BIBLICAL ANTHROPOLOGY

Tuesday, March 26, 2019

The Religious Impulse Among Archaic Populations

6500 year shard found at elevated site in Bellinzona, Switzerland.

Alice C. Linsley

There is a common misconception that religious practices first emerged when humans became more sedentary and began to farm. The prehistoric images painted on the walls of rock shelters suggests that this is not the case. These have a religious quality and many anthropologists believe them rock shelters to be have been places of religious ritual.

There also are archaic temples at high elevations like Gobekli Tepe and Çatalhöyük. At Çatalhöyük the priests wore leopard skins as did the priests of the ancient Upper Nile. These archaic sites indicate organized religion with priests and rituals involving astronomy and the cycle of the seasons. In the Bible these mountain shrines and temples are called "the high places."

7000-6000 years settlements in the Alps were contemporaneous with settlements in the Carpathian mountains and with Europe's oldest city in Bulgaria. At the same time, Galilee received immigrants from the Zagros mountains.

This is a photo of a mountain fortification in Bellinzona, Switzerland where 6500 year artifacts have been found.

Around 70,000 years ago people living in Southern Africa carved a python out of the side of a cliff and conducted religious ceremonies there. At the back of the Botswana cave was a chamber believed to be a sacred site because there were no signs of animal bones, tools or cooking fires such as those found in South Africa's Blombos Cave of a similar age.

Another phenomena that indicates religious impulse is the 90,000+ years of burial in red ochre, a symbol of blood. This appears to express the hope of life after death. As it says in the Bible: "Life is in the blood."

From the perspective of anthropology, the deep time record of human activity is evident in the vast number of objects made and used by humans. The religious nature of ritual burial is another example of the depth of human existence. Consider these examples:

100,000 years ago - Burial of humans in red ochre at Qafzeh Cave in what is today Israel. Evidence of human habitation in the area of Bethlehem between 100,000-10,000 BC) is well-attested along the north side of Wadi Khareitun where there are three caves: Iraq al-Ahmar, Umm Qal’a, and Umm Qatafa. These caves were homes in a wooded landscape overlooking a river. At Umm Qatafa archaeologists have found the earliest evidence of the domestic use of fire in Palestine.

50,000 years ago - A small boy buried with a seashell pendant and covered in red ochre

45,000 years ago - A man buried at La Chapelle-aux-Saints in southern France in red ochre

35,000 years ago - Male buried in red ochre in Paviland Cave, Wales

32,000 years ago - Four bodies buried in red ochre at Sungir in Russia.

23,000 years ago - The "Fox Lady" of Doini Vestonice, Czechoslovakia, buried in red ochre

20,000 years ago - A thirty-year-old man buried in Bavaria surrounded by mammoth tusks and submerged in red ochre.

Australian burial sites dating to about 20,000 years reveal pink staining of the soil around the skeleton, indicating that red ochre had been sprinkled over the body. The remains of an adult male found at Lake Mungo in southeastern Australia were copiously sprinkled with red ochre.

19,000 years ago - Lady of El Mirón cave in northern Spain was buried in red ochre. She died around the age of 35.

7000 years ago -Two skeletons buried in red ochre found at La Braña-Arintero cave in the Cantabrian Mountains of Spain

5000 years ago - Two flexed burials were found in Mehrgarh, Pakistan with a covering of red ochre on the bodies

There is no doubt that humans have had a religious impulse from the beginning. It appears to express an awareness of our mortality and a hope for life after death.

Related reading: The High Places; The Ancient Antecedents of Ash Wednesday

Friday, February 22, 2019

The Ancient Antecedents of Ash Wednesday

Alice C. Linsley

The association of ashes with sacrifice at the archaic places of worship is well attested. The oldest places of worship were at elevated sites near permanent water sources. The Bible refers to these as the "high places." Burnt offerings were made at these sites and the ashes were used to purify (lustration). In Numbers 9:19, we read how the ashes of the sacrificed red heifer were used for "water of lustration." This explains why there is a linguistic relationship between the ancient word for high place and words for ashes or charcoal.

