, Aug. 1979, p. 389).


Related reading:  The Sun and Moon in Genesis; Solar Imagery of the Proto-Gospel; A Tent for the Sun