What Does a Biblical Anthropologist Do?

Alice C. Linsley


A biblical anthropologist, like a biblical archaeologist, uses the Bible as a resource to gain knowledge of the Ancient Near Eastern and the ancient Afro-Asiatic peoples who gave us the Bible. There is nothing extraordinary about this venture, except that it requires reading the Bible differently than would a preacher or a theologian. 

This means that Bible commentaries, often written by Jews more influenced by the Babylonian Talmud than by the Bible, are less valuable in establishing specific culture traits than the biblical texts themselves. A biblical anthropologist can identify the discrepancies between Talmudic interpretation of Genesis (for example) and what the book itself reveals about Abraham and his Horite people.  The discrepancies are significant and reveal that the core of Christianity is closer to the faith of Abraham than it is to the faith of most Jews.  This explains why the Apostles criticised their Jewish brothers of departing from the faith of Father Abraham.

Readers are often astonished when faced with the anthropological evidence indicating that Jesus represents an ancient religious tradition with "Christian" features long before there was a distinct religion called Judaism.

For example, the ancient Horus myth of Egypt and the story of Jesus have strong parallels. Some argue that Horus is the archetype by which Abraham's descendants would recognize Jesus as Messiah. Others argue that Christianity is simply the Egyptian myth up-dated. Both were called "son" of God and born under miraculous circumstances. Horus' mother was named Isis who was also called Mari-Anath.[1] Though they were God's sons they were born humbly. Horus was born in a cave. The Eastern Orthodox believe that Jesus was likewise born in a cave. Both were said to be "one with their father." Here is a perfect question for a biblical anthropologist to address!  There is an answer. 

If Christians copied the Horus myth in speaking about Jesus as the Son of God, there must be some explanation as to why that particular myth was chosen.  None has been offered to date. However, the evidence is mounting that Abraham and his people were devotees of Horus and that their strict pattern of intermarriage was due to their belief that the Son of God would be born of their bloodline according to the Edenic promise made to their ancestors (Gen. 3:15). Anthropological investigation of what Abraham's people believed, as it is revealed in the Bible, can help to clarify this matter.

Analysis of the marriage pattern of Abraham's African ancestors reveals that the ruler-priest lines intermarried and did not mix with Asians. These were likely ancient Sudanese, who according to Lycotte's Y chromosome studies,[2] migrated east and north from southern Africa. This is exactly the genetic outcome to be expected by the kinship pattern revealed in Genesis which shows that the ruler-priest lines intermarried exclusively.

To give an example of how differently a biblical anthropologist reads the Bible, consider the “begats” of Genesis 4 and 5. Most readers of the Bible skip over this list of first-born sons because they find the names difficult and the information boring. An anthropologist, on the other hand, will look here for clues as to the kinship pattern of these Afro-Asiatic rulers. This involves making diagrams which are used to analysis the pattern to draw conclusions. I execute the diagrams following E.L. Schusky’s Manual for Kinship Analysis.

Besides kinship, a biblical anthropologist pays attention to details such as the location of sacred mountains and sacred trees, often identifying what the people would have regarded as sacred centers. We note that the oak of moreh, where Abraham pitched his tent, is called “the navel of the earth” in Judges 9:37. Moreh means oracle or prophet. The moreh's oak was halfway between the shrines of Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. Deborah is said to have ruled Israel from her palm tree half way between Bethel on the north and Ramah on the south.  The oak was on an east-west axis whereas the palm was on an south-north axis, representing a gender reversal. Torah means 'that which is thrown by the hand' of the moreh or prophet. In Genesis 12:6, we read that upon his arrival in Canaan Abraham sought guidance from the oracle when he pitched his tent at the oak in Mamre. Torah, usually rendered guidance or instruction, was earlier associated with a prophet sitting under a tree. Moreh is the older word for prophet which was replaced by the word nabi.

A biblical anthropologist seeks data as does every scientist. Sometimes the data suggest a hypothesis which requires investigation in other disciplines such as linguistics. This often proves a fruitful avenue since the Afro-Asiatic languages share many common roots and these languages were spoken by people living from west central Africa to the Indus River Valley. Afro-Asiatic languages include Akkadian, Amharic, ancient Egyptian, Arabic, Aramaic, Assyrian, Babylonian, Berber, Chadic, Kushitic, Ethiopic, Hahm, Hausa, Hebrew, Omotic, Phoenician, and Ugaritic. These languages are related to those spoken by the Sudroid (Sudanese) and Dravidoids who settled in Pakistan and southern India.  This appears to verify the Genesis claim that Nimrod was an African kingdom builder.  He is the son of Kush (Sudan region of the Upper Nile) who established his kingdom in the Tigris-Euphrates River valley.

The Indian archaeologist, B. B. Lal, contends that the Dravidians came from southern Egypt and Sudan (Nubia). This would explain their dark complexion. Lal writes: "At Timos the Indian team dug up several megalithic sites of ancient Nubians which bear an uncanny resemblance to the cemeteries of early Dravidians which are found all over Western India from Kathiawar to Cape Comorin. The intriguing similarity extends from the subterranean structure found near them. Even the earthenware ring-stands used by the Dravidians and Nubians to hold pots were identical."