The word kar refers to a fortified site with a temple or shrine tended by priests. Karnak on the Nile and Carnak in Brittany are examples. In Dravidian, car means "sheltered together" and kari refers to a river. In Manding, kara means "to assemble." Among the Nilotic Luo, kar specifies a place with boundaries such as mud ramparts or stone fortifications. In Sumerian, é-kur refers to a mountain house, a pyramid, or an elevated temple. In Akkadian, a ruined high place was called karmu. There is a connection between karmu (ruin) and the Magyar/Hungarian word hamu (ashes).

Since the kar were places of burnt offering where ashes were used to purify, the term kar is often associated with charcoal and soot. The Turkish kara means "black." In Magyar/Hungarian, the word korom refers to soot, as does the Korean word kurim.

In the biblical literature we find many figures offering burnt sacrifice on mountains. The practice is older than Judaism. It seems to have pertained to a royal caste of sacrificing priests who were known as Habiru in ancient texts. In English Bibles Habiru is rendered as "Hebrew."

In our time, Ash Wednesday points participants to our mortality and to the hope of bodily resurrection. That hope comes through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Messiah who offered himself on a high hill shaped like a skull.

Related reading: The High Places; Karampetsos, Karambet, Karoutes

Tuesday, January 29, 2019

The T-Shaped Pillars of Gobekli Tepe

The priests of Çatalhöyük

Alice C. Linsley

High places such as Gobekli Tepe and Çatalhöyük had royal temples that would have been built by the "Mighty Men of Old" (Genesis 6:4). This image was found at Çatalhöyük (7000 BC). It shows a red skin priest wearing the leopard skin typical of the priests of antiquity who moved out of the Nile valley. Keep in mind that the dispersion of Y-DNA Haplogroup R1 began about 70,000 years ago, long before the time of Noah (4000-2800 BC).

The T-shape pillars at Gobekli Tepe probably represent the Sun's arc from east to west. This shape is a symbol of the High God, and later enters into scripts as the mark of the High God. An example is the oldest known word for the High God among the Chinese, which is s 天 Tiān. The word also means Heaven. I suspect it is closely related to T-An, suggesting that the priests of Anu/Ani (Sumerian and Akkadian) had moved from Bactria into China much earlier than generally assumed.

Göbekli Tepe predates the oldest temple known to have been built by Abraham's Nilo-Saharan ancestors in Sudan at Nekhen by about 3000 years. It predates the Great Pyramids of Giza by about 7000 years. It is the oldest known temple, and it remains shrouded in mystery.

Göbekli Tepe is classified as a Pre-Pottery Neolithic site (PPN). It is designated PPNA (ca 10,500 to 9,500 BC) which puts it in the same class as Jericho, Netiv Hagdud, Nahul Oren, Gesher, Dhar', Jerf al Ahmar, Chogha Golan and Abu Hureyra.

This site is located in what is today Turkey. This "land between the rivers" was an ancient crossroads for peoples migrating between Africa and the ancient Near East.

Göbekli figures

Credit: National Geographic

It is likely that priest smiths moved into the Tigris-Euphrates region and Anatolia from the Nile Valley. The Anatolian metal workers called themselves the Nes or Nas. Their language was called Nesli. Note the parallel inn the Serbian language. The Serbian word nas means us and naši means ours, one of us.

Here we find the same archaic root NS. In Akkadian, "na" is a modal prefix indicating service to, affirmation, or affiliation. The name Na-Hor would then indicate a servant of Horus. I have a suspicion that Na-S refers to archaic metal workers for whom the serpent was a sacred symbol and their totem. The word Nes is associated with the rulers of the Nile. In ancient Egypt, Nesu biti referred to the ruler of a united Upper and Lower Nile.

It is a characteristic of archaic peoples to designate themselves as the people, humans, or first people. Many archaic populations called themselves names that mean the People or the Humans. The natives of the Aleutian islands call themselves "Anishinabe" which means "First Men" or "Original Men." The term "Ainu" means human. The Navajo call themselves the Dene, which means humans.

It is thought that the Hittites introduced iron work to Anatolia, but the term "Hittite" is an anachronism when we speak of populations as far back as 7000 BC. Abraham interacted with the Hittite clans of Het who are listed in Genesis 10. HT is the Hebrew and Arabic root for copper - nahas-het. Nahash means serpent. As an adjective it means shining bright, like burnished copper. The clans of HeT were Bronze Age copper smiths who ranged from Timna to Anatolia. The serpent image was sacred for them, just as it was for Moses and the people of Israel in the wilderness.

One of the mysteries that archaeologists and anthropologists hope to unravel surrounds the T-shaped monoliths that stand at the perimeter of the sacred mounds at Göbekli Tepe, of which there are about 20. The pattern resembles Stone Hedge with rings of pillars. At the center are twin pillars. The twin pillars and most of the pillars at the periphery are carved to form bas-reliefs of various animals, anthropomorphic figures, and human-animal creatures.

T-shaped pillar

The vulture, scorpion, horse and lion are found on the stone pillars and they appear to correspond to constellations at a time when Thuban was the pole star. These creatures are commonly found on African images, which suggests that the structure at Gobekli Tepe may have been influenced by priests whose origins were in Africa. The vulture is an important totem among the ancient Nubians.

The earliest pillars are the biggest and most sophisticated in construction and artistry. The later pillars are smaller, less intricate in design and mounted with less precision.

Nate Ramsayer has made a case for the view that the stone pillars might represent individual people. As he states, "This interpretation fits well with the emerging concept of social stratification that can be seen in Anatolia during the PPN at sites like Çayönü and Neval Çori."

If the T-shaped pillars represent humans, they were probably rulers, high ranked priests, or the heads of clans. It may be that clan leaders intended to have stone pillars with the clan's animal totem as a display of wealth or power. Or it may be that the 16-ton limestone pillars represent deified rulers who were venerated as ancestors. Each pillar served as the ruler's presence by which he also represented his clan, before the deity.

The T shape appears to be a very ancient symbol that represented a complex of ideas including heaven, the High God, mankind, and blood. These come together in the Tyet symbol of the Old Kingdom (show above). It consists of a solar orb above a human form (Hathor) and appears to be a variation of the ankh.

Mystery surrounds how the huge pillars were transported from the quarry. Were hundreds of beasts of burden used? If so, why do these animals not appear on the carvings? The animals carved on the pillars include bulls, cranes, ostriches, vultures, lions, serpents and crocodiles, all animals sacred to Abraham's Nilo-Saharan ancestors.

Another mystery surrounds the twin pillars at the center of the shrine. They are superior in quality to the perimeter stones. Tatiana V. Kornienko (Cult Buildings of Northern Mesopotamia) sees the placement of pairs of stones as an important aspect of early cosmology:

The worship of pairs of central objects in ancient sanctuaries or temples is a characteristic feature of a number of early Near Eastern cultures. Such symbolism represents the binary basis and dualism of people’s mythological perception of natural phenomena.

(Note that Kornienko fails to make a distinction between the binary and dualistic worldviews, a distinction that needs to be clarified to correctly trace origins and antecedents.)

Related reading: The Hittites of Anatolia; The Ostrich in Biblical Symbolism; Megalithic Totemism of the Individual: A new Analysis of Gobekli Tepe's Monumental Pillars; Ethics and Religious Practices of the Afro-Asiatics; The Trapezoid on Ancient Architecture and Technology

Thursday, January 3, 2019

Veneration of the Bear

Alice C. Linsley

Artifacts related to bears have been found globally at the middle and high latitudes. Cave bears lived in the Pyrenees, Alps, and Carpathians. Many bear skeletal remains have been found in caves in these mountain ranges. At that time, (115,000 to 11,700 years ago) humans and bears would have competed for space in rock shelters.