So a biblical anthropologist will not be surprised to find that the word ‘Sakti’ = wine in Tantric use at the harvest moon celebration, is the linguistic equivalent of the Falasha word ‘Sarki’ = harvest moon festival. Sarki also means ruler among the people of Kano (Nigeria). The Yoruba living here are connected to Bayajida, who came to Nok from the east and killed a snake called "Sarki" about 1,000 years ago.

Sarki are also a priestly caste in the Orissa Province of India. They are the ones who sacrifice animals and tan the hides. God is the first sarki in Genesis 3:21 where he sacrifices animals to make coverings for the man and the woman. Sarki also live as ‘Haruwa’ in the Tarai region of Nepal. The word Haruwa is equivalent to the ancient Egyptian word ‘Harwa”, meaning priest.

Another word for priest is the Hebrew ‘Kohen’, equivalent to the Arabic ‘Khouri’ or ‘Kahin’ and the Persian ‘Kaahen’ or ‘Kaahenaat’ which is translated "timeless being". This word ‘Kahenat’ means priest in the Ethiopian Church. According to rabbinic tradition Moses had three brothers: Aaron, Hur and Korah. All three brothers were Horite priests. And Moses married a Kushite bride, not unusual for Egyptian rulers of that time. One of Abraham's most famous ancestors was Kush, the father or Ramaah and Nimrod.

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

Maps are a valuable tool for biblical anthropologists and there are many available, though the quality is not always good. These must be studied to identify places associated with clans and rulers and to study their proximity to related peoples. Significantly, the key names in Genesis do not turn up in Mesopotamia, but are found in Africa and in Canaan - Nok (Enoch), Kano (Cain), Ham, Bor'nu (Land of Noah), Sheba, Terah, and the Jebu (biblical Jebusites). Elephantine, at the border between Egypt and Sudan, was known to the ancient Egyptians as Yebu, the linguistic equivalent of Jebu, and Jerusalem was a Jebusite city until the time of David.

With information such as I've presented, a biblical anthropologist can begin to construct a picture of the religious life of Abraham and his people. We discover that there were orders of priests long before the Levitical priesthood. The khar (Egyptian word for Horite) order was responsible for providing the fuel used in burnt offerings. Priests were circumcised and clean shaven. There was great emphasis on their ritual purity which included bathing in cold water. Rulers had multiple wives, both half-sisters and patrilineal cousins. These were regarded as the wives of the deity and received special honors. Most were the daughters of priests, as was the case with Joseph's wife Asenath. Rulers were attended by their personal priests. So Moses was attended by a priest at his right and at his left while he oversaw the battle with the Amalekites. The priests were Aaron (Harun) and Hur, both named for Horus.

This brief overview should provide a general picture of what a biblical anthropologist does and I hope it will encourage some to consider working in this field. It is truly wide open and potentially very fruitful. This is field in which to make your mark! At the rate in which archaeological discoveries are now being made in Africa, the material evidence for Abraham's African ancestors will fall into place like pieces of a puzzle.


Related reading:  Biblical Anthropology is Science; The Bible and Anthropological Investigation; Who Were the Horites?; Who Were the Kushites?


NOTES

1. Asenath's name means “holy to Anath”. This woman was the daughter of the priest of Heliopolis, a shrine sacred to Horus. She was named after Mari-Anath, the consort of the high God. Many water shrines were dedicated to her and women came to these shrines to ask God for children or to ask for healing (compare to John 5). Asenath bore Joseph two sons: Manasseh and Ephraim.  Before her was the mother of Oholibamah, Esau's wife (Gen. 36), whose mother was named Anah, a derivative of Anath.

2. Lycotte's Human Y chromosome haplogroup R-V88: a paternal genetic record of early mid Holocene trans-Saharan connections and the spread of Chadic languages due to Kushite migration.

Abstract
Fulvio Cruciani et al.
Although human Y chromosomes belonging to haplogroup R1b are quite rare in Africa, being found mainly in Asia and Europe, a group of chromosomes within the paragroup R-P25* are found concentrated in the central-western part of the African continent, where they can be detected at frequencies as high as 95%. Phylogenetic evidence and coalescence time estimates suggest that R-P25* chromosomes (or their phylogenetic ancestor) may have been carried to Africa by an Asia-to-Africa back migration in prehistoric times. Here, we describe six new mutations that define the relationships among the African R-P25* Y chromosomes and between these African chromosomes and earlier reported R-P25 Eurasian sub-lineages. The incorporation of these new mutations into a phylogeny of the R1b haplogroup led to the identification of a new clade (R1b1a or R-V88) encompassing all the African R-P25* and about half of the few European/west Asian R-P25* chromosomes. A worldwide phylogeographic analysis of the R1b haplogroup provided strong support to the Asia-to-Africa back-migration hypothesis. The analysis of the distribution of the R-V88 haplogroup in >1800 males from 69 African populations revealed a striking genetic contiguity between the Chadic-speaking peoples from the central Sahel and several other Afroasiatic-speaking groups from North Africa. The R-V88 coalescence time was estimated at 9200–5600 kya, in the early mid Holocene. We suggest that R-V88 is a paternal genetic record of the proposed mid-Holocene migration of proto-Chadic Afroasiatic speakers through the Central Sahara into the Lake Chad Basin, and geomorphological evidence is consistent with this view.