The cave known as "Drachenloch" (Dragon's Lair) was excavated in between 1917 and 1923 by Dr. Emil Bächler. The remains of more than 30,000 cave bears were found. Some accumulations of bear bones were found behind walls. These caches included the long leg bones and more or less complete skulls. Bächler found what he described as stone chests full of bear bones. One of these was about three feet high and covered with a large limestone slab. Inside it were a group of cave bear skulls, all aligned in the same direction. This is one of the more famous discoveries that suggest that Neanderthal humans venerated the bear. Bear veneration is called "arctolatry."

Syrian brown bear

Analysis of prehistoric bone assemblages of bears, mammoths, reindeer, horses, and bulls does suggest that archaic humans were consciously ritualistic in their veneration of the animals with which they co-existed. This is further supported by the intentional red ochre staining of some bear bones. Upper Paleolithic deposits of bear bones recovered from Belgian caves reveal traces of red ochre, and red ochre was generally used for human burials.

This leads to the suggestion that archaic humans regarded bears to be anatomically like humans and applied red ochre to their bones at burial.

Dr. Barry Sanders reports in his anthology Bears, that around 40,000 years ago a "goddess" appeared wearing a bear mask. Between 9000 and 5000 years ago various R1b populations made clay statues of a goddess nursing a bear cub.

The maritime Okhotsk people, who are genetically related to the Ainu, venerated the bear. However, there is no evidence of arctolatry among the Jomon, another group related to the Ainu.

Until about 1945, the Ainu elders of Japan raised a bear cub as a family member until the day it was ritually sacrificed. This photo, taken around 1930, shows an Ainu elder and his wife with their bear and a Japanese visitor. The Ainu elder wears the distinctive knobbed headdress. It is same as those worn by "Miqmac" Ainu elders of Canada and by the ancient Annu chiefs of the ancient Upper Nile.

The Miqmac Ainu are in mtDNA haplogroup X. Approximately, 40% of the Druze population of Galilee is in this group. The genetic sequences of Haplogroup X diverged from Haplogroup N which originated in the region of the Lower Nile.

The Miqmac of eastern Canada say that they came through the British Isles to Finland and Greenland and on to Labrador and the eastern seaboard of Canada.

The Ainu appear to have a point of origin in Africa before 70,000 years ago. The Asia-Africa connection is found in Y-DNA Haplogroup DE. DE is distributed in several geographically distinct clusters and is an estimated 65,000 years old. Immediate subclade, Haplogroup D, is normally found only in eastern Asia, and the other immediate subclade, Haplogroup E, is common in Africa, Europe, and the Middle East.

The antiquity of bear imagery and veneration invites a deeper investigation into the cultural links between the two groups known to venerate the bear: the Ainu of Japan and Eastern Canada and the Celts of Britain and Gaul.

Bears and the Bible

Humans living in the more northern ranges would have had experience of cave bears and polar bears. Populations living in Israel would have had experience of the Syrian brown bear (shown above).

The Syrian brown bear inhabited the mountains and forests of ancient Anatolia, Turkey and Iran. It roamed the Mediterranean belt forests, and the forests of the Black Sea region. It was known as far south as the Dead Sea. The range of distribution of the Syrian brown bear is shown on this map in blue.

In the book of Job we read of the Bear constellation as God's creation. "Who made the Bear and Orion, the Pleiades and the chambers of the south..." (Job 9:9)

In the Bible she-bears are portrayed as especially dangerous when with their cubs. "Let a man meet a she-bear robbed of her cubs rather than a fool in his folly." (Proverbs 17:12)

Bears appear in the Bible as ferocious beasts who maul children. The savage attack of a bear is thought to symbolize divine judgement. This may be the message of a disturbing story from II Kings:

“From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking up the path, some small boys came out of the city and harassed him, chanting, ‘Go up, baldy! Go up, baldy!’ He turned around, looked at them, and cursed them in the name of the Lord. Then two female bears came out of the woods and mauled 42 of the children.” II Kings. 2:23,24

The point seems to be that Elisha was a great prophet and those who malign prophets are under divine judgement. This narrative would have served the dual purpose. It warned children about bears and instilled in them a respect for the prophets. But is there more to this account? I believe there is.

The bear is an ancient symbol of shamanic authority, and in II Kings the appearance of two bears with Elisah points to his spiritual authority. Similarly, the appearance of Elijah and Moses with Jesus at the Transfiguration speaks of His authority as Messiah.

Related reading: Using Totems to Trace Ancestry and Marriage Ties; "The Cult of the Bear Cave" by Phillip G. Chase; "Fossil Bear Bones in the Belgian Upper Paleolithic: The Possibility of a Proto Bear-Ceremonialism" by Mietje Germonpré and Riku Hämäläinen, Arctic Anthropology, Vol. 44, No. 2 (2007), pp. 1-30 (30 pages); Red Ochre People

Monday, October 29, 2018

Who Were the Horite Hebrew?

Horus unites the peoples.

Alice C. Linsley

The mysterious 'Apiru were known also as the Hapiru or Habiru. Habiru is rendered "Hebrew" in English Bibles. These people are the oldest known caste of ruler-priests. In the ancient Egyptian language nibit piru means "lady of the house."

The earliest known references to this group of people are found in ancient Sumerian cuneiform tablets. Ancient Egyptian literature also mentions the 'Apiru. The Habiru are mentioned in the Amarna Letters, a collection of 14th century B.C. letters. The Harris papyrus also speaks of the 'Apriu of Ra at Heliopolis (biblical On), a very prestigious ancient Sun city. Joseph married Asenath, the daughter of the priest of On.

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 Hebrew priests were unique in the ancient world and greatly respected. Therefore, they were sought as servants of the early high kings who constructed palaces and royal temple complexes at what the Bible terms "high places."

The Hapiru served in the ancient Sun temples and shrines. These were build at high elevations near major sources of water. A temple was the mansion (hâît) or the house (pirû) of the god, so Ha'piru refers to those who served at the god's house. The ancient Dravidians referred to their East-oriented temples as Opiru, meaning "Sun House."

The Habiru priests were to meet certain requirements while on duty. They wore only linen or clothing made from plants. Clothing made from animals was not permitted. This is one of the differences between the priest and the shaman. They shaved their heads and bodies daily. Cold water baths were taken several times a day. They practiced sexual abstinence before and while serving at the temple or shrine.

Evidence of the religious devotion and ubiquitous presence of the Horite Hebrew is reflected in the many place names that are associated with Horus: Haryana means "Horus is the vehicle." Harappa means "Horus is Father" in Dravidian. In southern India, it was the custom to build temporary fire altars in the shape of a falcon, the totem of Horus. According to the Shulba Sutras, this is the sign for those who desire heaven: "he who desires heaven is to construct a fire-altar in the form of a falcon."

Because the "piru" housed the deity, only the priest was permitted to enter the most sacred area of the temple. The people prayed at the gate or in the court. They directed their prayers toward the rising Sun, the emblem of the Creator and his Son. Their ruler-priest acted as a mediator between the people and God.

The term "Habiru" does not designate a tribal group, but rather a caste of priests who were dispersed among widely in the service of the Mighty Men of Old (Genesis 10). These are the first known potentates or High Kings. Among them were the Kushite kingdom builder Nimrod, who is probably Sargon.

Among the Habiru there were different groups, depending on the deity they served. Abraham's Hebrew people were devotees of the High God whose son was called Horus. Thus they are called "Horite" Hebrew. Some of their rulers are listed in Genesis 36.

The priests of Ani/Enki (Mesopotamian) or Ra/Horus (Nilotic) were identified as Horite Hapiru. They spread their devotion to Horus, the son of God, across the ancient Afro-Asiatic Dominion. In The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid and Coffin Texts we find fascinating details about Horus. He was said to be co-equal with the Father and to die and rise on the third day.

Horus was conceived by the overshadowing of the Sun. That is shown in this image of his mother, Hathor. According to Luke 1, the Virgin Mary conceived by divine overshadowing.

The offspring of the Woman of Genesis 3:15 is called the "Seed." Some argue that Jesus never claimed to be the Messiah, the Son of God. However, he identified himself as the Seed when he told his disciples that he was going to Jerusalem to die. "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. I tell you the truth, unless a kernal/grain/seed of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds." (John 12:23)

The Messianic expectation of Genesis 3:15 was expressed about 1000 years before the Psalms in the ancient Pyramid Texts. "Horus has shattered (tbb, crushed) the mouth of the serpent with the sole of his foot (tbw)" Utterance 388

Consider how Horus describes himself in the ancient Egyptian Coffin Texts (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’.

Here we find the words of Psalm 110:1, a clear messianic reference: The Lord says to my Lord: “Sit at My right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.”

Horus unites the peoples.This is why he is said to wear the double crown. "Then take silver and gold, and make crowns [ataroth], and set them on the head of Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest..." Zechariah 6:11

The ruler-priest Yeshua (Joshua/Jesus) wears the double crown as a sign that he unites the peoples. The double crown was worn by the rulers of a united Nile Valley. The red crown (desher) represents Lower Nile (Egypt) and the white crown (nefer) represents Upper Nile (ancient Nubia). After the unification of the Upper and Lower Nile regions the two crowns were joined to represent a unified Egypt.

The Horite Hebrew believed that heavenly recognition of a people depended on the righteousness of their ruler-priest. Therefore purity of life was highly valued. The proof of heavenly recognition and acceptance was the resurrection of the dead ruler-priest on the third day.

The New Testament speaks about Jesus as the ruler-priest. He is the firstborn from the grave and by his resurrection He delivers to the Father a "peculiar people." He leads us in the ascent to the Father where we receive heavenly recognition because we belong to Him.

Heavenly recognition for the Horite Hebrew was never an individual prospect. Heavenly recognition came to the people through the righteousness of their ruler-priest. Horite rulers took this seriously, some more than others. The best were heavenly minded and the worst were so earthy minded that they shed much blood enlarging their territories. All failed to be the Ruler-Priest who rose from the dead. Therefore, none have the power to deliver captives from the grave and to lead them to the throne of heaven (Ps. 68:18; Ps. 7:7; Eph. 4:8). The evidence of a long-standing Tradition points to the Son of God, Jesus, who alone fits the pattern of Messianic expectation.

Tuesday, October 23, 2018

Decoding the Longevity of the Genesis Rulers

Hieroglyphic Numbers

Alice C. Linsley

In his Homilies on the Psalms, St. Jerome notes: "I am reviewing carefully the places in Scripture where I might find old age mentioned for the first time. Adam lived for 930 years, yet he is not called an old man. Methuselah's life was 969 years, and he is not called an old man. I am coming down all the way to the flood, and after the flood for almost three thousand years, and I find no one who has been called old. Abraham is the first, and certainly he was much younger than Methuselah." (HP 21)

Jerome's observation is significant. Abraham was old, probably about 75 years at his dead. This was a long lifespan for people living about 5000 years ago. Paleopathology indicates that the lifespan of ancient peoples living in an area extending from North Africa to Turkey and Mesopotamia was about 34 years. This applies to peoples in the Late Paleolithic - 30,000 to 9,000 B.C., the Mesolithic - 9,000 to 7,000 B.C. and the Early Neolithic - 7,000 to 5,000 B.C. This would apply to all the rulers listed in Genesis, although rulers tended to live longer than the average people.

One might argue that the patriarchs enjoyed extraordinary longevity by divine providence. Were this the case we would want to know why God’s providence is limited to a specific time, people and place. In other words, the singularity of the extraordinary longevity of these patriarchs is a miracle and therefore beyond scientific explanation. While I believe in miracles, I find this explanation unlikely and without biblical support.

As St. Jerome noted, the only patriarch said to have died at an old age was Abraham (Gen. 24:1, 25:8). This means that the number of years attributed to the Genesis rulers are not to be taken as literal years. They appear to represent ideas about these people and are symbolic.

This is supported by the assignment of 930 years to Adam, an anti-type of Jesus Christ. Paul wrote: “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. But each one in his own order: Christ the first fruits, afterward those who are Christ’s at his coming. Then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father…” (1 Corinthians 15:22-24a)

The number 9 is the last number before beginning the 1-10 counting cycle again. The 3 represents unity of body, mind and soul, and the unity of the Godhead. The symbolism of the zero is likely linked to the solar cycle and has numerical symbolism older than Gematria which has no notation for zero.

Gematria is influenced by Greek sacred geometry and is found in Plato’s writings. Doubtless, Plato was influenced by the geometry of Pythagoras, since he had studied in Egypt, but Pythagoras’ work came much later than the period in which Abraham’s ancestors lived.

In Gematria, numeric values are found by adding the numeric values of the Greek or Hebrew letters. But the numbers in the Genesis King lists are not based on the letters of the Greek or Hebrew alphabets, since these alphabets didn’t exist in Abraham’s time. The number symbolism is likely based on an older system, but it does not help us to understand the symbolism of Kenan's 910 years, Seth's 600 years and Adam’s 930 years because it has no notation for zero and because it is based on alphabets which were unknown to the ancient Horite Hebrew.

In Gematria the sum of Methuselah's 969 days would be represented by the numerical values of the Greek letters omega and stigma, letters unknown to Abraham and his ancestors. Ultimately, Gematria is not helpful in interpreting the number symbolism of Abraham’s Horite Hebrew people.

It is fairly certain that the meaning of the extraordinary numbers in Genesis 4 and 5 is linked to astronomical observations of the ancient astronomer priests who were in the service of the Mighty Men of Old, but there is still much to be learned about this.

It may be that we have to look to the earlier Nilotic solar symbolism. In Egyptian hieroglyphic writing, the zero is a solar symbol and the emblem of the creator God, called Ra ("Ani" in Akkadian). The solar symbol O might signify the divine status of the ruler or it could indicate a solar year of 365 daily cycles.

The ancient Nilotes and the Egyptians had a large inventory of solar symbolism because of their religious understanding of the High God whose emblem was the Sun. Their main ideogram for "Sun" was a representation of the solar disk, such as this:

Is it possible that the zero is simply a solar symbol? The O is for modern thinker a place holder, but it may have represented the sum of the days in a solar cycle, that is 3+6+5 =14 years. Kenan's 910 might be 91+14 = 105 years. Seth's 600 might be 6+14+14 = 44. Adam's 930 years might be 9+3+14 = 26 years.

These are reasonable spans for ancient rulers. However, what are we do with ages that do not have any 0's? Consider Methuselah's son, Lamech the Younger. He is said to have lived 777 years. Did he live only 21 years?

The matter is further complicated by the discrepancy between the various recensions. Lamech the Younger is assigned different numbers. In the Septuagint he is said to have lived 753 years. In the Samaritan Pentateuch, he is said to have lived 653 years, and in the Masoretic Text he is said to have lived 777. No other man in the Genesis king lists has such a discrepancy in the number of years assigned.

The term "Lamech" is a variant of the Akkadian word la-melech, meaning "priest of the King." Hundreds of seals have been found inscribed with la-melech. La-melech seals typically had the image of a scarab (dung beetle) or a sun disc. Both were emblems of the Creator and his Son. The sun disc and scarab were used as a royal seal by the Kings of Judah. Hezekiah's seal is an example.

Friday, October 19, 2018

INDEX of Topics at Biblical Anthropology

Learn to read the Bible through the lens of cultural anthropology and you will never read it the same way again. If you are new to this research, it would be helpful to begin with these articles:

Biblical Anthropology is the Work of Christians
The Bible and Science (4-part series)
The Social Structure of the Biblical Hebrew (7-part series)

INDEX (Current as of 1 February 2019)